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

Wow. I know about a dozen people who have had their logic board replaced. None of them, including myself, had their original serial number put back on their new logic board.

I would consider an encounter like this a late birthday present from god. A logic board that's been replaced with no explanation, a serial number that's been epoxied back onto the new logic board, RAM that was "replaced" but is the same aftermarket kind you had, etc etc etc. That would be so much fun to tear into this person for making stuff up and trying to treat me like an idiot that I might actually have actually paid the $336 for the opportunity. He/she would either be in tears, or diving over the counter to attack me like a chimp.

If I were you, I'd get to the bottom of this unless you're more ok with that sketchy situation than you are calling people out (which you have to do politely, at first, in case there is actually a very good explanation that was poorly articulated before...feet don't work well in the mouth). My Apple Store here in Orlando always seems to treat everyone rather well. I never have shady issues like that. When they had to replace my logic board before, they told me exactly why before they even replaced it (obviously there has to be a reason to do such a thing...it's not a secret...it's your computer...you want to make sure it's not something you can avoid in the future!!). The only major scam they have going on at that store is the "water damage" excuse for iPhones. LOL. Every broken iPhone from 2 days old to 2 years old isn't under warranty because there's "water damage". Everyone has sweaty wet faces and talks like Daffy the Duck.

Question:

I have a 15" MacBook Pro (last 2007 edition) with the affected NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT. I haven't noticed any problems; however, after running the Apple Hardware Test, it reports a "video controller error".

Is this directly related to the NVIDIA chip? It's past the warranty date, but within the 2-year limit Apple has set. I'm wondering if this repair will be covered.

Thanks,
Kyle

Hello everyone... i had an incredible experience with my macbook pro 15" (2.2GHz SantaRosa) just few days ago and i think that sharing it with you could help someone (me included!) to understand this black screen issue bettter!

My macbook pro is almost two years old and i never had any video problems. Two days ago i shut it down at 6pm (everything was perfect, there were no bad omens!) and i turned it on again at 8pm. The problem was that when i turned it on the screen was completely dark and it had been keeping on being like that notwithstanding all my attempts: i had tried everything (ALL kinda reset) but never worked out. I was sure it was the TS2377 issue, because i was hearing all the sounds from my laptop and the keyboard lights were fine. Furthermore, connecting it to an external monitor i had no signal either on this latter.

Yesterday i was very sad and ready to bring my mac to an apple center. But, before that i wanted to back up my hard disk. So a friend of mine used his mac to connect to mine by a firewire : at the start up we pressed T on my laptop, so my mac was like an external HD for his mac.

The first time we did this procedure, my screen was always dark. But we did it another time, and in that occasion my screen worked: it was displaying the firewire symbol. Rebooting my mac it turned on and everything was fine. So i turned it off, but at the new start up the screen was black again.

I did this procedure (firewire connection with T pressed at the turning on) other two times and I had the same outcome: the first time the transfer happened with my screen black, but the second time my screen went on again.

Rebooting after that (so, actually, i have estabilshed the firewire connection 4 times) my mac went on and since that it has never stopped working (up to now!!!). I have been trying to shut it down, to restart it, to stop it, etc... well, it SEEMS that it just works.

My experience is very unusual. I tried all the possible resets before, but nothing worked out... on the contrary, it seems to me that this firewire conneciton with another mac reset itself something somehow.

Hope this can help some of you. I would be also curious to know if any of you had experienced the same thing!

Cheers.

Another blank screen owner here - I just want to share my experience with you all. One day, switching on my macbook pro in the morning, the screen was blank, but I could hear the computer chime and the hard drive start. Sounds familiar? I tried the usual tricks - removing the battery and mains, resetting PRAM, etc, with no joy. Straight to these forums and this thread, and I discovered the KB article about the faulty graphics cards.

I booked an appointment for the next day at the Genius bar at one of the stores in London, and printed out the KB article, just in case. Annoyingly the next day, in the morning before the appointment, the display seemed to start working again. Anyway, I went along to the Genius bar. The staff member I spoke to was excellent, and knew about the graphics display problem. He took the laptop for a quick diagnostic test - and during the test the screen failed again, and he scheduled the laptop in for a repair with no charge.

