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Gabe3

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 17, 2009
20
0
My friends 2003 powerbook G4 17" went dead recently, he said first the screen went really dim, and then a few days later the screen doesn't turn on and the laptop doesn't completely boot up. I think he said when the screen went dim, he plugged it into an external monitor and it worked, now it no longer works. He said it works if it's running on a battery, but the screen doesn't look very good, I'm guessing its running in a special mode. It doesn't work at all when it's running via the power adapter.

He took it to a apple store and they said it probably needs a new logic board. They can't do anything with it because too old. I'm asking if you guys agree that the problem is the logic board? What about an inverter board? He said the cheapest logic board he could find for it was $600, does that price sound reasonable?

Also, how would I find the exact logic board I need? If I do a search on apples tech spec site they don't say what motherboard is used.

I think I need either the 820-1502-A or 661-2823. when I look up those two logic boards, they go with the laptop, so I think maybe they are the same thing, I don't know why the numbers are different?
 
a little update, I swapped logic boards and the laptop works for the most part, the only problem is the screen is very dim. you have to shine a flashlight on it to see anything. so the laptop is only usable via a external monitor. so replacing the logic board did fix some issues, like the laptop not working at all, but the screen still does not work. I don't see how two things went bad within a few weeks. originally, the screen went dim, and then 3 weeks later, the laptop went completely dead.
 
Maybe because your backlight on your LCD screen went out, it caused some damage to logic board (some shortage maybe?) and that's why both went bad.

Now you have to find either a whole screen replacement, or a backlight if you can find one for your specific powerbook
 
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