Macbook Pro internal screen no longer working, potential opencore issue

[rocaz]

Hi all. New to the forum, looking for some help with an issue I'm having trouble with. Hope someone can help.

 

I have been using a macbook pro mid 2013 running Monterey with opencore legacy patcher for some time with no problems. I had some hardware issues recently and after a somewhat long winded process I ended up transferring my SSD to a mid 2014 macbook pro 11,2 (2.5 Ghz IG). Once booted my existing install in the new machine I updated opencore and created a new build, however after doing more research I now realise unfortunately I didn't do this in the way the guide says and didn't back up my EFI. One other thing of note on this is when installing the latest version of opencore, the install program would crash my machine at the end of the install, although opencore did install ok as far as I could tell.

 

With the SSD in the new machine and new opencore build all was fine and used it for a day with no issues. I then shut the lid to put the Macbook to sleep, but when I opened the lid again some hours later, the internal screen was black. I performed a hard reset but with no luck, the internal screen for all intents and purposes is dead. The machine does however work with an external screen via the HDMI port.

 

I have done lots of hardware troubleshooting including replacing the LDVS cable and trying a different retina screen, but I get the same result, needless to say I'm pretty stumped. The system information doesn't even show the retina screen, there is no backlight and there is no faint image when looking with a torch. It could have failed but it seems unlikely.

 

My hunch was there might be some kind of firmware issue, and tonight I came across a previous issue with the 11,3 macbook pro and Monterey here https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/issues/522 - Although my machine doesn't have discreet graphics, I'm wondering if something similar could be happening here.

 

If anyone has any ideas or can help me try and figure this out it would be much appreciated.

 

Edit: I have also tried installing a different SSD that contains a fresh install of Big Sur which runs natively and still get the same result.

Edited July 31, 2023 by rocaz

[Middleman]

Hi there and welcome!

 

Hmm...it's your first time here and you've already gotten yourself into a fine mess (taking on the words of Laurel & Hardy)! 😄

 

One thing is for certain, your initial issue probably lies in what you transferred over with your SSD.

I assume you just physically transferred your old MacBook Pro SSD over to the new one? That is never a good idea because each Mac has their own unique setup ie. firmware updates set up on the drive.

The proper way to do it with real Macs is you do a Time Machine backup to a separate drive and try restore from that OR you use Migration Assistant on the newer system with the older MacBook Pro drive

and restore data that way OR restore machine to machine via Thunderbolt and Target Disk Mode.  So if you still have access to your older MacBook Pro, you could try and if you can get Monterey running on

it and do a restore from that to the newer MacBook Pro to another new drive.

 

Before you do any of that though, you need to keep this in mind. I think your machine has Nvidia discrete graphics installed (2014 Macbook Pro 11,2). The same is likely with your 2013 MacBook Pro. The link

you posted above however refers to MacBook Pro 11,3 not 11,2 so the issues presented there may not (entirely) reflect your setup (I could be wrong).

So with that in mind you have to be careful what to do next - as anything you not done 'by-the-book' could potentially bork the system.
 

I think the first thing you need to check is which GPU you have working on your current system via the external HDMI port. Go to your desktop and check via the top left Apple icon and About Mac screen what

GPU your system uses. From there we can assess what to do next. I firmly suspect it is working from the Nvidia as VESA mode (since most external HDMI port signals come from the dGPU), but the Intel IGPU isn't

switched on which is possibly why you currently have no signal going to the laptop display.

 

For now though, you could do a small test - a system PRAM reset by first turning off your laptop, then holding Command, Option, P & R keys at the same time, power the system on via the power button. Keep holding

the 4 keys until the second chime. That will reset the PRAM controller. Sometimes it can help revive whatever peripheral that isn't working. It has worked before for those who have non-starting laptop screen.

So try it first and see how it goes.

[rocaz]

Thanks for your reply @Middleman. You're right, a fine mess indeed!

 

You're correct in that I did just physically transfer over the SSD, that wasn't the original plan, this machine was meant to be a donor for parts, however some things went wrong in the original repair process and that ended up being what I had to do. I know not ideal but they're almost identical machines, pretty much the only difference is the original 2013 machine has an I7-4960HQ processor where as the 2014 has an I7-4870HQ.

 

If it's useful here's the specs for the 2013 machine : https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-i7-2.6-15-iris-only-late-2013-retina-display-specs.html - and for the 2014 machine which is the one currently in use with the issue : https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-i7-2.5-15-iris-only-mid-2014-retina-display-specs.html

 

To clarify both machines have integrated graphics only, no discreet GPU. Both machines have the Iris Pro 5200 chip. I have also already tried multiple SMC and PRAM resets but with no luck. As mentioned I did try putting the 2014 machine's original SSD back in which contains a fresh install of Big Sur, but even booting that in safe mode still made no difference.

[rocaz]

I've been doing a little more digging, this may or may not be relevant but when I create an opencore build, the log shows the following "Failed to find GFX0 Device path, falling back on known logic."

[Middleman]

 

14 hours ago, rocaz said:

Thanks for your reply @Middleman. You're right, a fine mess indeed!

 

You're correct in that I did just physically transfer over the SSD, that wasn't the original plan, this machine was meant to be a donor for parts, however some things went wrong in the original repair process and that ended up being what I had to do. I know not ideal but they're almost identical machines, pretty much the only difference is the original 2013 machine has an I7-4960HQ processor where as the 2014 has an I7-4870HQ.

 

If it's useful here's the specs for the 2013 machine : https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-i7-2.6-15-iris-only-late-2013-retina-display-specs.html - and for the 2014 machine which is the one currently in use with the issue : https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-i7-2.5-15-iris-only-mid-2014-retina-display-specs.html

 

To clarify both machines have integrated graphics only, no discreet GPU. Both machines have the Iris Pro 5200 chip. I have also already tried multiple SMC and PRAM resets but with no luck. As mentioned I did try putting the 2014 machine's original SSD back in which contains a fresh install of Big Sur, but even booting that in safe mode still made no difference.