The repair was scheduled to take 5 - 10 working days, so I was very suprised to get a call the next day stating that the laptop was ready for collection! It turns out that the store has an in-house repair facility, and the 5-10 days quoted is just in case they don't have the necessary parts for the repair.

Anyway, I picked up the laptop, and so far, so good - it seems to be working. Although I didn't pay anything for the repair, I got a receipt for the value of the work, which came to a whopping £771 - that's $1207 USD! I'm not quite sure how I would have reacted if I had to pay that...

It looks like they replaced the whole motherboard - the date wasn't correctly set when I booted the machine, and the mechanic accidentally left a 'Blank Board Serializer v.3T110' CD in the drive.

So, I'm left with mixed feelings about Apple. The service was brilliant, without doubt. But it seems every apple product I have owned (ipod, iphone and macbook pro) have all had to be repaired/replaced at some point. But then, so have most of my other computing products, such as the Dell laptops I used to own. The good thing about Dell stuff is that its always easy to find replacement parts on ebay, and to follow the step-by-step repair instructions listed on the Dell site. I'm not sure if this would be possible with Apple stuff - are there any instructions out there - for example, to repair a keyboard?

The macbook pro I own is a 2.4 ghx santa rosa 17" model, which I purchased back in October 2007.

Lucky you! My MBP has been now (so far...) 16 days in repair for the same problem...
They are saying they don't have motherboards in stock, so they are waiting to get one.
Maybe because I live in Mexico is the problem...

My Macbook was bought in summer 2007. The screen went black on May 23, 2009 and has not recovered. I tried rebooting the PRAM, connecting it to an external monitor, taking out the battery, and restarting it several times. Nothing. Luckily I had filesharing on, so I still managed to access my files via LAN network and back them up on our iMac. After looking at this thread, I would say that my computer's problem is the video card. I hope there is warranty coverage for this, even though it has been almost two years since I bought it.

Obviously i have the same problem on my MBP, bought in December 2007 (so it is out of 1 year warranty). I want to describe exactly my situation, all symptoms and every attempt i did.
2 weeks ago the screen of my MBP became blank (both internal and external) afetr a normal reboot. First of all i tried to reset the PRAM, PMU, etc... no results! Then i tried the Clemson47 solution (on the previous thread), it worked for a few times (a few reboot), then again the blank screen. I noticed that everytime i connect (via Firewire, in target mode) my MBP with my sister's macbook the screen turns on again. So i can format and reinstall Leopard. After the reinstallation the issue seems gone.... No! The problem came back again. So i tried to open the system profiler (when the screen was blank) with a VNC client; in the graphic/monitor section i saw GMA X 3100, instead of NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT.
Always connecting the MBP with the macbook, to get the screen working, i started the Apple Hardware Test from the Leopard Install Dvd. In the extended test it found an error: 4SNS/1/40000000:Th0H. I googled this error code and i found that it is related to a temperature sensor.
I must say some things also: i've never stressed too much my graphic card (i never play videogame and only sometime i plug an external monitor) but in the iStat data the 'GPU diode' was always very hot, 70°-75° or more. I noticed also that the color of the MBP chassis, in the rear part, changed and became blacken (like it was spiting flames).
Finally i took the MBP to an Apple Certified Assistance Center here in Milan. When i told them that it was an NVIDIA issue they started treating me like a thief, like someone who want a free repair trying to take advantage from an Apple Warranty Extension Plan. So they said that they have to make tests to know wich problem is. They looked at the blackened part of the chassis and they started looking at me like they was thinking something like: "Oh, so strange. Maybe you launched your MBP in the flames and now you want it to be repaired for free". Very Funny!
Anyway i want to let people on this forum updated whit my case. In 1 week (as they said) they will give me news about my MBP. And if they change the logic board i want to test it to be shure that the problem will not come back again.
I'm sure that the temperature problem and the NVIDIA issue are related, that's why it manifest himself when the hot season come, so if the GPU hot temperature damaged something else in my MBP i want it to be replaced with no charge. That's my right!

