Dead Macbook Pro?

[mark 'kram' cotterill]

Hi, I have an early 2008 Macbook Pro 2.4 intel core duo and used it
fine on Sunday evening, leaving it to email over a large PDF to work
using battery power. Yesterday morning it appeared that the battery
had run flat as the power light was glowing - suggesting it had
hibernated to preserve its memory. I took it to work and tried
charging, but it simply won't boot up, now. I tried using a new
battery borrowed from a work colleague as well as charging the
original one for a few hours, but to no avail.

the machine starts up, the light comes on and I can hear what I
believe is the sound of the DVD drive whir for a moment as normal, but
there's no hard drive activity and the screen remains blank but you
can hear the fans.

I've tried resetting PRAM, however you don't get a chime and it
doesn't reboot, I've tested it with an external monitor, but nothing
appears and I've tried using FireWire target mode to access my files,
but that doesn't work either.

Having checked Apple forums it appear that there are known issues with
faulty NVIDIA graphic cards and logic board failures around end 2007 /
early 2008 and I wondered if anyone had any similar experiences or
suggestions before taking into the Apple store?

Cheers,
mark

[Dom Barnes]

Go see a Genius. They will do a quick test to see if its the Nvidia card (8600 I think) and replace the logic board for free.

Sounds likely.

Dom Barnes
----------------
http://dombarnes.com

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[Gareth Stokes]

Just had the logicboard replaced on my late 2007 MacBook Pro - free due to Nvidia issue. Apple store were v helpful and it was sorted in 4 days after dropping it off.

G

On 10 Aug 2010, at 23:39, "mark 'kram' cotterill" <markco...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Russell May]

Ditto

Best regards

Russell May
Phone: +44 121 436 6944
Mobile: +44 796 733 7489

[Drew Reece]

Is there any official listing for affected models or graphics card specs that are known to have the flaw?

We have a newer MacBook Pro, but I can't tell if it may have the issue (it seems fine, but I'd rather it didn't fail when we need it, if we can pre empt the flaw & get a free repair).

Re:co

[Dom Barnes]

Reco

Details here
http://www.apple.com/support/exchange_repair/macbookpro.html

I doubt they will do pre-emptive work tho. Why replace components that may not fail? Especially if its a whole logic board.

Worth stating this issue doesn't just affect Mac's, I think it covers other manufacturers who used the same chipset

Dom Barnes
----------------
http://dombarnes.com

[RED 5]

4.0.2 is over half a gigabyte, watch out if you are near the limit of
your download contract.

AC

[Drew Reece]

Cheers,
We have a 9400M so we missed the bad ones.

Re:co

[Derek Buttery]

don't you update via itunes?

On 11 August 2010 17:52, RED 5 <ac....@mac.com> wrote:

4.0.2 is over half a gigabyte, watch out if you are near the limit of your download contract.

AC

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Regards

Derek

[RED 5]

That's true - but the data is still a pretty big old lump no matter how it comes down the pipe.

I might head for a fast WiFi hotspot next time; let iTunes run in the background while I'm in the library.

AC

[Derek Buttery]

just d/l the update now... 348Mb, took around 10 minutes!

[Lee Brayshaw]

Hi all, my power pc G5 has developed a fault. It boots up with the
usual chimes but then immediately goes into sleep mode disabling all
peripherals, keyboard, mouse, monitor etc. and pressing the power
button only wakes the machine for a matter of seconds before it sleeps
again. I can also see red lights on the boards through the front
grille which I don't think were there before. I've tried connecting to
it with my G4 imac by firewire but no luck. Does anyone have an idea
what's wrong?

Thanks in advance
Lee

[Drew Reece]

Sounds like it may be dying,

Remove any 3rd party cards, any extra installed disks etc.
Boot into safe mode (hold shift as it boots), see if it still sleeps.

Try booting from the original install disk into hardware test mode (hold D on boot IIRC), run the extended tests if possible.

Work out where the red lights are with just the clear plastic shield in place, they can be indicating different errors - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2652

It may be time to give it a careful clean with a hoover if you haven't done so before, the power supply is hidden in the base & will get really dusty if you use the mac on the floor. You can get some dust out with a hoover & an air blower & some patience.

Re:co

[Ian Piper]

On 12 Aug 2010, at 15:44, Lee Brayshaw wrote:

My old G4 Quicksilver Mac occasionally has a problem like this. It is caused by the Power Management Unit getting confused. I just have to swing the case door open and hold the PMU reset button down for five seconds, then it boots OK for the next year or so (actually that's probably the next reboot!).

Might be worth checking whether your model is also subject to this problem.

Ian.
--

[lee brayshaw]

Thanks for the comments and advice last week. I did some research on line and took the plunge to see if I could salvage anything.

turns out my G5 Powermac is one of the liquid cooled ones and I've had a leak. I stripped the machine down including power supply and gave it a good clean (should have taken pics in retrospect?. The leak has done a little cosmetic damage to the bottom of the ps outer casing but little other damage that I can see. After reassembly I gingerly but successfully rebooted with some improved results but it shuts down to sleep as before. Process of elimination seems to indicate the coolant has all gone (the black screw cap was loose - not my doing btw, this is a previously owned machine) and there's the problem.

I'm not confident enough to refill the coolant and check for leaks so I wondered if anyone had done this or had it done locally and how much I can expect to fork out. I'm in Coventry.

Thanks

Lee