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It's dead Jim!...2008 Macbook Pro seems to have died.

mikedt

mikedt

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Got a 2008 model 15inch Macbook Pro. Was working yesterday, but today seems to be dead. When one presses the power button, the DVD makes a noise, can hear the fan running, but that's all, screen remains dark, no Mac 'bong!' sounds. Tried removing the battery etc, and running it on mains or battery still the same. I would guess that the mainboard(Logic board as Apple calls it) is at fault here. A new mainboard would probably be prohibitively expensive for an almost 4 year old Mac.

Was wondering if there was anything else I should try before giving it a final send-off and the last rites?

Will probably get a Lenovo laptop and put Linux Mint on there, rather than getting another Mac.
 
2008 MBP - Hmm - I'm guessing that it originally came with Tiger or the very first Leopard release, eh?

Try finding an EFI tool online to see if you can revive it - If it is not EFI, then yah, prolly a new laptop is in your future.
 
Already tried the various key combinations for resetting EFI, BIOS, safe-mode etc., still dead.

I did find this Apple KB..
MacBook Pro: Distorted video or no video issues
About defective Nvidia graphics chips in MBPs. So will give Apple a call later, hopefully get a free repair if it is the graphics chip at fault.

Yeh it was one of the first Leopard Macs. Purchased it in the UK back in April 2008. I actually bought an Apple laptop, because I didn't want to be dealing with Windows Vista.
 
I figured as much - when I set up a lab full of 2007 iMacs, they had tiger, but the lab was not actually set up until Summer 2008, and by that time Leopard had come out.

I used a tool called rEFIt to create a boot menu for the system, since we had bootcamp splitting the HD for Leopard and XP, for users that would not be able to figure out how to get into XP when it booted into Leopard. In conducting that research back then I found there was a way to get it to at least boot into the basic EFI if nothing else, but I never explored anything else since we never had the issue pop up.

Good luck on the video card troubleshooting....is it a 200M series card?
 
johnlgalt said:
Good luck on the video card troubleshooting....is it a 200M series card?
Click to expand...

It's an 8600M. From what I can gather there's a reliability problem with them, a manufacturing defect in the chip or bonding. Seems that any laptop using this chip can be affected, not just Apple. So hopefully it is the video in my MBP which is defective(faulty workmanship), and can get a warranty repair from Apple in China.

BTW we do have a sort of 'Apple Store' in Xilinhot, it opened a few months ago, I think it's one of those fake ones, selling grey imports. Probably will have to ship the laptop to Beijing.
 
Ahhh, I didn't think about the time frame. 200M chips had an overheating problem b/c people were getting bad drivers that allowed for OCing and / or full power usage instead of the limited usage typically allowed for the mobile chips.

ISTR now that the 8600M series had that problem, and you're right, hopefully Apple should be able to either repair / replace your MBP.

Keep us posted.
 
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