Colored vertical lines on PB 17" display

Hi

I must join the VL club too 😟
Just got my first pink VL and a three inch vertical grey shade on the right. The shade
is only visible on white background.

PB G4 17 1.67 Serial W85170A...
Delivery date: May 2005.

My Pismo, purchased in April 2000, ist still ok !

I'll contact the seller after Christmas, next year 😉

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

I've been reading this since around March of this year when I started getting these #$#)@*#@ lines. I started with just a few and now I have a crop of them. I counted about 45 today. The other day I watched the birth of one. The lines are PITA. If I have to work on images – I hook my laptop up to an external monitor and everything is wonderful.

You know it is strange that when I am view a page that is white I do not see the lines – they seem to vanish. IF ONLY!

cwtraub wrote:
You know it is strange that when I am view a page that is white I do not see the lines – they seem to vanish. IF ONLY!

This experience might be shared by all of us. My magenta VL must have to do with a bad green
switch. The line is'nt visible on a white space too. On a black screen the magenta VL is well visible.

Chances are one out of three switches is defective: green in my case.

The arrangement seems to be such that the defective switch "subtracts" the color involved.
So white must be a kind of "subtraction" of all three colors:rgb.

Bambi,
I was quoted ~$800 to repair my wife's PB 17" (in the santa clara, ca store). The repair included replacing the whole screen. From what i've read here in this thread, that might not even be the problem but instead the connectors from he base to the screen.

What was the solution you got a quote for?
did you do it?
did it work?
do they guaranty their work? if so, for how long?

thanks!

Hey there, I also have a PB G4 17inch that is A serial # W85 and i have the same darn lines on my screen. I was wondering do you guys think it's a display problem or a screen problem. I've read from a few different forums saying it's the board and some saying its a screen problem.
And then my other question is how many of must we have for Apple to make a recall?

I had no idea the VL club was so large. Maybe we should make t-shirts. I became a member about a month ago. The second line appeared a couple days ago. From the forums I've seen, it's only to get worse. Has anyone had their screen fixed, and the problem didn't return? I've read conflicting discussions on this subject.

Hey, sorry to hear your a member of the club. I'm up to 22 lines and counting. I've read a lot on this as well, forget about Apple doing something about it unless you have Apple Care and are still covered. Even on the slight chance that they might do something, it'll be years from now and by then most of us will have moved on to better computers (ie: didn't it take over 4yrs for them to recall the batteries on the early titanium laptops???). the best hope i have found is about half way up this thread. It's a response posted back on Oct. 8 by DennisWingo, he attributes the lines to a pinched wire running to the LCD. read the thread, he explains it far better than i ever could. I am still looking for more info from people that have replaced this wire to see if it REALLY is the cause, but it makes sense. Also some of the threads after Dennis' give some prices, i think the wire is around $80, and possible repair costs could be around $250.

Any VL Club Members that have had this repair done, I'd really like to hear how it went and cost, any info is welcome.

Good Luck to all, GL

Hello,

You're absolutely right GL, Steve Jobs and his minions won't do anything about this issue unless you've forked out for Apple Care. Apple are just biding time now hoping that the minority who have voiced a problem just give up and go away. It seems that the only thing to do, sadly, is to take matters into ones own hands...
Dennis Wingo (wherever you are) certainly seemed to be onto something when he posted a possible solution a few months back. I waited for a follow up post from him to see if he'd been successful but unfortunately, nothing. I hope that it all worked out for him as his theory seemed so logical. Please, if you're still out there Dennis let us know how it went. It'd be hugely appreciated by all! As GL mentioned, if there is anyone else out there who has had any success with changing the possibly troublesome wire let us know if it worked.
Finally, if anyone knows of a place in Japan that will fix this problem on the cheap please let me know... I'm kinda stuck here for another 6 months and want to get this issue sorted.

Regards,

RT

Hello Robot!

welcome, (sorry for that) but I am in japan too and from august I am going to apple store shibuya and ginza , have you go?... and NOBODY have seen our lines before, and of course they want money to fix the screen. Maybe they said you "oooh it's the first time I see the line.. aaaaah ... what a pity..."
I also have two case number . For what? just to have some bytes with my information in apple's database.

of course I read about Dennis threat but after that no more details about that wire. If the wire is bad, why all our chinese computers with the same month of birth are only affected?

