2011 Macbook Pro 15", no power, battery indicator flashes 5x?

[DeltaMac]

How long have you had your 2010 MBPro?

New batteries, which will be third-party, sometimes fail

Your symptoms continue to make me think that you have one or both RAM sticks bad.
Bad RAM can cause some really strange issues
The memory slots in those older can turn out to be fragile.
MacBook Pro can be frustratingly picky about RAM.
Make sure it is actually a supported RAM type (PC3-8500 SO-DIMM)

The hard drive cable (that innocent-looking ribbon cable) definitely can cause problems with booting -- and it is a common issue on MacBookPros.

Best way to test RAM is testing in another similar Macbook Pro, where you can boot successfully, and test with something like MemTest.
Another alternative is to "try known-good RAM, of the correct type, from a known good manufacturer, such as Crucial"

Still no booting after that? Logic board then.

 

[JadenQuinn]

Would the RAM from a normal white 2010 MacBook work then? That’s the closest I have to another MacBook Pro of the same type.

 

[JadenQuinn]

I had my MBP working for about a month.

 

[JadenQuinn]

Ok, it's not the hard drive cable, as I still get no "bong" when trying to boot after unplugging the cable completely from the motherboard.

 

[JadenQuinn]

And actually this looks like a genuine Apple battery too, has the "Service only be an authorized Apple service provider" text and everything, which doesn't strike me as something someone that makes off-brand replacement batteries would put anywhere on their product.

 

[DeltaMac]

Would the RAM from a normal white 2010 MacBook work then? That’s the closest I have to another MacBook Pro of the same type.

Yes, 2010 MacBook, and 2010 MBPro both use the same RAM, although the MacBook can have 16GB max. The 2010 MBPro is still at 8GB max. If both have 8GB or less, then it's an easy swap.

 

[JadenQuinn]

Yes, 2010 MacBook, and 2010 MBPro both use the same RAM, although the MacBook can have 16GB max. The 2010 MBPro is still at 8GB max. If both have 8GB or less, then it's an easy swap.

So if I put one of my MacBook's 8GB sticks into the MBP, that should work?

 

[JadenQuinn]

Yes, 2010 MacBook, and 2010 MBPro both use the same RAM, although the MacBook can have 16GB max. The 2010 MBPro is still at 8GB max. If both have 8GB or less, then it's an easy swap.

I tried putting the MBP's RAM into the normal MB and now that machine's status light is blinking what looks like every 2 seconds or so.
The RAM says "PC3-10600S". This is the same RAM this machine was using before so why did all of a sudden decide to not like the RAM?

 

[JadenQuinn]

I also transplanted one 8GB stick from my normal MB into the MBP and it's still doing the same thing.

 

[JadenQuinn]

Ok, so I took a stick from a 2009 Mac mini, which IS actually 8500S RAM, and put one in the top slot, and that made it chime and start to a white screen. This is the state I was talking about earlier where I can bring up the boot picker and go into internet recovery mode, but not much else. The boot picker is kinda useless here, because if I try to boot from anything with it, it does absolutely nothing. Pressing enter, double clicking, and pressing the little up arrow under the disk does nothing. That's the probably the main issue here.
At the moment, I'm trying to boot into internet recovery, but since I only have 1 2GB stick in there, it's taking forever, I'm talking like a half hour.
I only have 1 stick in there because when I tried putting both in for a total of 4GB, the MBP just sat there in the blank screen no chime state like before.

 

[DeltaMac]

You may have one slot bad.
Just use one stick. Try that same stick in each slot. There may be a difference then. (If both slots are good, then you should get the same response from each slot.

 

[JadenQuinn]

Alright I'm in internet recovery mode. What next?

 

[JadenQuinn]

This is the error I get when trying to change the boot disk with the picker in internet recovery mode:

 

[DeltaMac]

Are you certain that you are in internet recovery mode (you see the spinning globe when entering that boot mode, not just the normal Apple icon)? Apple extended that function to the 2010 models (which were one year back when that mode was first released in 2011.) So, it works, but perhaps not completely functional. I don't really know if that is result, but the 2010 models, in fact, had that function added later.
Anyway... "bless tool unable to set current boot disk" often means that the system install is either not complete, or not correctly installed.
Probably will be fixed by reinstalling High Sierra on that partition. Keep in mind that older, spinning hard drives are not optimized for use with High Sierra - mostly because the install will expect an APFS format, and High Sierra works best with an SSD. If you do not have an SSD in that MacBook Pro, then I believe you would make a good choice by replacing an old hard drive with an SSD.

 

[JadenQuinn]

The spinning globe appeared, yes.
It says that error for ANY disk I put in or attach, and it does the same for the original disk that was in there. I really couldn't care less what OS it has on there if it works at all. I won't be using the thing, and actually the HDD that was in there performed above expectations, so I don't need to go out and blow 30 bucks on a cheap SSD.
On my MBP that I do use, I have a 1TB SSD in there that was in another one, but that's a tangent.
I cannot reinstall MacOS if the MacBook doesn't have an internet connection, which it doesn't, which is odd considering it's literally called INTERNET RECOVERY mode, which grabs from the INTERNET, ya know?
Not ethernet nor wifi do anything in this mode. I don't think it was like this when this MacBook worked last.

