Chosen Solution
MacbookPro4,1 (17 inch, mid 2008 ) I swapped out my dead logic board (would shut off after 2 seconds) with one I purchased from ebay. The new board has the 2.6Ghz processor, with the revised (G84-603-A2) NVIDIA 8600GT 512MB. I installed Yosemitie onto my SSD without issue. The problem came when booting the OS. Random artifacts will appear after about 10 minutes. It is hard to see in the photos, but looks like a bunch of weird purple swirls. At this point, only the mouse can move around, but nothing else works. I have to perform a hard reset. After that, i become stuck in a Boot-Loop (with a “your computer restarted because of a problem”) message unless I leave the computer off for at least 10 more minutes. I can always boot back into the USB installer even before that 10-minute period, but start seeing pink overlaid on all my windows after a few minutes. The difficult part is that there are no diagnostic reports or logs to refer to. On verbose boot, ‘Previous Shutdown Cause” is sometimes ‘0’, but other times ‘-128’. On Apple Hardware Test, no issues are being reported, even in the extended test mode. Any ideas? I am going to try and test with other operating systems too. Max
error report EDIT 2: The next morning it seems to be worse as shown in the following:
I tried plugging directly into my monitor, even with the internal display cable detached.
Final edit: The graphics card is completely dead now I think. This finally happened. Won’t boot at all:
Probably you have indeed a GPU failure, but best thing to get confirmation would be plugging your Mac to an external monitor or TV. If the artifacts appear there too, that’s the GPU. The first few lines of the error message you get after reboot should also report some reason for the crash but I can’t read from the picture you posted..bad eyes or bad picture ;)
I have had great success with these failing GPUs in the 2011 machines by controlling the integrated graphics GPU using gfxCardStatus Status. https://gfx.io
Ah, yes. The 8600M machines which were recalled due to GPU issues. I’m surprised yours lasted as long as it did. They all seemed to die off within 1-2 years, so you got one of the few that actually managed to last. Yours isn’t showing the telltale signs of hardware trouble (distortion or black screen), so it may be something else. Is the version of MacOS installed patched or officially supported? It may be there’s an issue with patching it on your specific board, so you may need to revert back to an officially supported OS to see. If that doesn’t fix it, the second thing that I would check is the RAM. It uses DDR2, so it may be expensive to test the RAM; consider the potential cost before doing it, especially if you have 2 sticks and can make it a $0 test. However, these generally ship with 1-2GB (1X 1GB or 2X 1GB) and factory 4GB systems are not very common. Check for a boot only and don’t use it as 1-2GB will be very painful or impossible to use. If neither of these fixes it, it’s usually the GPU without exception.
Graphics card no longer works.. You can get a replacement requirement of most likely $250-$300 Unless you can do it yourself The laptop is rare at this time in the history off Apple laptops that go up in value with repair!
