MBP Display Problems

pedz

Registered
I have a late 2007 Mac Book Pro (macbookpro3,3). It is running 10.6.8.

Probably over a year ago, the display stopped working and the display port also stopped working. But I could (and still can) connect via VNC (Sharing) and it works just fine. I had tried resetting the pram and various other things but had given up and declared the display dead.

During this process the battery cracked over and so for a long time, it sat with no power and no battery. I then decided to boot it back up because I was trying to catalog all of my files on all of my hard drives around the house. I used a battery from another laptop -- this was an early 2007 MBP (macbookpro2,2). BING!!! the display started working. I did not check the display port. I used it for a while and decided to buy who new batteries -- one for it and one for the 2,2 MBP.

Now, the display has decided to not work. I've reset the PRAM and SMC with no luck. The display and the display port are both dead although the monitor that I connect up can tell something is connected. Another symptom: when I put the laptop to sleep via the sleep menu via VNC it goes to sleep as expected and the VNC window becomes all black. When I hit a key to wake up the laptop, I hear the DVD grind but none of the displays wake up -- not even the display in the VNC window.

My friend has a similar MBP bought at roughly the same time. In his case, the display working or not working is dependent upon the position of the lid. It sounds like there is something loose in his case. But that doesn't seem to be the case with me.

I've tried booting in safe mode (Shift) and booting from an install disk (CD).

Questions:
1) Any other tricks to try to see if I can get the display to work? (The System Preferences / Displays doesn't seem to help any).
2) Do you think an Apple could repair it for a reasonable price -- say $200 or less?
3) Any ideas of what to do with a headless Mac of this vintage?
 
You could take the hard drive out, put it in a case or enclosure and use it as an additional external hard drive.
 
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