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Fixing the Dreaded iBook Backlight?
Aliencow inquires: "I've recently bought an iBook, and it started having the very common backlight problem. Basically, there are two types of things that can cause the problem: either the screen hinges pinching the cables, which is pretty easy to fix if you're not scared of opening things up; or it could be the logic board, which is what happened in my case. I've heard of someone being able to fix it by doing a bypass operation on the board, soldering a wire before the break and soldering it directly on the backlight connector. Aside from that, however I haven't been able to find much about how to fix that particular problem. Have any of you iBook-owning Slashdot readers had to repair your iBook like this? Any hints? If my repair is successful I'll surely snap a bunch of pictures and make a website, as this is a problem that affects a lot of iBook owners."
I had that problem 6 months after I bought my ibook. Closing the lid halfway would make the backlight go off for no apparent reason. At first I thought it was the suspend mode kicking in, but since the little blinking light didn't come on and it started to happen when I barely touched the screen it had to be the backlight. Good thing it was still under warranty. On a side note: I had a problem with one the rubber feet a few months back. It kept falling out so I decided to go buy a new set at the local Apple Store. I was rather surprised to here the clerk tell me that they didn't sell those anymore. If I wanted to have the rubber thingies (or just one) replaced, I'd have to send it back to an Apple Service Center to have it replaced. In the end I decided that a big blob of glue would solve it a bit faster.
A little of both. The iBook is the cheapest, lowest-margin laptop Apple has ever made, and it has had a high failure rate. On the other hand, even if the failure rate is half that of Dell, say, you'll here more about it because Apple users expect more. So the iBook does suck, quality-wise, for an Apple (I'm typing from one now), but it's still better than a PC. Also, Apple has been fixing the iBooks out of warrantee, if you ask nicely. I can't imagine Sony ever doing that.
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I had my ibook die on me a few months ago. It was still under warranty, so I didn't have any trouble getting it fixed. I was very impressed with their service turnaround. It sat at my house boxed up longer than it was gone. It only took 2 days to come back to me. I'm hoping that they would have fixed the problem while it was there so it won't happen again.
On a completely unrelated note, my hard drive is starting to make horrendous click of death noises. Only a month out of warranty, damn. Probably would help if I didn't use it all day long. I love my little machine.
Assuming you are talkin about an iBook: All have backlights. Otherwise the TFT would be pretty dark.
thing happen. Out of warranty. Apple tech told me over the phone its $319 flat rate, including shipping. Clearly this must be happening all the time as the tech didn't even ask me to try any troubleshooting steps. Two days later I got it back and they even replaced one of the little rubber feet that had been missing for some time. Then the number 1 key popped off, but thats another story... $319 for a new logic board installed is not bad. Ever try taking an iBook apart? Not for the faint of heart!
Yes, it is a just a bunch of whiney people that purchased a product from a highend vendor that doesn't work.
What are they going to do when the warranty runs out? Screen and logic board problems appear to be an ongoing thing with newer apple notebooks. Just sending it in and getting a temp fix doesn't help when it breaks again, out of warranty, because the root cause of the problem hasen't been fixed.
This goes for any brand of laptop out there, not just Apple.
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What are they going to do when the warranty runs out?
Do what I do. Ask nicely if they'll fix it anyway. In every case Apple has said yes, and a few times has specifically said "if it's been less than one year since your last repair, we're authorized to do it." On the other hand, when my Sony died, no luck. When my Dell died, no luck. When my Compaq died... well, honestly, I was so happy about that thing dying that I didn't ask.
Gateway might be different... like Apple, they actually have a place you can go to ask nicely. Interaction in person is much more powerful than interaction over the phone.
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I tried to repair it, but the only thing that fixed it permanently was forcing the control signal of the backlight (a PCM signal) to maximum by soldering a pullup resistor at a strategic point in the lid. I deliberately leave it as vague as this: you really should know what you're doing when you try this, and you should be able to fill in the details yourself. Google is your friend.
Have any of you iBook-owning Slashdot readers had to repair your iBook like this? Any hints? If my repair is successful I'll surely snap a bunch of pictures and make a website, as this is a problem that affects a lot of iBook owners."
Some repairs are documented online, but more are always welcome.
Disassembling an iBook is hard; reassembling it is even harder. Unless you really, really, REALLY know what you're doing, you're shouldn't try this. Even professional repairmen consider it a difficult machine to work on.
If you still want to do it, the procedure is roughly: remove bottom case, bottom shield, top case, top shield to expose the motherboard. Illustrations can be found online, but be prepared for surprises, in particular lots of sticky tape and screws at weird places. Most importantly: carefully document the origin of every screw you remove. I find it helpful to keep the screws from different disassembly steps separate, so that a sanity check can be done for each step of reassembly.
The video chip is located on the bottom side of the motherboard, under the harddisk, but again, resoldering a loose chip requires professional equipment. The wire loom to the display starts roughly under the 's' key, and goes through the left side of the hinge.
I do agree that it's not a bad idea to get it for laptops, but you do need to do it before your 1 year is up.
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I have a dual usb that is almost two years old (few months) and out of warranty I had a problem with the backlight going out. It was caused by the hinge crimping the cable. I took the entire assembly apart, rewired the cable with a new splice and did a better job insulating and moving the cable so it wouldn't happen again. Took me a good 4 hours of work...but saved me a ton of dough.
