Macbook Pro loads apple logo and immediately shuts off

Good afternoon Mac Forums,

I have a mid 2010 MacBook pro, and it has always worked like a charm, until I noticed the battery was swelling. I took it in for service, but decided I didn't want to spend the 190 on a new apple battery (especially on a laptop I may replace in a few months) and opted to get a third party battery off amazon. I got the battery, installed it and attempted to turn it on, to no avail. Assuming the battery was charged when I got it, but it wasn't registering with the MacBook at all. I disconnected it, and tried the "hold the power button, plug in magsafe adapter" method, booted that way, but again, not with the battery. Once booted, it would load up to the apple logo, but then instantly shut off. I decided to tackle that wall first before going into the business with the battery, so I try every method I can find, booting into recovery mode, booting with no hard drive, booting with a different hard drive, etc. (my original thought was the hard drive may be corrupted). The only time it stayed on for more than 10 seconds after loading up the apple logo was when there was no hard drive installed, however, I know at least one of the hard drives I tried was good, because I put it back in the original laptop it came from and it works fine.

Hopefully someone can shed some light here, I'm really at a loss.

Thanks!

phoenix89 said:

...I noticed the battery was swelling. I took it in for service, but decided I didn't want to spend the 190 on a new apple battery...

Click to expand...

What happens if you put the old battery back in? When I'm assuming everything was fine…except for the swelling battery.

- Nick

What OS are you running? If Yosemite you might try resetting the PRAM? I've had a few issues and this resolved all of them, the latest being that my MBP wouldn't recognise my iPhone. In your case start at step 2

1 Choose Apple menu > Shut Down.
2 Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Option, Command (⌘), P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3 Turn on your Mac.
4 Immediately press and hold the Option-Command-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Continue holding the keys down until your Mac restarts, and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
5 Release the keys.
After resetting your computer’s PRAM, you may need to update your speaker volume, display resolution, and startup disk preferences. For more information about PRAM, see the Apple Support article About NVRAM and PRAM.

Thanks for the responses guys, I did try that with the PRAM. It goes through the cycle of making the binging noise when it starts up, but after the recommended three cycles I let it go and try to load and it turns off again.

As for the battery, I don't have the original battery anymore, so I can't say. The apple store took it and recycled it for me since it was a safety hazard. They did say it worked when they booted it without the battery.

At this point I'm thinking it has to be something hardware related. I'm bringing it to the apple store tonight, but I figured I'd see if anyone might know a trick I haven't tried yet.

After visiting the Apple store yesterday, I got some bad news. They replaced my third party battery, which didn't help. They were able to boot it into the OS, only to run a test and find out that the system board was throwing up red flags left and right, so the battery and system board will need to be replaced. At this point, it makes more sense for me to just grab a new MacBook I think, since that was the plan a few months down the road anyway.

Thank you for the help anyways guys!

Sorry to hear that! When the logic board is bad…this is almost always the conclusion (too expensive to repair to make sense). So new computer time.

Of course you could always purchase a "new to you" used computer….to save on the $$$ spent. Or at least check out the Apple refurb. area.

- Nick