I'm on Snow Leopard 10.6.8. When I boot up in Safe Mode, Recovery Mode, or regular boot all I get is a grey screen after the Apple logo. Any suggestions?
Is this a good question?
Rep: 1k
6
5
Sounds like you might have the dreaded graphics failure that many of the 2011 15" and 17" MacBook Pros got. Unfortunately, there isn't a good permanent fix besides replacing the soldered on graphics card, which might not be worth it depending on the cost. Some people have had luck with heating up the graphics cards on these, but it is not a recommended of permanent fix.
Was this answer helpful?
That’s intriguing that heating up the graphics card worked for some people. By heating up, do you mean heating up with a hot air station? If that fixed the problem for some people maybe it’s a defect in the BGA, not the actual card, and a simple reflow fixes the problem if you’re lucky? I’d love to read more about this, if you have any links to anecdotal success stories handy!
@kumowoon1025 From my understanding, it has to do with some of the traces in the GPU going bad, not the BGA. By heating it up, those traces temporarily get reconnected, allowing it to work for a while. A lot of people did this in the oven, but that's not very good for the rest of the board, I wouldn't think. Louis Rossman explained the issue very well, and why it isn't a permanent fix here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AcEt073...
Here is an article on the oven fix: http://ales.io/2014/03/09/how-to-bake-a-...
And here is an alternative solution: https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/...
This was a very widespread problem, and Apple even had a replacement program until last year for these computers. There's a ton of documentation on it, so a search on it should find you a lot more info as well.
Well almost @dastumer ...
The issue is the switching logic that pushes the signal to the external GPU. This is were a tantalum capacitor had degraded. So the logic is stuck. The other issue is the GPU its self having broken down. Reheating alters the Tin in the solder to be conductive again but this is a short term fix it really won't fix the issue. Heat won't fix the bad cap issue which is more likely the problem here!
Past 24 Hours: 0
Past 7 Days: 0
Past 30 Days: 0
All Time: 685
3 Comments
Do you hear the startup tone?
Do you have access to a second Mac which you can connect yours to using Target Disk Mode?
by Dan
Did you attempt an OS/EFI/SMC update or run any potentially destructive commands in the terminal with sudo before this happened? Or did the problem just appear one day?
by Ted
Oh, and try booting with the option key pressed, and see if a list of potential drives show up. This could help in determining if it is a firmware issue.
by Ted