MacBook Pro won't boot.

klv


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Jan 23, 2011
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Your Mac's Specs
17" MacBook Pro | 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo | 2 GB DDR2 | OS X 10.6.3
Hi.

I have a MacBook Pro 17" (early 2008). Came with Leopard and then upgraded to Snow Leopard.

It has been working properly until recently. The sreen went off a couple of times for no reason a few months ago but it has not happened again.

The problem now is that it gets stuck on the grey screen with the light apple. I tried all the apple suport sugestions. The first time I safe booted, it worked. Then I tried to normal boot again and I'm stuck there, the progress symbol freezes every single time. It wont safe boot any more, gets stuck. If i use the show progress option, it gets stuck just after a nannysomething line. I tried to boot from Snow Leopard DVD and get a kernel panic all the time.

As a last resource, I ordered a new hard drive and new memory from OCW. I already installed them both and I get exactly the same problem. If I boot from DVD, get the kernel panic and if I try to boot from the old drive via USB, gets stuck on grey screen.

I have a time machine backup that i can restore, but i need to get the darn thing to boot. Any idea?

Thank you all.
 

chscag

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2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
It sounds like your 2008 MBP may be suffering from the infamous nVidia GPU failure. The symptoms you describe fit especially since you can't boot from the Leopard DVD. Apple extended the warranty on certain MacBook Pro machines with the nVidia chipset but that has expired. I would give Apple customer service a call and see what they can do for you. Otherwise, the only repair is a new logic board and that could be expensive.
 
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klv


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17" MacBook Pro | 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo | 2 GB DDR2 | OS X 10.6.3
It sounds like your 2008 MBP may be suffering from the infamous nVidia GPU failure. The symptoms you describe fit especially since you can't boot from the Leopard DVD. Apple extended the warranty on certain MacBook Pro machines with the nVidia chipset but that has expired. I would give Apple customer service a call and see what they can do for you. Otherwise, the only repair is a new logic board and that could be expensive.

...yep. I just read about this. I have an apointment with a genius tomorrow. Inhave my fingers crossed. Thanks.
 

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