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mike Savage

Q: Colored vertical lines on PB 17" display

There is a lot of documentation on various websites and discussion boards about 17" Powerbooks with displays that break down after about 15 months of use.

I am unfortunate enough to own a 17" powerbook assembled in April 2005 in China - serial number beginning with W8. I believe this is the same time-period and factory location where hundreds (if not thousands) of identical machines were assembled that are now having the same colored-lines-in-the-display defect as my machine.

All these machines assembled at the same time, at the same place, using the same batch of LCD screens, are experiencing the same defect after the same amount of use.
Something stinks, and it smells like a manufacturing problem to me.

Does anyone know if Apple has man'd up and acknowledged the problem yet?





17" Powerbook G4 1.67   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

Posted on May 21, 2007 5:36 PM

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Q: Colored vertical lines on PB 17" display

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  • by kingmack,

    kingmack kingmack Jun 3, 2007 3:19 PM in response to a brody
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 3, 2007 3:19 PM in response to a brody
    Interesting, where do you get you information regarding the longevity of Compaq and Apple computers?
  • by fish78,

    fish78 fish78 Jun 4, 2007 12:13 AM in response to a brody
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 4, 2007 12:13 AM in response to a brody
    You are lucky with your Compaq. Many don't last more than a year.


    Don't confuse it with an Apple.

    My Compaq lasts 7 years now. The same applies for the Compaq of my uncle. We all know you are great Apple fan, but you should also stay to the truth.

    Apples quality isn't as good as you always want to belive us. At least it's not better than the products of HP, Sony, Dell or other big companies. Even though it's not worse.
  • by ericrobertbritt,

    ericrobertbritt ericrobertbritt Jul 2, 2007 11:41 AM in response to mike Savage
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2007 11:41 AM in response to mike Savage
    Bloody heck, for the longest time, I thought I'd be a lucky one. For over a month, I had just one purple line down the near-middle of my screen.
    It wasn't that bad; I'm an editor, and I just changed the windows around so that my view of the video/timeline wouldn't be affected.

    Well, over the last 2 days, 2 new lines have developed.
    It is now impossible to arrange the windows without having the lines interfere with both the video and the timeline, without having the video be tiny.

    This is ridiculous.
    I've already called Apple and made a claim, but the way in which the person handled it, I don't think they did it seriously. I'm calling again tomorrow. Hopefull something will come of it.

    I'm on the verge of winning a contest that could have over $10,000 of my money going to Apple (Mac Pro). I'm not sure I can, though. I'm not sure I can bring myself to go through this again.
    I bought Applecare, and while it's in their right, it's also BS that I dropped it one time over a year ago, showed it to them at the store, they said it wouldn't be a problem, and now they can't fix the screen under Applecare because of the dent.
    Maybe if I just unbend the dent.


    Apple is great, for the most part, but they NEED to recognize this problem. I want to buy a MacBook Pro, too, but I'd rather have a Dell than another Apple laptop, unless they can do something about it.
  • by Christopher Liedke,

    Christopher Liedke Christopher Liedke Jun 18, 2007 5:24 PM in response to ericrobertbritt
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 18, 2007 5:24 PM in response to ericrobertbritt
    I'm having the same problem. Started with one line about 2 months ago now I'm up to 6. I realize that this is not Apple's fault necessarily its the display manufacturers, but they need to fix this problem.

    Dell has already issued a recall of their 17" Inspirons that were made during this time (possibly the same LCD panel) and Apple needs to do the same. Its embarrassing for a premium computer company like Apple to lag behind on this issue while the budget company Dell has already done the right thing.
  • by TomSawyer,

    TomSawyer TomSawyer Jun 19, 2007 8:05 AM in response to Christopher Liedke
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jun 19, 2007 8:05 AM in response to Christopher Liedke
    Its embarrassing for a premium computer company like
    Apple to lag behind on this issue while the budget
    company Dell has already done the right thing.


    That's putting it mildly considering the Inspirons cost a third of the price we paid for our "PROFESSIONAL" laptops. I could purchase a new Dell laptop for the price of the repairs to my PowerBook. Even if the Dell only lasted another 1.5 years I wouldn't feel screwed because "you get what you pay" -- except for our situation with Apple.