Of course at the store I asked which warranty do I have, but they said three months... If I decide to pay to repair... how I know they will put a good wire or good screen or another chinese-march-2005-w85 one? of course after 15 months... bad luck again!!! they will say!!!

you know, some people suffer from stolen goods or murders,some countries cracks their economy and people looses homes in one week. this is similar. thief .

pablo

Julian, sorry for my delay in replying. I haven't made any repairs yet and have nine lines now. I wrote to the Apple corporate office and got a telephone reply immediately. Still, the responder was a professional "diffuser" and I got no satisfaction at all. Rather, I got a flat-out denial that there was any problem at all. The Las Vegas Apple store quoted me $300 to fix the problem, whatever it takes. I think the standard guarantee is maybe 90 days -- I'm not sure. But if Apple claims to not understand the problem, and others are getting screens replace that later go bad again, I do not have the confidence or stamina to start a round of repair after repair, each time suffering a period without my number one work tool. Still, I will eventually have to break down and do it. My computer is almost three years old. Perhaps I can stick it out until it's time for a new one, in which case it will be less of a hardship to relinquish my machine. Still, if some Apple stores are quoting $800, I should probably jump on this $300 offer. And you -- you and your wife should come to Vegas, drop of your machine, and consider the trip a bonus. Keep us all posted. --Bambi

OK, I have talked with Dave at WegenerMedia.com, he said the repairs on the "harness" (cable going from lcd to computer along the hinge) runs anywhere between $129-$189 USD and if the LCD needs to be replaced its $499 USD. Basically look them up on the web and call them for a repair/work order #, send in your laptop, they'll check it over and call you with a price depending on what needs to be fixed. He said it usually takes 2 days from the time they get it till they ship it back to you, rush options are available. They have done this before and are familiar with the problem and thier work comes with a warranty (1yr for harness, 90days for LCD). Hope this helps, I'm sending in my PB next week, hopefully by then I can do without it for a week. Will post details after the repairs are done.

Still would like to hear from anyone who has taken this route and gotten their laptop fixed as to whether or not this really is the solution. Anyone replace the cable/harness only to have the lines return????

GL

Hi, I'm a PB user with several vertical lines, mostly on the right side...it has the W85 serial number, too. I could deal with the lines, which started about March 2007 (purchased Aug 2005), but about a month ago, a wide, white band has appeared down the center of my screen. it seems like it's moving...but i guess it's just because of the close grid of the white lines. 😟

I was at the UH bookstore, where I got my PB, and I noticed their 15" MacBook Pro had a single green vertical line on it's left side, so I'm nervous about buying a MacBook Pro, adding to my other concerns from some of the reviews of Leopard & Adobe product compatibility issues.

When I chatted online with an Apple support person today, he said he has never seen such lines, and there shouldn't be any. 😟

lines #13 and #14 have appeared. it's a hopeless situation, no matter how i use the powerbook, every few days a new defect line appears.

i'm sure other users here have made (are making) the same observations on their displays.

GL:

Ok glad that you have touched base with Dave and are about to undergo the repair. I myself will probably do the same thing very soon... I have been putting it off for a while but now it's getting beyond ridiculous. I have over way over 40 lines and now seem to be getting at least one a day. Some lines are so close to each other that they have almost merged creating a semi-transparent 'gauze' between them. Has anyone experienced this anomaly?
It seems that the price WegenerMedia is charging is relatively reasonable considering Apple are pretty inflated on their repair cost and some customers have complained about the problem returning after the 3 month warranty period. This would certainly point to them just repairing the screen rather than tackling the root of the problem. It's interesting that WegenerMedia also gave you a price of $499 in case the LCD needs to be replaced. This kind of goes against everything that I've researched on the problem. Did they offer any reason as to why this may be the case? Assuming that the 'harness' is the problem can this then also affect the LCD screen and further damage it?
I have a friend back home who is a certified Apple repairer. I will email him and see what his thoughts are on all this. Will report his comments on this forum as soon as I hear back from him.

PABLO:

I haven't bothered going into an Apple Store here in Japan to explain my problem. I'm not surprised that they had not heard of this before.. that seems to be the general reaction everywhere. I wouldn't want Apple to fix it for me simply because of all the horror stories I've read where the problem simply returns after the 3 month warranty expires. This lends itself to the notion that they're only replacing the screen and not the harness. I wish you the best of luck with getting your problem fixed and can certainly sympathize with your frustration... I suggest that you try and find a cheaper repair agency in Tokyo and see if they can maybe order the part for you and then install it. I am looking for a similar option here in Nagoya but I might just give up and send it off to that place in America that GL mentioned. Let me know how you go. Can you speak Japanese?

Thanks for all the input guys.

Hello Robot:

well yes I speak japanese, not perfectly but it doesn't help me, because you know how polite could be and the communication is worst. In my case I understood after my first mac (my PB 17 with three vertical lines of death) that apple make very good software and design but after that lines I understood that hardware and costumer care is bad, so my next computer will be a PC with linux. I already started learning and using and for my use I don't need more. I am sure that open source software will be superior to any other software in a few years (if is not better now)
As I have three lines, I continue using my mac, if became worst, instead of repairing at apple's price, I prefer to buy another screen (for less price) that I could use in the future if my mac became a museum piece.

Apple's behavior is unacceptable. Isn't it?