02-19-2008, 09:45 PM

The last few days, every 3rd time or so from waking my macbook pro from sleep, the screen refuses to turn on. I can use all the keyboard functions like volume and things, so I can tell its on, but all I see is black.

Anyone know why?

02-19-2008, 10:34 PM

Originally Posted by hobs707

The last few days, every 3rd time or so from waking my macbook pro from sleep, the screen refuses to turn on. I can use all the keyboard functions like volume and things, so I can tell its on, but all I see is black.

Anyone know why?

I've been having the same issue. I can't say that it happens every 3rd time and I can't pinpoint what is causing it. Starting to remind me of Windows days...... I can't remember if I had the issue with Tiger since I didn't have Tiger on here for very long.

02-20-2008, 12:02 AM

add another for me, i've been having this problem.
First i had istat pro on it and some people said that istat pro was the problem, but before uninstalling it i called apple and everything was fine with my macbook pro, they gave me a claim number so i could get it replaced if it happens again.
and after hanging up it happens again, this time i decided to uninstall istat pro and it worked, but i loved having istat pro so i installed istat nano and for about a week no problems, but today it happens 3 times in a row, so I just uninstalled istat nano and well see if it fixes the problem.

02-20-2008, 11:49 AM

I have had the same problem. Uninstalled the istat pro, and problem went away.

They are aware of the problem and trying to sort it out.

http://forums.mactalk.com.au/showthread.php?t=39612

Rob

02-20-2008, 01:17 PM

it happened to me too, but I don't have istat pro install. I just got the MBP two days ago, and I noticed if i put it to sleep for more than 1 hour, it won't wake up...

02-20-2008, 06:25 PM

Originally Posted by hobs707

The last few days, every 3rd time or so from waking my macbook pro from sleep, the screen refuses to turn on. I can use all the keyboard functions like volume and things, so I can tell its on, but all I see is black.

Anyone know why?

You need to reset the Power Management Chip on your computer. Ive called Apple because I had the same problem. They say this is the only fix. And I don't think it will fix it indefinitely. You might have to do this every once in a while.
Here are the Intructions

01-23-2009, 12:56 AM

Any new developments with this problem? When this problem occurs on my MacBook Pro, it seems like the backlight doesn't come on after the laptop wakes from the screensaver or sleep. You can see the desktop...just a little. The screen is like Dark Gray foreground on a Darker Gray background.

The quick remedy that I've found is to close the lid/display and open it back up. Once I do that, the screen is lit again.

04-10-2010, 06:54 PM

today i went to turn my computer on and it boots up i can hear it running but the screen wont come on its just black like it is when its off and it worked fine last night i took the battery out and put it back it and still no screen but the computer is running.
Can someone please help

04-16-2010, 05:10 PM

There are potentially two different issues being discussed on this thread and I may have a fix for one of them. Three or four times in recent weeks, my MacBook Pro (w. Snow Leopard & 17" screen) awakes from sleep with a dark screen. If you look very closely, you can just make out the image but the back light is off. The screen brightness keys do not fix the situation. Today, instead of rebooting it as before, I decided to hook up my projector to do a graceful shutdown. As fate would have it, before I even tried this I was interrupted and left the house for an hour.

Happily, upon return, the problem had resolved itself. It appears that one fix for this issue is... patience - somewhere between 2 and 60 minutes (hopefully on the short end).

05-04-2010, 04:00 PM

It happened on my MacBook. I shut it down, disconnected power, removed the battery and held down the on/off key for twenty seconds, put it together and re-started. It has not done it since. Now my MacBook Pro is doing the same thing. When I get the chance, I will try the same thing.

06-16-2010, 09:37 AM

I also have the same problem. I used to close the lid and wait a few seconds, open the lid again and it would return to normal.

08-17-2011, 08:07 AM

Originally Posted by davenelsen

There are potentially two different issues being discussed on this thread and I may have a fix for one of them. Three or four times in recent weeks, my MacBook Pro (w. Snow Leopard & 17" screen) awakes from sleep with a dark screen. If you look very closely, you can just make out the image but the back light is off. The screen brightness keys do not fix the situation. Today, instead of rebooting it as before, I decided to hook up my projector to do a graceful shutdown. As fate would have it, before I even tried this I was interrupted and left the house for an hour.

I was in the same issue and have left some open documents unsaved - very important to me. Other times when that happened I used to push the power button till mac shut down and restart it. But this time with unsaved projects, that was the last thing to do. This time I was a little patient. Tried to reach through share screen my mac book from my mac pro, I connected but I yet got the black screen. So, I calmed down and thought for a while. It was obvious to me that the computer worked but it was a screen light problem. With each keystroke in the keyboard I was heard the sound like I press something wrong. At that moment I just thought to press the esc button. Usually with this I can escape from opened windows that are not accepting a forward option. With the Esc, my display went totally black and computer went back to sleep. After 1-2 minutes, I started again the procedure to wake him up. And voila macbook pro wakes up!

11-29-2011, 06:54 PM

I just got off of the phone with Apple's Express Lane. Apparently, quite a few Mac Book Pros had a bad video card. If the NVidia (sp?) card failed, there is probably no charge for this card if it failed, but you would need to take it to an Apple store or authorized repair place.

The tech rep gave me these steps to restore the screen:

Shut down computer by holding down the power button for 10 seconds

Remove battery and power cord

Hold down power key for 5 seconds

replace battery and replug the power cord into Mac.

He had me try this procedure to restore the screen:
With your left hand: press the "option", "command", and "r" buttons at the same time (with the computer off)
With your right hand: Press the power button and then immediately switch to press and hold the "p" with your right hand.

You'll hear 2 bongs about 5-8 seconds apart when it starts instead of the normal 1 bong. After the second bong, release all of the keys.

If the screen starts up normally, it wasn't the card. If it happens again, try the same procedure. If it continues to be a black screen, it might be the card.

03-10-2012, 11:05 AM

I know this thread is old but I was having the same issue. I would close my MBR and when I went to go back to use it I would briefly see a login screen and then it would go black. Once in a while I could get it to stay on if I opened and shut my screen numerous times. I tried all the suggestions on this thread (and others) but no luck. Anyway I tried using OnyX for 3 days now I have not had any issues. I'm not sure which utility actually helped but like I said, so far it's working great. You can get it at OnyX (Lion) for Mac - Download.com