Chosen Solution

So I have a 2016 MPB A1706 laptop that has two issues that has flummoxed me.

  1. issue one is that the computer will boot up but the screen is black/blank but has backlight (I can even adjust the brightness for differing levels of black, but there is nothing displayed). I can hook up an HDMI and the computer works fine running on a second monitor fwiw.
  2. The touchbar is also blank/black. I can use it to adjust volume, backlight on keyboard etc. but nothing is displayed. Has anyone ever experienced something of this nature? Am I looking at a screen replacement and a touch-bar replacement as well? Or is this some sort of a connector issue, where some sort of cable is not transmitting the data to either the monitor and/or the touch bar?

Ouch! This is not good ;-{ Lets see if we can at least get the Touch Bar working again. Often times the T1 chip which is a System On Chip (SOC) which is based on the Apple Watches S1 chip needs a kick in the pants when it goes awry. Lets try a SMC reset following this Apple T/N guide: How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac Your internal display is a bigger issue as the displays ribbon cables have failed in your case the video lines, as the backlight cable is working from your description (you see a bit of a glow in a dark room from the display). Here’s a view of the different cables:

I’m suspecting you gave your system a good bang along the hinge area which damaged the cable and caused the T1 to get messed up, unlike the stage lighting effect which is more of a design failure of Apples as described here The design flaw behind MacBook Pro’s ‘Stage Light’ effect Here too you’ll need a new display assembly!