MacBook Pro Blank Screen (Built - in & External) - continued

i'm currently telling 2 people in the market for laptops to go buy thinkpads and avoid macs because of this. and i will basically tell everyone i ever meet the same.

i may shell out for another $3000 "computer" (aka "shiny doorstop") but that is only because i am tied to Logic Pro. no one who asks me is ever going to hear "you should buy a mac" ever again, and my company just canceled 4 orders for MBPs in favor of dells because they have seen me go through this.

way to go, apple!

aetherius,

again, you can't sue apple for this.

get that out of your head.

it should also probably be noted (and is simply an assumption) that any MBP purchased this year will likely not have the defective nvidia chip in it as i'm sure a newer batch of chips have been produced using other materials that nvidia stated that they were going to start using in the production of their chips. do you think nvidia would still manufacture and provide chips to apple/dell/HP using the same faulty materials that caused this mess after they announced the defect? i don't think so...

calm down, people. 2008 MBPs are probably safe from this issue.

hi canda,

concerning changing the harddrive: a suggestion if you decide to try it out.. start you book in target-mode and install from a different computer connected via firewire. pretty easy and convenient..

otherwise you might have changed/replaced the harddrive and still get a black screen before you can even think about a re-install..

trust me.

The OS X boot disc does not solve the problem, and since this is just like a clean install I doubt re-installing will help either. You could always give it a try, though.

are the 2007 MBPs SATA or ata?

I'm having the same issue, my screen remains black, and I've done everything I could think of to repair it. The screen works, because when I shine a bright light on it I can faintly see the desktop, and I used this method to turn on screen sharing. I bought my Macbook Pro in late July 2008, and I believe it was manufactured in March 2008. I guess I will have to take this one in and get it repaired. My video card is a NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT.

"The screen works, because when I shine a bright light on it I can faintly see the desktop"

The fault is not of the graphic chip, is the Inverter board.

thanks man - so you're saying is the answer is to buy a $3000 piece of junk, and then when i find out it's a piece of junk, to just buy another $3000 piece of junk, because surely this time they couldn't have screwed up so badly.

thanks but no thanks. my firm canceled all it's macbook pro and macbook air orders.

I received my Macbook Pro back from Next Byte (Apple Service Agent) today repaired at no cost. It was purchased 30th of June 2007. The screen died as described in this forum 78 days out of warranty, so Apple told me when I phoned.
I had to buy a new Macbook Pro immediately due to a Tender I was working on that had to be completed in 2 days. I drove 160 km to the nearest available unit a 15", 2.5Ghz, 250GB HD A$3,495.00. I tried every method stated in this forum and had success once only, it didn't last.
I phoned Apple one week after the original blank screen, told them of my purchase of a new machine, explained the screen problem, went through the usual tests with support, gave them the thread number for this forum and asked if they could do anything. The support guy said he would ask someone. Next thing I know another very polite person came to the phone, offered me a free repair and gave me a number to quote to the repair company.
Thank you Apple Australia for your service.

mingux

because you're obviously too stubborn to actually read things through, you would have realized the point was that canceling those computers was pointless. assuming they were ordered recently, it is ridiculous to assume that any unit produced shortly after the date of the defective chip announcement (more accurately - april 2008 models) would be lumped into the same group of allegedly defective MBPs from 2007. do you not realize how idiotic it is to conclude that apple would willingly continue to use potentially faulty chips in their products after this much time since nvidia announced the defect?

the fact of the matter is that there is no evidence linking the MBPs to the defect chip to begin with. my MBP is running just fine. my ex-roommate's MBP, which was purchased february 2007 is running perfectly as well even after gasp 17 months! so to sit there a whine about something that may or may not be happening as a result of the nvidia chip is useless. you're wasting your time and energy getting worked up over something as trivial as a computer chip.

you can do whatever you want to do with your money. have fun with your thinkpads!

" do you not realize how idiotic it is to conclude that apple would willingly continue to use potentially faulty chips in their products after this much time since nvidia announced the defect? "


Until Apple:

1) Provides any admission that they used faulty chips in the first place and
2) Says they are now using chips that are not defective and
3) Nvidia announces that they have produced non-defective 8600M chips

it is not at all idiotic to think that replacements may also be defective. Go check the spreadsheet. Read the forums. *A lot of people who get replacement logic boards are having the same failure occur again.*

Read the articles from Engadget and the Register that conclude -all- 8600Ms are defective.

Apple appears to be banking on the fact that these boards tend to last just over one year. I personally do not think they have fixed the problem. You disagree. Neither position is "idiotic."

Hi,
I've a early 2008 MBP, Feb 2008 to be precise. The same problem happened on it last week. Since it was still under warranty I took it to the Service Center and I was told the Logic Board needs to be changed. I got it back day before and it worked perfectly fine for exactly one day. Now I've the same problem again!!! I'm going to be taking it to the Service Center again tomorrow.

K.Gautam
MBP 15"

Add me to the list. Purchased in November '07, black screen of death on Sunday. Took it in yesterday, still under warranty, the 'genius' acted as if he had never heard of this before. Right. Anyway, new logic board going in today. We'll see if it lasts longer than a month. They are putting the same bad GPU back in there. Brilliant. Absolutely ridiculous that no one at Apple is talking about this, on a freaking $2500 machine.

If I wanted a machine to last less than a year, I would have bought a $300 Toshiba.

This was also my first Mac purchase. I have PC laptops that have worked for 12 years.

I have the same problem as described by many folks here.

Symptoms:
- MBP display blank. System seems responsive though, it's possible to do a blind login and run applications.
- Tried an external display, which did not receive any signal.

The problem occurred twice and lasted for a few days each time before disappearing.

Context:
- Both display failure appeared after a return from sleep. The sleep sessions were quite long (about a dozen hours)
- The first time the problem occurred, the laptop had been used in a badly ventilated environment before being put to sleep

_Found solution_:
- Both times, I let the laptop sit unplugged and without the battery for a few hours (24-48hrs). When booting again, the display worked.