4 Year Old Powerbook dead?

[donga]

On Sunday I popped a DVD into my 1.5 12" Powerbook (756 ram, 100gb hd) and then picture got incredibly screwed up. I guess the best way to describe it is there were a mess of colors and lines everywhere. Trying to move windows around left a window trail on the screen.

First thing after this happened was that I got all the data off, then I popped in the original Panther disc and wanted to do a fresh install, it installed alright from the disc (albeit with issues on the screen), but when it started again, there was a blue screen while the music was playing (the music that comes on when you first get your mac).

Anyone have any suggestions on what to do? From some forum searching it seems to be a video card issue. I'm hoping to salvage it some how, but if not, it'll probably sell as parts. It's been so good for four years now, I was surprised it conked out so suddenly.

Also, if I go to the genius bar, will there be an assessment fee? applecare ran out one year ago.

 

[dmmcintyre3]

Apple charges a flat rate for repairs on 15 inch PB's. It is $310. I do not know if the same applies to the 12 inch PB's. There is an assessment fee of $50 if you choose not to repair it.

And my friend got his 15 inch repaired for free with a 3rd party HD in it I would not reccommend trying this but it happened:

I think I mentioned that I had dropped off my PB at the Apple store for service
and they indeed said the system board was bad. It is a $310 upgrade
and would also correct the memory slot issue as well as t he video
banding. I received a call from the repair depot and they said the
system board was bad but they could not repair it until the laptop had
a stock Apple hard drive and that increased the cost by $600 so the
bill was going to be $900. I told them to just send it back and I
would put the old drive back in it and resend it. They were OK with
that but when I got it home I saw that they had indeed wiped my
existing drive and reloaded Leopard. When it finished it's boot
sequence I did not see the banding and then I checked the system
memory and it was back to 1.5GB.

 

[donga]

hmmm... i would like it to get checked out, but not necessarily for $50, and if it costs around $310 to repair, i'm better off selling it for parts. I'm going to try a local non-apple apple repair place.

anyone else have any other suggestions or clues to what happened?

 

[iSaint]

Apple charges a flat rate for repairs on 15 inch PB's. It is $310. I do not know if the same applies to the 12 inch PB's. There is an assessment fee of $50 if you choose not to repair it.

And my friend got his 15 inch repaired for free with a 3rd party HD in it I would not reccommend trying this but it happened:

Very similar thing happened to me. Apple sent the machine back and I put the original hard drive in. I sent it back to Apple and they repaired it for free AND gave me a new battery.

 

[donga]

Update:

So I zeroed out the drive, then reinstalled Panther (the original disc), then I couldn't see anything at all besides a blue screen while hearing the intro music play. I repeated this a few times, then did the diagnostic test (holding down option to run it via the disc). It confirmed everything Passed (logic board, memory, hard drive, etc.) except Video RAM had an Error Code: 2NVD/1/3:2122

Then I saw a copy of TechTool Deluxe in the AppleCare box, popped it in, had to navigate the menus blind, but hit enter every time an OK button popped up, and some how it fixed the VRAM and functions perfectly now.

So happy right now