Late 2008 Macbook Pro Random Black screen

My Macbook Pro had been having this problem for the past year or so, but lately it has gotten significantly worse. Whenever I am watching a YouTube video, or playing music, the screen will turn black for about 10 seconds and then turn back on by itself. This happens whether or not the computer is plugged in to an outlet, or is just running off the battery (I just replaced the battery last week). It will even do this when I am just sitting here browsing the internet. I took it to an Apple Store and they reset the SMC and had be purchase a new battery saying that was the problem, which I doubted, and the problem is still here. I have all my energy saver preferences off, ran system updates, and have done pretty much everything I can think of. Does anyone know what can cause the computer to randomly go to sleep for 10 seconds and then turn back on?

Hi,
I tried it all but it didn't work,
The Nvidia problem is when the screen is fully black, but when my screen gets black I can change the background lighting, they also tested the Nvidia chip but that was fine.
I also tried the Pram/Vram etc but it didn't work.
I now downgraded back to 10.5 and upgrade again to 10.6 and I hope it will be fixed,

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Late 2007 MacBook Pro intermittent black screen

I have this very odd issue with an intermittent black screen on a late 2007 MacBook Pro (4GB/320GB 7200rpm) Mac OS X 10.6.8 v1.1
Apologies for the length of the post.
In cycles separated by a few days to a week, the screen will flicker to black, initially very briefly, then for longer periods until it is black continuously, where it stays from a few hours to a couple of days then it flickers to normal, again very briefly then with longer intervals until it is steady and normal. It can then be fine for a week or more.
When the screen is working, it's perfect; no lines, stripes, colour shift or any difference to what one would expect. When it is black, the backlight is still operational (and dimming when on battery power) but there is no image - all pixels are solid black. Shining a torch on/through the screen does not reveal any image. When mirrored, the external monitor shows the brightness adjustment moving up and down in response to the key presses but it has no effect on the internal screen.
My external display (Eizo) is always functional no matter what the built-in one is doing and is completely solid at all times.
There is no correlation to temperature (I have SMC fan control), sleep, restart, fan speed, power source or anything environmental. The MacBook is on a fan stand for most of the time. External connections make no difference. If the fault is present before changing any of these factors, it is there after.
I am aware that this machine has known vulnerabilities with GPU and display issues but none present quite like this. I have performed the usual trawl on the net and I now know more than I ever wanted to about attempts to fix it.
Software remedies attempted:
Resetting PRAM and power manager.
No sleep image file (never used this option). I deleted the old swap files that were there in any case but this unsurprisingly did nothing.
Resetting the display settings via keyboard commands or Sys Prefs.
Screen savers and settings are not implicated.
Nothing whatever in the console logs that I can see.
TechTool Pro gives video RAM a clean bill of health and all other components pass including tests on the HD with TTP and DiskWarrior.
Safe boot and booting from systems on backups seem to have no effect but one safe boot restored the screen briefly - I think it was a coincidence.
I updated the OS from 10.6.6 to 10.6.8 while this fault was coming and going and it made no difference. I usually prepare the machine for updates by running the cron jobs, repairing permissions etc.
In expectation of suffering this fault when the external monitor was not connected, I installed iScreen on the MacBook and use my iPad as a supplementary display and that works well too. Having all three operating, when the internal is functioning, is quite fun.
Hardware tests:
I removed the upper plate holding the keyboard and the interior of the machine was very clean with only some small dust accumulations in the fans, which were removed. There was no sign of any discolouration, corrosion, or other unpleasantness on the PCBs. All connectors and wiring looked good.
Every part of the logic board, cables and connectors were percussed, gently deflected and spray freezed, both while the fault was present and not (machine running) with no effect.
Display back was removed and the LCD board given the same treatment. No changes.
Display cable disconnected at both ends and tested for continuity (probe resistance accounted for) and consistency with a Fluke 87 multimeter - passed OK. On a scope, active signals and power were present on all the pins when the display was working but the fault did not occur during this test, which might have been interesting.
No apparent shorting of the display cable but without removing it this cannot be proved.
Problem not affected by hinge position, pressure on any part of the display, twisting, percussing etc.
Used compressed air to blow out the connectors which were reseated carefully.
After all this, the machine remains in exactly the same state, cycling between operational and black with various flickering stages as it comes and goes.
All I can deduce is that as the external monitor has always been OK, the GPU itself is probably working fine and the fault is more likely in the LCD panel electronics. I doesn't feel like a software issue to me but heck, I don't know what is going on.
Does anyone have any experience of something like this?
Thanks,
Joel.

