Macbook Pro boots to white screen

[HCHTech]

This is a late-2011 machine, hard drive was replaced with an SSD a couple of years ago by the geniuses. When powered on, you get the normal chime, and the loading bar creeps slowly across until it his about 33%, then the screen goes white, there is a brief two-second period where it displays a 1/2" horizontal bar of scrambled pixels about a 1/3 of the way down the screen, then that disappears and it sits at a white screen.



This sounds like a logic board from this point.

I've tried to boot to recovery with Command-R, but that has no effect, you never get the recovery screen, just a white screen.

I've tried to boot to an external drive, but you get the same behavior minus the horizontal bar of scrambled pixels.

The [Toshiba] SSD tests ok in gSmartControl, 14K hrs, no errors in the smart logs. Browsable in linux.

I put what I thought was an empty hard disk in to see if I could install OSX on a fresh disk - turned out the disk wasn't empty and it booted to windows 10 - haha. I noticed the desktop background wasn't smooth, it was made up of broken lines of the correct color. Here is a zoom of that:



This lasted about 2 minutes and Windows 10 bluescreened - no surprise.

So I started over again, and booted to a USB installer to try and install on a fresh disk, but after choosing the USB as the boot device, the loading bar stopped again at about 33% and the machine went to a white screen.

I don't have a spare hard disk cable, even though I vowed to buy one the last time we found that problem on a Macbook.

Anything I missed - or are we back at a logic board failure?

 

[sapphirescales]

It's a GPU failure. I keep a few 2011 and 2012 Macbook Pro's in the 13" and 15" variety in stock in my shop. I only buy them if they have 1,000 hours on them or less. This is a great way to make a good profit by swapping the HDD/SSD into another identical model and sending them on their way. The truth of the matter is, there's no way to fix the GPU, and even swapping the motherboard isn't a fix either since you're going to end up using some hacked together replacement board, or at the very least, a board with a ton of hours on it that just hasn't happened to show the symptoms of the GPU issue yet. Your best bet is to sell them something else - be it a PC or a newer Mac - and transfer their data for them.

 

[HCHTech]

I can't believe it, but they are pretty much insisting on repair with a used board. I made them sign a release. Best board I could find was $450 - yikes. A refurb of the same specs is about $1,100, they are probably looking at a $600 or $700 repair - amazing. I just don't get how people become emotionally attached to a computer...

 

[Rafael Segnini]

This is a late-2011 machine, hard drive was replaced with an SSD a couple of years ago by the geniuses. When powered on, you get the normal chime, and the loading bar creeps slowly across until it his about 33%, then the screen goes white, there is a brief two-second period where it displays a 1/2" horizontal bar of scrambled pixels about a 1/3 of the way down the screen, then that disappears and it sits at a white screen.

View attachment 8492

This sounds like a logic board from this point.

I've tried to boot to recovery with Command-R, but that has no effect, you never get the recovery screen, just a white screen.

I've tried to boot to an external drive, but you get the same behavior minus the horizontal bar of scrambled pixels.

The [Toshiba] SSD tests ok in gSmartControl, 14K hrs, no errors in the smart logs. Browsable in linux.

I put what I thought was an empty hard disk in to see if I could install OSX on a fresh disk - turned out the disk wasn't empty and it booted to windows 10 - haha. I noticed the desktop background wasn't smooth, it was made up of broken lines of the correct color. Here is a zoom of that:

View attachment 8493

This lasted about 2 minutes and Windows 10 bluescreened - no surprise.

So I started over again, and booted to a USB installer to try and install on a fresh disk, but after choosing the USB as the boot device, the loading bar stopped again at about 33% and the machine went to a white screen.

I don't have a spare hard disk cable, even though I vowed to buy one the last time we found that problem on a Macbook.

Anything I missed - or are we back at a logic board failure?

let me ask you something, this model has discrete graphics?

because i already "fix" a model of macbook pro 2011 15" model with AMD ATI (crappy chip) you must try disable the gpu.

and then check the temp with fan tools

 

[HFultzjr]

Make sure you check that hard drive cable 1st.
It's a known issue and can do some strange things.
Will it boot and run WITHOUT any hard drive attached?

 

[HCHTech]

This was fixed and out the door weeks ago - we replaced the logic board with the used one - left the same hard drive cable. Everything worked fine, and the check didn't bounce.

 

[Markverhyden]

This was fixed and out the door weeks ago - we replaced the logic board with the used one - left the same hard drive cable. Everything worked fine, and the check didn't bounce.

The best part.....