Can anyone help me ressurrect my Macbook Pro?

Asked by ShiningToast (2108

) August 16th, 2010

So last night after a little surfing on my MBP (non-unibody, mid 2008 model), I leave my room and it is fine. I come back a little later, and it does not respond when I try to wake it up from sleep mode.

I power it off, but it won’t even boot. I press the button down, and I can hear the CD drive and hard drive come to life and the LED comes on, but a second later it kicks back off, before the screen can even turn on.

I initially thought it was a stick of RAM that went bad. About 2 weeks ago I got new RAM (2×2GB) for it, but it wouldn’t boot with both 2GB sticks in, so I’ve been using it with one factory 1 GB stick, and one new 2 GB stick. I popped out the old stick and put both factory sticks in, but no luck there.

Since it can’t even boot, I can’t get it into safe mode or try to boot from the disk to see if it is my hard drive that is the problem.

I’m utterly perplexed at what to do next. I’ve tried turning it on with just the battery in, just the wall charger, and both. No dice.

Observing members: 0

Composing members: 0

6 Answers

If you can’t boot at all, you can’t really avoid sending it in for repair. (You can’t start holding the Alt key, right?)
Some people occasionally have luck with this trick or holding the power button until the mac maces a beep sound.

wilhel1812 (2877

)“Great Answer” (1

) Flag as…

@wilhel1812 I forgot to add, I’ve tried resetting the PRAM and battery, but no luck there either. Thanks though.

ShiningToast (2108

)“Great Answer” (0

) Flag as…

Could be the screen is bad? Have you tried plugging in a external monitor?

jrpowell (40562

)“Great Answer” (3

) Flag as…

It was plugged into an external monitor when the problems happened.

ShiningToast (2108

)“Great Answer” (0

) Flag as…

For the battery reset did you remove the battery and power plug and hold down the power button for 10 seconds? Also, I wanted to make sure that the MBP powers off after you try to turn it on.
If all this is true, it sounds like you have some dead hardware (most likely dead GPU or logic board). If it is under warranty take it into the nearest Apple Genius bar. If its not under warranty you might be able to purchase an extended Applecare warranty. Also, just in case, if you have an early 2008 model Apple will repair it for free if its a GPU issue. Check out this KB from Apple.

b (1873

)“Great Answer” (1

) Flag as…

Hey everybody thanks for the responses.

It turned out to be a dead logic board, and it was replaced by Apple for $200 parts and about $200 labor.

ShiningToast (2108

)“Great Answer” (0

) Flag as…