Internet recovery isn't working.

happyandrew wrote:

I know exactly what the cause is! The graphics chip has a heat sink which is cooled down by the fans, he heat paste that they put between the graphics chip and heat sink has dried out. I expect when this goes to the grey sceeen fans come on full speed. Apple will tell you there is no fix. Apple are next to useless! You have three choices, take it to a computer repair shop, or look on youtube and there are videos on what to do, but be carefull of the rybon cables especially the small ones, if you tare it, ebay has repleacements. It is brain surgery so be confident. Third option put the laptop on eBay and sell it as not working. Don't be fooled by putting windows on the mac and it working, windows does not use the graphic chip in the same way.

MacBook Pro 15" late 2011

1. Can someone else confirm that heat paste issue as reason for the grey screen?

2. Did someone else fix the issue with a new heat paste?

3. I have a gray screen every regular boot up after I enter my password when the HDD is internal

4. System runs always proper without gray screen when booting from same HDD but as an external HDD via USB.

5. System ran with the HDD internal just once again (don't now why, was a regular boot up without any action of me)

Tried to heat up the graphic chip and started several programs and photoshop. Worked all proper for hours until I did a restart.

6. Backed up my HDD and erased it to do a clean internet recovery.

7. Internet recovery works until the loading process with the spinning globe is done. Right after it turns the screen off for ons second (black) and turns on with gray screen staying like that.

Point 4. and 5. let me questioning if it's a graphic chip / heat paste issue ?!

MacBook Pro 15" late 2011

1. Can someone else confirm that heat paste issue as reason for the grey screen?

2. Did someone else fix the issue with a new heat paste?

3. I have a gray screen every regular boot up after I enter my password when the HDD is internal

4. System runs always proper without gray screen when booting from same HDD but as an external HDD via USB.

5. System ran with the HDD internal just once again (don't now why, was a regular boot up without any action of me)

Tried to heat up the graphic chip and started several programs and photoshop. Worked all proper for hours until I did a restart.

6. Backed up my HDD and erased it to do a clean internet recovery.

7. Internet recovery works until the loading process with the spinning globe is done. Right after it turns the screen off for ons second (black) and turns on with gray screen staying like that.

Point 4. and 5. let me questioning if it's a graphic chip / heat paste issue ?!

No it is not a screen saver, mine does exactly the same thing, after the spinning globe, and the timer bar fills out... it goes to a grey screen, no mouse to move, then it turns off the machine.

Really fed up that apple does not give DVDs with their expensive machines.

Same issue here. Macbook Pro early 2011. Shut down one day and stuck on grey screen from start-up. Tried about everything I could find on the internet. For some reason, I got it working through a OSX Lion USB-install at one point. Then I updated from there, which resulted in the grey screen yet again, only now the USB I used before won't get me into the installation menu anymore. Even after I formatted the drive yet again. Have also tried several SD-drives.

I know exactly what the cause is! The graphics chip has a heat sink which is cooled down by the fans, he heat paste that they put between the graphics chip and heat sink has dried out. I expect when this goes to the grey sceeen fans come on full speed. Apple will tell you there is no fix. Apple are next to useless! You have three choices, take it to a computer repair shop, or look on youtube and there are videos on what to do, but be carefull of the rybon cables especially the small ones, if you tare it, ebay has repleacements. It is brain surgery so be confident. Third option put the laptop on eBay and sell it as not working. Don't be fooled by putting windows on the mac and it working, windows does not use the graphic chip in the same way.

Yes, fully working! You will need to get a set of screwdrivers with the special heads, I have a set to take apart smart phones. The video also shows you need a hot air gun, not sure how critical this is, but lucky I have one.plus get a good quality heat paste so you do not have to do this again in 2 years.

the problem I had was understanding how the ribBon cables went back into the motherboard, especially the small ones. I ended up damaging the socket and had to resort to using my hot glue gun to hold the cable in place. It is useful to have a good magnifying glass and bright light to help you see the small ribbon cables and the sockets. I also got the mouse cable trapped under the motherboard and ripped it getting it untrained, but managed to buy a new cable off eBay.

it is not a job for someone who has never taken the back off anything, unless you are not worried if you get it working or not. Like I say, google YouTube as there are a few videos showing how to do it. Good luck

I am not sure the layout is the same in a 15" as a 17", I used MacBook Pro 17" Unibody Heat Sink Replacement - iFixit

or

MacBook Pro GPU fix - YouTube

2011 Apple MacBook Pro graphics issues are solved - Laptop repair - YouTube

If your system came with snow leopard preinstalled you will need the original dvd discs. You can order a replacement set from apple buy calling them.

First off you never invoked Internet Recovery, it uses Command Option r held at boot time.

Command r is just Recovery HD, a boot partition to restore the OS X partition, it's a new drive so it's not there.

Try Command Option r and use Disk Utility to Erase and format the ENTIRE Drive (GUID/OS X Extended J), then install OS X, whatever it gives you and work up from there.

Since it's a hard drive, I very highly recommend you use Erase and move the slider one spot to the right for a zero pass accross the entire drive, this will assist in mapping off bad sectors all new drives have.

The Early 2011's do have Internet Recovery so it should work.

Erase, formatting, OS X installs on Mac's

Try a PRAM reset

Turn on the computer. Immediately press and hold the Command Option/Alt p r keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears. Continue holding the keys down until the computer restarts, and you hear the startup sound for the second time. Release the keys.

Then reboot and hold the Command Option r keys down again.

If this doesn't work then I guess your going to have to remove the drive, use a SATA to USB adapter to another computer and erase the entire drive of whatever it installed partially.

And if it still doesn't work, the drive likely needs to be replaced.

I have exactly the same system and symptoms as you do. Except I didn't replace any drives yet, my system just died on me.

When I try internet recovery I also get the spinning globe and finally end up on the blank gray screen.

How did you end up resolving your issue, if at all?

ITS NOT A BLACK OR GREY SCREEN, ITS A F-ING SCREEN SAVER, JUST TRY PRESS SHORTLY THE POWER BUTTON OR MOVE THE MOUSE OR SOMETHING TO RE ACTIVATE THE SCREEN

maczgg94, I have no idea how you have not been upvoted for this. This is the solution that helped me with that. You are a gentleman and a scholar my good sir.