Powerbook G4 display is gone

Greysoul

I've been having difficulties with the screen on my PowerBook G4 - namely, the fact that the bloody thing won't come on anymore. After restarting from a sleep or a shutdown, I can hear the machine going through its bootup process, and it *sounds* like it's working just fine... just with no display. I've tried resetting the PRAM and the Power Manager, but no go. (Why oh why does Dublin not have an Apple Store yet?!)

Any help would be most deeply appreciated - thanks!

Asiaprod

Greysoul wrote:

I've been having difficulties with the screen on my PowerBook G4 - namely, the fact that the bloody thing won't come on anymore. After restarting from a sleep or a shutdown, I can hear the machine going through its bootup process, and it *sounds* like it's working just fine... just with no display. I've tried resetting the PRAM and the Power Manager, but no go. (Why oh why does Dublin not have an Apple Store yet?!)

Any help would be most deeply appreciated - thanks!

Didi you bang or drop it? Try tapping the side of the screen casing a couple of times. If no joy, try to boot it from a real legal apple OSX disc and see does it kick in.
If not, I am afraid it is a trip to the repair shop

Greysoul

Asiaprod wrote:

Didi you bang or drop it? Try tapping the side of the screen casing a couple of times. If no joy, try to boot it from a real legal apple OSX disc and see does it kick in.
If not, I am afraid it is a trip to the repair shop

No banging or dropping - it did get carried around in luggage when I flied over here from the states, but that was several months ago and it had been working fine until now. Screen tapping didn't work, and my OSX disc is long lost. I've been wary of taking it to a repair shop because I'm not comfortable leaving a machine with personal stuff on it in someone else's hands, but I guess I have no choice.

Thanks...

monkeyfudge

There is a way to make the hard drive on your power book boot up as a firewire hard drive when it's plugged into another mac... you'd be able to back up all your information that way before having it repaired..

I can't remember the key you hold down on booting off the top of my head though.

TerrorFirmer

Is there not a vga input you could plug a regular monitor into for the purpose of backing up/deleting files before trying to have it repaired?

monkeyfudge

HavoK wrote:

Is there not a vga input you could plug a regular monitor into for the purpose of backing up/deleting files before trying to have it repaired?

Actually that would let you determine if the problem was with the monitor itself or with the logic board.

Greysoul

HavoK wrote:

Is there not a vga input you could plug a regular monitor into for the purpose of backing up/deleting files before trying to have it repaired?

Yeah, I tried that, no luck. (It does sound for all the world like it's working, just something controlling the display has gone bonkers, I suppose.) As for backing up, even if I could, that'd still leave the issue of getting the sensitive stuff off the p'book without a display.

Thumper Long

hook it up to another mac (any mac) in target firewire mode by holding down T when booting. it will pop up as an external firewire drive on the other mac. you can then copy off the sensitive data and delete it from the powerbook. if its under warranty get it sent off asap, to either typetec or mactivate.

rainbow kirby

Seriously, don't go to Mactivate. I put my iBook into them last November to be fixed, and it took them 4 weeks to get it back to me and they still hadn't fixed the problem - turned out the screen needed to be replaced (thank the good dude for warranty!), but they replaced the logic board instead.

SouperComputer

Seriously, don't go to Mactivate.

Under warranty, you dont have a choice in Ireland. They are the authorised repair centre here. Whoever you drop it to, they will be forwarding it to mactivate. Some repairs are sent to holland from there IIRC.

If you hold the back of the screen up to a light, is there a feint image visible during bootup? It would be unusual for a G4 to have a video failure (unless its a 12"), an inverter (backlight) would be common enough though. Also, on the external VGA, sometimes you need to force it to redetect the displays as it doesnt catch it on bootup. Only problem is that this is done in the OS!

As Thumper Long said, you can mount it as an external HD on another Mac by holding T on startup.

TerrorFirmer

SouperComputer wrote:

As Thumper Long said, you can mount it as an external HD on another Mac by holding T on startup.

That is an extremely handy feature I must say...

Thumper Long

SouperComputer wrote:

Under warranty, you dont have a choice in Ireland. They are the authorised repair centre here. Whoever you drop it to, they will be forwarding it to mactivate. Some repairs are sent to holland from there IIRC.

Typetec are also a fully authorised apple service agent, i do have a close working allegance with them on a professional level and i know the guys in there well and would recommend them to anyone. Not canvassing or anything but definitely better than mactivate who i had the unfortunate experience of with my first iBook. But in their defense 99.9% of display problems are logic board based, but that does not excuse them testing it properly before handing it back.

SouperComputer

Typetec are also a fully authorised apple service agent

Do they take care of warranty repairs for Apple though? If so, then I sit corrected.

tonyboy247

Ok hook the laptop to an external monitor … in your situation you will need to boot from cd/dvd depending on model.. if you don’t have one ask me.. the machine can operate quite happily without using its display but will tell me the root of the problem.

With relation to warranty repairs it all depends on the spacific model.. Apple have different pollicies in place. Sometimes for example they like to send systems back to holland.. they do this to keep track of faults within model types so that revisions can be made if needed and they have official statistics for them. In this event you can you mactivate who they use for collection and distribution purposses.

im an independent authorised apple technician and if you need to get your data off the laptop prior to any repair I understand.. if needed let.. me know.

Greysoul

Actually - and I hope and pray I'm not jumping the gun here - but we seem to have fixed the thing! My partner tried turning it on, putting a DVD in straightaway, holding the eject button down and pressing enter - and for whatever reason, that brought it back to life.

It still worries me that this could happen in the first place (and I just hope it *stays* okay), but for now I'm *no* end of glad to have my Powerbook back up and running... and it's given me a chance to clear some stuff off just in case anything does happen again.

Thanks so much, guys!

Thumper Long

SouperComputer wrote:

Do they take care of warranty repairs for Apple though? If so, then I sit corrected.

They do repair a huge amount of apple warranty repairs, maybe not as many as mactivate as they are dedicated service agents and typetec have other customer obligations with alot of out of warranty work aswell.

Thumper Long

SouperComputer wrote:

Do they take care of warranty repairs for Apple though? If so, then I sit corrected.

They do repair a huge amount of apple warranty repairs, maybe not as many as mactivate as they are dedicated service agents and typetec have other customer obligations with alot of out of warranty work aswell.

rainbow kirby

SouperComputer wrote:

Do they take care of warranty repairs for Apple though? If so, then I sit corrected.

There's actually a 3rd place in Dublin (Image Supply Systems, in Liberty Lane behind Whelans) that does warranty repairs for Apple too.

TheWolf

Image Supply have stopped servicing Apple stuff, last I heard. Oh, and Thumper Long, I'm one of the inhouse engineers in Typetec. Would I know ya

To the OP, off the top of my head it sounds like a board issue. If its under warranty, there should be no prob sending it to Apple. In fairness to Mactivate, a lot of the time the boards on the laptops are out of stock with Apple themselves.

If you want to PM your serial number to me, I could check for you and let you know if the boards in stock or not before dropping it in

Other than that, there's not much you can do. You could try booting from a system CD to isolate wheter its hardware or software (but chances are it will be hardware)

If you can, hook it up to an ext monitor. If the ext monitor is still dark, its most likely the board. If the problem doesnt reoccur, the screen may be the culprit.

Hope this helps man