A few days ago, I tried to wake up my MacBook Pro and found that the screen remained dark. After powering off and rebooting, the screen was still dark and it also wouldn’t drive an external monitor. However, the MacBook Pro was still visible on the network and could be accessed via screen sharing. Interestingly, System Profiler showed my display chipset as an Intel GMA X3100 instead of the MacBook Pro’s GeForce 8600M GT.

This seems to be a known problem, as several people describe it in a thread on Apple’s discussion forum. It seems to be a motherboard failure. I brought the MacBook Pro to my local Apple store, where they confirmed that it needed a new motherboard. Luckily they had one in stock and they were able to replace it the same day, so I’ll have my MacBook Pro for my trip to WWDC next week.

I wrote a more detailed story in my blog.