won't boot up - sleep light blinking 3 times

Question

won't boot up - sleep light blinking 3 times

Hi - I have a macbookpro - it suddenly shut down and now won't boot up. When I press the power button I hear the hardrive make a noise " tzz tzz' then nothing - except the sleep light is blinking 3 times a second every few seconds. - I've tried taking out the battery and holding down the power button - taken out the RAM - nothing.

and of course my 90 day warranty ran out last week -

Help gratefully appreciated....

macbookpro 2.4ghz/256ram, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Nov 12, 2007 1:15 PM

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Answer 1

iVmichael

Level 6

13,740 points

Nov 12, 2007 1:18 PM in response to Jon Gibson-Skinner

The three flashes are usually accompanied by beeps - it's a signal the "POST" start up check has failed often due to Memory problems ...

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Answer 2

Nov 12, 2007 1:41 PM in response to iVmichael

Hi - Thanks for your reply, I had a look round the net and found that diagnosis - I don't think it's applicable to me as the machine was up and running to start with. My girlfriend was ill in bed and watching a dvd - could this have overheated the machine and are the 3 flashes to do with this? I've since found this

http://static.scribd.com/docs/1ek00bgxjmm4u.swf?INITIAL_VIEW=width

which says it could be down to overheating - if so is there a way to reboot or is it a trip to the mac store ??

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Answer 3

iVmichael

Level 6

13,740 points

Nov 12, 2007 3:24 PM in response to Jon Gibson-Skinner

If she had the MBP on the covers with no bottom ventilation it may well have overheated ... the flashing sleep light and 3 beeps on Boot is still likely to be a RAM failure problem ...

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Answer 4

Nov 13, 2007 1:00 AM in response to iVmichael

Hi - there's no 3 beeps on boot - it's just the noise of the harddrive and then nothing but a pulsing (3 times a second) sleep light.thanks

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