macbook pro turns on but screen stays black — my solution

The Apple Macbook Pro would turn on, but the screen would not.  The screen would stay black.  I could tell the computer was on because when I hit the “caps lock” key, the green light on the key would turn on and off.

I fixed this the following way (this is basically resetting the Power Management Unit — PMU):

I disconnected the computer from the power cord, and from all other cables.

I held down the power button for several seconds to turn off the computer.

I let it sit 5 minutes.

I restarted the laptop while holding down the Shift key.  This restarted the computer in Safe Mode, with the screen visible again.

After I logged in (in Safe Mode) to make sure everything was ok, I simply restarted the computer the normal way, and the screen behaved normally again.

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If that doesn’t work for you, you could try these steps, documented at apple.com:

Holding down Command, Option, P, and R to reset your PRAM and NVRAM

Resetting PowerBook and iBook Power Management Unit (PMU)

470 Comments

  1. Thanks!!!!!! The shift key did not work for me, but the resetting of the PRAM and NVRAM did. I would have just never figured this out without this post!

  2. I have a new MacBook Air and transferred all apps and data from my Time machine. When finished the screen and keyboard would not work. Holding down command option p & r totally worked…Thanks!

  3. though I was able to get it fixed does anyone know why the whole screen would go blank like that in the first place???

  4. FOR MAC PRO.. unplug every unnecessary cable and wait ten minutes.
    MAKE SURE to plug the Mac Pro directly to a wall socket before restart.
    Once I unplugged every cable to other external drives, and then plugged the main power cable directly to a wall socket, then executing the PRAM NVRAM reset… Yippie!
    THANK YOU!

  5. I tried and didn’t really work but I tried knocking it with my hand gently several times behind the screen and it suddenly worked! I was freaking out thank you so much!

  6. Although none of these worthy suggestions worked for me, one of the comment suggestions DID work: I took my laptop to a thrift store to buy a $5.00 monitor, and as soon as I plugged the monitor into my laptop, my screen came back on. I restarted the computer and everything is working fine now. A much cheaper alternative to a repair shop! Good luck! 🙂

  7. The screen on my MacBook Air blacked out, but I could see there was power because there was backlight on the keyboard. After a moment of panic, I did a Google search on my desktop and found this fix at the top of the results. It worked like a charm!

    THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!

  8. Hi, my Mac laptops screen is black and my keyboard doesn’t seem to be working on it as the cap locks light won’t go on. What can I do to fix it? It was working fine a minute ago

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