Vertical stripes on screen, can't boot into Mac

[mcrazza]

Hi,

Last night I woke up and logged into my Mac (see signature) after 15 or so minutes sleep and resumed watching a video on YouTube. A split second later the screen froze and tiny faint squares filled dark areas of the screen. The mouse cursor was the only thing I had control of. I turned off the Mac, restarted it and saw this:

Once the progress bar reaches halfway the stripes disappear however the Apple logo and bar do not return either. This is as far as it goes.

I tried to boot into the recovery disk but the computer crashes and restarts. Text pops up before the Mac crashes:

I then inserted a USB install drive of El Capitan in order to access Disk Utility, run First Aid and find out if there is an issue with the SSD. There wasn't. The vertical stripes persisted:

EDIT: I forgot to add that I tried to boot into my Boot Camp Windows 10 partition, however all I saw was a black screen. No load up. Nothing.

Next up was Apple Hardware Test on Disk 1 of the 10.5.2 install DVD. No problems were detected on the first short test, however the program stopped eight minutes into the long test. I waited 30 minutes but nothing happened. The stop test button was unresponsive too. The stripes are still there.

I performed the SMC and PRAM resets, tried to log in but got the same results as before.

Last step: boot into Safe Mode. It worked but the vertical stripes remains:

As you can see, the stripes does not show up on white backgrounds and the bright portions of the screen. General performance is slower (more like dropped frames) and internet browsers slowly refresh each time there is movement. Viewing log files in the Console I see the name of the graphics card pop up - ATI Radeon X2000 (FYI it's an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256MB). Some log files are labelled spin, panic and (vaguely IIRC) hold or wait.

Basically, I have no idea what's wrong. It's not the SSD. The GPU could be on the way out or the logic board chucked a wobbly. It might be a kernel panic too.

What are your thoughts and what should be my next course of action? Your help and expertise would be most appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[redheeler]

A failing GPU is the cause of your problems most likely. The 2008 24" iMacs are prone to GPU failure, but luckily it can be replaced if you manage to find the special GPU it takes for a decent price.

 

[mcrazza]

Yeah, that's what I thought first. Why or how would a GPU failure affect the boot up process? At this stage I'm in between a kernel panic and failing GPU.

 

[kiwipeso1]

Hi,

Last night I woke up and logged into my Mac (see signature) after 15 or so minutes sleep and resumed watching a video on YouTube. A split second later the screen froze and tiny faint squares filled dark areas of the screen. The mouse cursor was the only thing I had control of. I turned off the Mac, restarted it and saw this:

View attachment 671258

Once the progress bar reaches halfway the stripes disappear however the Apple logo and bar do not return either. This is as far as it goes.

I tried to boot into the recovery disk but the computer crashes and restarts. Text pops up before the Mac crashes:

View attachment 671259

I then inserted a USB install drive of El Capitan in order to access Disk Utility, run First Aid and find out if there is an issue with the SSD. There wasn't. The vertical stripes persisted:

View attachment 671260

Next up was Apple Hardware Test on Disk 1 of the 10.5.2 install DVD. No problems were detected on the first short test, however the program stopped eight minutes into the long test. I waited 30 minutes but nothing happened. The stop test button was unresponsive too. The stripes are still there.

I performed the SMC and PRAM resets, tried to log in but got the same results as before.

Last step: boot into Safe Mode. It worked but the vertical stripes remains:

View attachment 671264
View attachment 671263

As you can see, the stripes does not show up on white backgrounds and the bright portions of the screen. General performance is slower (more like dropped frames) and internet browsers slowly refresh each time there is movement. Viewing log files in the Console I see the name of the graphics card pop up - ATI Radeon X2000 (FYI it's an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256MB). Some log files are labelled spin, panic and (vaguely IIRC) hold or wait.

Basically, I have no idea what's wrong. It's not the SSD. The GPU could be on the way out or the logic board chucked a wobbly. It might be a kernel panic too.

What are your thoughts and what should be my next course of action? Your help and expertise would be most appreciated.

Cheers.

It's possible that it's the video drivers from a previous OS X mucking up on the one you're running.
Try a clean install of OS X and see if that sorts the problem before you check it into a hardware repair place.

 

[mcrazza]

It's possible that it's the video drivers from a previous OS X mucking up on the one you're running.
Try a clean install of OS X and see if that sorts the problem before you check it into a hardware repair place.

But how can the video drivers located on the main partition of the boot disk affect the screen on an external bootable drive, or prevent booting into a Windows partition via Boot Camp?

Anyway, I'm trying your method as we speak. I'll post again in T minus 18 minutes.

 

[0388631]

If it doesn't work, it's a hardware issue and you need to take it in for repairs.

 

[mcrazza]

If it doesn't work, it's a hardware issue and you need to take it in for repairs.