Thomas,
Thanks for your post and I'm sorry you have suffered the same problems.
My trust levels are not very high because it's clear there is some systemic display problem with this model, which is why Apple are fixing them. As I mentioned, we have no idea if the replacement boards are any different to the originals. From your experience it would look like they are not and my suspicion is that it is very unlikely that Apple made a new batch of these logic boards a long time after the model was discontinued. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, I stand to be corrected.
As you say, the difference between our two faults appears to be that a physical deformation of some part of the machine does something with yours but never did with mine. At one point I felt that a short in the internal display cable seemed like the best explanation for the problem but it looks like it's more complex than that because of the behaviour of our external displays and subsequent strange booting behaviour.
If, as I have read, the soldering of the GPU was faulty and leads to progressive failure of the graphics sub-system, then all kinds of strange behaviours could arise and produce the intermittent problems we have seen. Micro-fractures of the chip interconnects would suggest that tiny movements might change the presentation of the fault. If soldering really is the issue, then keeping the machine as cool as possible will extend the life of the connections. Consequently mine will sit on a fan-stand for the rest of its days, which is no problem because it just had Win 7 installed on it and I don't want to be seen in public with it in that state ;-)
All we can conclude is that a logic board swap fixes the problem for some indeterminate period, so the problem is on that board. Whether it is a design fault with the NVIDIA chip itself or a manufacturing fault with the board is not clear but we can probably forget LCD panels, cables, sleep issues, power supplies and all the other peripheral issues unless there is yet another design issue that causes the GPU to fail.
Are you intending to present your machine to Apple for another go at a fix?

Late 2008 MacBook Pro 17" broken screen display

I have been using my old MacBook Pro (A1261) for some design work since 2008. It's been a good sport and I love it dearly. Unfortunatelly, recently my screen started working intermittently. This week it has died completely. I am not convinced it's worth having it repaired as it might cost more that the laptop itself. Could anybody help me view my display using another laptop or TV? I have previously been able to view it's display on my LG TV (even when the mac displayed wasn't working) using the DVI External Display Port but I have changed my display settings so I am unable to connct it now. I have also been able to detect its display on my Mac Book Air but again, I must have changed the setting because I get no luck this time. I have been using BootCamp and most of my design work sit in the Windows part (pardon my lack of IT jargon) so perhaps I could retreive it using a PC??? Any help would be much appreciated

You are right about the cost of screen replacement if you have it done (by Apple $700-600, by others $400-500, approximately.) I spoke to my (authorized independent) Mac repair shop when a friend trashed his screen and my Mac guy told me to replace it for him (I'm a geek) because I could do it for under $200 in parts and the DIY instructions on ifixit dot com. If you're a little geeky and have a couple of tiny tools, you can too.
Your other option is to use the mini displayport to hook up to a HDTV or external monitor. I can't tell you the exact procedure because this is the Mac Pro forum, not the MacBook Pro forum and I don't know all the details for those tiny machines. I figure if you wrote that post you can also read, so I'd suggest reading the Mac Help files that are included in the OS. It can't be that hard.
good luck

Late 2008 MacBook Pro "blackout" screen flickering - Revised

--NOTE: I have written this thread as a continuation of the following thread, as the solution in it is slightly different from my issue. I apologize to the community for the confusion. http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2230532&tstart=0 --
Many of us Late 2008 MacBook Pro owners have been experiencing a moderate to significant screen flicker when using our MacBook Pros in Better Battery life mode, which uses the 9400 M chip. While I had thought that 10.6.2 had resolved this issue, I have since discovered that it has not. In fact, some believe, myself included, that it has made it worse, as, for me, it has been happening far more frequently.
My screen flicker is like a black frame popping in randomly. This frame does not even last a second, but it does create a "flicker" effect.
These YouTube videos show it best and are virtually identical to mine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNQofnQKrDA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EATI_kh6GOw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qODFFWbiGUI
*Does anyone think that this is indicative of a logic board problem?*
*Has anyone resolved this by going back to 10.5.8?*
I had never experienced this in Leopard.
Thanks.

