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Broken MPB

robrose20

robrose20

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 5, 2007
275
0
I want to take a poll. I purchased a new SR MBP on June 14th. Yesterday it dies. The grey screen of death. Has anyone else had that problem?

I have used apple products since 1983 when I got my first IIe, and I have never had a problem with any of their products. I am currently left with my trusty G4 Quicksilver which is going strong after almost 6 years. This thing lasted less than two months then boom.

Also, another thing I noticed was that it never really was as smooth as my G4. It always seemed to stall, sputter a bit, I don't know if it is because the Mac OS is not completely optimized for the Intel processor or what, but my G4 operated very smooth. The Intel system didn't have the same feel.

Don't get me wrong, I love the MBP and am currently going through withdrawel, I am just very upset that it is broken, and am somewhat dissappointed with its overall "feel" compared to my G4.
 
If you have been using Apple products since 1983 I'm sure you'll have heard of a Kernal Panic. That is what the grey screen is.

Rarely happen - usually related to a hardware problem, but can be triggered by software too.

If it happens again soon (within the next few weeks) run a few hardware tests to make sure you don't have dodgy RAM.
 
How do you fix a kernal panick? I tried resetting the SMC, PRAM, NVRAM, Rebooting from DVD, nothing helped. I finally took it to the Apple store today and they took it in for repair.

Thanks
 
A kernal panic is just an error - there isn't a "fix" like you fix a pipe that has a hole in it.

You need to find the cause of the kernal panic, as I said, could be a one off opps, or could be a hardware problem, or even something you've installed clashing with someone else.

I used to get a few kernal panics when trying to use my Firewire mixer with Parallel's loaded; because Parallel's automatically connected to it while OSX was using it and the thing crashed.

Just because you get a kernal panic, doesn't mean you need to take it in to be repaired - it is just your computer telling you that something went wrong and it couldn't recover from it.

If you've only had 1 kernal panic, then there is nothing to worry about. If you are getting them repeatably, then it is obvious you have a problem.
 
The problem is that I couldn't recover from the kernal panic. I tried everything, reseting the SMC, PRAM, Reinstalling the operating system, I could not resolve the grey screen of death. The machine would not boot. When I mean "fix a kernal panic" I mean how do I get the machine to boot when you get one? I couldn't. Thanks!
 
It seems like these days people tend to marginalize kernel panics.

If I ever had a kernel panic on any of my boxes running some variation of Unix/Linux I would immediately backup my data and transfer it somewhere else.
 
robrose20 said:
The problem is that I couldn't recover from the kernal panic. I tried everything, reseting the SMC, PRAM, Reinstalling the operating system, I could not resolve the grey screen of death. The machine would not boot. When I mean "fix a kernal panic" I mean how do I get the machine to boot when you get one? I couldn't. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Ah - well when people get a kernal panic it tells you to power down and restart your machine because it couldn't recover from the error (hence why a restart is required).

So, when you turned off your MBP as instructed, and turned it back on again, it wouldn't boot at all...?
 
sounds like you covered your bases. Do you by chance have something hooked up to it? Or installed some RAM or something? If so try removing anything third party and try to start again. After that I'd say to tried it all and you may want an Apple Genious to look at it.
 
I had an external firewire drive attached, and I was in the process of installing boot camp (big mistake). I had aborted the install because it was allocating my entire hard drive for the windows operating system, instead of the 20 gb I specified. When it restarted on its own I would just get the grey screen. I disconnected the drive, tried again, and did everything I mentioned above. Nothing worked. What is interesting is that there was no writing on the screen, just a blank gray screen everytime I booted.

I did have a mac genius look at it and he just did the same things I did at home and he couldn't get it to work. Its in for repairs. I will keep you updated.

Thanks!
 
A kernel panic isn't just a blank grey screen; you'll get a message like this:

Kernel_Panic-1p0f.png


Your grey screen is because it appears you have overwritten the OS when you were installing Windows XP.

You'll need to put in OSX CD 1 and boot off it (hold down C) and run Disk Utility and format the whole hard drive to HFS+ and then install OSX again.

You did not suffer a kernel panic - your computer cannot boot because you over-wrote the OS.
 
henhowc said:
It seems like these days people tend to marginalize kernel panics.

If I ever had a kernel panic on any of my boxes running some variation of Unix/Linux I would immediately backup my data and transfer it somewhere else.
Click to expand...
If people are underestimating kernel panic's, i'd say you're overestimating them - a single panic isnt a reason to run a complete backup and a series of diagnostic tests to find the cause. If it happens multiple times in a short timespan, then it might be worth looking at. But a one-time event is no reason to panic yourself :p
 
I tried booting from the system disk by starting with the C pressed, it would not boot. I tried starting it from a network device, I tried starting it as a target firewire drive and it wouldn't work. Any other suggestions?
 
robrose20 said:
I tried booting from the system disk by starting with the C pressed, it would not boot. I tried starting it from a network device, I tried starting it as a target firewire drive and it wouldn't work. Any other suggestions?
Click to expand...

Tried pressing it as soon as you hear the chime?
 
Tried everything....

I miss my poor MPB, I think I am going through withdrawel.....

oh the humanity ...
 
Well, I got my MBP back. All the data on the hard drive was lost, they had to factory image the computer. Apparently the firmware had become corrupted. They couldn't give me a definate explanation when I picked up the computer.

It has a new problem, now there is a flicker in the display. This wasn't there when I dropped it off to be fixed. I heard of problems with the new display firmware install, could this be related?

Thanks
 
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