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rMBP won’t boot! Improvisation needed!

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Jun 16, 2008
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Hi all!

My mid 2012 15” rMPB decided to quit on me during some light browsing. Unfortunately im not able to go to an apple store or technician of somesorts for the next few months so some much needed improvisation is needed!

The symptoms:
-Macbook pro went black during normal use.
-Chime sound after pressing power button, screen stays black.
-Laptop is still charging properly.
-Laptop heats up after chime, which also drains battery life while still being unresponsive.
-Power is still distributed to usb ports. External hdd shows indicator feedback after being plugged in.
-Laptop remains unresponsive when connected to an external display.
-Macbook is responsive to keyboard input. I have already tried booting it in safe mode, single user mode, PRAM reset and SMC reset. Also conducted the third trick as described on: http://osxdaily.com/2014/11/22/fix-macbook-pro-booting-black-screen/ (nothing worked)
-Capslock button is responsive for a second after the chime. After that it’s not.
-I cant hear the fans during boot up. Im aware that they are quiet, however before i could absolutely hear them.

So i have some theories which definitely involve opening it up. This is not preferable because im not in possession of the necessary tools or the right environment to take it apart.

First of all, dust builtup over the years which prevent the fans from spinning up giving negative feedback to the logicboard initiating a safeguard to prevent overheating. Does anyone know about measures like this embedded in the software?

Secondly, a manual smc reset by disconnecting the built-in battery connector. (Has this worked in the past?)

Lastly and unfortunately a terminal theory: the graphics card died. (Fun fact: before this i had a 2007 mbp pro which also died from a failed graphics card)

Help would be greatly appreciated! I hope someone might know an old trick to get it back up and running again. Literally anything at all would be great!

Thanks in advance!
 
If you suspect internal dust buildup, and you can't open it up, you could try using compressed air to blast the dust out. Shoot it in from any air vents you can find.

"Canned air" from an office supply store is unlikely to provide enough pressure, but if it's simple to try, it's worth a shot.

Otherwise you're going to need a source of clean compressed air. A typical air compressor for pneumatic tools could be a bad idea, as they can have oil in them that then ends up getting coated all over the inside of the computer.

As a further thought in "How Things Go Wrong", you could end up blasting dust inside the screen or into the keyboard, which might result in a somewhat expensive repair. It depends on your personal risk/reward tolerance.


On a completely different tack, maybe there's a way to use a Thunderbolt display. Or is that what you meant by "external display"?
 
tompon1923 said:
Hi all!

My mid 2012 15” rMPB decided to quit on me during some light browsing. Unfortunately im not able to go to an apple store or technician of somesorts for the next few months so some much needed improvisation is needed!

The symptoms:
-Macbook pro went black during normal use.
-Chime sound after pressing power button, screen stays black.
-Laptop is still charging properly.
-Laptop heats up after chime, which also drains battery life while still being unresponsive.
-Power is still distributed to usb ports. External hdd shows indicator feedback after being plugged in.
-Laptop remains unresponsive when connected to an external display.
-Macbook is responsive to keyboard input. I have already tried booting it in safe mode, single user mode, PRAM reset and SMC reset. Also conducted the third trick as described on: http://osxdaily.com/2014/11/22/fix-macbook-pro-booting-black-screen/ (nothing worked)
-Capslock button is responsive for a second after the chime. After that it’s not.
-I cant hear the fans during boot up. Im aware that they are quiet, however before i could absolutely hear them.

So i have some theories which definitely involve opening it up. This is not preferable because im not in possession of the necessary tools or the right environment to take it apart.

First of all, dust builtup over the years which prevent the fans from spinning up giving negative feedback to the logicboard initiating a safeguard to prevent overheating. Does anyone know about measures like this embedded in the software?

Secondly, a manual smc reset by disconnecting the built-in battery connector. (Has this worked in the past?)

Lastly and unfortunately a terminal theory: the graphics card died. (Fun fact: before this i had a 2007 mbp pro which also died from a failed graphics card)

Help would be greatly appreciated! I hope someone might know an old trick to get it back up and running again. Literally anything at all would be great!

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

If the fan(s) have not been turning....no doubt it is getting very hot.

Although all modern CPUs have thermal protection... running a machine with no air moving could easily lead to some long term heat damage. Based on the symptoms, I think there would be good chance of hardware failure: either GPU or something else screen related.
 
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Sounds to me more like a GPU or display-related failure than a drive problem.

I'd try plugging in an EXTERNAL display and see if you can get an image on that.
If you do, that would almost certainly "point the finger" at the internal display.
 
Thank you so much for the tips! I will try to take it apart and clean it.

I connected a vga display with a displayport to vga adapter but no joy :(.

Regarding the extended warranty: The program covers affected MacBook Pro models until December 31, 2016 or four years from its original date of sale, whichever lasts longest. Unfortunately I can’t use this.

Thanks so much so far! If anyone else thinks of something, let me know!
 
If you are 100% sure you are not getting any display (on the lcd, external vga ir hdmi) in any mode (normal, recovery, safe and single mode)

I can only say you'd need a new logic board. Which does involve opening the bottom case and actually disconnect everything.

I'm sorry for the bad news.. Just don't throw it away as you can always take out your harddrive to recover your data.
 
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