Colored vertical lines on PB 17" display

Another Powerbook with the same green line. Just happened last night while I was working. Right between the f10 and f11 keys. Pretty disappointing the way Apple is handling the situation, not even recogonition that there's a problem.
Bought it in May or June of 2005, with the same W85 serial number.

Hi,

i do have the same problem: 20 deadlines at the moment and my brothers powerbook just started to develope the same problem.
I am very disapointed about this and the way apple treats this - doing nothing. In the past i was an evangelist of apple products and now i am kind of too: i show this f...ing faulty laptop to everybody and i come around quite a bit.
i was thinking about replacing it by a unibody but i just don't want to.

AD

hi i have a a powerbook g4 17 inch aluminum and for the first time i had this sort of same problem.. the pb went to sleep mode as i wasnt using it for some minutes then when i woke it up again i saw a line i forgot if it blue or white but its HORIZONTAL... at the right side.... as i was reading most of you have vertical.... but what i did is restart and it was gone... and ive been observing since 4 hours ago ang it hasnt happened again.. yet..... hope it wont come back... anyone had horizontal line before? did it gro afterwards? pls email me if i should sell this immediately....

Damnnn, I just had this happen too, a vertical line 1px wide (color varies with the background but it appears that green is not firing) that runs right in the middle of the "F-10" key. Mine is also a "W85" unit but about a year and a half ago I took it in for service to the apple store for a HD issue and the tech said that my screen had a problem and they'd change it at no charge, so supposedly this screen is not as old as the rest of the machine. I guess there is no solution at all for this and apple keeps their hands in their pockets as usual..

I have 40 lines on my 17 inch PowerBook G4 W8 serial number. It IS out of warranty. I currently own 8 Macs and am planning to take this PowerBook in to the local Apple and hope they fix it 🙂

Hope they do something for you, report back if they do!

Look everybody,

We all fall into two groups.
1. You have the 'vertical line problem'
2. You have a problem that is similar, but not the same.

If you have read the descriptions on this forum and confirm that you have the 'vertical line problem' (One or more 1-pixel-wide lines of varying soft colours, that is always there when the laptop is on, and does not move in any way, shape or form) then the solution has been provided by DennisWingo, earlier in this post.

We are at the point where it is pointless adding more reports to the post - we should formalise the solution.

My request is this: DennisWingo, I know you don't get paid for this but it would make a lot of people happy: Please could you formalise your instructions on how to fix the problem.

There are plenty of websites that explain how to remove the top case from the laptop, but I'm afraid it's not too clear from there. For instance, I don't know which cable is the backlight cable. Could you do something like what can be found at: (strange format to appease regulators)
www, dot
ifixit, dot
com, forward-slash
Guide, forward-slash
Repair, forward-slash
PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Display, forward-slash
258, forward-slash
1

so that we can simply follow the instructions and fix it ourselves, or go to a shop and literally tell them what to do?

I for one would be extremely grateful (and very impressed!)

Thanks

I could write a book on this subject too! Firstly my mac model is W85..... it started with single vertical line which quickly multiplied to the point where there was at least 200 across the screen. Still not sure if this is a screen issue or not.... purchased a new monitor complete lid and fitted it and now have a really bad low quality screen image almost illegible. Not sure what else to do - some have said its the video card on the mother board which im investigating at the moment -HELP!!!

Any luck with your 17" PB?

My apple matches the description above, symptoms, and problems. lines started showing up around a year ago and keep on appearing every day. I wonder if the Apple representatives will have enough decency to make a general recall or extender warranty for us, loyal customers and apple defenders worldwide, or they'll just turn their back on us and make us waste our time in this forum where more than TWENTY THOUSAND people have read what's going on.

Can this problem have anything to do with a faulty connection inside the screen? I believe most LCDs have some sort of ribbon cable that connects the display to the video driver inside.. i had a similar problem with a desktop lcd, and it was the connection.
My Powerbook 17" has the same flickering vertical lines across a few centimetres of the screen... $5000 machine eh?

My PB G4 17" has gone through several months of vertical lines and jumbled display issues. It is also of the lot# w85... Now the display has gone completely black as if the backlight has gone out. Any suggestions how best to post this issue with Apple would be appreciated.

I am also having this same issue.

Per DennisWingo's instructions, I examined the left-hand cable and discovered that the brown wire in my inverter cable is (indeed) pinched and frayed through, and I confirmed continuity at the break with a multimeter.

Once I soldered and taped that wire, it made no difference. With only the inverter plugged in, I now have a nice bright backlight and grey screen with no lines.

Now, with the inverter assembly disconnected and the video cable connected, I can faintly see my vertical and horizontal lines if I use a bright light. From this, I am certain my inverter board and cable have nothing to do with the lines in the screen.

I downloaded a datasheet on the panel and tested, to the best of my ability, whether there were any broken or faulty LCD edge contacts that I could repair. I then slit and peeled back all the sheathing from the data cable to see if there were any pinched wires in THAT cable..

Nope, nothing.

Bottom line: I replaced the LCD panel, retaining my original inverter and data cable, with another 30-pin LG panel of the same model number (although not from an Apple computer). I don't want to be responsible for suggesting a vendor or a source though, YMMV.

Voila, no lines in the new panel! It has a slightly glossier finish than the Apple equivalent so it looks a little different to me.

So definitely the LCD panel itself, although as I mentioned, one of my inverter wires were also frayed as DennisWingo suggested. Perhaps there are actually more people with *more than one defect* in their LCD screen, which -- if undiagnosed -- might explain the various reports that replacing one single component, or replacing one single cable, do not fix the issue.

Sorry, no easy fix. But thats how I fixed mine. :-/

(ps: if anyone out there had their lines resolved by simply repairing the inverter cable, when it frayed similar to mine or dennis's... maybe theres a point where fixing the cable solves the problem .... and maybe theres a point where something's been shorted out long enough that its too late to repair it.

If the fraying is causative, then that might also explain why the problem reportedly returns in some cases when a different component's replaced.)

Message was edited by: noexitorescape

Thank you for your contribution - you are now the new expert!

Do you think it is possible that the inverter problem could cause the damage to the screen? That way, if you get a new screen it will be fine, but after a while you will get new lines. But if you replace both, the problem goes.

I'm no expert but I wondered what you think.

UJ