[pete]

I’m very scared. This is what happened today - hope somebody can shed some light on it:

Took my powerbook (tibook ghz/512mbram/panther) from my desk after using it all day, put it in my backback in a protective sleeve, walked two blocks to Starbucks. When I opened the LCD, it was garbled with colorful lines - looked like when you use the magic wand in photoshop but in color. The little flashing lines were in color and followed the contours of whatever was on the screen. I logged out first to see if it would work and when I got to the login panel it too was outlined with these colored flashing lines. Shut down and couldn’t restart. Tried many times. No sound, no sign of life. Plugged the powerbook into the wall, charging indicator on. Reset pmu with button under keyboard, but still no life. waited a few minutes, then tried again and suddenly it came on and now seems to work without a hitch.

I’m in the middle of writing/strugglingw with my Ph.D. dissertation, and it would be devastating to have a major system failure now. What could this be? Could it be a) related to going from warm indoors with powerbook fan on to cold outdoors? Could it be a symptom of over-heating? Anything else it could be? There’s no point in sending it in if it’s working since they’ll never be able to find the problem, if there is one.

Thanks

[dodo_nutter]

That doesn't sound good!! I think firstly you should start backing up your PhD more often just a security measure (I'm assuming you are backing it up!) I'd also suggest popping along to an Apple Store and talking to the guys at the Genius Bar and see if they have any suggestions... they may have seen or heard of this before.

Other than that i think all you can do is hope some driver or other piece of software got itself broke and that its fixed itself now you restarted.

[Patcarla]

Originally posted by pete:
I’m very scared. This is what happened today - hope somebody can shed some light on it:

Took my powerbook (tibook ghz/512mbram/panther) from my desk after using it all day, put it in my backback in a protective sleeve, walked two blocks to Starbucks. When I opened the LCD, it was garbled with colorful lines - looked like when you use the magic wand in photoshop but in color. The little flashing lines were in color and followed the contours of whatever was on the screen. I logged out first to see if it would work and when I got to the login panel it too was outlined with these colored flashing lines. Shut down and couldn’t restart. Tried many times. No sound, no sign of life. Plugged the powerbook into the wall, charging indicator on. Reset pmu with button under keyboard, but still no life. waited a few minutes, then tried again and suddenly it came on and now seems to work without a hitch.

I’m in the middle of writing/strugglingw with my Ph.D. dissertation, and it would be devastating to have a major system failure now. What could this be? Could it be a) related to going from warm indoors with powerbook fan on to cold outdoors? Could it be a symptom of over-heating? Anything else it could be? There’s no point in sending it in if it’s working since they’ll never be able to find the problem, if there is one.

Thanks

Oh God man!! BACK-UP!!
I couldn't imagine not backing up every day when I was writing my Ph D thesis...

[pete]

I do backups every other day, but will be doing them every day now. NOTHING is worse than losing a day's work.....


Will take it in to the Apple Store to see what they say. Hate feeling nervous about this every time I open my LCD.

[Patcarla]

Originally posted by pete:
I do backups every other day, but will be doing them every day now. NOTHING is worse than losing a day's work.....


Will take it in to the Apple Store to see what they say. Hate feeling nervous about this every time I open my LCD.

Good luck with your pb and the thesis writing..

[pete]

thanks....the thesis is still a bigger problem than the powerbook!

[Patcarla]

Originally posted by pete:
thanks....the thesis is still a bigger problem than the powerbook!

Yeah, I know what you mean...

[riverfreak]

Well, of course you should be backing up. You wou;dn't want to write (and format) your thesis twice.

Regarding yuor display - bad news. I could be the display connector or even the mother board. This same thing happened to me - motherboard replacement.

I hope that you are still under warranty.

[pete]

Riverfreak, tell me more about the symptoms you had? It seems strange that this would happen and then go away. I've tried moving the LCD back and forth to see if it brings on any symptoms, but nothing happens. I thought it might be a faulty wire or something. If it's the mother board, wouldn't the problem be constant? Today it's been working perfectly all day.....

Please tell me more....


yes, I'm still under warranty and I guess this is strong incentive to get applecare too.

[xylon]

I think you provided the most logical answer to your predicament in option a) the extreme temperature range with fans running. Sounds to me like your PB accumulated some condensation in its guts. Not good, but sometimes not horrendous either. The best option is to remove all power sources (battery included) and let it have a while of (the longer the better) in a room of consistent temperature. After that, you can try booting up again. Even if the PB should restart this time, you should definitely take it to an Apple specialist to have it checked out.

[Macola]

This was a common problem on early TiBooks, including mine. I don't know if it still is, but search the Apple PowerBook forum for "titanium screen glitch" and you'll get a bunch of information.

[pete]

This doesn't seem like it's the same thing as the problems described on earlier tibooks - it's more like static green and colored lines that wrap themselves around items on the desktop and also along the lines of the desktop picture itself....