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ValVashon · Feb 5, 2004, 08:26 PM

A friend gave me a broken Wallstreet to have a look at. The screen is bright and lit but there is no video information on it. There is startup chime and hard drive spinup, along with spoken error messages, such as "do you really want to shut your computer down" and other such things. This leads me to believe that the video cable to the screen is bad, but first I would like to hook an external monitor up to it to see if it runs that. The specs call for a "VGA" type of monitor, which must have a different plug than my old PowerMac G3 monitor. Is this a standard PC type of monitor, or something else?

A fellow engineer at the TV station I work at supposedly hooked a monitor up to it, but got "nothing". Do you need to turn on the external monitoring somehow? He's a PC type with essentially no knowledge of Macs.

I just looked and saw that it is a HD-15 type of connector on the back of the PowerBook, if that helps. Are there any monitors that are known to work or not to work with a Wallstreet?

Val

ibook_steve · Feb 5, 2004, 09:24 PM

VGA is a standard that's been around forever. The monitor obviously has to be turned on. It needs to be connected at boot time because hot plugging of monitors to Wallstreet was not possible, I believe. If there is still no external display, the graphics chip or supporting hardware could be broken.

Steve

ValVashon · Feb 6, 2004, 10:52 PM

Thanks, Steve.

I grabbed a VGA off of the junk computer pile at work (TV station with agressive IT department) and the computer works just fine when plumbed to an external monitor. I pulled the screen bezel apart and found that the ribbon cable is intact, but is loose (as in it pulls off of the motherboard too easy). I tried flexing the cable every which way and still couldn't get a display on the LCD. I'll ohm out the cable at work Monday to make sure that there isn't a break I can't see, but what are the chances that the LCD has gone bad? Do they do this? How do you know if it is the LCD or not? I don't know any of the previous symptoms- just that the screen is lit (from the backlight) but there is no display.

Val