Dropped 12" PB G4, black screen owner crying Help

[scarlets knees]

Hi all,

Firstly apologies, I registered in 2005 and sought your advice as a mac newbie and hung around posting erractically until 2006 and then nothing... and now I need your help so I'm back. Typical I know. However I hope you can forgive me enough to help.

Last night I knocked my 12" 1.5ghz PB off the arm of the sofa, it fell onto a carpetted floor in an inverted V (so the top of display and front of keyboard hit the floor first). When I picked it up there was a screen kind of 'overlaid' over the page I was looking at (the way dashboard overlays over a screen) saying I needed to restart. It may have said something else but I don't think so. It was in 3 languages. I switched it off by holding down the power button. Then hit the power button again. Got the whirring of it firing up, though a much shorter noise than normal. No chime cos I have my speaker turned off anyway.

and nothing. Black screen.
I can hear the usual humming sound of the fan or HD (?) but nothing. If I press the caps lock key or num lock key the backlight comes on. If I clsoed the lid the light at the front doesn't come on and it doesn't seem to go into sleep mode.

I've tried restting the PMU amd all that appears to have done for some reason is mean that the numlock F6 key now doesn't turn on the numlock lighht, the F5 key does instead.

I've tried another combination the name of which i forget but involves turning the machine on and holding down the command, option P and R keys down. Nothing...

I've tried attaching it to an external monitor and the monitor just says no signal check cable.

can't see any dmaage to the screen ,no damage to the case.

So any ideas what I might have done? and is it going to be hard/expensie/worthwhile fixing? I can't afford a new mac and to be honest i don't want a new mac really, i really like my 12 incher, if there was a like for like replacement in the mbPro line I'd go for it if i had the cash.

Any advice gratefully received. I'm writing this on a WINTEL and already had to re-boot twice and ctrl-alt-del to close IE three times. That's more than I had to do in 4 years with my pb...I'm so annoyed with myself right now.

 

[madog]

Could have damaged the HDD, or you could have damaged the display or the inverter or all of them or more . If it's the inverter, then when you turn on the machine, after a few seconds of when it should be on, take a flashlight or bright light to the screen (even from the Apple logo from the back of it) and see if you can see anything. If everything is fine otherwise, you should be able to see the menu bar with the light after it boots, otherwise if something else was affected then check towards the middle of the screen.

If you can't see anything than the screen or it's cables or connection could be damaged or less likely loose.

The HDD could have been damaged or could have come loose by the impact.

If there is no or a VERY VERY VERY MINOR bump on it then it might be worth making a reservation at an Apple Store and asking about the flat rate laptop repair. I don't know they're limit on older machines, but G4's should still be taken in under this program. Basically, they will take your machine in for a flat rate of (for that one, somewhere between $200-400) and repair anything that is wrong with it, even a $700 logic board. ALTHOUGH I forget completely whether or not a busted display is included.

However, if there is physical damage to the machine, even it was from years ago and isn't associated with the current problem or even if you don't care about it, they will automatically fix any cosmetic issues and then raise the repair $800 or something ridiculous AND if you do not want to follow through with the repair, will want you to still pay $150 or so for labor and to send it back. So, if the screen is cracked or if there is a big bump from the fall or anything like that then it's not worth it to send it in for this program.

If you do try, make sure you DO NOT mention anything about dropping it and say something like the screen was flickering on and off for a while and then one day it kernal panic-ed (black screen telling you to restart in 10 different languages) and after restarting the screen didn't come on. Or something like that, basically you gotta lie.

If you take it in and the genius or whoever tells you it should be fine and fixable, again, make sure that applies to replacing the screen (just in case, cause you "read online it wasn't") as well and if possible, ask politely if you could get that in writing from him or a manager to cover your ass if the repair depot decides otherwise and they try to **** you (not likely, but mainly because again, I forget about the screen being repaired/replaced and to be safe. Don't want the genius to be wrong, say yes, and then the depot to tell you what is what and say no)

 

[Scottsdale]

I once dropped a Dell notebook. Same thing no display. I opened up and wire running to display was crimped. At the time I tugged on wires and straightened out the bad one. Blew air through it. Turned back on and it worked. Could be simple like that. Probably not major from way you said it fell. Dropped LCD display once and it was very obviously damaged when turned on. Shattered effect. Doesn't sound anything like that cause it lit up.

Don't panic! Actually display panels aren't too expensive.

 

[scarlets knees]

Thanks Madog, I'll try the light thing when I get back home tonight. Might even try to open the thing to see if I can see any loose cables as Scottsadale mentioned. A thread I saw linked to a good site with step by step instructions with pictures. I assume I might be able to check the HDD for movement too at the same time.

Luckily I've pretty recently done a back up of the HDD so if it's that then that would be a great opportunity/excuse to get a new bigger HDD anyway.

worse case scenario is taking it in to someone. There are no signs of bumps or cracks at all even after it's fall so can be economic with the truth but unfortunately I'm miles from an Apple Store and $200-400 (higher in the UK too I bet) makes me wonder if I should just find some cash for a new one.

There's an apple premium reseller nearby so might try them to at least see if they can tell me for free what the problem is, they might be feeling generous!!

Thanks again all.

 

[madog]

At the old place I worked out, the Laptop repair is done purely through mail. Apple shipped us a pre-labeled package and took care of it. I'm not familiar with what can be done by you alone [it was an authorized repair center], but it might be worth it to call AppleCare and see if they can help without having to go into a store.