LOL, yeah, it's been kind of an intense last five years. I've learned a lot about Mac repair though!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
12" PowerBook G4 Screen Issues
- Thread starter LOLZpersonok
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
And also how annoying Mac repair is. Getting the Logic Board back in my 15" bottom case was a royal pain getting it around the hinge.
I have my PowerBook's top cover off. I'm probably really stupid for doing this, but I have been running it with the cover off for a little bit now. At first, I was able to get the PowerBook to have the fuzzy screen issue and by pressing on the heatsink with a pair of tweezers, particularily the lower half and it would make the screen artifacts "stop" as they were moving, but they would still be there. Varying pressure would cause them to look different or move around or change. After a few reboots I was not able to replicate the issue at all. I went through the setup process after Mac OS was installed, and it didn't freeze or have any screen artifacts at all, whereas before I had opened the case it would freeze or the screen would mess up once I had selected my locale and clicked continue.
I completed the registration without issue and now I am running it on the desktop. I press on the heatsink with the tweezers again and nothing will happen, where before even so much as tapping would cause issues. I just blew compressed air onto the internal components, and I have now turned it off properly. I will put it back together and see what happens.
----------
Alright, I may have success in getting rid of the graphical glitches.
I have the computer running in regular mode. No matter how much tapping of the left palm rest I cannot make the laptop's display glitch out whereas before I could. I'm going to run it so it warms up to see if it will start glitching out.
So I am using the PowerBook now, and it seems to be working just fine. I haven't had any issues since I opened it and did whatever I did. I hope it lasts, and if it does, I don't know how long it will last. I cannot get the issue to appear in the way I have been a while ago by tapping the left palm rest.
I hope it stays working for you, but I am just wondering if the problem will reappear after being shaken around in your bag or backpack. It sounds to me like solder joints are failing on the GPU.
LOL! No, just a Mac that I took apart to remove the LCD so I could use it in my son's new Mac.
I started it today after a night of sitting, and the problems have returned, the only difference being that it doesn't respond to tapping on the left palm rest. I'm going to try another couple things. Right now I have it booted into safe mode and even there I had to reboot it a couple times to get it started. After the third try the boot screen came up without any graphical issues.
I just tried your suggestion. I removed any NVIDIA and GeForce related files in the Extensions folder. I have it booting into normal mode and so far nothing bad has happened. It's running and nothing is happening. It booted without any issues, but I don't know how permanent it is.
I turned off the PowerBook about two hours ago, let it sit and charge and then I rebooted it. It started almost normally. The Apple logo on the bootscreen was just slightly garbled while it was booting but now that I have it running it has no graphical issues. I was running it for a couple hours before shutting it down and it had no issues there either.
I don't know how long this will last or even if it somewhat resolves the issue. With my luck I don't think it'll work. I opened the PowerBook to see if that had any effect, and I did a little bit of fooling around inside, and now tapping the left palm rest will not cause the issue to occur. I can accidentally bump it now knowing that it won't crash.
I don't think I'm really any closer to finding a fix to this.
I started it up just now and it had the same graphical anomalies (fuzzy, colours flashing across the screen, lines) and I tried booting it three times without any success. I didn't feel like going to Safe Mode because I knew that would do the same thing.
I tried booting into Open Firmware, where the graphical issues were still present. I tried the commands "reset-nvram" and "reset-all" and the laptop rebooted and the graphical glitches disappeared, until I booted it, put it to sleep and woke it up about 10 minutes later, where they came back and the PowerBook froze.
I am totally unsure as to what to do next.
I reset the PRAM and PMU, with no results.
Unfortunately, I ended up following a bogus instruction of resetting the PMU in my PowerBook and I damaged the keyboard doing it because it somehow got stuck. Now, it's permanently rippled and looks bad.
----------
And that isn't worth it. I'm not going to buy a new logic board, and after this I won't even be buying a new PowerBook. This just goes to show how unreliable eBay is. I'm baffled at the fact that the seller hasn't responded to either my negative feedback or my message about it a few days ago.
I'm done with this thing. I'm going to recycle it the next chance I get. What a waste of $65. That was my graduation gift, and now I've wasted it. This is really dumb, but I have screwed myself out of a gift. Too bad I can't explain how angry I am right now.
----------
This is honestly going to sound ridiculous.
I think that so far my experiences with Apple have not been all too good. The only Mac I have in perfect working order is my Power Mac. Obviously I haven't had too much experience with the new Macs, but still. I'm an idiot and it has an effect on what I think now. Even my iPhone isn't immune, I had it replaced not too long ago because it crapped out on me. Wasn't even a year old.
Sorry, I'm just in a very bad mood.
Unfortunately, I ended up following a bogus instruction of resetting the PMU in my PowerBook and I damaged the keyboard doing it because it somehow got stuck. Now, it's permanently rippled and looks bad.
----------
And that isn't worth it. I'm not going to buy a new logic board, and after this I won't even be buying a new PowerBook. This just goes to show how unreliable eBay is. I'm baffled at the fact that the seller hasn't responded to either my negative feedback or my message about it a few days ago.
I'm done with this thing. I'm going to recycle it the next chance I get. What a waste of $65. That was my graduation gift, and now I've wasted it. This is really dumb, but I have screwed myself out of a gift. Too bad I can't explain how angry I am right now.
----------
This is honestly going to sound ridiculous.