Finally my MBP has been repareid. It "only" took 20 days...

Everything is working fine so far... And they told me that the problem has been solved, because they put me a new Logic Board with a new GPU (but is the same nVidia GeForce 8600M GT) which they assure has not the same problem.

Let's hope it's true.

Good luck everyone with this problem. They repaired mine free of charge, despite my MBP is celebrating 2 years next june (and has no Apple Care Extension Plan or any kind of warranty).

I have a black screen on my MBP help!!!! i am so depressed as i read this problem, looks like a money pit!!! i just switch to MAC from PCs but now i am not so sure it was the right move!!!
does anyone have the right answer yet for this problem? i close my mac got up in the morning and i can see anything but the pc is on, keyboard is lighted, I hear sounds when I press the keys, cd is working but no visual!!1

Ayla, I am sure, as Whitebat, that the problem is somehow related to the high temperature of the GPU. We have all noticed that if you use the firewire mode with another mac, maybe a few times, it gets alive again... at least, temporary. Before doing that, wait until your mac gets enough cool... i don't know what else to suggest....see if you can get any free repair from this http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2377

Is this the cause of my blank external screen ?

I bought my MBP in April 2007 and its 15 inch screen still works fine. But a month ago I tried it with a 23 inch Cinema Display (built 2005). It worked well at first, although with occasional rapid flickering.

Now the external display is always blank. internal display still works.

Could my graphics card ATY,RadeonX1600 have been damaged by the heat generated from driving the Cinema Display ?

The free repair (http://discussions.apple.com/post!reply.jspa?messageID=8170758) seems to only apply to MacBooks made a few weeks after mine.

Symptoms seem the same though.

Thanks in advance,

Jon Screenless

Screenless (funny name!), to be honest it does not look like the same problem. First of all, because the problem we are talking about occurs just with the NVIDA GeForce 8600M GT graphic card. That's why the free repair does not apply to your laptop: because in yours there is another GPU. Furtheremore, the black screen issue we are discussing is an internal screen problem.

I don't know what your problem is, but it is highly unlikely that heat has damaged your graphic card in the way you wrote: just for the driving of an external monitor. Furthermore, don't you think that it is quite odd that heat has damaged only a part of your card (the one that drives an external monitor), while all the rest works?!

All good points, I just wanted to sound out opinion from people who know more about it than me.

The Cinema Display works perfectly with a Mac Mini I have, that's why I have started to wonder about the MBP and came across this thread.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I have tried desperately to make sense of these two exceedingly long threads but pretty much failed. Here is my problem and what I have tried:

Problem:
_In brief_: Screen is black, sleep light is on catch and keyboard reasonably responsive (ie caps and num locks work as does backlighting. Disk ejects, albeit slowly and makes generally fan noises but NO chime for start up)

_What led to this problem_: Closed lid on 15" MacBook Pro 2.4GHz (lateish 2007) to move to another part of house, opened lid and was met with black screen. Thought little of that because sometimes I have to click the wee light button top left, third along. However- this time it did not help clicking it.

_What I did then_:
1. I forced shut down (as I had no option), did the various resets to no avail- in fact I got no "beep" for the first time (having done this twice before for other, unrelated, reasons since getting it).
2. Left battery out and power chord disconnected for long enough to completely cool the machine down (don't they run rather hotter than the PB did??! Argh!) but that also didn't help.
3. Read up on the invertor thingie and no- my MBPro's screen is completely black.
4. Used clemson47's solution from the first part of this two part thread. Made no difference but am currently trying again (as it appears that it may be necessary to repeat from what others have been writing?). Notably the files for deletion had reappeared.

In closing- I DO have the extended warranty, bought around the first anniversary of purchase and think I am happy I did. The MacBook Pro is used many hours every day but according to the service centre is extremely well kept. I am very, VERY "precious" about my Macs so this is a bit of a mystery to me.

Anyone out there who can help me make sense of this issue/thread? Is there someone who has followed this issue developing and can tell me what is going on?

IS it a sleep mode issue or is it a hardware replacement issue? Please help, and thank you for reading.