ibook g3 freezing

[diddy_girl]

Hi, I'm having a problem with my ibook.
It's a 12' G3, running os x tiger. Latest updates available.
A week or two ago it flickered, and froze. I closed the screen, re-opened, and everything was back to normal. Yesterday, it was in my bag on the last stair of the staircase and it fell onto the floor, so a drop of about 6 inches. After that, i opened it and it was frozen. I restarted, it flickered a lot, froze at the grey startup screen, and then nothing happened. I turned it off, turned it back on, and hten it was ok. It was on for about 5 hours, then it started flickering again. I closed the screen and noticed that the backlight didnt go off, even when it was shut completely. then the screen went dark. then came back, then went dark again. i panicked, turned it off and on, and then it came back ok, died after five minutes. this happened several times until i gave up.it stopped booting altogether. I'd put in the os x cd, trying to see if it would start, and it turned on twice booting with the hard disk, and now it won't turn on at all. I don't see a port for me to plug in another monitor to test it. Please help. I went to the apple website and it appears to qualify for the logic board problem, but could it be anything else?


I haven't changed the hardware recently or installed any new programs.
700 MHz, 640 mb. I think it might be a logic board problem, my serial number is in the list on the apple page.

[ra3ndy]

You have several different symptoms here, and the common thread would be the logic board, which was known to go bad in iBooks.

Go get yerself a free logicboard replacement. Any temporary solutions we could suggest here would be just that, temporary.

[ecirtap]

have to agree with ra3ndy - the flickering screen is the known logic board issue. not sure, though, whether you are still entitled to a free logic board replacement. (check the apple.com site for info.)

depending on where you are in the world (or even which city or state in the us), some apple service providers will be very helpful & understanding, others will simply dismiss your claims. (i had the logic board failure on my g3 6 times - !!! - and this last statement i can base on research i have done on the net. i was - in a way - *very* lucky in the end, because apple changed the whole machine for me; i got a g4, with 10 gb bigger harddrive plus wireless & bluetooth (the latter two my original machine did not have. but by the time i got the replacement machine, i really felt i deserved it, after all the headaches. you might have to bang on a few doors, if you are unlucky, but just keep pestering them...)

patrice
http://www.patriceschneider.com/apple-osx/blog/

[Lt Major Burns]

as of yesterday, i am having the same problems. it's so painful though. mine is in the region of 4 years old, i think, but the serial numbers fall well within their range. and it's screwed, and the cost of my paying for a logic board replacement are more than i paid for the machine (£350ish), i can't afford to throw money away at the moment... would they be sympathetic to my woes?

[ra3ndy]

Apple is famously good about being badgered into helping you. Just tell them that you wouldn't have brought it in if they hadn't given you a faulty logic board. Throw your hands up in the air and do your best to waste the Apple Genius's time. The more you delay the next cosutomers in line, the more likely they'll help you.

[diddy_girl]

thanks for the advice everyone, I called in and the guy said that it would be fixed for free, but since it was the school's computer he needs the school's information. So I spoke to the school b/c I didn't want to send away their property without their permission, they gave me the go ahead. I called back and Gary the apple genius nonchalantly told me that he would unfortunately not be able to help me because the expanded logic board program expired last march and my ibook's warranty expired last June, so I was out of a computer unless i coughed up the 399 flat rate repair fee. I'm soo pissed so I'm back to being without a computer. I used to be pro-apple but now i'm not really feeling the crappy service.

[ecirtap]

diddy_girl. After having experienced the logic board failure myself (6 times!), I was also not exactly a happy Apple customer... I was even considering switching to the Windows camp (in my wildest of dreams, though)...

Believe me, I am not here to defend Apple at all - but I have got first hand reports from friends who had problems with their Windows machines, and I can say that at least Apple is not as bad as other companies... (One friend bought an Acer, and the first six months he owned it, it was at the repair shop for about two months! No compensation or apology.) I think Apple definitely needs to improve its customer service, but we still seem to be better off than our Micro$oft "friends"...

Also, I suggest you maybe talk to other Apple support employees, maybe someone with more authority than the person you talked to. Research on the net has shown that it really depends on who you talk to, and that people sometimes succeed in getting something fixed for free if they keep pestering Apple.

patrice
http://www.patriceschneider.com/apple-osx/blog/