Another iBook LB failure

I've a second hand 12" 500 MHz dual usb iBook which has a battery that isn't recognized by the logic board. The battery indicator tells that is 3/4 full.

I've tried a known good friend's battery and it's also not recognized by the board. All the usual things were made : fresh OS X 10.3.4 install, reseting the PMU and the NVRAM on Open Firmware. Zero reaction.

So I thought : another victim of the iBook Logic Board failure.

Go to Apple support: a new board would cost me more than 500 euros ( I'm in Europe and that means more than US$700, when you add the sales tax ). What?!
The technicians even concede that it must be a logic board problem but since the iBook doesn't show any of the video issues stated for an acceptable logic board free replacement they refuse to include my iBook in the LB replacement program.

I'm going crazy!

Now the only way to have the board replaced is to me to induce some of those video problems on my book. I know this is odd but I see no other way and it's here that I'm calling for your help. Without dealing with the hardware and the innards of the laptop, in the software how can I do it?

I think there are only two ways, either changing the parameters of Open Firmware ( but this would be overcomed by a nvram-reset / set defaults command ) or the OS X video extensions and appearance.

But since I'm not fluent with UNIX language and editing and changing the OS X kernel can you help me telling me exactly how I can do it?

Please help!!

Thank you all!

Learning_bird

Thank you Finiksa for answering my question and serch for help.

As I said, Apple's technicians opinion was the same as mine : it is a logic board failure. The question is that the simptom showed by this failure affects the proper battery recognition and not the video problems listed by Apple to make the LB replacement, though I saw several testimonies in US newsgroups and forums of boards replaced due to simptoms equal to mine ( battery recognition ) or USB and Firewire malfunctioning.

It seems that in Europe Apple is even more conservative and tries the most it can to avoid a LB replacement. Unfortunately it's not uncommon through its history to see Apple denying to accept their own mistakes and support their clients, wich are the most loyal and pay a hefty bill to acquire Apple's products.

And that's what I call unethical

Unethical is asking US$1000, $1500 or $2000 for a defective laptop.
Unethical is doing so during 30 months of production.
Unethical is being aware of the problem and doing nothing to solve it in the very first months of the manufacturing process.
Unethical is denying the sole existence of the problem, as Apple made during that 30 month period, even with thousands of complaints.

Cheers, Finiksa.

Thank you again, Finiksa.

Today or this weekend I'll try UT or other demo game in non-stop mode at a high frame rate to stress it to the max.

Thanks.

Hector and Finiksa,

I've went through the bookmarks I've made when investigating the LB failure problems reported and found one prior macrumors thread where you started discussing this issue :
https://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-78119 .
You pointed some of the same solutions.

I'll try first the flexing case method.

BTW, at this precise moment I've headphones connected to the iBook. Just connecting and disconnecting two or three times the jack induces the Expose effect with green and pink hues. Wow!

Those of you that had the LB replaced received always a new set of OS X discs?