Hi Luke,
Having the logic board replaced terrifies me, as that could lead to further issues.
I think you've rationalized out the whole situation perfectly, and I do think you're right about the logic board replacement. If the issue were a lot more frequent (or becomes more frequent) and/or is overly annoying then I would have it replaced. The chance that you'd get a bad replacement logic board would be sufficiently small in comparison to the overall pain and frustration that you'd be going through.
What I possibly can do is try to get the issue looked at by someone at Apple. If it is, indeed, a software issue, perhaps they can engineer a fix for you. At the very least we'll know that the issue was brought to someone's attention! They probably will never contact anyone with the outcome, but at least we can say we tried. You should continue to submit the Bug Reports and encourage others to.
--Travis

Crack in screen (late 2008 MacBook Pro)

Hello everyone,
I have searched the 'net and this forum about cracked screens, and have found a lot of useful information, but wanted to post this and ask a few questions anyway, as I haven't found exactly what I am looking for.
My late 2008 MacBook Pro screen cracked just tonight. The crack begins near the bottom left, in the black border along the bottom, horizontal edge of the screen. From there, it goes up a few cm above the black border, curves to almost horizontal, and then curves and goes back down to the horizontal edge, about 2 inches from where it began. So, it is a very small crack that goes up from the bottom edge, over just a little, and then right back down to the edge. It is barely noticable doing normal work. The crack can not get longer since it goes up and back down to the edge. I suppose the only way it could get worse is to deepen (you can barely feel it) and cause other problems. I tried to take a picture for this thread, but the crack doesn't even show in a picture. My questions:
(1) If I don't get this fixed, what are the chances it will damage the display over time? Will it create lines and/or green/blue/etc. spots or anything else? Could it cause other problems to the computer?
(2) What do you reccommend as the best way to go about fixing this if I decide to do so? I know my local Apple Store will fix it, but I also know they'll charge more than I probably want to spend. Other solutions? Positive experiences?
It kind of saddens me to see it; crazy as that may sound! This has been (still is) a great notebook (I even purchased AppleCare, which I never needed) that went with me through making my first full length film.
Thank you in advance for help concerning this issue.

I uswed to have that problem in my Macbook OPro early 2008, and I ordered an LCD panel, it's a Samsung 15.4 inches LED panel, then I disassembled MBP, involved more than 40 screws and very delicate parts removal and reassemble. It cost me US$ 120 and 2.5 ghours to do.
But if you take it to Mac Service Center, they will change the whole lid and thjat will copst you more than US$ 600

Just updated from a late 2008 Macbook Pro and I am getting a blink on my external screen

I just upgraded from a late 2008 Macbook Pro with a AMD Radeon HD 6770M 1024 MB graphics card and I am now getting a blink (black screen) every few seconds.
Anyone know a fix.
Thanks

You could always give it a shot - the only problem that you might run into is that the the early 2011 might not boot when the hard drive is swapped from the 2008 hard drive. Some versions of OS X are simply not compatible between different models.
But it's worth a try...
Clinton

I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro last updated to Mavericks OS. The screen died and it's not worth replacing. How do I remove the hard drive and use a drive sled to access info I need?

I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro last updated to the Mavericks OS. The screen died and I took it into an Apple store and was told replacing the screen and the hardware to repair everything would cost almost as much as buying a new laptop or a cheaper model. I was told that I can use a drive sled to access data I need on my hard drive. How do I remove my hard drive and use a drive sled to get to the information I need? What makes matters more complicated is I need to update my iPhone and my iTunes/App store purchases. How can I accomplish this?
My wife has a late 2008 Macbook Pro as well, which I am assuming I need to run my hard drive. Is there a way to just access just my hard drive without interfering with hers?
I know this is lengthy. Thanks to whoever looks at this and offers advice/instruction.

the device you need is an External enclosure for a 2.5" (laptop form factor) SATA drive.
A USB-interface enclosure will be slow, but is adequate for this task and for re-purposing as a backup drive later. A firewire-interface drive would be faster, but is harder to find, more expensive, and faster than needed for this purpose.
The drive will mount as an "extra" drive on your wife's Macbook, and you can drag and drop whatever you wish. You could create a separate Account for yourself on her computer, and use Migration Assistant or just copy your stuff over to the new account. Then it would not interfere with her files.

