Any ideas how to get an early 2008 MacBook pro to boot?

I have an old 2008 MacBook pro that I would like to coax to life again.
It was working a few months ago, I took it out last night and now it won't boot up.

I have tried all the "standard" remedies, SMC reset, PRAM reset, try booting without the battery, with the battery ..no luck so far.

When I hit the power button, the light on the latch at the front edge comes on, but that's it.
If I hold the power button down for a few seconds the light turns off, ie the Mac shuts down.
Screen alwasy stays black, sometimes I think I hear the start up chime very softly, but maybe that is my imagination.
Also tried the brightness control, nothing there.

I remember that there was another reset but can't get my head around that or find anything on line.
It was basically like an SMC reset but while the power was off and the battery removed, one had to hold a few keys down on the keyboard.
Does that ring a bell with anyone.

Next steps I can think of would be to replace the RAM or at least remove one RAM module and also plug in an external display.

One question I can't get a straight answer on - does this MBp need a working PRAM battery to boot up?
The PRAM battery is obviously more than 10 years old, so that might be the problem if it is needed to boot up.

Back to what I see now - the front edge light coming on ...what exactly does that prove?

Several things you can try:

Try booting the machine from an external drive.

Assuming you have another Mac, try Target mode.

As far as I'm aware, your MBP should be able to boot up with a PRAM battery that's weak or even dead. Some of the older PPC model Macs would not boot properly or at all with a dead PRAM battery but a 2008 MBP should be able to at least boot.

You could have a bad power supply or a dead or defective DC input board.

Those are just some ideas you can toss around....

chscag said:

Several things you can try:

Click to expand...

Thanks for the comments.

Try booting the machine from an external drive.

Click to expand...

Just tried that after I posted - nothing

Assuming you have another Mac, try Target mode.

Click to expand...

I have to think about that - I have a few other Macs but they have USB 3.0 ports, no firewire. I'm not sure I have the right cable to interconnect the Macs and I'm also not sure the old one will boot via USB.

You could have a bad power supply or a dead or defective DC input board.

Click to expand...

The battery of the 2008 was pretty much discharged.
It is now fully charged and the light at the front latch comes on, so I think the power supply is fine.

There is also that NVIDIA 8600m problem on those MacBook pros - maybe that's the issue.

krs said:

There is also that NVIDIA 8600m problem on those MacBook pros - maybe that's the issue.

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Yes, I had forgotten about that. You may well be right in that the GPU has failed preventing the machine from booting.

Shuffled the RAM around - made no difference.

Then I tried the special power cycle - with that the front light did not come on but the fans started spinning which they had never done before.
I think that got the Mac started last time, but nothing this time.

I assume if the GPU has failed, an external display wouldn't work either.

yeah your correct if the GPU has failed then you won't get any video on the external screen sadly

Jason