Mac mini 2011 Pink stripes over boot screen

Did you find a solution to the issue or a reason that was causing the striped screen? I've got MacBook Pro 17" 2.4 GHz quad-core i7 (Late 2011) that has recently started to act very much the same way as you've described, that is various funky graphical errors (blue screen, different colored striped screens, jittering/flickering screens) always ending with total system crash. I also seem to be able to get it boot again as you've noted, going through the recovery mode and letting it run with the grey screen for a while. Then it works for a while till it crashes again. I seem to reproduce the error more often when I connect my external monitor to it, then it crashes in matter of half an hour or less. I suspect it's the graphics card, but not sure which one for this model came with two of those, an integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 and AMD Radeon HD 6770M.

I also have a Mac Book Pro 17" and tried everything I found online. Don't know what did the trick but that's what I did:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/betanews.com/2016/12/15/blank-screen-cursor-macos-u pdate-fix/amp/

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/18776-stuck-at-localhost-root-in-boot-aka -single-user-mode/

Reset PRAM

(Steps above multiple times)

And finally I tried to remove the battery (not easily done) so I found the battery check button - left side by tiny green lights)

Pressed it twice, powered off, powered back in and KAPOW! It's working. Hope you have good luck with that.

My external hard drive is also kaput, so as I type (from my phone), I'm backing it up to the cloud and after that I will upgrade the system. Hoping for the best.

Please let me know if this works for you.

Hi, sounds like it's overheating, have you blown the dust out lately?

See if you can run AHT by holding D key at bootup.

One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode...

PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive

Reboot, test again.

If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport, or some USB or Firewire device, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts (Users & Groups in later OSX versions)>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed. Or an errant process eating up RAM.

Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.

Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...

/private/var/run/StartupItems

/Library/StartupItems

/System/Library/StartupItems

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons

/Library/LaunchDaemons

Hi,

I started experiencing the same thing yesterday with my 27 imac (mid 2011).. were you able to resolve your issue?

Similarly, AHT doesn't report any problem (both standard and extended)

Now I'm not sure if there's any relation but about 2 months ago my AppleCare was about to expire so I decided to bring in my perfectly working machine to the Apple store for cleaning/checkup maintenance just to be sure things were in good order before my warranty goes out. They then discovered there was a problem with the LCD and so they replaced it only to find out that there was a dead pixel! so I brought it back immediately.. they identified the problem and replaced with another LCD screen. After the second replacement, everything seemed to check out fine then a few days came by and my AppleCare warranty had lapsed.

I'm surprised that just after 2 months of having my machine checked out by Apple, my iMac is now acting up! I sure hope this isn't another hardware problem! especially now that I no longer have AppleCare.

UPDATE: Was able to boot in safe mode - I removed all other USB connections except for bluetooth mouse and wired apple keyboard. Ethernet cable is still attached. Doing some disk utility checks now.. and will try BDAqua's suggestions..

OK, keep us posted please. 🙂

Ok, so just to recap - I removed all connections except for Ethernet, USB keyboard and USB bluetooth mouse and booted in Safe Mode – interestingly, there were no pink stripes. While I was on Safe Mode, I did "Verify Disk Permissions" and found a list of permission warnings (unfortunately, I forgot to list down the warnings) went ahead with Repair Disk Permissions and then rebooted the machine normally and everything checked out fine. I shut down, reconnected all my devices and booted again normally and still checked out fine. I left the machine idle for a couple of hours and I came back it's still ok.

I forgot to mention on my previous post that there were pink stripes while I was running the Apple Hardware Test and still it didn't report any problems! so I sure hope the issue is really just with the disk permissions..

Safe Boot clears a lot of Caches as well as doing a Directory Repair, so those might be the reason also. 🙂

PINK STRIPES ARE BACK!!! CRAP!

Woke up my computer from sleep mode today and then a few minutes after the screen started to flicker again then it froze!

I restarted the machine and the pink stripes are back! I removed all cables except from USB keyboard and still had the same problems!

Ran AHT and it passed both standard and extended test!!!

So the question is, how is it that there are pink stripes on the screen and yet AHT is still passing?

Hi CNorth90, were you able to resolve your problem?

Hey everyone who bought Mac Mini or MacBook Pro in 2011 or early 2012 I believe it should be a simple PRAM battery dead issue.

I have the same issue on my late 2011 mac mini, suspecting the same I am to take it to the store on Saturday. Have tried the pram options and AHT no problem reported nothing worked permanently.

Power off for 15 secs and then back on - worked once and it was working perfectly for 4 hours even reboot worked but the very next boot after an interval failed.

I chatted with apple support and they asked be to take it to the store.

Only thing I am surprised is why is this issue not in any technical section as this looks to happen to may people.😟 and 😮

I will post back after the store visit.