Macbook Pro 17" mid 2009 shuts down on startup

Just wondering if you ever found a solution. My mid 2009 MacBook Pro is experiencing absolutely identical problems. It's been with the Genius Bar for over a week and they're stumped.

Any chance there was any ever any liquid spilled on your Mac? Apple are saying liquid spilled three years ago is the likely cause of this new problem so they can't guarantee any replacement parts will work (though the next step is a new logic board).

I have the exact same model with the exact same symptoms. My problem seems to be randomly shutting down when running on battery, and less frequent when plugged in. So far I've replaced the internal HDD with a solid state drive AND bought a new battery to no avail. Anybody have any other theories for what this might be? From memory, I can only think these problems started as soon as I upgraded (and clean install) from Lion to Mountain Lion. I've also read people have been having power issues with Mountain Lion, so wondering if this may be connected?

Just out of curiosity: Did you try to reset SMC ( http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964 ) and PRAM/NVRAM ( http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11243 )?

My MBP (mid-2009) also shows this behaviour. I have not tried to clear any SMC or PRAM, as I don't have the MBP with me atm. I thought this was a battery issue - well maybe it's the SMC/PRAM/NVRAM after all.

Hi all- late to the thread.

After searching many threads for Macbook Pro Late 2009 Intermittent Crash Battery Startup and everything inbetween, I found the applicable place.

I too have had similar issues. It started in Dec. 2012 with the crashing at startup after the apple but before the spinning grey wheel. Twe weeks later the end of the world came for my harddrive. Total crash, no booting, etc- tried everything, ended up buying a crucial SSD (which I love, btw) and DiskWarrior to recover 90% of files. Long story short, it seemed to fix the problem for a couple days.

Fast forward a week, the crashing begins again, but only when booting on battery power. It would not go to login screen on battery, but after 2-3 tries on AC power, it would finally allow me to login. Once logged in, all was fine, so long as the computer did not sleep. Once in sleep mode, it would not wake and my reboot process began again. When I installed the new HD, I reinstalled OSX, and upgraded to latest version at the time, reset SMC/PRAM/NVRAM, no change. I take it to Genius Bar, they find nothing wrong, say the battery is great, and that I should just leave the thing plugged in all the time... Frustrating, but ok.

By June, the computer crashed so often it was unusable. I was furious and left the computer unused for 2 months.

Now, In August, I just upgraded to Mountain Lion 10.8.4, and it has only done this once, on the restart after install. Plugged her back in, restarted, finished the install. Then I removed extraneous apps (remote access desktop client, spotify, and an alarm clock) from startup, unplugged the computer, and LO and BEHOLD it booted no problem. Repeated the process 6 times with no issues.

Self-EDIT: Hooray for 5 minutes until I spent time to post here and tell you all the great story and recommend updating OSX. Now it's crashing again.

My guess is the nvidia graphics board problem mentioned in other 2009 pro threads. Potentially, software updates until 2012 had kept it at bay, and then the 2012 update unravelled it.

Anyone else actually find a fix yet? I'm visiting the Genius Bar at the end of the week for a final exam and potential logicboard replacement.

Hello,

Exactly the same for me...

MBP 17´´ mid 2009, same symptoms ! (bought in France)

It started turning off while I was away from the computer.

I spent 2 days doing everything possible, and now I´m just struggling to save the data before it dies.

If it can help, it also turned off while performing fsck -fy check after starting the computer with Cmd + S.

Thanks !

Hi again folks,

I found out what was the root cause for this (on my mine as least):

My MBP got an entire cup of coffee on the keyboard last years so I figured it could be the problem even if it worked well for 10 months.

Only 3 hours of sleep in 3 days as I unbuilt it entirely, from head to toes.

All parts were clean carefully and the connections and wires checked, however this was done too late.

Some parts of the logic board were corroded... ➖

My wife had also an MBP from beginning of 2009 that was half broken, so I decided to take the logic board from it.

It works perfectly !

Long story short, if you ever drop liquid on the keyboard, turn off you computer right away and put it up-side down.

Don't be afraid to unbuild it if the warranty has expired, there are good tutorials on the net.

It's very easy to remove the logic board and other parts to clean them properly.

I also removed the entire keyboard as I believed the coffee might had created a shortcut... but it was a nightmare to remove (50 very small screws, glue, ...) !!!

Anyway, you can do it if it's your very last option; if not the keyboard can be cleaned "quite well" by removing the keys one by one.

Good luck and cheers ! 🙂

I am experiencing the same thing on my Macbook Pro and have been for some months. Searching online for help at least a couple of times a week as I live far from the nearest Apple store.

