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Released October 24, 2011 / 2.2, 2.4, or 2.5 GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 Processor

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MacBook Pro won’t start past blank white screen

I have a late 2011 MacBook Pro running on high Sierra. I upgraded from 4 to 8GB of RAM back in August. All of that has been working fine.

However, on Christmas Eve, I ran the 10.13.2 security update. When it finished, it displayed a white screen featuring a circle with a line through it. The IT guy at my work reinstalled High Sierra from a flash drive and it corrected the issue. The computer then ran fine for a week.

However, exactly a week after he fixed it, it randomly shut down while in a word document. When I restarted it, the loading bar would get stuck 3/4 of the way, then go to a blank white screen. The IT guy and my friend who is experienced with Mac’s both tried a number of things. Recovery mode cannot be accessed. Resetting PRAM also did nothing. They now both think it’s a hardware issue like hard drive failure.

I took it to the Apple store and a surface level diagnostic test apparently showed the employee that the hard drive seems to be fine, but because my MacBook is now considered “vintage,” the Genius Bar said nothing further could be tested by them. It could still be the hard drive or a cable but we don’t know. No recovery or safe modes are accessible even to them. It’s only a blank white screen.

My IT guy also hooked it up to another monitor and that only showed the white screen as well, so it’s not an issue with the graphics.

Is there anyone here who might know what I should do?

Should I take it to a third party Mac-specific store? They’ll charge me for diagnostics, but I don’t know how else to determine the issue.

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Hard drive and/or hard drive cable failure. Replace with the 2012 model cable.

MacBook Pro 15" Unibody (Mid 2012) Hard Drive Cable

MacBook Pro 15" Unibody (Mid 2012) Hard Drive Cable Image

Product

MacBook Pro 15" Unibody (Mid 2012) Hard Drive Cable

$19.99

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Sadly, You likely have a graphics services issue. This series has two graphics engines. One within the CPU: Intel HD Graphics 3000 and the second one: AMD Radeon HD 6750M or 6770M

The GPU's power logic on the logic board is likely the failure. There is a tantalum capacitor that tends to fail. You'll need to find someone who can work with SMT components and switch it out. If that fails then the AMD GPU has failed.

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very, very possible on this model. To be sure, disconnect hard drive cable from logic board and boot from external USB drive.

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But didn’t my IT guy disprove graphics issues? He hooked it up to an external monitor and that also displayed a blank white screen. All three – IT, friend, Genius Bar – couldn’t get anything past this blank white screen, though.

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Not really, The switch logic is stuck which is why you get the white image. The output for both graphics engines go out to both displays (internal & external) so this really doesn't prove the issue other than the focus is on the graphics services.

I've dealt with many of these. We basically swap out out the cap for a mica version 85% of the time this fixes it.

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So is my best bet to take it to a third party Mac repair shop? I don’t know how to work on it and they diagnose it for around $80.

Also, the computer shut itself down before the white screen happened. Does that still apply to the issue you’re describing? I was in a word document and it randomly shut down. When I rebooted it, it would reach the white screen then self reboot and go in a constant cycle - shut down, reboot, shut down, reboot... Now it doesn’t go in a cycle, but it just stops at the white screen.

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Here's a good YouTube Vid: MacBook Pro GPU Fault: C9560

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