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

My MBP17 (April 2008 purchase) has the 8600GPU and this morning I have the BSOD. Had been running fine for ~28 months, spending 95% of the time running Windows via Bootcamp. It was alive this morning, I closed the lid to put it to sleep and when I opened it at work there's nothing.

Now I have the "completely" black screen, no logo-light on the back of the screen, no startup chime so the NVRAM/PRAM resets never take. I tried the SMU thing too, not sure if it is working or not but the thing still won't boot or even chime so my guess is no.

Seems like my only hope is to call the genius bar at the local store. Unless anyone else has an idea.

If there is no visualization (blank screen) and the little light where you push in to open screen is dim then its the BSOD I'm afraid.
I tried everything after doing some research online and nothing worked, I even put it in the fridge to cool it and kept it charged. But still no luck whatsoever.

Bring it to an Appel store and ask them to run a diagnostics test, they might or might not fix it free of charge.
I bought mine on 17th or 18th April 2008 and had been working fine up until a month ago and then the dreaded BSOD ;( however I brought to a Mac/Apple store they did a diagnostics test and replaced the logic board free of charge. That I thought was the best ever and very grateful as I was without my Mac for 2 long weeks. I wasn't aware they were going to fix it though as the tech guy said the part was "still covered" which I thought was strange as I had no cover for my MacBook Pro 15".

FYI, my 2.6 GHz MacBook Pro, purchased in January 2008 suffered a failed graphics card about 2 weeks ago. It was still under Apple Care so I was not too concerned about getting it fixed. The tech used a tester which plugged into the USB port and indicated that it was a known failure of the nVidia 8600 cards and even if my Apple Care had been expired it would have been repaired. The Logic Board was replaced free of charge and all is working fine now.

In my case it would boot up with a blank screen, but I was able to connect to it via Screen Sharing (luckily I had that turned on) and could see that in every way but the display the machine was OK. In fact the nVidia card did not even show up in System Profiler which I would expect to be a symptom of the failure.

Hopefully anyone else with this sort of failure will have my experience, I was back up and running within a week.

If you have this problem, and want to use your macbook with the internal screen just uninstall the graphic kexts, I think the graphic card mixes up the output channels and the screen will always work, but with a crappy video, just delete NVDAResman.kext and NVDANV50Hal.kext on system/library/extensions and you will see, it works

Just to update the case...

My MBP17 is an "early 2008" model and had all of the symptoms that had me convinced I had the Nvidia problem, but the genius bar hooked it up to their Nvidia testing box (not USB in this case) the determination was that it was NOT caused by the Nvidia glitch/defect. Apparently a machine needs to post before they can run their Nvidia test (contrary to what was written here earlier), and since mine would not chime or even begine POST they declared it DOA and ordered a new motherboard Since I had Apple Care on it. That was last Tuesday that I left it there expecting to pick it up Saturday if not Friday assuming I was lucky.

I got a call from them on Saturday asking my permission to mail it off to the service center, even though mine was in the pile of machines indicated as past-due and with parts. They said I'd get it faster, so now I'm hoping for next Thursday at this point.

Mine "hiccupped" late April with scrambled graphics and wouldn't boot, produced panic error on startup. 2 days later it booted fine ..... panic error log revealed graphics issue.
Reported to apple. But, it was working fine again, and no identifiable problem.

Mid-June, died again (BSOD) and no chime (hence no boot)..... same symptoms almost everyone reports with lights, drive, no chime

Took it to apple expecting it to be replaced under TS2377. All I got back was, sorry it won't boot, so we can't run our test, so we can't say it's GPU .... instead it's power issue with Logic Board .... you need Logic Board replaced .... That'd $2000+AUD ..... thanks for coming ! (needless to say, I didn't get it repaired)

I even complained to Apple that I'd previously reported grpahics problems no more than 2 months earlier, as well as all the forums like this on the internet. All they said was that the earlier issue could not be linked to the current issue, and stood by their tech's assessment that it would be logic board power failure.

Extremely disappointing.

So, looks like I might be selling it for spare parts, and put the $$$ towards a new iMac (I ain't buying a laptop again !)

Three months ago my laptop my laptop went to sleep and never woke up. Since then I have taken it to an apple service provider where they said it was the graphics chipset at fault. But because I was about to leave australia I thought I would wait until arriving in New Zealand and get it sorted. I have just recently received it back after they told me that the chipset was not at fault and I have to pay out about $2000 NZ dollars to get it repaired.

I have started it up, used voiceover to navigate to items on the desktop.....so i know it still works.

Today I networked it to another macbook pro, couldn't get screen sharing to work, but was able to navigate to the system profiler and take a screen shot. The Graphics Chipset is coming up as GMA X3100 which is clearly wrong. Also nothing is appearing under "displays" when it should have the details of the display.

Clearly there is some confusion over the graphics chipset. Does anyone know if this is the Nvidia fault that everyone is talking about (TS2377)

Taking it to another authorised service provider tomorrow for a third opion!

I have a MBP 15 2,4 Ghz that i bought in may 2008. One week ago was working on it on my desk in my room in the evening and everything was fine. I closed it without shutting down. The next morning i wanted to keep on working but the macbook was turned off. This was the first strange thing. then i tried to restart it but nothing happened except a short start of the hard drive and then dead again. I tried several times but always the same thing.
At the same day I went to a official Apple reseller here in Munich and asked them to have a look on to the machine. Their diagnoses a logic board failure. So i asked them if it was possible that it might have something to do with this NVIDA graphic problem.
Their simple answer: The failure could might be caused by the NVIDIA graphic chip, but due to the dead logic board they are not able to run a special test concerning the NVIDIA problem. And due to this reason they are NOT replacing it for free.
Instead of that they told me they can repair it for 650€!!!
I told them NO GRACIAS!
So I checked the internet, if there are other people who have the same problem and was really surprised how many people have the nearly the same problems with their MBP logic boards and how hard it was for most of them (if they were successful) to get a free replacement!
Is this a customer friendly service??? Is it worth it to buy a really expansive note book with a fruit in it´s logo?
I think everybody knows the answer!!!
Does anybody know if it is possible do to start the hard drive via usb port even if the logic board is completely dead??

Reply to "Macbookpro_broken"...

I had the EXACT same symptoms on my MBP purchased the same month as yours, closed the lid and it never came back. They told me the same thing when I took mine in, the problem I had prevented them from testing the Nvidia problem. Although they DID fix mine because I bought the extended warranty.

So after 9 days I get the machine back from the motherboard replacement and the work order says (paraphrased, I do not have the paper in front of me) the motherboard was replaced due to problems with the GPU.

I am in China and this is the second time I have this problem with my macbook. I didn't know about the extended warranty for the first time and I got it repaired by a third party. Now that I know apple is covering it I went to them as the problem occured again. After opening the computer they said that it has been repaired by a third party and the warranty doesn't covered it anymore. What can I do? It is a way to make it covered by Apple because I really believe that is not my mistake.

Well ain't this fun.

My 21 mth old MBP gets the black screen of death. I drive it 3 hour round trip to nearest Service center. A week later I pick it up with a new logic board.....$770.00

Switch it on in the parking lot and it looks ok. Drive home, switch it on, check email....then....nothing! Exact same fault after 20 minutes of use with a new logic board.
Now I have to drive tomorrow to Green Bay again, another wasted day. They've offered to put in another logic board...but how long will this one last??

I'm a web designer and need my MBP. I've lost a weeks work and counting.


Rooze



<Edited by Host>

Hi "Macbookpro_broken". My story is exactly like yours. You change Munich by Lisbon and that's it.

I also called Apple Customer Support in Portugal and they told me that they can't do anything, that these (no code, no free repair) are
the rules established by Apple Europe. They gave me their address to send my complain and that's what I'll do next.

The address is: "Apple Sales International
Hollyhill Industrial Estate
Hollyhill, Cork
Republic of Ireland"

And my advice to all customers that have the same problem is that you should find Apple's local address and do the same.

We must show them that these are not isolated cases. A lot of 2008's Macbook Pro (some report the mentioned code and others not) are dieing after 1.5-2 years.
If that isn't a manufacturing problem what is it?

I have my MBP back over a month from being repaired and no problems at all. But each time I shut it down I hope it'll come back on when I want to use it and that I shouldn't have anymore problems with. I dread the thought.
I admit I was lucky mine was repaired free of charge (all I had to pay for was diagnostics) €39 only and logic board replaced.

