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General discussion

Macbook Pro A1181 white, turns itself off?

May 24, 2012 7:03PM PDT

Hi,
i bought a Macbook pro White , white second hand without a hard drive. A1181

When you start it up it turns itself off in a second and never gets to the apple icon.
Screen OK.
I disconnected the CD but it is not the problem.

Any ideas?

Laura

Discussion is locked

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A white Macbook Pro?
May 24, 2012 9:34PM PDT

Unless I am mistaken, what you have there is an ordinary Macbook.

Unless it has something to boot from, a DVD or a Hard Drive, it is not going far but the fact that it turns itself off without, apparently, checking to see if there is anything to boot from, does not bode well for that machine.

A serial number would be handy to narrow down the actual model.

P

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A couple of things
May 25, 2012 12:24AM PDT

A couple of things.

As stated, you have a MacBook, not a MacBook Pro. Second, without a HDD you're never going to see that Apple icon. Third, sounds to me like you have a bad top case. More specifically, a top case with a stuck power button. Quite possibly why it was being sold in the first place, since getting that replaced will range in the $200US neighborhood if it's out of warranty.

It could also be due to a much more serious issue with the MLB, but the top case is the less expensive possibility, so where any decent tech would start.

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RE: Macbook Pro A1181 white, turns itself off?
May 27, 2012 11:07AM PDT

Well, you don't have a Pro, A1181 refers to the Macbook 2007 Core 2 Duo.

To fix your issue though, have you tried to hold option (alt) key down when booting up. This should list all drives that have a bootable OS on them. My guess is that since the computer came without a harddrive, and you haven't installed anything to the computer, you simply need to install OSX (I'm assuming you've installed a harddrive) Looking on the Apple store, the current thumb drive for Lion is $69: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD256Z/A Since Mountain Lion is probably right around the corner, I would probably wait until mid June or just purchase a developer license at $99 and use that copy if your technically inclined.