Late 2008 Macbook Pro doesn't boot after installing Mavericks

I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro, dual core 2.53 GHZ, 4 GB Ram (2x2).
I've been tearing my hair out trying to get this computer to boot up. Many things have been tried here. So here's the history.
Before starting this, I was running 10.6.8 on this computer.
First time I tried to install Mavericks, the installation failed, and when the computer went to restart, it just went in a loop, never really booting up, just getting the to gray screen with the apple symbol, spinning the wheel, and then going black again, restarting, and repeat. So, I took it into the Apple Genius Bar, and they diagnosed a bad battery. I replaced the battery, and had them do a clean restore back to 10.6.8.
I got it home, and tried to do an install again. This time, I downloaded the installer, and put in on an external firewire drive, and attempted to do a clean install of Mavericks. I ended up with the same boot failure problem.
I went back to the apple genius bar, and even though the diagnotics said my harddrive was fine, they said in the troubleshooting list, that the harddrive with the first thing they suspected. So, I replaced the harddrive. I did the Mavericks install again from an external HD, and for a moment, everything was great. It booted up into Mavericks. But, after my first restart, the problem was boot failure was back.
After reading a few articles, I tried booting in Safe mode. That worked. I also ran disk repair on the HD and it looked great. Still, it won't boot up out of Safe mode.
After being very frustrated, I tried just installing snow leopard from the dvd, but the install keeps failing.
Not sure what to do next.

Micajah10,
rather than a hard drive problem, you might have a faulty internal SATA cable. Do you have an external disk enclosure, or a SATA-to-USB or SATA-to-FireWire adapter? If you can boot from your hard drive without problems when it’s external, but it remains problematic internally, then that could point to the internal SATA cable as the culprit.

How many hours does a brand new battery last after fully charged. I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro.

How many hours does a brand new battery last after fully charged. I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro.

clintonfrombirmingham is right, there is no way to exactly tell. But from personal experience, a new battery on a 2008 will last for about 2 1/2 hours with a higher screen brightness and doing something taxing to the battery (like gaming or running lots of 3D programs). But if you're just listening to music with the brightness all the way down, and no programs running, you could get up to 12 hours. So for average use, it should last you a whole business day (assuming you don't use it more than 30% 0f the time). Hope this kind of gives you more of an idea of what to expect:)

Late 2011 Macbook Pro suffers from screen corruption on wake up

My late 2011 Macbook Pro suffers from screen corruption on wake up - once password is entered the screen refreshes and performs OK. As hardware must be OK is there a driver or software fix?
My late 2011 Macbook Pro (running Lion) suffers from screen corruption on wake up - once password is entered the screen refreshes and performs OK.
Do othres sufffer from this? and as hardware must be OK is there a driver or software fix?
Thanks.

Hi I wanted to let you know that the hard drive is bad I am meeting with the apple manager tomorrow since my laptop is no longer under warranty but I had previously brought the laptop in for the same black screen when the warranty was good.. Have any pointers on how to approach them ? I'm seriously disheartened by this especially since my 2006 white MacBook is running like a champ with no problems ever which is why I decided to buy another MacBook but one that was capable of running Lion

Late 2008 MacBook Pro - Bootcamp (Vista-32bit) issues

Hey all -
I have a couple issues with my late 2008 MacBook Pro when I use bootcamp to switch to its Vista (32 bit) side. I've never been able to solve these issues myself, so I was hoping I could get some help here.
When on the vista side, when I close the lid the computer display will shut off but the actualy computer will continue to run, and after some time I will no be able to wake it from its sleep.
When I try to turn the brightness down on my screen, it will turn down but then turn back to full brightness a few seconds later.
Scrollng with 2 fingers on the track pad is erratic (I read there was going to be a fix for this?)
The laptop gets so hot to the touch that it is almost painful (I imagine this can't be good for the computer)
It has also become sluggish to the point where even simple games and those on steam won't work without incredible lag. Are there anyways to stop some processes to speed up the vista side?
Like I said, this is all while in bootcamp, not experiencing any of the issues on the OSX side.
Thanks for any help

Would love some help if anyone knows

New macbook pro battery for late 2008 macbook pro dies fast.

I have a late 2008 macbook pro 2.4 HGz Intet Core 2 Duo with 2 GB of ram. I've had it since 2009 and just got a new battery, as the old one finally gave up. That being said, the new battery dies quite fast and I'm not sure why. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! thank you

Only problem is that maybe the battery you were sold was manufactured around the same time as the Mac. And LiPo batteries die because of old age as well as use. Take it out and carefully examine all markings, especially anything that can date when it was made, like copyrights or such.
With that evidence you can go back and demand a refund.

