Late 2011 iMac Black Screen

[vernod]

Hi,

I have an iMac late 2011. The screen died - it sometimes comes on briefly when I boot it up. But have attached an external monitor and that solves this issue.

The problem is I wanted to wipe the drive and reinstall OS to see if this would help. So I started wiping the drive while the screen was working on boot up. But the external monitor does not work on OS Utilities mode so I can’t see what I’m doing anymore!!!

Any way to make the external monitor work in recovery mode?? Or is it time to throw in the towel on this Mac?

Thanks

 

[jasongoldworthy]

hi vernod

are you sure the display has died ??

is there any backlight showing ?

 

[vernod]

hi vernod

are you sure the display has died ??

is there any backlight showing ?

no backlight showing.

 

[NSMacGuru]

Hmmm... so Command-F1 (turn on mirroring) doesn't work in Recovery mode? (can't test)

 

[jasongoldworthy]

no command and F1 won't work in recovery mode

no point trying that,

can you shine a light on the screen and see if anything is there ?

as it could be the inverter has gone bad for the backlights

 

[techiesteve]

Most likely the display has failed, it happens.

If you want to the external display to function in all cases, simply drop the LCD back and disconnect the display ribbon cable from the logic board. This forces the Mac to use the external display for everything.

 

[chscag]

Thanks Steve. Good solution for the OP.