The curious of case of the Black Screen of Death

[jbucaran]

Hello folks,

I think my day has come, but why did it happen on my birthday!

I will explain exactly what the problem is:

MacBook Pro 2.4GHZ
Leopard 10.5.4

From the moment I turn on the computer everything is black. No gray Apple boot screen, no desktop, no nothing. However I hear all the normal sounds and I know the operating system is booted, because I can press the volume up/down keys and I listen to the feedback, the keyboard light responds and even though I can´t see it, I move the mouse to one of the corners to trigger Expose and press Escape and listen to the default Mac error sound *crank* *crank*. In other words, I know everything is there, everything, is just that the screen display is black.

I searched around the forum and google this for a while and tried the following:

* Going to sleep and then wake up
* Reboot
* Force Shutdown and Reboot
* PRAM and NVRAM reset (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379)
* SMC reset (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411)
* Tap the screen display with my forefinger.
* Whine about my luck

I tried all that and the problem persists, nothing changed. I know the OS is running behind that black screen and all my stuff and work is right there as usual but I don't what's the matter with the screen or how to fix it.

The other problem is that I live in Venezuela and my warranty expired some time ago. This Macbook was purchased back in Dec of 2006.

Finally I should mention that the battery has been dwindling down to the point that I can't use it more than 50 minutes without pluging the power in, however the battery was in full charge last time I used it and it´s been connected to the power while I was troubleshooting.

Any help would be appreciated.

I am writing this from Windows.

 

[panzer06]

Sounds like a at MBP with the bad nvidia chip. However, I thought those were released around June 2007. Prior to that I thought there were only ati-based 2.16 & 2.33 MBP systems.

Verify the model and look up the warranty info. If it's under 24 months apple is covering the nvidia problem.

Best of luck,

 

[SHADO]

That sounds like a bad logic board to me.

 

[jbucaran]

Sounds like a at MBP with the bad nvidia chip. However, I thought those were released around June 2007. Prior to that I thought there were only ati-based 2.16 & 2.33 MBP systems.

Verify the model and look up the warranty info. If it's under 24 months apple is covering the nvidia problem.

Best of luck,

Thanks Panzer.

Actually I was not sure about the date because it was given by a friend and honestly I didn't recall that information.

So I made a search in Wikipedia and according to the MBP stats of the models released throughout 2006 and 2008 I most definitely have to be either in mid 2007 or early 2008 slot because my MBP graphic stats are:

512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8700M

However I am currently NOT under warranty and I live in Venezuela.

But maybe I should call... Where do I call?

Thanks again for this tip, otherwise I would have been all lost and without hope.

Jorge

 

[jbucaran]

Prior to that I thought there were only ati-based 2.16 & 2.33 MBP systems.

Correct. Mine is not ATI but 512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8700M which is either mid 2007 or early 2008.

We are practically at Mar 1 2009 so I guess I am under that covering.

Please tell me I am

 

[panzer06]

Correct. Mine is not ATI but 512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8700M which is either mid 2007 or early 2008.

We are practically at Mar 1 2009 so I guess I am under that covering.

Please tell me I am

Apple extended the warranty for the nvidia GPU issue for 12 additional months so you would be covered. I assume there are authorized Apple service centers in Venezuela or that Apple supports some sort of mail in service. You should be able to get it fixed through one of those means.

Cheers,