Hi all,
I've been messing around with a 15" PowerBook G4 lately. It's the 1.33 GHz aluminum model, with a 40GB harddrive and 768MB of memory.
When I got it a few days ago, it would succesfully boot ± 1 out of 2 times. It would continue to work properly for some time until the screen would slowly change to produce opaque white lines all over the display, causing the screen to be almost entirely white in the end.
As soon as the white lines started to appear, the system would become unresponsive (i.e. moving the cursor wasn't possible, as if a screenshot was shown underneath all the white lines).
However, if I would readjust the display/lid, the white lines would go away and the system went back to its original state, i.e. before the white lines. I could just continue working as if nothing happened.
I also experienced the display to show three times the same screen, only moved horizontally (e.g. the boot-up screen would show
instead of a single, centred and the three screens would over- and underlap each other. This behavior continued when it booted to the desktop.
As of today, if I try to turn the computer on, I hear the harddrive starting to spin and the "chime" can be heard, but after that the boot process seems to stall. I don't think that the computer fully boots into the OS since the "volume up" button lights up the numlock-light instead of making the 'volume up/down sound. Also, I can confirm that it's not a backlight issue since there just aren't any graphical renderings on the display (I checked with a flashlight behind the Apple logo).
Note that the numlock-button is situated next to the "volume up" button, and if I remember correctly it would indeed light up the numlock-button during the boot process; it would work correctly when the system was fully booted.
My first guess was that the graphics card might be toast. However, when I discovered that readjusting the display/lid would (temporarily) 'solve' the issue, my guess was that the display data cable wasn't connected properly.
Now, since it won't display anything at all, I think both options are possible.
What do you guys think/advise?
Having had about 5 PowerPC Macs, I know the platform is fairly limited nowadays but if possible, I'd like to make it functional again because it's still in nice condition otherwise. I'd either like to make it my secondary computer or use it to make my father familiar with Mac OS since he's always worked with Windows.
I've been messing around with a 15" PowerBook G4 lately. It's the 1.33 GHz aluminum model, with a 40GB harddrive and 768MB of memory.
When I got it a few days ago, it would succesfully boot ± 1 out of 2 times. It would continue to work properly for some time until the screen would slowly change to produce opaque white lines all over the display, causing the screen to be almost entirely white in the end.
As soon as the white lines started to appear, the system would become unresponsive (i.e. moving the cursor wasn't possible, as if a screenshot was shown underneath all the white lines).
However, if I would readjust the display/lid, the white lines would go away and the system went back to its original state, i.e. before the white lines. I could just continue working as if nothing happened.
I also experienced the display to show three times the same screen, only moved horizontally (e.g. the boot-up screen would show
instead of a single, centred and the three screens would over- and underlap each other. This behavior continued when it booted to the desktop.As of today, if I try to turn the computer on, I hear the harddrive starting to spin and the "chime" can be heard, but after that the boot process seems to stall. I don't think that the computer fully boots into the OS since the "volume up" button lights up the numlock-light instead of making the 'volume up/down sound. Also, I can confirm that it's not a backlight issue since there just aren't any graphical renderings on the display (I checked with a flashlight behind the Apple logo).
Note that the numlock-button is situated next to the "volume up" button, and if I remember correctly it would indeed light up the numlock-button during the boot process; it would work correctly when the system was fully booted.
My first guess was that the graphics card might be toast. However, when I discovered that readjusting the display/lid would (temporarily) 'solve' the issue, my guess was that the display data cable wasn't connected properly.
Now, since it won't display anything at all, I think both options are possible.
What do you guys think/advise?
Having had about 5 PowerPC Macs, I know the platform is fairly limited nowadays but if possible, I'd like to make it functional again because it's still in nice condition otherwise. I'd either like to make it my secondary computer or use it to make my father familiar with Mac OS since he's always worked with Windows.