It didn't work. Looks like I'll have to drop it in for repairs. Personally I'd rather do the repair/replacement work myself to save on labour costs (I successfully dismantled/reassembled it two years ago to clean out six years of dust build up). No idea still if it's a kernel panic, a failing logic board or a failing GPU.

 

[kiwipeso1]

It didn't work. Looks like I'll have to drop it in for repairs. Personally I'd rather do the repair/replacement work myself to save on labour costs (I successfully dismantled/reassembled it two years ago to clean out six years of dust build up). No idea still if it's a kernel panic, a failing logic board or a failing GPU.

It is most likely the GPU.

 

[maflynn]

As others stated, it does look like a hardware failure

 

[mcrazza]

Looking at replacement GPUs on eBay. None available in my part of the world. At this stage my options are pay a couple hundred and wait two-or-so weeks, or buy a secondhand iMac for a couple hundred bucks extra and wait a few days. I simply don't have the moolah for a brand new iMac.

 

[kiwipeso1]

Looking at replacement GPUs on eBay. None available in my part of the world. At this stage my options are pay a couple hundred and wait two-or-so weeks, or buy a secondhand iMac for a couple hundred bucks extra and wait a few days. I simply don't have the moolah for a brand new iMac.

Seeing as it is almost 9 years old, you would be well advised to buy a recent iMac secondhand and enjoy running the current macOS.

 

[mcrazza]

UPDATE
Last weekend I contacted an Apple repairman who diagnosed it as a GNU failure.

Unfortunately I just don't have the spare dollars right now to buy a new iMac or even a secondhand pre-2012 revision iMac. So basically I need to replace the video card and that'll tie me over for sometime into the new year when I can get a new Mac.

It's been very difficult to find a spare video card for my model available locally online as 99% are from overseas sellers. Time and distance are factors so I've chosen the closest and quickest seller rather than wait a month for a cheaper video card. I just can't find a locally available ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro, however I did find a local seller who has a repaired, re-balled and tested Nvidia 8800GS complete with heat sink. It's AU$400 incl. postage but a necessary cost. It was in the top-end 24-inch 2008 iMac (mine is the "low-end" 24-inch) and was a BTO option for my model, therefore compatibility won't be an issue. All I have to do is swap out one card and replace it with the other.

Question: Will it even boot up after installation? Will there be any driver issues or does the OS or firmware take care of it? Do I have to reinstall El Capitan?

 

[kiwipeso1]

UPDATE
Last weekend I contacted an Apple repairman who diagnosed it as a GNU failure.

Unfortunately I just don't have the spare dollars right now to buy a new iMac or even a secondhand pre-2012 revision iMac. So basically I need to replace the video card and that'll tie me over for sometime into the new year when I can get a new Mac.

It's been very difficult to find a spare video card for my model available locally online as 99% are from overseas sellers. Time and distance are factors so I've chosen the closest and quickest seller rather than wait a month for a cheaper video card. I just can't find a locally available ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro, however I did find a local seller who has a repaired, re-balled and tested Nvidia 8800GS complete with heat sink. It's AU$400 incl. postage but a necessary cost. It was in the top-end 24-inch 2008 iMac (mine is the "low-end" 24-inch) and was a BTO option for my model, therefore compatibility won't be an issue. All I have to do is swap out one card and replace it with the other.

Question: Will it even boot up after installation? Will there be any driver issues or does the OS or firmware take care of it? Do I have to reinstall El Capitan?

You could probably get a decent 2011 iMac for around AU$400. However, if you really want to repair an iMac which is nearly 9 years old and probably won't run for much longer anyway, then go for it.

 

[mcrazza]

You could probably get a decent 2011 iMac for around AU$400. However, if you really want to repair an iMac which is nearly 9 years old and probably won't run for much longer anyway, then go for it.

Definitely not. Not at 27 inches, not on Gumtree or eBay and then posted to Tasmania (vast majority are "local pick up only"). Believe me, I've been scouring for over a week. For 21.5 inches, maybe. But then there's the problem of postage. Most sellers I communicated with were reluctant even after I offered to cover it.

Anyway I've made an offer to the video card seller on eBay and I'm awaiting his response.

 

[kiwipeso1]

Isn't there a ferry service that you could use to get to Melbourne ?
You should be able to pickup from Melbourne a reasonable iMac.

 

[BeFreeTech]

Last night I woke up and logged into my Mac (see signature) after 15 or so minutes sleep and resumed watching a video on YouTube. A split second later the screen froze and tiny faint squares filled dark areas of the screen. The mouse cursor was the only thing I had control of. I turned off the Mac, restarted it and saw this:

View attachment 671258

Once the progress bar reaches halfway the stripes disappear however the Apple logo and bar do not return either. This is as far as it goes.

