I have a 550 MHz Titanium powerbook. I bought it about 3 years ago and have had no problems (except for the paint flaking off
) until very recently.
About a week ago, I started having a problem where the LCD screen would go nuts... either going a solid color with vertical bands of two or three other colors... or get one of various uniform patterns accross the entire screen. Occasionally one could still get a fuzzed impression of the actual desktop behind the pattern... sometimes not.
This problem seems to be heat related. If I shut the machine done and wait for it to cool down, it will start up fine. But at some point, usually within 45 minutes of start up, the screen will go crazy again.
It seems to me that either:
a) one of the chips that controls the LCD is having some sort of heat related failure... Or
b) the system is simply overheating, which would seem to indicate that one of the cooling fans has failed.
Has anyone encountered this problem and figured out a fix for it?
Needless to say, the system is out of warrantee and I gather that Apple's minimum charge to work on it would be $380 and I have read elsewhere that having Apple fix an LCD panel can cost over $1,000.
If someone can suggest a fix I can try myself I am willing to get out the torx 8 and give it a shot.
I also plan to take it into the Apple store to see what they would suggest...
But if Apple's charge would be anything close to $1,000, I'd say that having Apple fix it is a non-starter.
I only paid about $2,000 for it new. And I have seen refurbished 660 MHz models (with a 1 year Apple warrantee) advertised for less than $1,600.
It would seem a better idea to by a refurbished Ti with warrantee and sell my old one on Ebay for parts.
TIA,
Sea Kayaker
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