Graphics card problem?

I have a mid 2010 Macbook. 2 days ago whilst streaming video the video started to fade out to white but the audio remained. I had to long press the power switch and reboot but on startup the screen showed the apple symbol after the chime but then froze. This happened about 5-6 times until it booted up properly and I continued to used it for the rest of the evening with no problems.

I powered my Macbook up yesterday and the same thing happened but instead of the apple showing there was just a mesh of crossed coloured lines all over the screen. This time it has taken about 10 attempts to reboot before I can boot correctly and I have now been using it seemingly with no problems since.

I have run the hardware test from my install disk and no errors have been detected and also tried resetting the PRAM. I have had no problems of any kind now for a 36 hours but surely this problem just wouldn't go away?

I called a local engineer who told me that without doing diagnostics it seems as though the video card is on the way out and would need to be replaced. He has just emailed me a quote for the card only which comes to ₤420 + VAT (In which he also described the card as a Logic card?) which is quite worrying as I am no longer under warranty.

Does this seem a reasonable diagnosis with the little information that I have provided and is it really that expensive to get fixed? If anyone can offer me any help it would be very much appreciated.

Hi,

Depending on the nature of the problem, resetting the PRAM may have made it "go away", but if it keeps reoccurring at random times with the same symptoms, it could very well be that the GPU is on its way out which means the logic board will need to be replaced (there is no separate GPU or GPU add-on card on the MacBooks (macbook pros have a dedicated GPU, but it's still soldered onto the logic board AFAIK). The only other possibilities I could think of would be maybe a section of RAM is going bad on one of your chips (remember, your RAM for the graphics is shared with system RAM, but if you did the RAM tests from the diagnostics it should have detected any issues with your RAM) and I suppose it could also be an issue with the lcd connection to the logic board (like if the cables frayed or something). It sounds like you've done the basic checks (diagnostics, PRAM reset, etc.) so if it starts happening again you'll need to bring it in for more advanced diagnostics.

This is one of those times that having Applecare would have really helped you out. I can sympathize though, I haven't purchased applecare on all of my devices so one day I may be in the same boat as you.

Artifacting such as this is most often attributed to faulty GPUs

Thanks for the replies guys.

Keep us updated.