I really need your help.
My MacBook 2,1 (Core 2 Duo, GMA950, 2GB DDR2, OS X Lion 10.7.5) was working just fine a few days ago, now when I plugged it in it gave me a white screen. Here are the specific symptoms
- Gives chime
- Cannot boot from recovery (holding alt just gives me a cursor which moves very slowly)
- Resetting SMC did not work
- Turns off immediately when power button is pressed (after the white screen happens, like it wont hesitate to turn off)
- Fans start ramping up after a minute, and it's been 5 minutes and nothing has seemed to change.
It had a Kingston SSD, which I heard are prone to failure. However, I didn't see any signs of failure prior to this
I did change the partition sizes on the drive the last time I used it, but not a lot
What should I do?
Offhand, do you happen to have relative access to another legacy Mac — one with a FireWire port? This is getting to be a taller ask nowadays, just as it is for asking whether one has one of the FireWire-to-Thunderbolt adapters/dongles handy.
If so (or not, but willing to think through troubleshooting along these lines), two of three paths I might consider in your situation (ironically, I happen to have a working late 2006 running 10.7.5 but with an HDD and 3GB RAM I’m trying to sell) involve the FireWire bus in some capacity.
The familiar power-on chime is an indicator the Power-On Self Test, or POST, passed (namely, checking logic board core components like memory controller, RAM sticks, GPU, etc.). So if that’s heard, the problem is probably downstream of that.
Path #1: external HDD/SSD drive for booting, using FireWire. Have a bootable
Snow Leopard 10.6.8 on an external FireWire drive. Connect it, and hold Option to check whether that volume comes up as bootable.
Boot from that.
If the system fails to boot or Option doesn’t turn up anything, then this is a sign there’s something afoot with the MB’s hardware itself. If it succeeds, then the culprit probably lies with the internal drive your MB is using (from the sound of it, that drive is an SSD).
If so, it could be drive hardware failure (SSDs do fail, including the Apple-supplied ones from later, retina-era Macs).
To be sure, pull out the MB’s hard drive and swap in another hard drive, such as the one you used, if so, to boot from FireWire. If it boots correctly, then the problem is probably with the pulled drive and it will probably need to be replaced. In my experience with a failing SSD, which both fortunately and unfortunately is a total of once, power-on and attempts to boot to a verbose screen or a grey Apple icon don’t go well. (I say “unfortunately” only in that I lack experience beyond the one time with that specific SSD). What I can say is when an SSD fails, it is often catastrophic, complete, and abrupt. Recovery of contents, if vital, may be incredibly difficult, if not near-impossible.
Path #2: put the MacBook into FireWire Target Disk Mode and mount that on another working Mac. Once more, FireWire may be of help. In this case, boot the MacBook into Target Disk Mode. Mount it on another Mac running
at least Lion or later (FireWire-to-FireWire or FireWire-to-Thunderbolt, via that Apple FW-to-TB adapter/dongle). Check to see whether the drive in the MacBook mounts. If not, the drive has probably failed. If so, then at minimum, run Disk Utility on the mounted FireWire drive. Work from that info.
Path #3: use another external HDD/SSD with a known, working build of OS X into the MacBook current drive’s stead. This is probably simpler than fussing about with FireWire, and possibly easier. It does require an HDD or SSD which has at least Leopard or later (and if Leopard, then a Leopard build from an Intel Mac, not one from a PowerPC unit). Again, if that fails, then this points to something hardware-related on the MacBook.
I have a hunch this is a failing SSD, especially if you’re unable to reach the Recovery partition on a system which worked previously. That should work if the usual boot volume had some kind of problem after a non-clean shut-off/crash. It’s a sign the SSD controller is either kaput or no longer able to access one (or more) of the NVRAM storage modules on the SSD.
Update: unlike
@DeltaMac ’s hypothesis, I find the common theme with a failed logic board — and, thus, a failed system in need of retirement or, more adventuresome, finding a working logic board to replace it — is the board won’t POST, and in several cases won’t even power on. That your MacBook did power on, with POST chime, bright screen, and fans, suggests the logic board is functioning at its most basic level.
If, however, you can’t get to the blue Option-boot screen (as in, it won’t even show up when holding down Option at powering on), then something else, such as a failing GPU might be a culprit (odd, since as crappy as the GMA950 is, isn’t really known for GPU failure like some of the Radeon and GeForce GPUs from Macs around this time).