[jtbowden]

I replaced my very faithful G3 Pismo with a very nice 17" AlBook when they first came out and handed off the Pismo to my younger brother to use his Freshman year at school.

He put the computer in the computer bag, but failed to zip it (gasp). The computer of course fell out as soon as he lifted up the bag (bad design) and fell on its lid.

Here's the deal. The computer starts up fine, but the screen is blank. Not black. Its stuck at gray (maybe its white, I forget how grey the Lombard's "white" was). The screen dims when the computer sits for a while. The volume keys work, and from some experimentation I can tell that the system seems to be running just fine. I am currently copying his hard drive over FireWire target disk mode just in case.

I have taken it apart about 75% and could not find any loose cables or anything that general looked broken. Of course I did not go in through the bottom. I just disassembled the screen and everything under the keyboard but couldn't see anything that looked out of the ordinary.

So, any ideas anyone? Anyone seen anything like this? I believe it still has some extended AppleCare (ignoring the fact that I disassembled it), but I don't think droppage is covered. I also have a Lombard that is in OK condition that I thought about swapping screens with, but I don't think the screen is the problem.

Please let me know if you have any ideas.

Thanks.

[danbrew]

You should introduce him to the dumb broad who dropped ice cream on her brother's PB.

ha! just kidding. have you checked the ribbon cable where it plugs into the motherboard? It's pretty easy to get to...

[jtbowden]

Yeah, the ribbon cable seems to be intact. I checked all of the connectors that I could see.

[nagromme]

Connect an external monitor--or TV--and run some tests that way?

(Even if it NEVER gets fixed it can become a desktop machine by mirorring the display. Or a low-end TV-based game system.)