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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 tuscan,

    tuscan tuscan Feb 22, 2008 8:02 AM in response to tuscan
    Level 1 (44 points)
    iPhone
    Feb 22, 2008 8:02 AM in response to tuscan
    another 2 days, another defect line (#25).
  • by oram,

    oram oram Feb 24, 2008 1:25 AM in response to mike Savage
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 24, 2008 1:25 AM in response to mike Savage
    Send me the t-shirt, I'm now in the W85 17" PowerBook club too. At least if you let in those of us who have blinking bars of horizontal lines on the right hand third of the screen.

    It's like the center third of the screen is getting intermixed with the right hand third. If there's white in the center of the screen, the right hand side is fine.

    And here I was thinking I'd finally get three years out of a PowerBook...
  • by oram,

    oram oram Feb 25, 2008 12:03 AM in response to oram
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 25, 2008 12:03 AM in response to oram
    So the flickering lines came and went. Weirdly, they seemed to pop up most often when Flash was playing, but no real way to confirm.

    But wait, there's more! I've now lost the right 1/3 of the screen. In that third, the left 2/3 is completely black, and the right third mirrors the middle 1/9 of the whole screen. In other words:

    left |1|2|3|4|5|6|X|X|5| right

    So the useable space is perfectly square. How wonderful. At least the flickering has stopped.

    I am dreading calling Apple.
  • by Aldo D\'Urbano,

    Aldo D\'Urbano Aldo D\'Urbano Feb 25, 2008 6:43 AM in response to mike Savage
    Level 2 (155 points)
    Feb 25, 2008 6:43 AM in response to mike Savage
    I got a quotation of 634 € to replace the LCD. I'm now checking eBay
    for a defective PB with intakt LCD and replace the part myself.

    Btw, does somebody know if I might install 1650x1080 instead
    of 1440x900 ?

    The info of Apple service was that there is no replacement
    program planned for now. Perhaps in the future.

    Selling AppleCare, two and half year after purchase, has been refused.
  • by tuscan,

    tuscan tuscan Mar 6, 2008 11:32 AM in response to tuscan
    Level 1 (44 points)
    iPhone
    Mar 6, 2008 11:32 AM in response to tuscan
    last week i was on vacation, the powerbook stayed at home, not running. no additional defect line.

    this week, back at work, got line #26.
  • by tuscan,

    tuscan tuscan Mar 7, 2008 1:50 AM in response to tuscan
    Level 1 (44 points)
    iPhone
    Mar 7, 2008 1:50 AM in response to tuscan
    one more, #27. really funny...
  • by Mike_H,

    Mike_H Mike_H Mar 9, 2008 2:16 PM in response to tuscan
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Mar 9, 2008 2:16 PM in response to tuscan
    My 17" PB just started getting the described lines yesterday. My serial number starts with W840....

    Add me to the club. When do I get my membership package?

    Message was edited by: Mike_H
  • by tuscan,

    tuscan tuscan Mar 9, 2008 4:33 PM in response to tuscan
    Level 1 (44 points)
    iPhone
    Mar 9, 2008 4:33 PM in response to tuscan
    #28...
  • by upxe7bum,

    upxe7bum upxe7bum Mar 10, 2008 12:50 PM in response to tuscan
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 10, 2008 12:50 PM in response to tuscan
    Joined the club.

    Started with one line comming and going. Now i have 8 vertical lines in my Powerbook G4 17". Costed me 2500 euros and was bought because i´m a designer. Maybe this lines can be used to align objects to stage, RRRRRrrrrrrrrr...

    I went to the apple shop (i´m in Portugal) and they said that the only thing they could do is send for apple to repair under the payment of 500/600 euros. ARE YOU KIDDING WITH ME? I´m a worker as all the people here and the money doesn´t comes from the trees, we need the hardware to work and we pay a lot of money for this hardware, for this apple.

    If it was only one or two defective PB but there are so many! One thing is for sure. I´m investing a lots of money in my Design firm, new hardware. But i won´t take the risk of buying rotten apple.

    Take care, its a jungle out there...
  • by tuscan,

    tuscan tuscan Mar 11, 2008 11:04 AM in response to tuscan
    Level 1 (44 points)
    iPhone
    Mar 11, 2008 11:04 AM in response to tuscan
    looks like my display is entering high speed destruction mode -- 29 defect lines now.

    that means over 2% of my display pixels are unusable (total of 1440 vertical lines)

    Message was edited by: tuscan
  • by ganster,

    ganster ganster Mar 11, 2008 5:31 PM in response to a brody
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 11, 2008 5:31 PM in response to a brody
    Ohhh... It will be very soon!
  • by apple_cancelled_me,

    apple_cancelled_me apple_cancelled_me Mar 14, 2008 10:05 AM in response to Robot Terremoto
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 14, 2008 10:05 AM in response to Robot Terremoto
    @ROBOT

    Hello, long time no see... some other line? I have 5 more. How is going with your PB ? did you contact Dennis Wingo?
    Why all we are so unlucky?

    take care, everybody !...
  • by tuscan,

    tuscan tuscan Mar 15, 2008 3:52 AM in response to tuscan
    Level 1 (44 points)
    iPhone
    Mar 15, 2008 3:52 AM in response to tuscan
    reached 30 defect lines today.
  • by stannard,

    stannard stannard Mar 16, 2008 8:04 AM in response to Douglas Dielle
    Level 1 (29 points)
    Notebooks
    Mar 16, 2008 8:04 AM in response to Douglas Dielle
    "...I'm now onto the final third before my APP ends - does anyone know how to create the VL problem so I can have it replaced FOC, for a third time, before APP expires? ..."

    I know what you should do...

    Swap your good screen with one of us then take it to Apple for repairs, after a week swap that new screen with another one of us and take the bad one for repairs - and keep doing this until we all have our machines repaired and Apple have (inadvertently) taken the responsibility they should be taking.
  • by CClaire,

    CClaire CClaire Mar 19, 2008 1:26 PM in response to mike Savage
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Mar 19, 2008 1:26 PM in response to mike Savage
    Incredible!
    I've just been searching these forums to see if i could find any answer to a problem exactly as Ive seen described here last month(feb 2008) on my 17' powerbook G4. never has a problem with it before. purchased via the apple website in early may 05 and yes, manufactured in china with the serial number W8 prefix..

    having experienced no trouble with the laptop in nearly 3 years i turned it on last month to find the screen displaying vertical black lines with pink/purple colouration on either side which changed slowly to blues.
    It was definetly a screen issue because it worked fine when i plugged in an external monitor. That laptop could not be repaired and has now died a death
    This is definetly a manufacturing problem if so many of us have suffered this on the G4 Powerbooks of early 2005 with the W8 serial. There's no way this is coincidence
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