Saturday, January 10, 2009

Help?

The lady's Powerbook G4 has started to have display problems, and although this is not hers, it is exactly the same problem.


Also, it won't allow her to copy her HD files to an external HD. Not OS files, but pictures, documents, etc... Something about not having access to modify the disc.

Any suggestions? I'm thinking it's hardware related, like a bad graphics card.

2 comments:

molson said...

Bummer about the Powerbook. Given that the PB is experiencing other problems than just with the display, it's probably not the graphics card. You can try running the Apple Hardware Test software from the original OS install disks that came with the PB. Also, you can try hooking the PB to an external monitor to see if the problem shows up there. The following is a post from the Macintouch reader reports found here...

"Steve Omug
For Capt. Picard's display issue:
Not to cause a panic, but this COULD be an early sign of a failure or dying part -- could be the video cable coming off the display to the logic board is pinched or frayed. On some laptops whose screen would go completely black (often showing symptoms like you described) it was the display Inverter board that needed replacing (often found used for $10-15) or the cable running off of it. Or, may be signs of possible logic board component dying, or something major with the screen itself (full screen replacements can be found, $300 on up).
Sometimes a firmware update, if one specific to your model of Mac was issued (or making sure you have the most recent Mac OS X update installed) is the solution. But more often it's a hardware issue.
You are probably beyond AppleCare, I would guess?"


Or try this link

Good luck. If you can't fix it, I guess you can always pull the hard drive, and sell the PB for parts on eBay and put the money towards a new Mac unless you're too pissed at Apple to buy another one.

Robert said...

She took it to the Apple Store to get fixed and since it had been repaired less than 90 days before, they are fixing it for free.

As for the external HD, it was my mistake. I thought Apples could read and write an NTFS formatted drive. *Stupid smack*