I tried to boot into the recovery disk but the computer crashes and restarts. Text pops up before the Mac crashes:

View attachment 671259

I then inserted a USB install drive of El Capitan in order to access Disk Utility, run First Aid and find out if there is an issue with the SSD. There wasn't. The vertical stripes persisted:

View attachment 671260

EDIT: I forgot to add that I tried to boot into my Boot Camp Windows 10 partition, however all I saw was a black screen. No load up. Nothing.

Next up was Apple Hardware Test on Disk 1 of the 10.5.2 install DVD. No problems were detected on the first short test, however the program stopped eight minutes into the long test. I waited 30 minutes but nothing happened. The stop test button was unresponsive too. The stripes are still there.

I performed the SMC and PRAM resets, tried to log in but got the same results as before.

Last step: boot into Safe Mode. It worked but the vertical stripes remains:

View attachment 671264
View attachment 671263

As you can see, the stripes does not show up on white backgrounds and the bright portions of the screen. General performance is slower (more like dropped frames) and internet browsers slowly refresh each time there is movement. Viewing log files in the Console I see the name of the graphics card pop up - ATI Radeon X2000 (FYI it's an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256MB). Some log files are labelled spin, panic and (vaguely IIRC) hold or wait.

Basically, I have no idea what's wrong. It's not the SSD. The GPU could be on the way out or the logic board chucked a wobbly. It might be a kernel panic too.

What are your thoughts and what should be my next course of action? Your help and expertise would be most appreciated.

Cheers. [/QUOTE]


Thanks for taking pictures. I have precisely the same pink bars you have and and the booting problem hanging in the middle of the progress bar with my Mac Mini 2011.

Interestingly this problem occurred several months ago and corrected itself after leaving it on overnight with the bars on the screen. In the morning the screen was white again and it booted fine and worked for a few months. Then again a few days ago the pink vertical bars appeared again during power up and the progress bar again gets stuck about half way during the boot cycle.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

One will turn up in Tassie just be patient. And the Apple Isle is small enough to pick up from Launceston etc in a day. If you want to spend more there is a 2014 27" advertised in Hobart, original boxes and all which shows the owner probably looked after the machine.

And a later than 2011 model will have much faster USB3.


https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/hob...7-3-4ghz-i5-8gb-ram-1tb-hard-drive/1149187917

 

[kiwipeso1]

Last night I woke up and logged into my Mac (see signature) after 15 or so minutes sleep and resumed watching a video on YouTube. A split second later the screen froze and tiny faint squares filled dark areas of the screen. The mouse cursor was the only thing I had control of. I turned off the Mac, restarted it and saw this:

View attachment 671258

Once the progress bar reaches halfway the stripes disappear however the Apple logo and bar do not return either. This is as far as it goes.

I tried to boot into the recovery disk but the computer crashes and restarts. Text pops up before the Mac crashes:

View attachment 671259

I then inserted a USB install drive of El Capitan in order to access Disk Utility, run First Aid and find out if there is an issue with the SSD. There wasn't. The vertical stripes persisted:

View attachment 671260

EDIT: I forgot to add that I tried to boot into my Boot Camp Windows 10 partition, however all I saw was a black screen. No load up. Nothing.

Next up was Apple Hardware Test on Disk 1 of the 10.5.2 install DVD. No problems were detected on the first short test, however the program stopped eight minutes into the long test. I waited 30 minutes but nothing happened. The stop test button was unresponsive too. The stripes are still there.

I performed the SMC and PRAM resets, tried to log in but got the same results as before.

Last step: boot into Safe Mode. It worked but the vertical stripes remains:

View attachment 671264
View attachment 671263

As you can see, the stripes does not show up on white backgrounds and the bright portions of the screen. General performance is slower (more like dropped frames) and internet browsers slowly refresh each time there is movement. Viewing log files in the Console I see the name of the graphics card pop up - ATI Radeon X2000 (FYI it's an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256MB). Some log files are labelled spin, panic and (vaguely IIRC) hold or wait.

Basically, I have no idea what's wrong. It's not the SSD. The GPU could be on the way out or the logic board chucked a wobbly. It might be a kernel panic too.

What are your thoughts and what should be my next course of action? Your help and expertise would be most appreciated.

Cheers.

Thanks for taking pictures. I have precisely the same pink bars you have and and the booting problem hanging in the middle of the progress bar with my Mac Mini 2011.

Interestingly this problem occurred several months ago and corrected itself after leaving it on overnight with the bars on the screen. In the morning the screen was white again and it booted fine and worked for a few months. Then again a few days ago the pink vertical bars appeared again during power up and the progress bar again gets stuck about half way during the boot cycle.[/QUOTE]

If you haven't fixed it with a wipe of the system and clean install, then it is your gpu. As your iMac predates 2011, it is almost certainly time to think about a new iMac or the iMac Pro.

