Massive Powerbook G4 Problems

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Apr 1, 2010
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I got my Powerbook G4 (1.25 GHZ) laptop back in 2003. It worked fine until about 2008 when it appeared to start having some graphical issues. At some points, the screen would have off-set lines and eventually turn green/white and completely freeze up. It went this way for about 2 months until it decided to not turn on at all regardless of power adapter/battery. I bought an iMac to replace it at the time and was luckily able to recover all data from the Powerbook before it crashed completely.

I've recently gotten revived interest in making this Powerbook come back to life. The other night, I tried turning it on for the first time in 2 years and it worked! When it turned on, it went to re-install the OS (10.3 at the time since I had the Install CD in the drive). It installed the OS, and then the same thing happened. Screen went white/green. I've had SOME luck turning it back on but it's hit or miss and always have the same graphics problem. I've attached a picture I took while this was happening.

The last time it did turn on, I did a hardware test and everything passed except for some error that mentioned the fan.

Also the battery seems to not be recognized at all by the Powerbook and won't charge. When I press the status button on the battery, it just has one very faint blinking green light.

I took this into a laptop store (the only Mac service center in my area) and we were unsuccessful turning it on in the store. The service tech told me it could be a number of things, but replacing the Logic board would most likely solve all problems unless it was a power issue. He told me the service charge would be $150 and the cost of a logic board for this computer was anywhere between $100 (used) to $400 w/ warranty.

I do want this thing to work again if possible, but don't want to spend more than what the going working used rate is for this unit right now. Is this at all possible? Is this something i could fix on my own?

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Joined
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Crawley, England
Your Mac's Specs
20" Intel iMac 2.4 Ghz/3G Ram/320HD, Snow Leopard. PBook G4, 1.5Ghz/1.5 Ram/250 HD, Leopard 10.5.6.
Sadly this is a logic board failure as mentioned, but the only way of doing it yourself is to buy one used and hope it's ok. Even then the cost may be prohibitive to be honest, and it's a fiddly job.
You can generally pick up these machines for around £250-300 here, so putting a new board in is not cost effective.
 

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