My Macbook Pro won't get off of gray screen, can't get to recovery screen either.

Question

My Macbook Pro 15" early 2011 (not even two years old darn it) decided to not play nice. It was going slow and then it just went blank to the gray screen after rebooting. I have done EVERY step that I have been told to do. I have been reading everything I could find on this since last Friday. I have 2 back ups now from CCCloner but no time machine. I was able to get into the recovery screen yesterday but could not get in it today. I tried to click option on start up and run recovery 10.8.2 but then it just goes to the dark blue screen with lines. I even put in my snow leopard disc to see if it would start up and no go. It just shows apple and then wheely thing.. and then either dark blue screen with lines or gray screen. Ive reset pram, fsuk,single user mode, etc etc... all the steps except going to a "genius" and now I have an appt in the am. I am comfortable with my back ups.. wish I had a time machine back up but that was corrupt.  Oh and I did the disc utility on friday and it said that my permisions were not correct.. etc etc. so i did a repair and everything is fine. I have since done that 3 times while in T mode during my back up and it says my hardrive is ok. I can not access disc utilty unless its in T mode and I access it from my hubby's computer.
Bottom line is this... nothing is working. I have done all the steps that I have known or read about. Even my techie is stumped. Is there anything else that I should do before going in to the darn "genius bar" ? I live in Key Largo and its not easy to just make a trip to the mainland to Miami. Of course I am willing but I am hoping I can atleast install mountain lion myself. Oh I also made a mountain lion recovery assistant with my usb... and tried to boot from that.. no luck.
Again its always the blue screen with vertical lines or gray screen.
Any ideas? Suggestions?
I'm a  loss and NEED to start working again. I've lost almost a weeks worth of work and I am a wedding photographer. My brides will be bridezilla's before long.
thanks!

Answer 1

Hey Man I have the same problem, One day the screen just went black and from then onwards it has been reall problematic, I went to the apple store but they wanted about 100 bucks to have a look at it, although they did a diagnostic for free, but it didnt reval anything.
They said it was either the screen or the graphics card, and each one cost 750USD but 100USD to find out which........ I didnt fork out the cash though, a bit expensive!!!!!!!
However I did get the computer back up and running, by holding Opt on start up, mostly it goes to the f**king dark blue screen with the vertical lines. But every 10 to 15 goes I can get to the disk utility, If you run the repair disk and repair premonitions, then start up again it should boot up, you may get a day or two out of it before BOOM back the blue screen of vertical death.
I believe its the graphics thats busted, (which is soldered to the logicboard) so the only to fix it according to the apple guys is to get a new one at 750USD and about 2 weeks to get it done. here is a app called gfxCardStatus, and it tells you which card ur using (there is 2) when the card switches the computer crashes, you can set the app to only use the "Intrergrated card" but you cant watch movies or iweb, camera, just web browsing and text stuff....... the other HD card does all the other heaver graphic processing............
I hope this helps, but all in all, lots of people have had the same problem and Apple have not declared it a fault on there part, they boast about the quality of there products but in essence my last macbook died suddenly........ I invested in a macbookpro (early 2011) the graphics card is broke, the trackpad doesnt work properly and the screen has screenburn all over the edges and sides........... Seriously!!!! and the reply was buy another computer from the apple guys!!!!!! Pretty disappointed.