I need the help of an Apple Tech!

[mystixman]

I recently inherited a 500MHZ G3 snow iBook from my sister, who upgraded to a new G4 iBook. It works perfectly, except for two things:

1) The backlight turns off if the screen is tilted more then about 60-70 degrees. Is there any way to fix this? Perhaps it has something to do with a backlight cable?

2) The DVD-ROM works fine, except for the fact it won't latch close. Is there any source to get replacements for this?

I would like to be able to do as much of this myself, so links to tutorials or any other explanations would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Rower_CPU]

With laptops, you're really limited in what you're able to tackle, in terms of do-it-yourself tech work.

Apple has a customer installable parts list that shows what parts you can work on without voiding your warranty (and in general, damaging your system beyond repair), and for laptops the usual parts are Airport card, RAM, battery and keyboard.

Your best bet is really going to be finding an Apple tech in your area to work on it, since I doubt those who knows how to do such repairs are giving away the info for free. Good luck!

 

[jamall]

The screen backlight issue is likely caused by the power cable running from the connector on the motherboard (just below the keyboard) to the high voltage inverter board (in the bottom of the lid) being sheared in the hinge. You can easily take the keyboard off, followed by the plate over the motherboard to get to the connector, and the back of the screen comes off fairly easily too. Whether you want to desolder the plugs and replace the wire with a 50c length yourself, or take the damaged wire to your local Apple Repairer and get a genuine replacement for ~$20 is up to you. Since you've already got the keyboard out and can see the DVD drive you might want to have a fiddle with that too, but disassembling the bottom half is a lot harder, and there is the potential for a lot more to go wrong.