Display is intermittently lost

Question

Hello, I have the Macbook Pro from last fall (2009). This is the 3.06GHz Intel Core duo with the Nvidia GeForce 9400 video card.
Sporadically over the summer the display would fail to come on when waking from sleep. No key combinations would bring the display up and I would be forced to restart. I've been meaning to research this, but it was quite a rare occurrence.
Today the display just disappeared during the middle of a keynote presentation, while powering a VGA projector. So, its clearly NOT just when the computer is waking from sleep.
I know there were problems like this with the 2008 models of graphics cards, but I don't think this is a documented case for my model of MBP. It is under Applecare, should I send it in assuming its a graphics hardware issue?

Answer 1

I'm seeing this with my MacBookPro5,3 (15-inch, Mid 2009), which also has a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, and Nvidia 9400M and 9600M GT. I believe it's set to always use the 9400M (lower power consumption rather than higher performance).
Once in a while when I try to wake from sleep the screen doesn't come on. I didn't look closely at the screen to see if it was there, but all sounds seemed to indicate the cpu was working just fine (just as it was when I was last using it before putting it to sleep). In the past, after trying a few times (unsuccessfully) to wake the system, I would power down and reboot and all would be fine.
Then this evening, upon rebooting, I would get the gray boot screen, then a brief blue screen, and then the screen would turn off and the machine would go back to sleep. I didn't have an external screen to try (at home), but I booted from a Snow Leopard DVD and all was fine, but I think when I rebooted it was blank again. I decided to see if I could flex the bottom cover a bit, and the display came back on (though I no longer recall exactly when I did this or what state the machine was in). So now I'm thinking it's some sort of intermittent loose connection, either in the motherboard or perhaps a display-related cable.
Interestingly enough, while typing this message, I swiveled the MacBook on my table, and the screen went blank. I swiveled it back and it came back. I repeated this a few times, but I think this is something different, and might have to do with the fact that the MacBook is sitting not actually directly on the table, but on top of my wife's 12" (white) MacBook. Something about the interaction between the two machines is causing my MacBook Pro screen to blank out but it is also totally recoverable (though it returns me to the wake/password dialog). It's really bizarre... but I'm not sure it's actually related to the primary wake failure.
I did turn on remote screen sharing, so the next time this wake problem happens I can try to access the machine from another one and see what happens, and I'll also look at the LCD. But I'm really thinking there's something intermittent going on inside the machine at the hardware level. This mid-2009 machine would not appear to be eligible for the NVidia problem, even though it does appear to have the same processor(s) inside. I guess we'll see what happens... but I wanted to write up my story so others might find it if they encounter something similar. I can understand how problems like this might drive someone crazy, as it has been for me tonight!