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If you bought it that recently, the one-year warranty should still be in effect.
Take it to an Apple Store, or fedex it to Apple (after calling 'em up for an RMA), and wait a week.
I did that when mine went out not 3 months in. Haven't had any problems since.
My Dual USB 700 14" laptop is 1.5 years old. No LCD problems at all. I used it several hours a day every day. The hard drive started acting up (after warranty expiration) so I swapped it out for a 60 gig. You can't expect a hard drive to last very long these days anyway. Now that Quantum is gone, hard drives don't last very long.
In fact, after 15 years and 6 Macs, the only real Apple hardware failure I've seen was when the sound went out on my old 7100. I don't know, but the lightening strike may have been more at fault than Apple on that one.
Do yourself a favor and send it back to Apple. The iBooks are pretty well sealed until you pop it open, then it becomes a mess of different size screws and rf shielding.
About two months ago, my girlfriend's iBook was having problems. Unfortunately it was way out of waranty, and we had bought it second hand (at a very reasonable price). The hard drive was making clicking noise of death. So I thought, no big deal, I'll just swap it out.
So I talked with the people at the Genius Bar at the local Apple store (great folk by the way), and verified that it was just a standard ide laptop hard drive. They said it was, but advised against me doing it myself. I thought, yeah, whatever. less than 48 hours later I found myself wishing I had taken their advice, but I get ahead of myself.
Anyways, I decided to do a dry run on my 15 inch powerbook, just to see if there would be any surprises. It was easy enough to get to the drive. Satisfied, I decided to go ahead with her iBook.
Now, if I would have just googled for instructions on how to dismantle an iBook, I would have discovered the magnitude of my mistake. iBooks are laid out very different from powerbooks. In fact, in the iBooks, the hard drive is pretty much the last thing you get to.
Now, your problem isn't the hard drive, it's the backlight. that's much easier to get to, in much the same way a hand grenade is much easier than a nuke. However, if it's still an option, just ship it in.
Take it or leave it. You might be more inclined in the ways of hardware than I am. However, if you decide to go forward and do it yourself, get yourself an empty egg carton, or something similar. Label the holes, and keep track of which screws went where, because you're going to have a lot of them.
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Just for contrast, my Apple experience has been a great one. I've owned a Blue & White G3, a Pismo Powerbook, Several iMacs and my latest is a Dual 1ghz MDD G4.
:/
I've only had problems with the Pismo, maybe... three over the lifetime of the computer. And for at least a year and a half it was my only computer. I used it all the time, took it to class, to labs, in the car. The thing took a beating in my backpack.
One was the screen... after several years the backlight started to fail/get old and the screen would have a pink tint to it for the first 20-30 seconds of operation..then it'd be okay. Apple replaced the entire LCD screen (under warranty) no questions asked. The sound board had to replaced after the audio out port became loose- who knows how many times I plugged headphones or a headphone->rca (out to my stereo) cord into the thing over what... like 3 years? Again, Apple replaced it for no charge. I also received a new battery when mine stopped holding full charge, no questions asked.
IMO, all of these problems were related to lots of use / age. Hopefully the iBook line will improve with the next revisions. Apple is a good company with solid products, but it sounds like the iBook has some flaws.
If you're looking for an Apple laptop, wait for the next revision or make the jump to a PowerBook. I think the PowerBook is a better choice anyway. Laptops are expensive, so you want to purchase something that is going to last you the longest...
Out of curiosity. Are these G3 iBooks having trouble? G4? What revisions/lines.
Just to clarify for the unknowing... this is a problem with the iBook G3 and not the iBook G4.
I think it's fairly widespread, as Apple's CFO mentioned the unusually high number of warranty expenses for Powerbooks (due to initial white spots problem with the 15" AlBooks, now completely resolved according to them) and iBooks (not further specified) as the reason that their margins were lower than expected during the previous fiscal quarter.
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I successfully replaced the hard drive in my 500 MHz dual USB, using these instructions. The first time I took it apart, it took three hours - two to get the hard drive out, and one to re-assemble it afterwards.
Everything appeared to work at first, except it wouldn't automatically go to sleep when I closed the lid. Took it apart again and reseated the cable from the trackpad (just under the keyboard and memory/AirPort shield), which fixed that.
I've taken it apart once more since then, to fix a bent rail on the CDROM drawer - my son dropped the machine on our carpeted stairs, the drive drawer popped open and got hit/bent so it wouldn't close.
As you can tell, I beat the crap out of laptops. My iBook has been to Apple service under warranty once (infant mortality on the CDROM drive), and has otherwise taken an incredible amount of abuse with only a gradual hard drive failure to show for it. I have a new 800 G4 iBook on order, and I dearly hope it's as tough as my current one.
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My website has a section for replacing backlights that might help http://home.comcast.net/~stonent/screenfix.htm
I had this EXACT same issue, only the AppleCare admin girl told me that I COULD buy the warranty, but her manager had to do it. Only problem being the mangers we on vacation until January 5th.
I called back January 7th or 8th for good measure, and they wouldn't sell me the warranty.
I filed a formal complaint with customer relations (who didn't care and wasn't sympathetic at all) and informed them that I will not be buying an apple portables any longer. (unfortunatley i love the platform too much to give it up all together)