Right okay. Hmm...that sounds pretty bad. The fact that it's not a dual GPU just made things a little more hard I think.

 

8 hours ago, rocaz said:

I've been doing a little more digging, this may or may not be relevant but when I create an opencore build, the log shows the following "Failed to find GFX0 Device path, falling back on known logic."

That to me sounds like it is likely to do with your GPU's ACPI routing. It could well be your current installation of Opencore on the drive is referring to a PCI device path that is incorrect for the newer 2014 chip

despite it being a Haswell (Crystalwell) system. As it goes the Everymac page does mention the 2014 laptop has 'different identifiers' which pretty much reflects what I've just mentioned.

 

I have my thoughts on what to do next. I did a quick readup on the supported models of Opencore Legacy Patcher, and it says both your models of the Macbook Pro are fully supported by the bootloader.

However you have two issues facing you. First is that Monterey doesn't have the Intel Haswell drivers you need (hence black screen) and secondly, you are likely missing the root patches for Monterey to

run on Haswell. What version of Opencore Legacy Patcher are you using? If it is a very old version of OCLP you won't have AMFI enabled on the system so you'll probably need to re-root patch with the

latest OCLP update. That should allow your system to work normally again (theoretically).

 

You mentioned also you are already running Opencore. I wonder if it would be possible for you to add this to the boot-arg in the EFI you're running: igfxonln=1

As this boot-arg is a command that enables all GPUs on your system to come online. If it can't be done then your only option would be to update and re-root patch the OCLP.

You will have to set the OC to run natively and possibly also disable firmware throttling. Either that or run the Big Sur drive, and fully reinstall the Big Sur OS (in case you've added root patches to it already)

That is one sure way to check if the laptop backlight and/or GPU is working or not (because Big Sur fully supports Haswell).

 

One thing I also found during my research is this thread from OCLP regarding the 2014 MBP having difficulties switching over to the IGPU.

> MacBookPro11,3 GMUX issues with 12.0 Beta 7 and newer · Issue #522

But it's related to dual-GPU 2014 MBPs and not your single IGPU 2014 MBP. Still it seems relevant.

So I would probably post a query over to the OCLP Github about your situation and see what they say on how best to resolve it.

[rocaz]

19 hours ago, Middleman said:

What version of Opencore Legacy Patcher are you using?

 

Thanks again for your reply. I'm using v0.6.8. It does say no root patches are required for my system.

 

19 hours ago, Middleman said:

You mentioned also you are already running Opencore. I wonder if it would be possible for you to add this to the boot-arg in the EFI you're running: igfxonln=1

 

I tried this but unfortunately it didn't help. As I'm able to use the system with an external monitor and have no discreet GPU, the iGPU must be online and working in some capacity, I wonder if there is any debugging I can do or system info I can find that might hold a clue as to why the iGPU is unable to power up, or even see the internal screen. Seeing as this happened on wake after the machine was put to sleep it's almost as if it's stuck in some sort of mode where the internal screen output of the iGPU is switched off.

 

19 hours ago, Middleman said:

So I would probably post a query over to the OCLP Github about your situation and see what they say on how best to resolve it.

 

I did think about doing this but I wanted to try and narrow down the issue a bit further first as I don't really know how to explain it simply other than what I've posted here, it feels a bit long winded and vague to raise as an issue on the OCLP github but maybe I'm wrong there?

 

 

[Middleman]

3 hours ago, rocaz said:

 I wonder if there is any debugging I can do or system info I can find that might hold a clue as to why the iGPU is unable to power up, or even see the internal screen. Seeing as this happened on wake after the machine was put to sleep it's almost as if it's stuck in some sort of mode where the internal screen output of the iGPU is switched off.

 

 

I did think about doing this but I wanted to try and narrow down the issue a bit further first as I don't really know how to explain it simply other than what I've posted here, it feels a bit long winded and vague to raise as an issue on the OCLP github but maybe I'm wrong there?

I think so too! But I don’t have an answer for it. So I think your situation justifies it because there’s noone else who can assist, but you don’t need to tell them everything, but just enough on how to get going again. Just tell them that you transferred over an old SSD from the 2013 MBP and used OCLP to boot Monterey on the 2014 IG MBP and that it somehow ended up like this and see what they say.

[rocaz]

Hi all. it's been a while since I posted on this, I had to put this issue to one side for some time, however the issue still remains unresolved. I did post on the opencore discord as suggested, however didn't get any responses there, and posting issues on the opencore github is disabled since 2022. I wonder if anyone here might be able to help further, or advise on how else I might be able to get support? I've been living with no internal screen on the MBP since July last year and could really do with getting it working again if possible. Thanks!

[Cyberdevs]

@rocaz

As far as I know, you should be using MacBookPro11,2 EFI for both of your machines (IG) MacBookPro11,3 is for the same machines with Discrete Graphics:

Try this EFI folder which has been made by OpenCore Legacy Patcher 1.4.3 (Nightly)

 

If the issue still persists there might be a chance of a hardware issue, to troubleshoot the issue further more you can remove the SSD from you MacBookPro, turn it on and do the NVRAM reset 3 times in a row by holding the key combinations until you MacBook Pro reboots 3 times then you either see the Apple Logo or the Folder with a question mark which indicates that the system can't find the Startup Disk.

 

You can also use a fresh macOS Big Sur install USB disk using the terminal command without putting the OCLP's EFI in the EFI partition to see if the installer loads or not.

MacBookPro11,2.zip