Chosen Solution
Here’s what my black MacBook C2D 2.0 is doing: When it boots up I see a brief glimpse of the gray screen then it goes black, next, I see a brief glimpse of the blue screen and the “Starting OS X” progress bar then it goes black again never to return. If I hook up an external display everything but the iSight works perfectly. In System Profiler, it says no display is connected. Also iSight is not seen. What broken component would be the most likely to cause this? The LCD and backlight are working but something is preventing it from staying on. I know the video card is integrated (GMA 950) on the logic board but I’m hoping there’s something else that might be replaceable first.
Sean, check my answer here: No Display: constantly goes to sleep except with external monitor
Hi! When the screen goes black, is the sleep light pulsing? When the screen is black, and you press the power button, does anything happen? I’m wondering if the laptop is somehow defaulting to external display mode. Try using the alternate function of the F7 key (you’ll see the display image on the top of the key) to toggle it back to the laptop’s own display. I’ve seen issues with bad topcases that cause the screen to go black, but usually that involves a constant cycle of the machine falling asleep and then waking up, over and over. I would try resetting the PMU (with power off, hold down the power button for 10 seconds until you hear a tone), and also resetting the PRAM, in case the problem is a simple setting that doing these resets will clear out. Good luck!