With the bad attitude of Steve Jobs and how to hold the iPhone 4 and free bumper, what can you expect with the constant complaints towards Apple and the logic board problem?
Sometimes I think its down to bad internal design over all and how the whole inside is placed, plus the cooling of the MBP needs to improve.
I always remove the battery when sitting at my desk so its not on constant recharge which heats up considerably.

Keep complaining and let your voice be heard.

I just thought I'd share my experience with this problem:

I was at a friend's house, and we were playing video games, so I pushed my laptop to the side (on his leather couch). The computer was sleeping for about 15 minutes until I tried turning it back on but to no avail.

I turned it back off to restart it, but it wouldn't come back on. The sleep light was on, and I heard the hard drive spin when I tried to reboot, but that was it. The computer wasn't starting at all (no chime, no caps lock or keyboard light, etc). I did a little research to find out that the GPU is likely the culprit.

The next day, I made a reservation and took it to the Apple genius bar. The guy was very polite and knew that I was likely experiencing a crapped out GPU. After a minute of toying with it, he said my computer wasn't like the others he dealt with. It wasn't booting at all, and there was no chime, so he didn't think it was the GPU. My heart sank a little because I knew this meant money.

He gave me my options: let him ship it to Apple for $310 (flat rate for repairs, $100 labor fee and $210 for part(s)), or I can take it to a certified repair place. He told me whatever it is, it'll be expensive, so I opted to let the Apple-heads themselves handle everything. I kissed my computer goodbye, and he sent her away.

Two days later, I received a call around 5:30pm from the Apple store saying that I can come pick my baby up. I got to the register and handed my receipt to the girl at the bar to have her find my computer. When she got back, she gave me a receipt and said it'd be $328 (tax included). I flipped through the receipt for a moment to find Apple's diagnosis: "Logic Board Replacement - Graphics Processor Failure" (not exact words - I don't have the receipt with me).

"Wait, a minute. Why am I paying for this if nVidia extended the warranty for their GPU," I asked.

She didn't know what I was talking about, so she called over someone else. I explained the entire situation of how faulty the nVidia 8600M GT GPU was, how eventually ALL OF THEM will fail, how nVidia is replacing them for free, and how some people end up going through six before Apple finally just gives them a new unibody MacBook. He didn't quite understand the situation, so he called up a manager.

I sat around for about 10 minutes while the same guy kept reporting back to me about how he's just waiting on a manager to become freed. After about 10 more minutes, a new lady came out from the back and gave me a confused look.

"Did you get your computer back yet," she asked me.

I was a little thrown off by how all of the employees in the store know which customer is who, so I didn't know what to say. She grabbed my laptop off the desk and asked me to sign the receipt saying I received my computer. I didn't want to ask any questions, so I took her proposal and left.

I hope this helps some of you out there who are in a similar situation. I know I was a little worried when I kept hearing about how people who don't get the chime are getting shafted. I personally think Apple's trying to screw people by finding any reason possible to say it's not the GPU and charge them when they don't need to.

Good luck fighting your cases.

Soursour27!
I must say that this is not fair. Those people just want to make money from us.
My computer GPU's has been fixed now twice as Apple refused to cover it. It is not that expensive to fix it and now the computer is working fine. The guy who fixed it told me that if it breaks again it will not be easy to fix it. He was meaning that I should think of changing the motherboard. For me, just living with the feeling that it can break at any time make me uncomfortable.
So, I really want to get rid of it. I have a friend who is selling second hand macbooks that proposed me to exchange it with a first generation macbook pro he has.
I am now in a big dilemma. The first generation Macbook pro is 4 years old and mine 3. The first one is 32 bits mine is 64. It has ATI X1600 256Mb mine is Nvidia 8600GT 128mb. I can swap in my HDD 320gb, my 4gb RAM and my wireless N card. He agreed with that.
I should say that his computer is in good shape than mine shiny and good. If it was you what will you do?
The problem now is that I am not confident with this computer on hands and as a student my budget doesn't allow me to buy a new computer now but I need one to do my work especially writing my thesis.
And also I am afraid of all NVIDIA GPUs.
All advices are welcome