Q: Colored vertical lines on PB 17" display

I guess I need to join the club now. Tonight for the first time, a pink colored vertical line appeared on my 17" PowerBook G4. It is just about 2 years old now, so definitely out of warranty. I was hoping this would last me 3 years. I guess I'll just pray that it doesn't get too bad in the next 12 months... sigh

Sky

The irony is that I have one PB17 that is about three years old and it does not have this problem. The three that are younger than that from 2005 do have this problem...

G'day,

As I've posted above somewhere I did have one line for a day, then I didn't, then it cam back and then it went away and hasn't come back again. Same boat as Adam my 17" is coming up to 3 years old (still has extended warranty). It's not my daily workhorse, maybe that's the difference too, for whatever reason that constant exertion put on whatever is the root of the problem?

not even one week has passed since line #5, now #6 appeared

I read somewhere that it might be because of excessive heat with the graphics card. I don't really know what the problem is, but I'm willing to try anything. I only have one line, and I'd like to keep it that way for at least the next year until I plan to buy a new laptop.

Since this is my main computer, and the problem cropped up after I started doing very processor intensive tasks for a month, I decided to run my computer on "better energy savings" in hopes that it keeps the processor running at a lower clock speed to avoid generating too much heat.

Has anyone else tried this? I'll post again in a few weeks if I still only have one line, or sooner if I get new lines.

@sky
i thought about this also. my first line appeared after i converted a final cut movie overnight to mpeg4, modified the export setting and exported again the next night and so on for about a week. this wasn't actually the first movie it ever had to convert.

when the powerbook is about to process movies etc. for several minutes or hours (overnight), i switch on the ventilators of the stand where the powerbook is put on. actually i never did that to save the display from heat (i'd never thought that would be a problem), i did it because i had two dead harddisks in the last two powerbooks and wanted to avoid a 3rd dead one.

the other lines just appeared more or less during normal day work, some webbrowsing, email, documentation, ...

i hardly play any 3d games on the powerbook, and not even the converting of a movie is related to the graphics processor, so i don't see any connection to the graphics chip (talking about my powerbook only, of course).

i think there are many possible "reasons" one can think of why the display breaks. in the end this results in "you used it, that's why it broke." and sorry, i cannot accept that

fact is, there are MANY displays breaking within the same laptop series. i've not heared about so many defective displays in the g3 powerbooks, macbooks, g4 12"/15" powerbooks. to me it's obvious, our 17" displays are of bad quality (alternatively there's a construction problem with the display cable layout, like somebody mentioned here) -- and this is not a reason why we as customers have to pay for that. a top-end (and expensive) laptop should work for more than 2 years.

and, looking at how much money apple made in the last quarters (years) i really don't understand why they don't recall these machines for repair. this would improve their good image. instead, apple is becoming an unappealing company, don't care about a few long year customers if you can get a 100 new ones buying an ipod or mobile phone. maybe there's a reason why they dumped the word "computer" from their name.

Hi! I have a 12" G4 Powerbook and have the problem too (I posted awhile ago in this thread).

I tried to see if other 12" owners also had the problem but my post was deleted by The Host.

If Apple DOES resolve this issue for the 17" models - I'm hoping that mine will be fixed as well.



Susan

I bought my PB in 2005, had this problem in 2006 (when it was less than a yr old) got the screen replaced, then the screen went again a wk later, got the screen and the mother board replaced... (the suggestion was that the intial problem was caused by the mother board, but they didn't pick up on this the first time) Now I am experiencing the problem again!!!

Lets face it, computers are not built to last now - they are disposable... Sadly I do not think that manufacturers think it is cost effective to build a computer that will last... Still, I expect better from Apple, considering the amount of times people have encountered this problem!!!

Poor show...

10 days later, line #7... the 2nd pink one.

the lines apparently only become blue, yellow or pink. why can't they be at least be black? would be less distracting.

The display is a three color display, so with one color out you get one of three colors. To get black you would have to have three colors out at the same place…not too likely.

ok, this one i don't get, but actually it's not that important.

if 1 of 3 colors is out, then why is all the vertical line displayed in the same color? i mean, there' no gradient, it's all the same flat color, from 1st to last pixel no change at all.

it's not like in photoshop when you uncheck one of the channels to take out all the red parts of the picture.

The three colors of your screen are red green and blue. Together they give white.
Subtract red and you have cyan,
subtract green and you have magenta,
subtract blue and you have yellow.
These are the colors of the infamous vertical lines.

yes, i totally agree, concerning the color model.

however, a defect vertical line (talking about the 17" displays here) is not defect because it cannot show the red parts of the picure anymore, it doesn't show any information at all, except a flat color.

related to the color model you mentioned i'd expect that if the red part of a line is defect i'd still have all the information in cyan (blue+green) visible on the display. that's simply not the case here, all picture information is gone on that vertical line.

anyway, doesn't matter

Got first line 9/8/07.
PowerBook was 29 months old.
Got sixth line 11/20/07.
It's becoming difficult to do graphic design work.
All those with afflicted PBs should write to Apple. Mail it the old-fashioned way.

One more upset Apple user. Love my Powerbook but the lines are starting to get to me. I can't count them there are so many, mostly on the right hand side of the screen. I use a light colored desktop to minimize the effect, but they are driving me nuts. I can't believe Apple won't take care of these. We are the same people who are buying Ipods and IPhones.
If any one has a solution, let us know.....