Graphic issues with animations and problem at turning on

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MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2012

Mid 2012 model, A1278 / 2.5 GHz i5 or 2.9 GHz i7 processor.

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Gonzalo @gonzija

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Posted: Jul 8, 2017

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Graphic issues with animations and problem at turning on

It won't turn on without the charger if I'm not holding power for almost 15 seconds, and when the charger it's plugged in I have to press the power button. In both cases, computer enters in a loop and turns on and off three times and then it turns on correctly.

When it's booting with Apple logo, grey background is at a slightly different color while loading bar it's showing and after I enter my password, some horizontal lines appear. Lots of time for loading bar to finish and Finder to load after password.
Sometimes Finder bar is black but then it goes normal
Dock lacks that "transparency", it has a white background.
Any animation (e.g 'Downloads' folder animation at dock) that happens has weird lag and the computer goes so slow.
Some programs are unusable because of those weird black lines like in startup (e.g Google Chrome, Spotify while playing a song, etc.)
Computer turns off when display sleeps WITHOUT charger
Spinning wheel SO often

It seems to be a GPU problem, I tried connecting it to an external monitor and nothing changes. Tried to reset NVRAM and SMC, but it's kinda impossible since it doesn't turn on immediately. Also made an Apple Hardware Test, both short and long scans, nothing detected. Booting in Safe Mode, same problem.

The weird thing is that it happened twice that I turned on and EVERYTHING WAS WORKING GREAT, NO ISSUES. But when restarted it, problems again.

I turned off my computer and the next day was like this, I didn't move it from my desk. I've never spilled anything or hit my MacBook.

Thanks in advance!

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Your systems specs: MacBook Pro 13" 2.9 GHz i7 (Mid-2012)

Jul 9, 2017 by Dan

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Dan @danj Rep: 479.3k Self employed contract worker 35 329 971 · Answer 1 · 2017-07-09T03:39:03-07:00

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Dan @danj

Rep: 479.3k

Self employed contract worker

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971

Posted: Jul 9, 2017

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I'm suspecting you have a few different possible issues here.

To start with if you don't already have one setup lets create an external boot drive. There are two ways you can do this create an OS installer drive or just run Disk utility & the OS installer to prep the drive.

I use both, my backup drive is setup as bootable and I have a collection of 16 GB USB thumb drives with the different OS's as I often need older versions for the older gear I fix.

Once you have your boot drive setup restart your system and hold the Option key to get to the boot manager screen to select it. Reference: Startup key combinations for Mac. Did your system boot up cleanly this way? If it did we need to focus on your drive, if not we need to focus on your logic board.

If the drive is suspect you'll likely need to replace the HD cable and reformat & re-install a fresh OS on the drive. Here's the IFIXIT guide you'll need to follow: MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2012 Hard Drive Cable Replacement & MacBook Pro 13" Unibody (Mid 2012) Hard Drive Cable - Apple P/N 923-0104. I would recommend you first replace the cable before you backup your drive or take advantage of upgrading your drive to a SSHD or SSD and get an adapter like this: Startech 2.5" SATA to USB adapter so you can access your old drive externally.

If you suspect the graphics is having problems you might want to check how much RAM you have in your system and how many apps/windows you have open. Sadly, there is little you can do to fix a bad logic board here. Unlike the 15" models the 13" have intergraded graphics services so you would need a new logic board if that was having problems. Review the specs above for more details.