Computer won't boot. Has power but no POST

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MacBook Core 2 Duo

Model A1181: 1.83, 2, 2.1, 2.13, 2.16, 2.2, or 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo processor

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Tulaweb @tulaweb

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Posted: Sep 7, 2012

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Computer won't boot. Has power but no POST

Last night I closed the lid to put it to sleep, and just before it was closed I remembered something I wanted to do and opened it back up. It seemed to be asleep but would not wake up. I was able to power it down by holding down the power button. It would then not boot up. Pressing the power button causes the light on the front to come on. and the fans come on, but it does not go to POST. There is no startup chime, no video at all. I tried plugging in an external monitor and nothing. I’ve turned out the lights to be sure there was absolutely no video. I tried booting it in target mode and nothing. I tried booting from a system disk, and I can hear the disk start to spin for a short time but it does not boot and will not eject. I have tried pressing the eject key while booting I have tried letting it sit powered on for an hour. I have tried with power and no battery. I have tried battery and no power and I have tried both. I have tried removing the battery, holding down the power button for 10 seconds, then plugging in the magsafe adapter, then holding another 10 seconds, then trying to power on. I have tried reversing the two memory chips. I have tried both of them individually in each of the slots. I swapped the hard drive with another known working MB Pro and it works fine in the other one while the unbootable MB Pro still won’t boot. Is there anything besides a logic board that I haven’t tried? Any suggestions for getting the system disk out of the optical drive, other than putting the drive in a different computer?

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originalmachead @originalmachead

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Posted: Sep 8, 2012

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Boot while holding down the space bar, that should toss out the disk. Attach a mouse boot while holding down the mouse button, same thing. If nether work you might try snagging the disk with part of the lead edge of a damaged or new blank disk & some thin double sticky tape.

Go over all your connectors, remove the battery and power main. Let sit overnight. Connect the magsafe and try a boot...

Didn't see you listed trying a "safe" (shift) boot.

Try different RAM or the RAM in a different machine.

If none of those work, I'd have to agree logic board... though from your description I don't know how you might have damaged it.

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2 Comments:

I hadn't tried safe boot. With no POST it seemed like it wouldn't work. I tried it now and indeed it didn't. I'll see if I have another machine the uses the same RAM. In the meantime I'll let it sit over night with no battery or power and see what morning brings. Booting while holding the space bar didn't eject the disk. Again I don't think it's getting far enough along to see the keyboard except the power button.

Sep 8, 2012 by Tulaweb

Some machines (for a variety of reasons) do not give a "bong" or chime when starting, but will still boot. . .

Sep 9, 2012 by originalmachead

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I hadn't tried safe boot. With no POST it seemed like it wouldn't work. I tried it now and indeed it didn't. I'll see if I have another machine the uses the same RAM. In the meantime I'll let it sit over night with no battery or power and see what morning brings. Booting while holding the space bar didn't eject the disk. Again I don't think it's getting far enough along to see the keyboard except the power button. — Tulaweb
Some machines (for a variety of reasons) do not give a "bong" or chime when starting, but will still boot. . . — originalmachead

Jim @jim23483 Rep: 1 · Answer 1 · 2013-06-01T07:25:45-07:00

Macs are ram fussy so you might try this (especially if you do not have extra ram sitting around):

1) Remove the inner ram chip and try to boot.

2) Replace the outer ram chip with the one you already removed and try to boot.

The point is that either ram having a problem doesn't permit booting. Issue could be with the ram itself or its socket or even that it needed to be reseated.

Watch the white lite in front for indications while you are doing this - the speakers do not always beep for bad ram.

About RAM: because Macs are ram fussy, use Crucial, Micron, or Hynix modules. Generic and cheap ram usage is asking for problems.

About the optical: the failure rates of the slot loading opticals in Macs is atrocious. Complicating that is they often won't give you back your disc. Since the discs are often worth more than the drive, remove the drive and carefully remove the top cover to retrieve your disc - then discard the optical drive and get a tray loading USB or firewire optical drive. Secondly, your OS discs should be used a sum total of once - that once should be to clone the disc to a USB jump drive (8gb should suffice for each disc). If you ever need to start from scratch again, option start to the USB jump drive. You need first to format the USB jump drive to GUID via Disc Utility.

About SLEEP: I've been harping about this for years - NEVER repeat NEVER sleep your Mac. Set your preferences to allow the display to sleep per your choice, allow the HD to sleep, but set your computer for sleep to "NEVER". Set your preferences panel to disallow the power button to sleep the computer as well. Your Mac will boot from "off" in about 30 seconds and booting sets your machine for proper running. "Shut down" finishes what it was doing without interruption - unlike "sleep". This post of a problem just proves the point again.