How to connect a late 2008 macbook pro to hd tv

I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro and want to connect it to my HD TV what cables do I need ?

looks like if you'll use exactly this adapter you'll get audio over HDMI

I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro, I am trying to run MW3 but it will not work without crashing a few minuets into the game. The general specs on my computer are a dual processor 2.53 ghz. 4 gb ram and a NVIDIA geforce 9400 (9600 is the alternate card)

I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro, I am trying to run MW3 but it will not work without crashing a few minuets into the game. The general specs on my computer are a dual processor 2.53 ghz. 4 gb ram and a NVIDIA geforce 9400 (9600 is the alternate card).
Things to note:
I have been unable to update firmware on this computer for about a year now. Im not sure why.
I am running a bootleg copy of Windows XP on this computer, I would not like to spend $149 to get Windows 7 if possible.
any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Why don't you take your 'old' MBP into your local Apple Store and have them check out everything that's wrong with it - and I mean everything? Then, when you get an estimate about how much it would cost to get the machine completely repaired, ask about the Apple flat-rate repair pricing?
It's worth a shot - and with what you may save, you can put in the bank for a new MBP.
Clinton

Renewing a Late 2008 MacBook Pro: hard drive and battery substitution

Hi all,
I am an happy user of a late 2008 MacBook pro.
However, with the passing of time, it became slow and the battery also deteriorate (it still quite OK, but it is not like at the beginning).
But let's start from the beginning: the hard drive
By googling for a while, I noticed that several people experienced very slow performance of their late 2008 MacBook Pro. That is also my case. Apparently, this is due to the hard disk which is dying, and then I considering to change it. However, I haven't found answers to these questions:
- Is it possible to mirror all the containt of the current disk to the new one?
- I only have the original installation disks of the first Leopard. I made all the updates through the network. Moreover, since it passed lot of time, I am afraid that some sector of the installation disks may be damaged. This means that I may fail in the installation of Mac Os X on the new hard drive. If I have to reinstall everything from scratch with the new hard drive and without installation disks, how should I do?
- If I go a Mac Reseller shop, will do they perform this operation? And how much does it costs to make it? Or I may also go to some generic computer reparation guy?
- Is it convenient to save all the data (movies, documents, pictures, emails, etc) somewhere (e.g. external HD) and then perform a completely new installation?
Next, let's consider the battery.
Here is a screenshot taken with iStat Pro:
Do you think it is worth changing it? From System Profile I have those other info:
Full charge capacity (mAh):          3386
       Current (mA):          846
       Voltage (mV):          12029
Condition:          Replace soon
What do you suggest to do then? How much does it cost a new battery? Actually, I think that also the processor performance deteriorate (it often becomes very hot, especially when watching Flash or Silverlight stuff), but, unfortunately I cannot change it.

Hi!
Thanks for all the answer. Please let me to resume this old and interesting discussion.
After having evaluated several solutions (including NAS, different ways of backup, etc) I bought an external firewire HDD, since I believe it nicely fits my necessities. Next, after these holidays, I will finally replace my old HDD with a SSD one. I think 120 GB are ok. I just need the apps and small-sized documents (rather LaTeX, Matlab, word, pages or excel documents, etc. - no movies or mp3 (I have Spotify, for that) ). Large files (e.g. movies, pictures, etc) may end up in external firewire HDD.
Now, let's consider the OS. I currently have 10.6.8 and I am very satisfied of that. I find it very stable, and all the apps I need are still well supported. On the other hand, given that there are like 5 years that I have the same installation, I may have a lot of obsolete files and setting that I can safely remove. This means that once I will have performed a backup of my documents, my email, my pictures etc. I can safely throw away all the rest. Hence, I may perform a brand-new installation of the OS. Although I am happy with 10.6.8, I was wondering if it is worth to upgrade it (I have a 2.53 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo - 4 GB 1067 Mhz DDR3 RAM) to Lion, Mountain Lion or Mavricks. In that case, which would be the real benefits? And what about the cons?
Finally consider that I only have the Leopard installation disks from 2008 (not even Snow Leopard) and I will bring my laptop to a techician to change the HDD (I know, it is simple but I don't have all the screws etc. and I will not buy them only for this purpose). Once he will have replaced the HDD, will he re-install the OS also? Or I have to reinstall the OS through my original DVD (5 years old, I don't even know if they still work) and upgrade to Snow Leopard again by myself? I would exclude the carbon copy solution since I may want to throw away a lot of garbage and perform a brand new instalation of the OS. How to proceed? Thanks again!

Late 2008 Macbook Pro Random Black screen

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