    PBG4 17" (1440x900) 1.67GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   XServe G5 Dual 2.3GHz (Mac OS X Server 10.4.9)
  • by Adam Prall,

    Adam Prall Adam Prall Jun 21, 2007 8:49 PM in response to TomSawyer
    Level 1 (50 points)
    Jun 21, 2007 8:49 PM in response to TomSawyer
    We're having this issue too. When we check online, the Support site tells us our computer's two months too old for warranty repair. This is crazy, though, I've never known the company to deny a problem like this.
  • by Arteta,

    Arteta Arteta Jun 22, 2007 9:11 AM in response to mike Savage
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 22, 2007 9:11 AM in response to mike Savage
    I noticed a vertical blue line on my 17" PB today (15 months old, serial number W85) and thought I'd check it out on this site. I was amazed to find that there are so many people with the same problem. It's obviously a manufacturing problem with this particular batch and 'stink' is absolutely the right word for Apple's failure to do anything about it.
  • by Adam Prall,

    Adam Prall Adam Prall Jun 22, 2007 8:33 PM in response to mike Savage
    Level 1 (50 points)
    Jun 22, 2007 8:33 PM in response to mike Savage
    Another line just appeared today - it's getting difficult to use this computer. Help!!
  • by Joachim Schaper,

    Joachim Schaper Joachim Schaper Jul 1, 2007 1:31 AM in response to mike Savage
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 1, 2007 1:31 AM in response to mike Savage
    I encounter exact the same problem after 2 years. I basically loose a display line per week.
    As this now is a case of hundreds of users and I am still an Apple fan, what is the reaction of Apple - do they want to support a sound customer base with an workable solution or people to switch to Sony....

    Apple folks, you can't ignore this problem, offer a simple cost effective solution.

    We pay premium prices and we expect professional quality.

    J. Schaper
    VP SAP Research, SAP AG

    Powerbook G4 17" Serial number starts with W851   Mac OS X (10.4.10)   2 years old
  • by dhe,

    dhe dhe Jul 2, 2007 11:40 AM in response to mike Savage
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 2, 2007 11:40 AM in response to mike Savage
    yes....i think it's a manufacturing defect. I had my first line on november last year. I thougt it was only a dead pixel. I'm in Singapore, and it cost me about Sin$1,000 (US$660) if I want to change the screen. I didn't want to.at least that time i can still use it. but, now (after 8 months) it's almost unusable. I got so many lines and worst...bars. now I have white bar on the left. black bar on the right, blurry bars in between. so now, my viewing are is less than 12", I even envy those who has a 12"powerbook, because they have a better viewing area than me.

    <edited by host>
  • by Douglas Dielle,

    Douglas Dielle Douglas Dielle Jul 6, 2007 12:46 PM in response to mike Savage
    Level 2 (200 points)
    Jul 6, 2007 12:46 PM in response to mike Savage
    I can personally vouch for the stinking quality of this M9869 batch of 17" displays. Let me summarise:

    Toward end of 1st year: Vertical Pink Lines (or call it Visible Panty Lines, if you will)
    Resolution: Covered by first-year warranty, rejected 3 replacement displays as a result of DEAD PIXELS.

    End of 2nd year: Blue Vertical Lines
    Resolution: Replaced under APP, rejected as monitor had a defective antenna that limited my wireless connectivity to just 2 metres.

    3 months ago: Rattling Left Fan
    Resolution: Logic Board and internal heatsink replaced under APP. Beeping, morse-code and smudged key keyboard replaced on request.

    So as you can see, the cost of these replacements and rejects would very well have bought me a new G4, or MBP.

    Message was edited by: Host
  • by Oddworldinhabitant,

    Oddworldinhabitant Oddworldinhabitant Jul 6, 2007 3:29 AM in response to Douglas Dielle
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2007 3:29 AM in response to Douglas Dielle
    Hear hear!!!
  • by Hardy Geer,

    Hardy Geer Hardy Geer Jul 6, 2007 5:27 AM in response to Douglas Dielle
    Level 4 (3,165 points)
    Jul 6, 2007 5:27 AM in response to Douglas Dielle
    Why do you shout to your fellow Mac users? If you really want Apple to hear you then talk to Apple.
  • by jimmybcool,

    jimmybcool jimmybcool Jul 6, 2007 10:02 PM in response to mike Savage
    Level 1 (120 points)
    Jul 6, 2007 10:02 PM in response to mike Savage
    Hi all,

    Bummer. I was hoping to read about how rare this was and that Apple was fixing this.

    I have a PowerBook G4 17" Serial W85.....

    Last week a single line appeared on the screen. Hmm, I thought, no biggie. I've had this for a couple years and at this rate in 10 more I'll need a new one. Ha ha.

    Now 3 lines. Trouble looming.

    When I return to the US I will register a complaint for whatever good that does. And I have been a staunch Apple customer the last few years. I now own:

    PowerBook G4 17"
    20" iMac G5
    24" iMac intel
    Ipod original - 2
    Ipod shuffles - 3
    Ipod video
    various Apple networking products

    I can't say this will end my loyalty to Apple but it doesn't help if they don't consider this a manufacturing defect.

    Thing is I bought in the US and this computer now resides in Thailand. I really don't want to have to haul it back to the US if they are just going to charge me to fix it. I can pay for that here.






    G5 and G4 notebook    
  • by Vern weitzel,

    Vern weitzel Vern weitzel Jul 7, 2007 7:00 AM in response to mike Savage
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 7, 2007 7:00 AM in response to mike Savage
    I do not know why my message of 2 days ago was not posted. Dell are recalling all 17" laptops with an identical problem. The screens which were made in China are faulty. Vern
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