I think that so far my experiences with Apple have not been all too good. The only Mac I have in perfect working order is my Power Mac. Obviously I haven't had too much experience with the new Macs, but still. I'm an idiot and it has an effect on what I think now. Even my iPhone isn't immune, I had it replaced not too long ago because it crapped out on me. Wasn't even a year old.
Sorry, I'm just in a very bad mood.
Sorry to hear it sounds as if it's a loss. You may want to try and resell it to try and recoup some of your money. Just make sure you alert the buyers its non-functional and it's being sold "as-is".
As for the Ebay seller we can't conclude one way or the other about their having sold a known bad unit. It was functional for a brief period of time when you received it. It may have been so for their testing. Though the fact they didn't respond to your e-mail does cast doubt on that.
And finally I wouldn't judge Apple on a computer which is ten years old, has long since been obsolete, and has seen who knows how many owners throughout its life. Buying a computer of this age carries risks and, unfortunately, you've got to experience it first hand.
As for the Ebay seller we can't conclude one way or the other about their having sold a known bad unit. It was functional for a brief period of time when you received it. It may have been so for their testing. Though the fact they didn't respond to your e-mail does cast doubt on that.
And finally I wouldn't judge Apple on a computer which is ten years old, has long since been obsolete, and has seen who knows how many owners throughout its life. Buying a computer of this age carries risks and, unfortunately, you've got to experience it first hand.
I reset the PRAM and PMU, with no results.
Unfortunately, I ended up following a bogus instruction of resetting the PMU in my PowerBook and I damaged the keyboard doing it because it somehow got stuck. Now, it's permanently rippled and looks bad.
----------
And that isn't worth it. I'm not going to buy a new logic board, and after this I won't even be buying a new PowerBook. This just goes to show how unreliable eBay is. I'm baffled at the fact that the seller hasn't responded to either my negative feedback or my message about it a few days ago.
I'm done with this thing. I'm going to recycle it the next chance I get. What a waste of $65. That was my graduation gift, and now I've wasted it. This is really dumb, but I have screwed myself out of a gift. Too bad I can't explain how angry I am right now.
----------
This is honestly going to sound ridiculous.
I think that so far my experiences with Apple have not been all too good. The only Mac I have in perfect working order is my Power Mac. Obviously I haven't had too much experience with the new Macs, but still. I'm an idiot and it has an effect on what I think now. Even my iPhone isn't immune, I had it replaced not too long ago because it crapped out on me. Wasn't even a year old.
Sorry, I'm just in a very bad mood.
Was the eBay seller a liquidator or a tech store? If so, you maybe able to locate contact information for the actual store rather than just the eBay department. Don't throw it away since it is still good for parts and you still can recuperate at least $20 if not more.
I think it is just a regular seller, selling lots of computers. It's weird because this seller has 128 positive feedback but only 3 negative, including mine. You'd think that they'd be more trustworthy. We're going to try and go through with the claim anyways.
They're selling a couple of 15" PowerBook G4s as well.
Will you post the name of the seller so no one else gets screwed over by this schmuck. I would begin the claim with eBay and be completely honest. Ask them for compensation of shipping too!
I was actually considering reselling it for parts, but I don't know, because who knows? Maybe I will fix it. The questionable part is the fact that it actually works well, just once you get it to boot, which can be quite difficult. Either that or it starts working once it is warmed up.
I already know that it is totally possible that the machine got damaged along the way, and in that case, it isn't the seller's fault. But we don't know. So I think it is safe to assume that the seller probably knew about the problem. I know of the risk of buying older electronics with issues. But if it has issues, they should be mentioned on eBay. This PowerBook was listed as working and the seller didn't mention any issues at all. That's what makes me angry, is the fact that the machine I thought was working actually wasn't. It even had two or three stickers that said "working" like it went through some kind of inspection, one sticker of which still remains.
I know it's really dumb to judge a company based on its old products. At the time (last night) I was just so angry I couldn't help it. Even my late 2006 iMac works better than this PowerBook, and it has the same issue. At least I was able to disable the GPU to make it at least somewhat functional.
How long after you received the PowerBook did the issues present themselves? I would recommend starting the claim with eBay and specifically asking for the shipping cost. They may have you return the Mac, but in most cases just pay you out. The thing is, the longer you wait the easier it is for them to say no. You tried dealing with the useless schmuck of a seller with no response whatsoever, so you go to the top.
That's what we plan on doing. I want to get that shipping back and try and buy something else a lot more worthwhile. I'd buy a PC, but I already have tonnes of those and quite frankly, I'm bored of the old PCs. I want some old Macintoshes.
Gooddeal-888 on eBay
The user is actually selling some very nice HP laptops, 12" 1024x768 displays so they're the same size as the 12" PowerBook G4. Only except these are supposedly Intel Core 2 Duo machines and support up to 4GB of RAM. Too bad my experience with this seller will prevent me from purchasing said laptops.
The issues first presented themselves as soon as I powered it on for the first time. It was the first thing that I noticed. They didn't appear after a couple days or so. If the claim doesn't go through I will simply resell it on eBay for parts or not working, for about $40 and have the buyer cover the rest for shipping.
I've seen that happen to a few 12" Powerbooks. A logicboard replacement was the only that that would work. Some of the older 867Mhz and 1Ghz ones that had this happen went through a lobotomy and ended up running screenless and with a special configuration as servers for a while. They never lasted more than 8 months like that. When one would die, we'd just switch out the drive with another failing GPU machine. For some reason we would call them "hammies", don't know or remember why.