Chosen Solution
Firstly, one day, while using my MBP 5 years old plus with dead battery only plugged with power cable and listening to music on youtube and on the same time doing my design job… Suddenly it was freeze and the display on my screen going like been hacked by the radio robot from transformers movie… But i still can listen to the streaming music… then I hold the power button to force switch off and on restarting the MBP again all chimes sounds ok and only my apple logo have checkers-graphic-like pink and grey… As it log in to desktop cursor not moving while all my screen distort just like “the-transformers-hacked-like-graphic-birszzttt” here a link to picture of my MBP http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o197/… Can you tell me which part can i fix this problem?
This looks like a classic GPU failure. Please check your model number and give us the last three figures of your serial number for positive identification. This issue has mainly been seen with the Nvidia 8600 GPU and Apple has been giving free logic board replacements but it was not on the A1211 models. So please check and let us know. Also hook it up to an external monitor and see if the problem persists and tell us.
Take out your Mobo and bake it at 375 for 7.5 minutes. That will reball your v-chip. Works every time while saving $. Update Make foil posts. Elevate the mobo above cookie sheet. Make sure you pre-heat to 375. Bake for 7.5 mins. Remove ALL plastic bits, the two guides on the back of mobo and the sticky cover on the little chips near the processor. Bake it. Let it return to room temp. Before reinstalling your mobo, clean the huge amount of dust out of the heat sink/fan area. This is usually where the problem begins and MUST be cleaned. Update Answer submitted with baked Macbook Pro 1211.
I got a “borken Macbook Pro with the exact same graphics issue. I had it in the box until yesterday when i finally wanted to put it onebay to sell it for a little money at least but I really wanted to try again to fix it….. sooo…. I decided to test the NVRAM / PRAM Reset command: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379 I was completely freaked, because after the reset the Macbook booted normally and came back to life!!! I don’t know if this will fix this issue for everybody but for me it did…. Ironically after this procedure my Trackpad and Keyboard don’t work anymore and i have to use external Keyboard/mouse. It’s all really weird, cause when resetting the RAM my keyboard must have still worked….. Oh well… hope this will help some people with their graphics issue….
Hi. I know it’s an antique, but I still use one of these A1211 2006 MBP 2.33s for browsing. Now it’s doing exactly what Amin described and showed. I’ve followed some of the advice on reflowing and it actually worked — for a short time. I did it several times and the screen would return to normal for a short time and then start scrambling again. Now it doesn’t want to respond to the reflowing procedure at all. I attached an external monitor and the problem was still there. Any advice about this? Can I replace the GPU? Would it be worth it?
