Chosen Solution
Hi, I believe this question has been asked before but I don’t think a concrete fix was ever established due to the difficulty in isolating the problem in everyone’s machines. To describe the problem - when I press the power button, it will begin the boot up sequence with chime to grey screen, then apple logo, then the power will cut out. This will occur with several attempts (3-5 or more attempts), until suddenly it will fully boot and operate. The issue occurs whether running on battery or AC power, though it “feels” like it achieves full boot more often when AC power is connected. Though I’ve recently replaced my battery. Some potential issues I’ve read include - logic board requires replacement, melted heat sink wire causing a short, dead ram risers, heat paste needing replacement. Periodic Shut Down/Not Turning On Troubleshooting MacBook Pro turns on, shows Apple logo or desktop, and cuts out.. http://www.mactalk.com.au/10/120070-macp…
Like @benjamen50 said, this is most probably due to a failing GPU. You can try to boot with your hard drive connected to a USB port (using an enclosure) and also using another bootable system just to make sure you don’t have system and drive issues. If it is indeed a GPU issue, the chip needs to be replaced but in my personal opinion the fix is not permanent: all the replacement chips are refurbished junk that will fail as well. Trying to bake it or reflow it or reball it is temporary was well. Still just my opinion, as some people are claiming good success with reflows. But may be it is just that people aren’t coming back to claim warranty.
