Tightening screen hinges

A certain amount of hinge tightness exists on mine to prevent that. I don't recommend tightening it yourself. You might want to check with an authorized service center to see if your hinge isn't tight to specs.

I would say this, whatever you do, don't try to put anything between the screen and the back of the keyboard. With wires going through the hinge, you would not want anything to put too much pressure on those wires to let them fray.

Safer yet is to make it so that your knees don't bump into the screen with as much force, is to put on knee pads like you might wear doing volleyball.

My screen will not stay open at all unless fully opened to 90 degrees. This makes it impossible to rest the book on my lap and type or read at even a small angle. A real problem as I am pretty confined to the couch or bed. This is a new book, PB G4 17" 1.67 DDR RAM. From the day it came it has been this way, very hard to get to a Mac store, is this a typical problem with the 17" or this just a rare case of loose hinges. Anyway I can do this repair myself. I would hate to lose this for 10 days for lose hinges, which by the way the first 17" refurb I bought had the same problem. That mixed with the wrong machince, did not make it worth the trouble so I went the new route to get the faster ram but still have the same hinges. Wondered if anyone made a aftermarket item to help hold the screen open with out damaging the screen or my warrantty .
TIA
Geoffrey

PB 1.67 17" 2 G4 1.3 ghz iBooks to many Pismos ands PBs Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Geoffrey,
Might I suggest in your case, improvising a solution. Perhaps putting a couple pens at the bottom of the screen
and taping them together to the back in such a way they stay open at the angle you want. Make sure it is tape that can take the heat of the machine like electrical tape. I know it is hard to find a service provider in Alaska, though if you can, maybe they might be able to repair it quicker than sending it in to Apple. Call around.

I'd like to remind everyone that you need to be VERY careful when adjusting screws, etc. I tightened a screw on the upper left corner of my old iBook G4's screen a bit too much, and a few days later, I discovered it had cracked the small piece of plastic that forms the screen rim.

Which is why my improvised solution does not suggest doing anything which might affect the screws. I agree with Uninvisible, whatever improvised solution you do, be sure it does not put too much pressure on the hinge.

My 17 Powerbooks hinges are fine. I can open it 2 cm and it stays open but sometimes when i walk with it i must be careful because there is some movement.

Walking with an open notebooks is not recommended. You could slip, trip, accidently pull a cord on a port and damage the motherboard. I tripped walking once and partially broke my LCD screen. Close the lid before walking with it, and use both hands unless you have a protective bag handy to put it in, in which case put it in its back.

It is better also to shut down a notebook before moving any significant distance with it because the hard drive which is spinning could have its needle jump a track and damage the platter within it.

brody,
the old duct tape trick. It will fix anything. Well I have the unfortunate necessity to go outside, San Diego to be exact, so maybe I will try to get the book to the apple store in University Center and hope they can do the repairs intelligently and w/o the necessity to send it out for repair
Geoff

I also had this issue while laying in bed. If I have my legs up (in the most comfortable position) the screen closes. I went to the Apple store near me when I first bought it (November) and asked about it and they did the same test with the demo unit and it did the same thing. I later purchased the Rain Design iLap product for the 17" PowerBook and have loved it. It keeps my PB nice and cool and it has a nice comfortable velvet cusion on the front and best of all it keeps the PB at an angle for when I am laying in bed. It's a bit pricey (around $69), but I would definatly recommend it. I always use it when I am at home while in bed or on the couch. Once I get home it goes out of my bag and right onto the iLap.

PowerBook G4 17" Hi-Res, 1.67 Ghz, 2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Sorry double post.