Of Dead iBooks and new Macbooks

[otterpop]

So yesterday morning my iBook G4 died. It started flipping between white, red, green, blue, grey, dark grey, then black screens in a cycle. I found some (vague) info about it being the video chip coming apart from the logic board.
So I fussed with it and fought with it, and couldn't even get it into target disk mode. I had lost all of my notes from Winter term so far, and with finals 2 weeks away.
So I called apple, and ordered a refurb macbook. The sales guy said If I got the overnight shipping (For an additional $27) it would get to me sometime before next tuesday. I closed my eyes and bit the bullet.
Once I got home from work, I decided to pop open the iBook and take a look at the video chip, see if I could do the "shim trick" to fix it.
I should add that it's much easier to take apart the 14" iBook G4 than it is the 12" iBook G3. Once I got it half disassembled, I put the battery back in and Presto! it works now.
The good news continues, as my new macbook (with regular free shipping) should be at my house tomorrow, according to FedEx.Woot.
So now the only problem I have is with the 12" iBook G3 that has a video problem as well. The backlight turns off unless you hold the front edge of the case to the left of the track pad. Does anyone have experience with this particularly? And is it pretty much the same issue as what I have with the G4? Thanks in advance.

 

[heatmiser]

And is it pretty much the same issue as what I have with the G4? Thanks in advance.

Yes. The same technique should work.

 

[otterpop]

Thanks. I think I will try it sometime soon.
I wish there was some kind of super wiki for mac problems. Although there are lots of places with a tidbit here and a page there, it's a lot like the problem I have with the linux community. nobody really documents the problems completely, and nobody wants to talk about the problems they've had. What I found on the Apple support forums were mainly people saying "it needs to be reballed" etc.

I wish for a second, some people would go, "Gee, if I didn't have a degree in electrical engineering, that might confuse me. I should give a better explanation for that." It would at least cut down on diagnostic time. When I called the local apple auth. service center they said it would be $45 to even look at it, and then they'd send it to apple to fix and wouldn't even know how much it would cost before getting it back. Hence the replacement macbook.

If I had more time, I think I would start a super mac wiki of some sort. I hate to compare the mac community to the linux community's bizarre elitist behavior by the way. I think that one of the problems with wider spread mac adoption is some of the lack of support, bringing it down to the level of the stressed-out person who took Typing classes, not keyboarding.

 

[otterpop]

new macbook has arrived!
Now to outfit it with some more ram and a neoprene sleeve. I should be ready to go for criminal law class tomorrow.