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A1706 / EMC 3071—Released in November 2016, this 13" Macbook Pro introduces the OLED Touch Bar. Features a dual-core "Skylake" Intel Core i5 CPU and four Thunderbolt 3 ports.

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Why is my touchbar and display blank

So I have a 2016 MPB A1706 laptop that has two issues that has flummoxed me.

1) issue one is that the computer will boot up but the screen is black/blank but has backlight (I can even adjust the brightness for differing levels of black, but there is nothing displayed). I can hook up an HDMI and the computer works fine running on a second monitor fwiw.

2) The touchbar is also blank/black. I can use it to adjust volume, backlight on keyboard etc. but nothing is displayed.

Has anyone ever experienced something of this nature? Am I looking at a screen replacement and a touch-bar replacement as well? Or is this some sort of a connector issue, where some sort of cable is not transmitting the data to either the monitor and/or the touch bar?

Answer this question I have this problem too

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5 Comments:

You can resolve this problem??, I have the same problem.

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@spider5000 - Did you follow the answer?

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I agree @danj, thank you so much.

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This is a problem that Apple should recall everybody with MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. The same here in Brazil A1706/2016

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@paulogranja - They did! You just missed it.

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1 Answer

Ouch! This is not good ;-{

Lets see if we can at least get the Touch Bar working again. Often times the T1 chip which is a System On Chip (SOC) which is based on the Apple Watches S1 chip needs a kick in the pants when it goes awry. Lets try a SMC reset following this Apple T/N guide: How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac

Your internal display is a bigger issue as the displays ribbon cables have failed in your case the video lines, as the backlight cable is working from your description (you see a bit of a glow in a dark room from the display).

Here’s a view of the different cables:

Block Image

I’m suspecting you gave your system a good bang along the hinge area which damaged the cable and caused the T1 to get messed up, unlike the stage lighting effect which is more of a design failure of Apples as described here The design flaw behind MacBook Pro’s ‘Stage Light’ effect

Here too you’ll need a new display assembly!

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2 Comments:

I know this is after-the-fact but a major flaw in the MBP 2016 was that the screen cable was too short and frequently failed after exercising the lid for an unknown (but too many) times. Apple should repair this since it was their jistake

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@essin - You are describing - The design flaw behind MacBook Pro’s ‘Stage Light’ effect as I pointed out in my answer.

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icymac will be eternally grateful.
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