[AE77surfer]

so i think my macbook pro fell of the end of my bed last night and something got broken inside. My screen is all but unusable now. It all appears to be normal until I get to the log on screen and get this:



the mouse still works but I can only tell where it is as a thin grey bar that moves around, so I can see where it is on the x-axis but not the y-axis, if you get what I am saying, this pointer appears as this:

if you look at that thick green bar you will notice the thin grey line I am talking about that is not in the first picture.

I did manage to get logged on by clicking around until I found the password input box, but then my home screen looks like this:


So as expected, I am not at all happy about any of this, and would love some help repairing it. Is it a broken video card? loose wire? or something far worse? any quick fixes I could try?
I bought it used a year or two ago so I cant imagine I have any sort of protection or warranty, so i am not afraid to take it all apart and try something crazy. Please help. Thanks!

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Hi AE77surfe
To help us look at the system specs - which particular model of macbook pro is it please.
The first check normally is to hook up to an external screen, if the external display is good it suggests a bad screen or MB to screen ribbon.
If your macbook has the mini type display port then an adapter such as http://store.apple.c...roduct/M9320G/A can be used, having a local tech store check it for you may be less expensive than purchasing an adapter so please check first.

[phillpower2]

Hi AE77surfe
To help us look at the system specs - which particular model of macbook pro is it please.
The first check normally is to hook up to an external screen, if the external display is good it suggests a bad screen or MB to screen ribbon.
If your macbook has the mini type display port then an adapter such as http://store.apple.c...roduct/M9320G/A can be used, having a local tech store check it for you may be less expensive than purchasing an adapter so please check first.

[AE77surfer]

ok, so I took it to the apple store near me to have them look at it, and while they didn't pinpoint the problem, they basically said the board inside needed to be replaced and they could send it off and they would fix whatever was wrong for 310$ flat rate, or they could do it at the store, but it would be like almost 600$ for the new board. I told them I would hold onto for now while I weighed my options and looked at other possibilities for getting it fixed. So with that being said, how hard would this be for me to do myself? I mentioned that I was thinking about doing it myself and the guy gave me a weird look and basically told me not to...Is it a hard repair to pull off? Is that 310$ a good price to get something like this fixed?

Another option they told me about, but didn't quite work out for me, was related to the video card inside. They said I had a certain NVIDIA card that had been known to cause a certain error, and if they could get that error to register they would fix it for free. However, they couldn't get that error to register, and said I would have to pay. So if anyone is familiar with that error, is there anything I may be able to do get that error to occur?

Basically, at this point, I'm just looking to get it fixed as cheap as possible, so if anyone has any further ideas of what my next step should be, I'm all ears. Thanks again!

[phillpower2]

As per my post #2

To help us look at the system specs - which particular model of macbook pro is it please.

What is the answer please.
Did the store do any of the testing that I suggested - what actual testing did the store do that you are aware of.

The store are right about one thing in that repairing notebook type computers is not a task that the average user should attempt, there are however many tutorials available online that provide a walk-through for the more confident/competent user to carry our their own repairs, hence the reason why we need to know the exact model Macbook that you have.

NB: FWIW I am not sure that spending $300 - $600 on a new MB would be cost effective.