Mid-2010 Macbook Pro White Screen of Death?

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Level 1

6 points

Mid-2010 Macbook Pro White Screen of Death?

Hi all,

I have a Mid- 2010 Macbook Pro, running 10.8.2 that, when booting, sounds the Startup Chime but no Apple logo appears, just a white screen. I'm in IT so I've done several things, but nothing has worked and I couldn't find a previous discussion that was similar to mine.

Here's what I've done so far:

- Changed hard drives

- reseated RAM

- Unplugged Battery

- Reset the PRAM

- Tried to boot from CD using CTRL- C

- Tried Recovery boot using CTRL- R

Anything else I could try? I keep thinking it may have something to do with the Time Change, but that seems a little weird to me if that's the cause. It worked fine late last night and then it did this in the morning (after the time change).

Thanks for any help you can give!

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), iPads, iPhone, and iMacs OH MY!

Posted on Nov 4, 2012 12:17 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

sanjampet

Level 5

7,982 points

Nov 4, 2012 1:50 PM in response to jtnave

Try a smc reset:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

Will it safe boot?

Boot up holding left side shift, this will take a little longer, but will run only essenctial applications, letting you know if it could be a 3rd party application.

Boot from CD just hold C.

recovery boot command R

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Answer 2

jtnave Author

Level 1

6 points

Nov 5, 2012 10:53 AM in response to sanjampet

Hi sanjampet,

Tried the SMC reset, safe boot, CD boot, and Recovery boot all with no luck. Not sure why it's going on, but it's looking more and more like a hardware issue to me. It's a white screen (instead of a grey screen), so I'm worried that it's something with it. I'm going to try and see if I can remote into it using Screen Sharing to see if it's something with the display.

My wife used it last and she told me that it was slow on the internet with the mouse freezing up, so she held down the power to turn it off then it came up with the white screen which hasn't come back on since. I'm using an 3rd party SSD hard drive and replaced it with another SATA hard drive, but it didn't help.

Thanks,

JN

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Answer 3

ds store

Level 7

30,815 points

Nov 5, 2012 12:31 PM in response to jtnave

Sure sounds like a hardware issue, run through this list, one is a Hardware Test

..Step by Step to fix your Mac

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Answer 4

jtnave Author

Level 1

6 points

Nov 9, 2012 7:09 PM in response to ds store

Thanks for your help ds store and samjampet. The issue was the hard drive. I had an Sandisk Ultra SSD in it and I replaced it with the original hard drive and the MBP booted normally. Chatted with Sandisk and their exchanging it with an Extreme. Thanks again!

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Answer 5

Jan 18, 2013 3:05 PM in response to jtnave

I've tried everything you did. I just keep on trying because sometimes I was booting successfuly. I've download and installed mountain lion. Now it is working ok. After 3 days.

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Answer 6

Jan 22, 2016 7:53 AM in response to jtnave

➕ IMPORTANT!!!! ➕

Any Mac owners who are experiencing problems with their laptop - crashing, white screen, stripey screen, etc - it might be that your Video card is faulty!
(and NOT your hard-drive, which is what people might be telling you...)

If you have a MacBook Pro bought between 2011-2013, Apple have now acknowledged that there were a batch of faulty video cards in these models.

However, they have now negotiated a deal with the card manufacturers, which means that Apple will repair this problem for you - FREE of charge!

Simple take your Mac into the nearest Apple Store.
But do act quickly - they launched this Repair Programme in Feb 2015, and it is only running until the end of Feb 2016.

ℹ Here's the info: http://www.apple.com/uk/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

NB: If you have already paid to have a repair done, as a result of this same problem, then Apple are also offering to reimburse customers for this!

The info is all there in the above link - just scroll to the bottom of the page. 😉

HOW I FOUND OUT:

I only discovered this myself because I had suddenly got the White Screen of Death last week, on my MacBook Pro! (2012).

Never had this problem before, and was pretty scared.

I spent a week trying out ALL of the possible fixes I could find, on all the Mac forums.... Control R, Control S, resetting the PRAM, etc etc.
But in the end, I couldn't even get my laptop past the white screen on start-up, not even to run Recovery or Safe mode. 😟 None of it was working.

So I went to the Mac website, & asked for an Apple advisor to phone me - they did so immediately, and the guy was very nice; but he still couldn't work out the problem. He suggested that my Hard-Drive might be ****ed, and made me an appointment with the Genius Bar at my nearest Apple store.

When I got there, the guy listened to my description of what had happened,

& recognised straight away that it was actually my Video card that was to blame!
My laptop is now with the Apple store, will take 3-5 days to be fixed, and will cost me nothing.
(The video card manufacturers are apparently swallowing the cost)

Best of all - my trusty Mac is not dead! And will live to fight another day 😍

Hope this helps some of you out there!

x
PLEASE SHARE THE INFO - HELP SAVE SOMEONE'S DAY!!!

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