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

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MBP 17'' Early 2009 - Purple lines on screen

Hey guys,

I recently got a MacBook pro 17’’ from early 2009. There are no problems to it, if there weren’t those purple lines on the screen. They are not everywhere, only on completely white spots, and they disappear in the area around the mouse-icon. On start up and shutting down, the entire screen turns green for a sec, when it would be supposed to be black.

In my eyes there are 3 possibilities. It could be the gpu, the display or some problem with the signal (paths on logic board, or cables).

What I tried:

  • When connected to the TV there are no purple lines, while the built in displays shows the lines.
  • When I disconnected the Display and connected the Display from my 15’’ MBP, there where still the same purple lines, so with another working display the problem still occurs
  • Applying hard pressure on the housing on the very left between trackpad and keyboard the purple lines disappear temporarily
  • When applying light pressure on the upper/top plastic part of the RAM-Socket also makes the purple lines disappear temporarily until release of pressure
  • Taking out the logic board, cleaning it and fastening or losening the screws of the cooling system on top of the gpu changes nothing

My solution so far was gluing some foam on the top/upper plastic of the RAM socket, which applies permanent pressure on the main board and eradicates the purple lines.

After googling a lot and looking through a lot of threads here and other places I totally have no Idea what to do. My solution works, but I’d like to have a “real” fix. Display is fine, GPU is fine, so there is something on the mainboard.

Can anybody maybe give me some steps what to do, like places to check for on the mainboard, or maybe some link or anything? I’m happy about any help I get, because right now my macbook is shaking a little bit, because of the slight dent.

Best regards and thank you for any help,

Carl

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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Can you post a few pics so we can see what you are seeing Adding images to an existing question

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Hi Dan,

You are right. I wanted him to follow the logic test cause it is not easy. Louis could give him an idea with his videos.

I retired the answer. Maybe one of the ic's around the ram slots is going bad,maybe something else. Let's see the photos will be more better.

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Hi Dan, I can add a picture tomorrow.

Hi Adel, what kind of ic is near ram socket that i could check? And where would i look those up?

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@bambusbruder - Did you get a chance to take some pics?

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I’d say you got some issues on the board, but it’s a long way to figure out where exactly. It could be on the way out from the GPU to the connector or somewhere in the Mux circuitry where the switching between graphic cards takes place. In any case it’s probably going to be a long and painful troubleshooting even for a skillful tech as graphics part of the board is packed with a zillion resistors and what not.

I’d suggest you try in system preferences to choose the option to always use the high performance graphic card and see if that solves the issue, it might be if it’s Mux related. Good luck :)

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Hi, I already installed the tool from gfx.io and tried out both gpus, the problem is occuriong with both. Does this mean the Mux circuitry is alright? Do you maybe have a link or something where I can look up all the paths between gpu and connector?

Thanks for your reply!

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@bambusbruder You'll have to look for your board number on your logic board (820-xxxx-x) and look for schematics and board view file online. Ax excellent boardview App can be found at http://openboardview.org/

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@arbaman - I think its premature to guess what the problem is without a visual.

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Carl Ahrens will be eternally grateful.
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