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Model A1297 Unibody: Early 2009, Mid 2009, Mid 2010, Early 2011 & Late 2011

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Is the machine dead or can it be fixed?

I am working on a MacBook pro 17" that appeared to have an issue with the hard drive. The drive would not load the OS, and would hang at the logo with the progress bar stuck at just a sliver. I have an OS 10.6.8 DVD, which I attempted to boot from. When choosing to install from the network or on the drive, it hangs at the app[le logo screen. There seems to be a minimal activity on the drive, but it does not move beyond the logo screen. The unit will power on and charge the battery, but does not appear to boot into the MAC OS at any point or from any avenue. The unit does get VERY warm on the bottom, where the fans are located. With a replaced drive it has the same issues in that it will not boot into the DVD and start the install.

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Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, the video component failed that is integrated to the logic board. Hence, requires logic board replacement. Even saying so, I would suggest to first unplug the internal SATA cable connected to the logic board and HD, and then try booting up from an external drive. If still observed the same issue, it's none other than the video chip that failed.

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Update

That is a massive engineering flaw Apple made. It confuses a Tech simply to speculate several possible reasons. But the most is that Logic board is absolutely fine with processor. It passes the post. There is no issue in regard to accessing power to the battery or accepting power from battery. It provides signals to most of the components but the GPU can't load its drivers because it is failing. Computer looks just fine as the fans are well working, unit seems to be booting up but just got stuck at Apple Logo or gray screen the spinning wheel stopped spinning. If Apple had designed replaceable GPU, it would have cost us around $100 or less. Now that it has been integrated and is failing, it can't load any video components or drivers. I wish it never happened. It's a massive steal. A $100 repair gonna cost about $600 or even more if we intend to get brand new logic board. It's a corporate level computing malpractice. I'm posting an article about this issue tonight at http://gopuru.com Please comment after 9PM Eastern Time.

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2 Comments:

Puru, I am pretty new to the whole Mac scene, but why would a GPU cause an error like this "unit will power on and charge the battery, but does not appear to boot into the MAC OS at any point or from any avenue. The unit does get VERY warm on the bottom"?

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It does make sense that it could be the logic board. I have had issues with MACs in the past, and that seems to have been the primary culprit. When completely disconnecting the drives and only booting to the CD or a USB drive, the machine exhibits the exact same problematic behavior. Nice that the board failed just after the warranty did.....

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