My Macbook Pro late 2009 also shuts down many many times (from 3 - 15 times) while booting. The shutdown happens from 1 sec to 5 seconds to sometimes after the apple icon is displayed. In the end after 15 mins at least it boots to loginscreen and then its fine. This works only when connected to the power adapter. It shuts down after a while when on battery alone.

I have also experienced it not giving life signs at all the startup. When pressing the power button it wont even light up in front and no sound from fans etc.. It simply seems dead. The fix then is to unplug and replug the battery and try again. It then goes back to the normal booting routine.

By the way the battery is brand new. Thought it would fix it by replacing it. But it had no effect.

I have read many "solutions" going through these forums but none seems to fix my problem. I havent tried them though.

Supposed solutions/problems:

- Replace thermal paste on GPU and CPU, overheating issues

- Replace HD

- Replace battery

- Corrosion due to water spill

What I also found out was that my power cord was bad and some times lost connection. I replaced it with a new one and no change. So my theory is that somehow the broken power cord has blown a fuse or something in the power supply. Havent got any experience with electronics inside a laptop. Since it shuts down so fast can it be anything but some power problems? Also since the unplug/replug of the battery helps when its completely dead. The wierd thing is that it starts up eventually.

Please if anyone from Apple or on the forums could reply to these thoughts id be glad.

Thanks

I have the exact same problem. Even the Superdrive-Crash.

Can anyone approve, that it is a faulty GPU? Or did anyone find a solution?

My mid-2009 17" MBP crashes as well. Basically I have to plug it in to even have a chance and it STILL takes 10-50 tries (sometimes just the light and sound of the super drive, but then a little "click" sound and darkness. Gradually it will chime, I'll see the Apple logo and it will crash, but each time getting a little further. It feels like starting and old lawn mower with fouled plugs?! I've noticed tapping the return key repeatedly AFTER you see the Apple Logo will increase the chances of getting the grey wheel and finally to the login screen, but usually the hardest thing is getting it just passed the grey wheel to the blue screen/shift to the login screen. It was nearly always crash at that spot. I've tried everything. SMC resets, PRAM resets, pulled the drive, swapping for SSD, resetting the RAM, even holding down option to boot from a USB enclosure. Nothing works any better than the other. Probably the SSD internally has the best chance of booting, probably b/c of the lower power req, or the quicker time it takes to get to the login screen, but ALL basically no longer boot from battery. The battery is an Apple replace NEW battery only 1 yr. old with the system showing great health (be it now 10400mah vs. 12900 mah when it was brand new). Anyway. It's devastating. I'm at a loss. I feel sick. I wish if Apple can't fix they'd offer me "something" to help replace. I mean a $3199 laptop from only 2009? I expected it to become obsolete at some point, but not DIE first. Apple, are you listening?

Experiencing same problems with my mid 2009 Macbook Pro 17".

Crashes at various stages sometimes as soon as I press button sometimes a few seconds later or sometimes power button will seem to not do anything.

No solution found so far except to say I do manage to switch it on when I do Safe Boot (allowing me to join this discussion).

So far I've tried replacing HD but that doesn't seem to have helped.

Another idea a friend had was to try creating a new user and see if its somehow software related. The reason for this suggestion being that computer seemed ok when we replaced HD but hadn't done Migration Assistant. As soon as I used my Time Machine back up problems seem to have started again...

Anyone have any luck so far finding the answer to problem? Any fresh ideas or feedback in relation to it being software related?

Forgot to mention that prior to replacing HD I had left computer on for entire week (didn't close lid or switch off) and had no problems.

I have Late 2008 15" MacBook Pro (Model 5,1, latest Yosemite update) with random shutdown issues. I tried many things, but here is what seems to be working at least for my first 15 minutes of testing:

Try switching to "Higher Performance" under "Graphics" in the "Energy Saver". This MacBook has 2 Nvidia GPUs and by doing so, you tell OS X to use the dedicated one only. Our model does not feature automatic switching, and my latest guess is that the problem is related to this.

What else I tried without success:

- Replacing the thermal compound

- Clean Yosemite install

- Clean Mavericks install

- Resetting SMC & PRAM

- Running on battery or MagSafe did not make any difference

I also noticed that the shutdowns are more frequent if the MacBook was left for a day or two unused - shut down or in sleep mode.

Same issues for my macbook pro 17" mid 2009! It's been one year I've been keeping on fighting with my MB boot failures. I've tried anything, both in hardware (change SSD, change battery with original one, change RAM with original!) and in "software" (reset SMC/PRAM, gfxCardStatus tool, all the possibile boot modes...), but none of them provided the final solution.

I agree with you, I think that problems started with a new SO upgrade and is related to graphic card NVIDIA. I'm convinced the problem is a bug in NVIDIA driver or, even worse, in its chipset.

If you (or anyone) find the solution, please let us know!