1

My MacBook Pro (2.4 Ghz, Santa Rosa with infamous nVidia card) acts strange. I replaced a cracked screen with a new and since then I have been loosing my mind over this problem:It shows the normal gray screen with Apple logo and animation flawlessly during start up but the internal display goes black without any rendering at all when all is loaded. (shining a light on display show nothing) If an external monitor is connected through the DVI port it will remain black during start up and then show the desktop as the internal display goes black. This happens both while booting to Mountain Lion and Windows XP. I have checked "About my Mac" and only the external display is listed. The same is the case if I use the nVidia Control panel in Windows XP. The mirroring works in Windows XP although with distortion.

My questions: Is this a hardware problem or is it related to software maybe even firmware? What controls the display during start up, graphics card or something else?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

This sounds like a hardware issue, but there might be a few things you can try.

I would boot the mac with the cmd+v keys to show a verbose output. If this doesn't work, you could try resetting the NVRAM/PRAM (docs can be easily found on the apple site)

If you don't see the Internal Display in the about my mac app, the Display Data cable might be improperly seated. There is a fairly good tutorial on iFixit.com http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Core-2-Duo-Models-A1226-and-A1260-Display-Data-Cable/1312/1

Improve this answer
1
  • I second the last paragraph. This sounds like a loose internal display cable to me. iFixIt is great if you did self-repair. If an Apple Store did the repair, take it back to them and have them fix this. A simple reseat of a cable should be quick and painless for them. Best of luck!
    – bispymusic
    Mar 12, 2013 at 3:16

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .