Flickering PowerBook screen

mdunkley (apparently) - 06:52am Aug 1, 2005 PST
via email

anyone have any experience fixing a flickering powerbook screen?
it's the retro illumination, as i can see a faint , dark image of what
should be.
the local service guy says $700 of new display and lid is needed, but
sometimes it stays stable for hours with demanding apps (digital
performer is one) running fine, other times i give up and shutdown
after 15 minutes of command-alt-eject to put it to sleep, from which
the screen re-awakes perfectly, sometimes to last, sometimes to flicker
and last, sometimes to flicker and.....blackout.

sometimes mousing will stabilise things, sometime one click will plunge
me into darkness.

major annoying, but not quite bad enough to give up and throw that much
money at an intermittent problem till i have no choice. all else works
great. i'm running the second-last version of panther on a 1G 15"
dual-boot g4 ti-book, and i love this beast.

i think i might get a mini and a lcd monitor and have a lot more
horsepower for the same as fixing the display.
there is a second hand al-book 1.25 (?), still under warranty for E1500
as next idea, and i'd keep the old ti-book for everything except the
display. too much to put out right now though, especially when mine is
working fine, like right now!!

any kind soul have a solution, please?

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Eric Durbrow Ph.D. - Aug 1, 2005 10:57 am (#1 Total: 2)

Posts: 18

I have the same problem, I think, with the lower third of the screen. I think the backlight is getting old. You might try http://powerbook.techrestore.com/ tech restore as they quoted $500 for a screen replacement. Alternatively, have you considered simply adding an external LCD monitor to you laptop? Hope this helps.

cplummer - Aug 9, 2005 12:37 pm (#2 Total: 2)

Posts: 1

Re: Flickering powerbook screen

I had a similar problem with flickering display on PB Titanium 800 15". Sometimes half the display would go black. Generally I could get everything 'right' by adjusting the display, a little forward, a little back. It worked well enough that I didn't want to give it up for repair. I called Applecare, since it was under contract, and they suggested I ship it in. Instead I went to an Apple Store where the Genius told me, "You have to return it for repair, we can't do anything with Powerbook displays here." I actually hung onto it for almost a year. Then the hard drive crashed, and I had no choice. When I called Applecare, they agreed to do the display repair as well as the drive. They replaced the hard drive, managing to rescue all my data, and replaced the whole 'clamshell' assembly including the display and a new re-designed hinge. The display was better than the original, which had a few dead pixels. For a repair out of warranty it would be hard to justify, but since it is a business expense...

- Christopher Plummer

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