Upgrded MBP 13" 2011, but a few issues

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Upgrded MBP 13" 2011, but a few issues

Well I got my "thunderbolt" MBP 13in on tuesday and been working just fine. Today I finally got my 1TB 5400rpm hard drive and two 4GB iRam ram sticks to upgrade to 8GB. I used SuperDuper to clone my drive. I opened up the back (grounded myself) unplugged the battery and began to swap components. took only 10 minuets to do (swap ram and hard drive). Put everything back together. When it came to booting up. It took A LONG TIME to boot. I can understand that for being a massive drive and at 5400rpm. Then my left side of the screen flickers with in rows of pixels. Any one have any sugguestion about that? its very odd and very annoying. The computer read the hard drive space and the 8GB of ram. And now my battery at pratically full charge only read 2 1/2 hours of battery. life. Could it be that the hard drive is killing my battery time too? Any Suggustions are welcomed and appricated. Oh and the mini display to VGA doesnt work too. aughh..

Message was edited by: alex martinezjr

MBP 13" (early 2011), Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Mar 3, 2011 8:55 AM

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Answer 1

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rkaufmann87

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Mar 3, 2011 9:05 AM in response to mxfro40

Why did you unplug the battery? That was unnecessary and may have done something to create the mess.

Try doing a SMC and PRAM reset using the following instructions. Also make sure the RAM is fully seated, it won't hurt to re-seat it and make sure your HD SATA connection is fully seated too.

*SMC RESET*

• Shut down the computer.
• Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
• On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
• Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
• Press the power button to turn on the computer.

*PRAM RESET*

• Shut down the computer.
• Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step
• Turn on the computer.
• Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
• Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
• Release the keys.

Also it would probably benefit by Repairing Disk Permissions in Disk Utility.

Roger

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Answer 2

mxfro40 Author

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Mar 3, 2011 9:10 AM in response to mxfro40

I was just following the iFix it tutorial. It suggusted to unplug the battery from the board. But i will try this in a few minutes and let you know of any changes. Thanks 🙂

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Answer 3

rkaufmann87

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Mar 3, 2011 9:13 AM in response to mxfro40

I haven't looked at the iFixit tutorials in awhile, are you sure you were looking at the right one? BTW for future use I'd recommend www.macsales.com in their Tech Support section they have video tutorials on many common actions like RAM and HD upgrades.

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Answer 4

mxfro40 Author

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Mar 3, 2011 9:30 AM in response to mxfro40

WOW a world of difference. I did all three things and it totally helped with my boot up time and battery time indicator. Thanks a million!

Though i stil have the screen/pixel flickering problem 😟

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Answer 5

rkaufmann87

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Mar 3, 2011 9:50 AM in response to mxfro40

Your welcome, on the screen flickering if it continues contact AppleCare. The phone number is in your owners manual. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you haven't carefully ready your owners manual, I STRONGLY suggest that you do I am sure you will pick up some useful information. Also don't forget to calibrate your battery. Here are instructions for doing so and you should do a calibration every 2-3 months to keep your battery in good shape.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490

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Answer 6

mxfro40 Author

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Mar 3, 2011 10:16 AM in response to mxfro40

Ya, I just came arcoss that battery calibration page, searching for any clues. Very helpfull stuff, Im going to work on that when I get home. Your right though, so you keep you limb haha. I've only skimmed through the manual (looking for the thunderbolt/mini display directions). I might just set up an appointment with a Genuis Bar because I been reading the graphic card/motherboard could be causing the flickering. I hope its not something I caused because I was super careful not touching anything other than the ram slots and hard drive removal and working on a static free mat.

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Answer 7

rkaufmann87

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Mar 3, 2011 10:59 AM in response to mxfro40

OK Alex,

Let us know how it goes at the Genius Bar and btw thank you for the star.

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Answer 8

mxfro40 Author

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Mar 5, 2011 10:35 PM in response to rkaufmann87

So the Genius that helped me today say it could be an LCD screen. He tried taking a screen caption of the flickering and could not do it. The flickering is constant enough, that if it was the motherboard, it should have shown up in the captured images. He took a screen recording but could not see it pop up (whatever a screen recording is). So for the most part, since its not even a week old, he is going to have it just replaced. I just have to re insert the factory hard drive and ram. He and his coworker were actually kind of stoked because its an issue they haven't seen and seems that the issue might go strait to the apple engineers :: shrugging shoulders ::

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Answer 9

rkaufmann87

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Mar 5, 2011 10:56 PM in response to mxfro40

OK, now at least you know what to do when you put the drives in the replacement machine when you get it.

Sorry that means another trip to the store but at least you will have it all sorted out.

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