08-15-2009, 11:59 PM

My father's 1.33 Ghz iBook G4 with 1GB RAM was working fine when it suddenly froze. Upon restarting, it displayed very colorful, vertical lines on a washed-out screen, almost like it was slowly dissolving into a white blob. It does nothing beyond this. However, I do get a start-up chime.

I can access the drive via target disk mode and was able to pull all of his information off the drive. Attempting to boot from the install disc does nothing but give me the same white-ish screen. I tried zapping the PRAM (allowing four bongs) and booting from the install disc. This yields the Mac boot screen for a few seconds then the logo shift down and to the left a few pixels and a couple of short, stray black lines appear where the logo originally was. I need to zap the PRAM again to at least get to this point again, otherwise it immediately get the washed-out screen. I can replicate these results every time.

Based on the few results I can find, this seems to be a bad logic board or inverter board. Is everyone in agreement that it's time to part this one out? Or is this something that someone who is mildly handy can fix? (I've replaced a few HDs and DVD drives on Powerbooks before.)

Any suggestions?
Thanks.
Chris

08-16-2009, 02:34 AM

Sadly I think it's the board, or at least the video card, but if it were that it wouldn't stop you booting from the disc per se. You may not see what you need to though.
Considering the cost of replacement boards and the age of the machine, parting out seems a fair idea provided you have funds to replace it of course.