PLEASE HELP, Macbook Pro 17in just died

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014


Hi everyone,


 


I have a MacBook Pro 17in 2010 model with a dual-core 2.66 GHz i7 processor, 500GB 5400 HD and 8GB of RAM.  A week ago, my Hard Drive died and my computer would not start.  You could hear audible clicking from the Hard Drive.  Also, I had been having issues with my graphics card and would see incessant ghosting.  So I took it to the Apple Store in Greensboro, NC where they replaced the hard drive and the logic board.  I start it up in the store under 10.6.8 and it seems to work fine.  Luckily before my hard drive died, I had cloned it to a back up hard drive.  I then took my laptop home and cloned my backup to the internal hard drive.  It starts up fine but after 10 minutes, the system freezes and the computer starts a series of three beeps.  Now the machine will not start up and just keeps on beeping.  I tried resetting the PRAM to no effect.  Does anyone have any clue as to what is going on? 


 


Thanks

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    omegaomega Posts: 427member


    I think the three beeps refers to RAM issues.  I would suggest making sure all RAM is seated properly and then try to boot again.  Another thing to try is removing sticks of RAM until it works.

  • Reply 2 of 11


    Thanks Omega, I'll give it a try.  I guess if they replaced the logic board, then they'd have to reseat the RAM sticks.  Really hope this works.

  • Reply 3 of 11


    Hi everyone.  So I ended up reseating the RAM sticks and testing to see if each worked.  They seem to work and I was able to use my laptop for most of today.  However, I'm running into the exact same problem with the three beeps.  Anyone have any more ideas as to what it could be?


     


    Thanks again.

  • Reply 4 of 11


    try checking for updates on the firmware and taking it back to the apple store on the 3 beeps , could still be something is wrong with the ram causing that, they will plug a cable into your computer to run test on your hard drive ram battery cd drive etc all main hardware to see if any of it is causing the problem and if they replace something else after and it still don't work right and has problems they will replace your mac under warranty.  I have the exact same mac mine is 17 inch mid 2010 with the i7 and 500gb hard drive but only 4gb of ram, only problems I have with mine is it often getting hot in one spot especially when watching a movie on netflix and more.

  • Reply 5 of 11


    Maintaining something so thin really sacrifices the ability to keep things cool.

  • Reply 6 of 11


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  • Reply 7 of 11
    sr2012sr2012 Posts: 896member
    tspencer83 wrote: »
    Hi everyone.  So I ended up reseating the RAM sticks and testing to see if each worked.  They seem to work and I was able to use my laptop for most of today.  However, I'm running into the exact same problem with the three beeps.  Anyone have any more ideas as to what it could be?

    Thanks again.

    Sounds like the RAM needs to be replaced. You can get non-Apple branded RAM for very affordable prices nowadays. Make sure they are "Apple-compatible" not "PC Value RAM" kind of RAM eg. Kingston KTA. Given the logic board, hard drive and so on have been replaced. Most likely it is a RAM failure.

    Try new RAM, see how you go. If there is not an obvious physical failure logic board, hard drive and RAM are the three main culprits when things go south.
  • Reply 8 of 11


    Go back the the Apple Store. But it does sound like a RAM failure.

  • Reply 9 of 11
    Hi everyone,

    Thanks for all the help. So it's been about 3 days since I got my MacBook back from the Apple Store. They replaced the RAM and the battery. Since then my machine has been less than reliable. For starters, when I tried to start it up today I got the three beep problem AGAIN. I cut it off and tried again. It then started up and began installing some firmware update but froze in the middle of the install. I cut it off and started it again and it finally loaded into the finder. So I'm thinking I'm in the clear until I try and play some music with iTunes. It plays fine for a couple of minutes so i then put on the Flurry screensaver. Ten seconds later the machine just cuts off completely and then restarts on its own. On restart it freezes so I have to cut it off again and restart.

    So far I've had the logic board, internal hard drive, ram, and battery replaced. Can anyone please tell me what could possibly be wrong now? I'm at my wits end and really can't afford to get another laptop. Thanks again for all of your help.
  • Reply 10 of 11
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    tspencer83 wrote: »
    when I tried to start it up today I got the three beep problem AGAIN. I cut it off and tried again. It then started up and began installing some firmware update but froze in the middle of the install. I cut it off and started it again and it finally loaded into the finder.

    Maybe it was a firmware install failure instead of the RAM. If you restored your drive, perhaps it tried to reinstall the firmware update and failed again.

    "If the update to your firmware was interrupted, your computer will beep 9 times when restarting (3 short, 3 long, 3 short) and the screen will be black. Your computer will attempt to recover by itself. It can take up to 30 seconds for your computer to restore the EFI Firmware to the previous version. Do not unplug your computer during this process. Your computer will restart by itself when the EFI Firmware is restored. After you computer restarts again, try installing again by opening the Firmware Updater application, which is located in the Utilities folder (/Application/Utilities).

    Some USB devices may prevent firmware updates from installing correctly. If you are having trouble installing an update, try disconnecting non-essential devices and use only an Apple keyboard, mouse, and display."

    You can use the software update to see if there are any available firmware updates for your machine. If not, try downloading the latest updates from here manually:

    http://support.apple.com/downloads/#macbookpro

    These are probably the latest ones for your machine:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1502
    http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1474
  • Reply 11 of 11


    Hi everyone,


     


    Just wanted to thank everyone for all the help.  So it turns out that after having pretty much replaced the guts of the machine and still no resolution to my problems, Apple decided to just replace the machine.  Since the 17in isn't made anymore, I'll be downgraded on screen size but upgraded in everything else to a new 15in non-Retina MacBook Pro.  I'll miss my 17in but am really looking forward to the new machine and especially to Mountain Lion!  Thanks again everyone for all the help. 

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