Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Randman · Feb 22, 2005, 01:45 AM

Couldn't find anything on this in the threads.
Last night, was surfing on my PB17 (rev c, bought in August) and suddenly the screen went dark. If I looked really closely, I could see the outlines of shapes but that's it.

When I did the restart, I had sounds when I clicked something and I had the backlit keyboard working and number lock working so that was functional.

The other oddity is that even with the sound on full, there was no startup chime whenever I started it back up. It hadn't been dropped and hadn't had any problems crop up.

I don't have an external monitor so I wasn't able to see if I could access the hard drive. I took it the AppleCare this morning but wanted to see if anyone else had heard of anything like this and what the problem might me (and the return time).

If anything, this is leading me to getting a monitor (and maybe a mini as a backup).

crazeazn · Feb 22, 2005, 02:47 AM

you have my condolences sir.

jfobart · Feb 22, 2005, 06:48 AM

The same thing happened to a friend of mine on two different iBooks last year- it was his LCD backlight that went out. Again, if you were in a dark room like yourself you could see a very faint image on the screen, but if it was in a bright/average room you couldn't see that and you just thought the LCD was dead.

Applecare replaced his no problem- hopefully you'll have the same experience. Good luck!

jamil5454 · Feb 22, 2005, 06:50 AM

I vote backlight.

Randman · Feb 22, 2005, 07:41 AM

Hmm, that's interesting. Could it just go out like that?

And if so, what about the lack of startup chime?

Part of me hopes it's something minor so I get it back quickly but there's a tiny part of me hoping it's something major and maybe they just give me a new model. I'd even be willing to do some kind of a top-up.

Regardless, I'll be looking at external monitors this weekend. Been wanting one and this gives me an valid reason with the fiancee unit.

bbales · Feb 23, 2005, 08:18 AM

My screen didn't go out like yours did, but it did develop probelsm (black shadows in the lower left corner) nearly a year ago (6 weeks after the 1-year point, of course!). I took it to an Apple store, they took a look and took it away. That was a Tuesday and I had my powerbook back in my hands early Friday morning. GREAT turnaround time, I thought. Apple replaced the whole screen. Oh -- I had AppleCare, so it was free. I strongly recommend it, before your 1-year warranty expires.

Let us know if you get a brand-new model! As long as you don't currently have your powerbook anyway, it would be kind of fun to get a brand-new one.

Randman · Feb 23, 2005, 08:28 AM

Well, it's 5-month-olds but I got free extended AppleCare when I bought it under a promotion, so I'm covered.
The good thing is I'm getting a new PowerBook from Apple for a few days, at least. Doing an extended test drive so at least I'll have a new one over the weekend a few days past that.

My g/f can't check e.mail or surf at home now so it's looking better and better for a backup Mac, maybe a Mac mini and an external monitor that I can use with the mini and the PB.
Still, I wish I had my own PB back. I wonder what are the odds of getting a new one. I'd even consider paying a little extra for the 100GB hard drive.

Voch · Feb 23, 2005, 09:25 AM

Bummer, Randman. Sounds like premature backlight death, or at least a broken backlight connection of some kind. AppleCare has come through for me a coule of times on my old iBook and current PowerBook, so I wouldn't sweat it.

Randman · Feb 24, 2005, 12:25 AM

The service center just called. The LCD was replaced but they found troubles with the hard drive so they're going to replace it. The good thing is they said I can get the old drive (pay a slight deposit) and take it home to recover my old data (have backups but that's still good to know). I asked about getting a 100GB hard drive installed (with me paying the difference) and they're checking to see if that's doable.

olePigeon · Feb 24, 2005, 01:40 AM

Someone might've got their oily fingers on the backlight during production and it burned out.

Randman · Feb 24, 2005, 04:06 AM

Yeah, I'll have to check to make sure there's no dead pixels as there wasn't any when I turned it in.
No 100GB drive but there's a chance I'll have it back before the weekend.

ibook_steve · Feb 24, 2005, 11:29 AM

Originally posted by olePigeon:
Someone might've got their oily fingers on the backlight during production and it burned out.

Backlights on current LCD panels are integrated into the panel. Unless you disassembled the panel itself, you would never touch the backlight during system assembly. Only the metal frame around the entire panel is exposed. I thought I saw backlight bulb replacements available somewhere at some point, but it looked tricky and not worth potentially damaging the panel.

Steve