PowerBook G4, advice on display issue

[Saarek]

Hi everyone,

I'm a long term Apple user and a bit of a collector of vintage Mac's.

This morning a good friend of mine gave me the opportunity to buy a 12" 1.5Ghz PowerBook G4. This Powerbook is in beautiful condition, condition wise it's one of the best I have seen in a long time and it comes with all of the original components.

As a massive added bonus it also comes with the original box and manuals, so I jumped and bought it straight away.......

Which now might have been a mistake. I have another PowerBook G4 that has a faulty logic board, but the LCD was perfect the last time it worked. I'm pretty handy with a screw driver and figured I'd swap the LCD panel, or if need be the whole display. But looking at the ifixit guides I now realise that replacing the display literally requires pulling apart the entire computer and is a risky operation.

I've also realised that the issue might not be with the LCD and could be a GPU or Logic board issue.

Attached is a picture of the fault, I was wondering if anyone had ever seen anything similar and could perhaps let me know where the issue likely lies.

 

[B S Magnet]

Hi everyone,

I'm a long term Apple user and a bit of a collector of vintage Mac's.

This morning a good friend of mine gave me the opportunity to buy a 12" 1.5Ghz PowerBook G4. This Powerbook is in beautiful condition, condition wise it's one of the best I have seen in a long time and it comes with all of the original components.

As a massive added bonus it also comes with the original box and manuals, so I jumped and bought it straight away.......

Which now might have been a mistake. I have another PowerBook G4 that has a faulty logic board, but the LCD was perfect the last time it worked. I'm pretty handy with a screw driver and figured I'd swap the LCD panel, or if need be the whole display. But looking at the ifixit guides I now realise that replacing the display literally requires pulling apart the entire computer and is a risky operation.

I've also realised that the issue might not be with the LCD and could be a GPU or Logic board issue.

Attached is a picture of the fault, I was wondering if anyone had ever seen anything similar and could perhaps let me know where the issue likely lies.

This can happen when the LCD cable isn’t properly seated on either end (LCD or logic board).

A variation on this once happened to me on my A1139 PowerBook after re-assembling it following a re-pasting of the CPU, GPU, and northbridge.

After taking it apart and then re-seating the video cable (on the logic board end), the problem resolved itself.

 

[Applicator]

I'd recommend connecting it to an external Display via Mini-DVI first, so you can make sure the GPU is fine. Next step for me would be reseating all the Display connectors inside, as B S Magnet mentioned before. Might be a shorted or broken wire between case and Display as well.
I would guess GPU and board are fine, as -if I recall correctly- the 12" PowerBooks are pretty reliable

 

[Saarek]

This can happen when the LCD cable isn’t properly seated on either end (LCD or logic board).

A variation on this once happened to me on my A1139 PowerBook after re-assembling it following a re-pasting of the CPU, GPU, and northbridge.

After taking it apart and then re-seating the video cable (on the logic board end), the problem resolved itself.

Thanks for the tip, I'll look into that first.

 

[Saarek]

I'd recommend connecting it to an external Display via Mini-DVI first, so you can make sure the GPU is fine. Next step for me would be reseating all the Display connectors inside, as B S Magnet mentioned before. Might be a shorted or broken wire between case and Display as well.
I would guess GPU and board are fine, as -if I recall correctly- the 12" PowerBooks are pretty reliable

Yes, that would make sense. If all is fine on an external monitor then I know the logic board and GPU are sound.

 

[ab225]

Yes, that would make sense. If all is fine on an external monitor then I know the logic board and GPU are sound.

I had a similar looking display on a unibody MacBook Pro and in that case it turned out to be a bad display connection. I unplugged the display data cable connector, cleaned both contact points with 70% alcohol solution then plugged it back in and got it working fine again.