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Hello, I have a macbook that powers on, you can hear the startup chime but shows no video. I can clearly see that it sends signals to display, because once I turn it on the screen becomes slightly darker than before, but there’s no video after that. The fan connector on the motherboard is broken, so it heats up really fast and then shuts off. Plugging minidisplay port did nothing, still no signals(I guess it’s useless because it recognizes the video only once it fully boots up, plus this macbook has no hard drive with mac os x installed, so I guess I can’t get it to connect to my monitor and try it out whether gpu is alive) . The display is 100% working along with all the cables and everything inside it. I would like to know if the GPU is dead or maybe there’s some sort of other problem that could fix it? (I have an external fan which I use for the computer to cool it down during power up)
Go ahead and hook it up to an external. You should at least get a folder with a question mark. Without a fan it will automatically shut down when it get to hot to protect itself. With no internal or external drive, no programs and no system you can’t use it anyway. Shine a flashlight at an angle to the screen and see if you can discern that flashing folder. UPDATE: You mean there WAS an oily residue? Eureka! If so, your heat sink has sprung a leak and no longer cools correctly. It will need to be replaced and the thermal paste replaced. Here’s how: MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2010 Heat Sink Replacement Here’s the part: MacBook Pro 13" Unibody (Mid 2010) Heat Sink Here’s how to do the thermal paste: How to Apply Thermal Paste Here’s the paste: Arctic Silver Thermal Paste
