Chosen Solution
Hi! I’ve got a MacBook which boots and works fine about 1 in 30 times I try to power it on, and the other 29 it makes bootup noises (but no chime), the optical drive revs up, the power light stays on, but nothing else happens. When it works occasionally, it works 100%, and stays on pretty much till I power off. The original owner was told by Apple that it’s a GPU problem. I’ve tried different memory, replacing the DC-in, PMU and PRAM resets, and nothing seems to make a difference or improve the 1/30 ratio. I don’t suspect the screen, because, again, when it works, it works. I’m just curious if anyone has any thoughts before I give up and assume it’s a bad board. If you want to see the machine, below is the video I’m using to sell it on EBay. I’ve been selling lots of MacBooks for parts lately, and would much prefer to sell this as a working machine! :-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTiwLudfF…
Since you sell lots of machines for parts, you might have a display port adapter hanging around? Have you tried booting the machine with it connected to an external display? What we’re testing is if there is a loose connection to the display itself, or perhaps broken wiring from lots of open/closing of the laptop. It still sounds like the machine’s graphics processor is pooched, which I believe is part of the logic board?? (don’t quote me on that one though…)
It sounds like it might be an intermittent connection. You could try cleaning the memory sockets and remaking the cable connections. If that fails I suspect you do have a bad logic board. Ralph.
Check the battery, it may be popped out slightly.
You mention everything but the hard drive. Have you tried booting to an external, or a CD? You must have!
Hey, I have exactly the same issue here. First I think I wittnessed it becoming worse about 2 years ago. Then had it running for months without rebooting. I tried different harddrive, ram, disc-drive and battery, but it stays the same. In my case the screen flashes once for about a millisecond when I try to turn it on. My MacBook also won’t wake up from suspend, so I really have it to stay turned on. Did you get on with yours?
It’s probably your logic board. Same thing happened to me a few months ago before taking it in to Apple.
Hi. I had the same problem on a A1181. I just removed the hard drive and then booted from a Snow Leopard USB bootable Stick. Since the screen turned on, it seemed it was a hard drive issue. So I Installed that hard disk on another Macbook, which didn’t boot. Finally, I solved it by installing a new hard drive on it and just worked. Hope it work for you. Good luck!