 

[JadenQuinn]

Also the number of disks I tried is around 10. Yes, I actually have that many laying around.
It also spits out the same error for any bootable flash drives, or anything else.

 

[DeltaMac]

I don't know why the startup disk pane in Internet Recovery might do that (tell you that it can't change to the selected boot disk because of a supposed bless tool issue), but try the Option-boot manager this time, just to check that does -- or does not -- work. I would test two different drives that should be bootable (and that you know work on other Macs)

 

[JadenQuinn]

I don't know why the startup disk pane in Internet Recovery might do that (tell you that it can't change to the selected boot disk because of a supposed bless tool issue), but try the Option-boot manager this time, just to check that does -- or does not -- work. I would test two different drives that should be bootable (and that you know work on other Macs)

Like I said before, the boot picker is useless. No errors, but it doesn’t do anything.

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, I read that already about your previous experience with the boot picker screen.
But, your said that you could boot to internet recovery, and see enough to show the startup disk screen.
So, the screen is on at that time.
So, my suggestion is that when you see that startup disk screen, restart at that time, holding the option key.
Make sure that you have a drive that should be bootable, either internal or external (or both!), just to find out what shows on the bootpicker screen -- if anything...
In my experience, that option-bootpicker screen can sometimes be slow to load in the boot choices, so give it a few minutes to display something.
If you get any choices, don't touch your mouse/trackpad yet. Try pressing your tab key a few times, watching if there is any change showing a possible drive selection. If you can get something that looks like a selection, now press enter/return.
Does anything happen for you when you try that?

 

[JadenQuinn]

What I’m saying is that I CAN and DO bring up the boot picker with the option key, I just can’t do anything in it. I can select a disk, but it doesn’t do anything, rendering the boot picker useless.
Double clicking, pressing enter, nothing changes. I can post a video if that’ll help, but the picker literally does nothing. Like it comes up, I can select a disk, but nothing else. I can’t.. “go into” the disk if that makes sense. It won’t try to do anything with it. If I click the arrow, it darkens indicating I pressed it, but nothing else happens. I can keep clicking it, still nothing.

 

[DeltaMac]

Does the bootpicker update when you make a change to the "bootables", such as unplugging an external drive with a bootable partition, or plug a different drive that is bootable?
If the bootpicker shows bootable devices, and updates when you change the available devices, then not exactly "useless", just not providing all the functions that you might like to use... (yes, I realize that its main job is to allow you to pick a drive, and boot from it. )
I would also suggest that you try plugging in a USB wired keyboard (if you have one), and double check from a known good keyboard, too.

(just a reminder -- this is also the time that you would swap in known-good RAM, just as another test)
There's not much more that you can do -- and your symptoms then point to a questionable logic board.

 

[JadenQuinn]

Does the bootpicker update when you make a change to the "bootables", such as unplugging an external drive with a bootable partition, or plug a different drive that is bootable?
If the bootpicker shows bootable devices, and updates when you change the available devices, then not exactly "useless", just not providing all the functions that you might like to use... (yes, I realize that its main job is to allow you to pick a drive, and boot from it. )
I would also suggest that you try plugging in a USB wired keyboard (if you have one), and double check from a known good keyboard, too.

(just a reminder -- this is also the time that you would swap in known-good RAM, just as another test)
There's not much more that you can do -- and your symptoms then point to a questionable logic board.

Inputs all work, I can move the “selector” over to one or another, disks appear as I connect them, but I can’t do anything with them. I can pick a drive, but I cannot boot from it. Doesn’t go past the boot picker. I select one, press enter, and nothing happens.

 

[IntiazRohan]

Hi, i am also having the same issue on MBP late 2011. Any solutions?

 

[DeltaMac]

If you have tried the various steps in the rest of this thread, then I suspect that you also may need to consider replacing the logic board.

 

[MichaelLAX]

Hi, just thought I'd make an account to let you know that I was able to recover the instructions from the video description via the internet archive (archive.org). Here they are:



Edit: Did some more research on the first method. The first method is what's called an SMC Bypass, among other things it allows your MacBook to boot despite there not being a battery present or the battery being broken. Booting a MacBook in such a fashion is sufficient for backing up your files and such, but your MacBook's fans will run at 100% speed at all times and performance is reduced significantly, making it quite unpleasant for daily usage. It is advisable to just get a new battery instead and replace the broken one. Once you've done that, perform an SMC Reset. Your MacBook should now work properly again.

Thank you for taking the time to join MacRumors just to describe the steps in this deleted video.

Yesterday, I was using my 2009 MacBook Pro to run MS Word 2008 to be able to convert some Word 5.1a legacy files to more modern .docx Word files, for a Redditor attempting to access files from his 800K Mac floppies. I put it to sleep.

Today it would not boot with the 5 flashing battery lights and I got all the way to removing the first RAM board (of two) and it reboots now. I replaced the RAM board and it still reboots!

I will refrain from using Sleep and just Shut Down each time.

I replaced this battery some years ago.

Thank you again!