Display Issue- PLEASE HELP!

[Nickeleye9]

Hi all,
I'm own a 15" Powerbook G4 Titanium, aka Apple's Black Sheep (from what I hear).

I know only a very little about my computer. I was doing a HUGE project, though, which is due tomorrow, and I shut my computer down to head home from my college's library. When I turned it on, I got only a very thin horizontal line about 1 pixel high, the entire length of my screen. Under that is some distorted gray area about 5 pixels high, the entire length of the screen. So what I'm left with looks like:

________________________________________________________________

and black all around it. I've tried doing everything Mac wants me to, including resetting PMU and holding Command, Control, R and some other key (I forget)

Please, please please if you can help point me in the right direction i would really appreciate it. It's the only method I have to my Adobe programs I need for this project.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Scarlet Fever]

first off, get your important data off. If you have another Mac with FireWire, you can boot your TiBook in Target Disk Mode; connect the two comps together with a FireWire cable, make sure they are both plugged in to power ie not running off battery, and restart the TiBook, holding down the T key. The HDD should show up on the other computer as a removable disk.

Does it show the lines when its reset, off AC power, and without the battery but with AC power? Other than that, i'm stumped.

Oh by the way, reseting the PRAM is Command+Option+P+R

 

[Nickeleye9]

A temporary solution, if any

So I went back to the things I got when I first purchased this computer (April 2005), and I found a converter for my PC monitor. Now I'm replying from my Mac. Now, through my keen intuition , I have deduced that I'm having a physical hardware problem with my display. This is BS, plain and simple. I've had a battery overheat, and I've been waiting on my replacement. I've had different display problems before, and now *This*?! I have no money to replace this, probably no warranty left... Apple has truly been nothing but a headache with such minor things. It's such a good computer, but Jesus, work out your issues!

Okay, enough rambling. I need to back up everything. I don't have another Mac, just a PC. Any suggestions? I have a USB-Firewire port, would that help? Like I said, I'm really not bright with computers..

 

[Nickeleye9]

Okay, so I took my mac into MacXperts. They told me I'd need a BRAND NEW LCD. This apparently will cost $695 after labor. As I told you before, I had it on at a coffee shop, turned it off, and took it home. When I turned it on at home it had the blue pixel-wide horizontal line across it. There was no agitation, no exposure to extreme temps, nothing of the sort. Could this really be a broken LCD? If so, what steps should i take now? Also, is $695 okay for a new LCD, installed? Should I simply try to sell it and upgrade?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

 

[NorCalLights]

Could this really be a broken LCD? If so, what steps should i take now? Also, is $695 okay for a new LCD, installed? Should I simply try to sell it and upgrade?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

Sounds like a broken LCD to me, although I guess there is a chance that it's something as simple as a loose connection between your display and the graphics card. Either way, it's not something you can fix yourself. $695 is a pretty fair price for a new display and the labor to install it. Apple would probably charge you more like $800.

For what it's worth, I'm typing this on a Titanium Powerbook that is pushing five years of service without a major problem. Apple was nice enough to replace a broken hinge and a cracked case for me a few weeks before my warranty ran out, so I don't think I would call it Apple's black sheep.

All that said, I think your best bet is to sell your laptop in its current condition and buy a new Macbook with the money. I think you'll probably get at least $500 for your laptop, and that plus the $700 you're saving by not fixing the LCD puts you well on your way to a brand new Macbook with a warranty and everything.

The way I see it, if you spend money to fix this laptop, it'll probably still only last you another one and a half to two years. I would expect three to four years out of a new Mac laptop...

Hope that helps... sorry to hear that your laptop is on the out...