Chosen Solution
I have a MacBook Pro here that won’t boot. No display either externally or internally (nothing appears if I shine a light through the Apple logo so I don’t think it’s just a backlight issue), and no startup chime. Only signs of life are the fans start spinning, the optical drive starts, and the standby light comes on. NVRAM/PRAM and SMC resets have no effect, in fact they don’t even seem to work in the first place (it never reboots during an NVRAM reset). The camera cable inside is disconnected (torn), but that shouldn’t prevent a boot as far as I know. Does this sound like the GPU is just dead, like a lot of other early 2011 MBPs, or is there something else I could try?
Disconnect the battery and press and hold the power button for a good 1 minute to fully discharge the system. Now reconnect the battery and restart the system But! You want to hold the T key so the system enters into Target Disk Mode if it starts. If this works you should see a FireWire & Thunderbolt Icon on the screen. Let us know how it goes.
