Dead screen on 15" powerbook ?

N

Nummi_G4

New Rhapsody User
Hi,
I need help with a Powerbook G4 15". I'm not sure what speed it is...
A teacher brought it up to me with 2 problems:
1. no screen at start-up.
2. He could not get the OSX install CD out.
number 2 is solved (hold down the mouse button)
but I cannnot figure out why the screen wont turn on. I think he said it crashed.... he held down the power key to shutdown. When he fired it back up... no screen. I know the machine is on (I can feel heat).
any idea would be great.

I tried using the F keys to raise brightness... and I zapped the PRAM. nothing works! :(
 
What was he trying to do with the Os X CD? Have you tried to boot up via a CD?
 
I dont know what he was doing with the OSX CD. I did try to boot off of the CD, zapped the PRAM, I reset the power Manager... no luck. Any ideas?
 
Originally posted by lurk
When you say no screen do you get the initial grey or absolutely nothing?

-Eric
Click to expand...


no screen at all. I also noticed that the white apple on the back does not light up. Could that be a sign that the display is not getting any power?
 
It means that the back light is not turning on at any rate. When he said that it crashed did he mean that he dropped it ;)

Do you get the Apple noise when you power it on. If so try to shine a flashlight through the back of apple and see if you can make anything out. If so it is just the backlight which is either disconnected or burnt out.

Another thing you can do is plug it into an external monitor and see if it will boot up. From what I understand they will work fine without a functioning LCD that way.

Finally, if the screen is dead could you send it to me? (the screen that is or at least the right hinge?) I broke mine and it is mucho dinero to buy a new one :(

-Eric
 
When I got my imac, it would turn on, and make a beeping noise. It was powering up, but not booting, and the screen wasn't turning on. The problem turned out to be that the RAM was unseated. Open it up, make sure the RAM is properly seated, and try again.
 
Hi.

I've got an aluminium Powerbook with similar problems. I replaced the harddrive a few weeks ago, after which the pb operated perfectly for about two weeks. The other day I came back to it to find the screen had frozen, when I touched the trackpad the screen faded to white. I've tried resetting pram and pmu, I also tried holding 'r' on start up as someone said this might reset the lcd. no joy.

I managed to start it up through an ibook, and it worked fine that way, so I thought I'd try and connect an external monitor to do a hardware test. Annoyingly the only thing that shows on the monitor is the desktop image, no finder, dock or hd icon.

I assumed that I must have not reconnected something when I replaced the hd, so I checked everything I unscrewed and it all looks ok.

ANy suggestions would be much appreciated!
 
This is going to sound real simple and a bit stupid but my laptop lost its screen brightness once and all I had to do was hold down the power key for a LONG time.

Good luck!!
 
I joined the other folks in this situation today. I have a 15" Powerbook with more recent OSX4.

Interestingly, 2 nights ago I did the most recent software update and shut down my computer. Leaving it off for over 24hours. Turned it on this morning and saw the grey screen with apple logo. but when it got to the desktop the screen was dead. the computer works, the display doesn't. I was able to strain my eyes enough to attempt a Permissions Repair. I restarted went in and out of sleep mode, I tried the brightness keys, and I booted while pressing 'R'.

Aside from resetting the PRAM and booting disk (which I'm going to try now) any other clues or ideas???
 
Okay I can now also rule out the PRAM reset, and reseting the PMU, as well as running DiskWarrior and the Apple Hardware disc.

Any ideas what else I could try?
 
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