 

[ChuckTheNerd]

Thanks for posting your story, and the pictures. I'm running into this issue with a 2011 MacBook Pro laptop running whatever the latest Mac OS X is as of today.

 

[theluggage]

Thanks for posting your story, and the pictures. I'm running into this issue with a 2011 MacBook Pro laptop running whatever the latest Mac OS X is as of today.

If the machine is booting, there is a bit of software called gfxCardStatus that lets you disable the discrete GPU who's failure causes the problem, and might help to diagnose. However, the problem can be very intermittent at first (unfortunately, it gets worse).

My 2011 17" MBP had the GPU fail once, years ago, when the free repair program was still running, so it got a new logic board. Unfortunately, the root cause of the problem - a design flaw in the way the GPU was soldered in - was never properly rectified, and the replacement program is over.

Yesterday, the glitch re-appeared on my MBP - its back for the moment, but the machine probably shouldn't start reading any long books Fortunately, its not my primary machine any more and seven-and-a-half years is a fairly good innings for a computer... but its frustrating, because otherwise its still a perfectly good machine.

 

[Munners53]

My 2011 17" MBP had the GPU fail once, years ago, when the free repair program was still running, so it got a new logic board. Unfortunately, the root cause of the problem - a design flaw in the way the GPU was soldered in - was never properly rectified, and the replacement program is over.

My 2011 17"MBP has just this evening done this thing! Been perfect for the last 8 years, and I've run it pretty hard with some big photos and Logic Pro music files. Hope I can get it fixed. Thanks all for the great information.

 

[Bfm10]

My 2011 17"MBP has just this evening done this thing! Been perfect for the last 8 years, and I've run it pretty hard with some big photos and Logic Pro music files. Hope I can get it fixed. Thanks all for the great information.

Oh no!!! Ditto ditto ditto!!!
My 2011 17” MBPro has just died with this stripy screen and I can’t recover via safe or recovery mode!!!
Is the graphics card accessible on a MBPro or is this curtains for my loyal trusty 8 year old 17” screen!????
[doublepost=1552949260][/doublepost]

Oh no!!! Ditto ditto ditto!!!
My 2011 17” MBPro has just died with this stripy screen and I can’t recover via safe or recovery mode!!!
Is the graphics card accessible on a MBPro or is this curtains for my loyal trusty 8 year old 17” screen!????

I have a working 2010 15” MBPro...can that help..???

 

[Bfm10]

Oh no!!! Ditto ditto ditto!!!
My 2011 17” MBPro has just died with this stripy screen and I can’t recover via safe or recovery mode!!!
Is the graphics card accessible on a MBPro or is this curtains for my loyal trusty 8 year old 17” screen!????
[doublepost=1552949260][/doublepost]
I have a working 2010 15” MBPro...can that help..???

Thanks for the offer but I think you might be just a little too far from the UK to be practical solution!
(Even though my daughter is planning a trip to Perth next month!)
Is this stripy screen of death a problem with a faulty capacitor next to the graphics chip that i’ve seen replaced on Youtube? If so I might give that a go!
Cheers

 

[Sajberjens]

Hi everyone,

Unfortunately this just started to happen to me as well. After seeing this thread, I googled “fix MacBook Pro GPU” and discovered that there is a potential fix, though it may not last forever. Basically you need to bake your motherboard. At 190C/375F for 7 minutes, according to the recipe I found.

This actually isn’t completely loony if you think about it. I guess the idea is to melt the offending solder just enough to reconnect the GPU chipset to the motherboard.

Of course, you’ll need to know how to extract the motherboard yourself, which means you need tools and skills required for this. Irrespective of whether you think you have the skills and tools, what you do to your motherboard. Anything that goes wrong along the way is entirely your responsibility. I am not recommending this solution — I haven’t tried it myself yet — I’m just passing it on as avenue of investigation, and I will not be held responsible for anything bad that happens to your Mac if you try this. Even if you make no goofs whatsoever.

If I try this, I’ll update you. If you try it, then the very best of luck to you (read the disclaimer above once more, though). I’m sure we’d also love to hear your results.

all the best,

JKJ

 

[rxx]

I saw this old thread while googling a solution for a similar issue - my mac mini would not boot at all, after the apple logo the screen will go dark and come back up as a frozen white screen with subtle vertical lines.

So if anyone comes here still looking for a solution, I managed to fix mine today after taking it apart. The thermal paste on the GPU chip / heatsink was very brittle - cleaning and replacing that alone most likely would've fixed my issue, however I went one step ahead and used a heatgun on the chip for a couple of minutes to reflow it. Baking the entire board seemed a bit overkill since it's clearly the GPU chip alone causing the problem.