Black Screen on MacBook Pro i7

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Level 1

5 points

Black Screen on MacBook Pro i7

Hi there,

I bought a MacBook Pro 17inch i7 in November 2010 and it was working fine under Snow Leopard and Lion since then. Yesterday I installed Bootcamp and it was workng also. Today when starting from Bootcamp to Lion I had a Kernel Panic (had this never before) and the screen turned black.

I just have the energy cable connencted to it, the computer starts somehow (noise) but no Startsound and screen keeps black.Then I made a little mistake by inserting a LION installer DVD. Cannot get this out anymore, even when I press the trackpad when starting it.

I changed the internal hard drive to be sure that the problem does not come from there. I reset the PRAM. I reset the SMC. No way to get the laptop back to work.

What to do here?

Thank you for Feedback!

Bernd

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3), 8 GB RAM, 30 ACD

Posted on Apr 1, 2012 11:20 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

sig

Level 8

35,862 points

Apr 1, 2012 11:23 AM in response to Bikul

Sounds like a hardware problem. Try starting up from a different system. Hold down command-R at startup and it'll boot from the recovery partition. If the same problem occurs then, it's definitely not a problem with the system, which makes hardware almost certainly the issue. In which case, you should contact Apple for service.

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Answer 2

Bikul Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 16, 2012 11:48 PM in response to sig

Just to give you an update on my problem:

Fortunately Apple replaced the logicboard for free (was three months out of guarantee but they offer 2 year warranty)

After that I deleted the Bootcamp partition and installed a new Bootcamp partition and Windows 7 Home again.

In the evening it was fine and I could switch between Apple and PC. Next morning I tried to boot from Mac in Windows: BOOM - same feature: CinemaDisplay had something like Kernel Panic (monitor floating down).

I tried to start again from Lion, it took a very long time and mouse was frozen then, nothing worked.

I tried to start from an external drive with Snow Leopard, took a long time, the CinemaDisplay showed the weirdest things I ever saw: vertical lines, several mouses and beachballs. I disconnected everything and tried to start from intern Lion again: mouse frozen...

I took it to the company who had changed the logicboard. In the beginning they had the same problems when starting it (also fom network server and extern volumes). They changed the RAM, disconnected the intern HD.

And reset the PRAM. Then it was starting again and the problem (nobody knows what it is) seemed to be solved...

Up to now I did not start from Bootcamp again (FEAR), will do a complete backup first.

Will keep you informed about the horrortrip...

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Answer 3

Bikul Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 2, 2012 4:37 AM in response to Bikul

A little update:

As I was too anxious to try Windows 7 and Bootcamp again (and destroying Logicboard again), I waited for CS6 to install it.

When using Photoshop CS6 and trying to do any 3D-Operations, it will not work. Sometimes it tells me that I have to switch on Graphic Processor in Preferences/Performance, but mostly crashes immediately.

In Preferences/Performance my Graphic Card NVIDIA Geforce GT 330M is recognized and is marked as active.

So there is for sure a problem with the NVIDIA driver.

Any suggestions?

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Answer 4

Tess888

Level 1

5 points

Jun 2, 2012 12:57 PM in response to Bikul

Thanks for posting your difficulty with CS6...I have Lion on a 15" mid 2010 MBP with 8 gig of ram and the fastest processor available at that time. IMHO, Lion can be very unforgiving to third party software, and Adobe is not really known for their glitch free software either. I have Photoshop CS5 on my computer now, and didn't want to upgrade because of the expected aggravation. Thanks for letting us know. The other day I upgraded my Istat program, a humble little utility, and it had problems with a widget in dashboard...before you know it, I had a kernel panic! removed the widget and all is well again. My system is stable and fast, but Lion takes no prisoners...I think you'll just have to wait until Adobe gets their act together...eventually. As a general rule, since Lion, I wouldn't make a major upgrade of the OS or intricate program until it has been out for at least 3 months...that applies to the upcoming Mountain Lion as well. I just have too much work to do and can't play around all day long. By the way, if you want to work in Windows 7, use Parallels. They have really gotten their act together with the latest ready for Lion realease. Windows never worked so great on any Windows machine. It's easy to install, intuitive, and problem free...good luck!

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Answer 5

Bikul Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 9, 2012 10:01 AM in response to Bikul

And again:

I went to the Apple Dealer Comspot in Hamburg (very friendly) before the 3 month guarantee of the newly installed logic board expired and told him about the problems I had with 3D operations in Photoshop. He booted it from his MacBook Pro and the mistake was not there. He recommended to install a complete new LION system.

I did that and everything was really fine, also 3D in Photoshop AND Google Chrome (which did not work before) did work as well.

So I installed Bootcamp and Windows 7 Home. Still fine. Then I wanted to have higher monitor resolution on my Cinema HD Display. The automatically installed NVIDIA driver did not have an option to set a higher resolution ( I knew it worked without problems in Snow Leopard). There are extended options in that NVIDIA Panel, where it leads to their homepage suggesting to download the driver for your specific graphics card. I choose GT 330M and installed it. Now I could set the Cinema Display to 2560x1600. I booted from Mac again. I thought the problem was gone.

Next morning I tried to startup - nothing but a grey screen. Hallelulja!

So I went back to Comspot, where they diagnosed a dead logic board, which they changed under the 3 month guarantee again.

Next day I went there (the same Harddrive was still in there) to check Photoshop 3D, Google Chrome and Windows Home. In Bootcamp the higher resolution of the external Display was gone.

This time the friendly Comspot Mr. Bader changed the resolution and the option to show an external display inside the Windows configuration panel and not the NVIDIA-panel. (I remember that I had used the NVIDIA-Panel to configure this under Snow Leopard). It seems that the NVIDIA driver kills the whole logicboard of a MACBook Pro 2010…

Until today the machine is working fine (three months new guarantee :-)

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