[Dave N]

When I move the screen back and forth on my G3 900MHz iBook the screen flashes on and off. There doesn't seem to be any one place that it happens, and it doesn't happen every time I move it.

Is this a logic board problem, or the screen cable going out?

[seanc]

It sounds to me like the screen cable. You can either repair it yourself or buy a new one. I'm not sure how to repair it, but I saw something on here or another place once about how to do it.

Sean

[Dave N]

Thanks. After googling around, I'm sure that this is a bad reed switch/cable.

http://www.smalldog.com/product/43417
http://schwarztech.us/articles/schwarzibookcable.shtml

Mine has had some sleep issues for a while, so I think that was the start of the problem with the switch, and now it's developed into screen flickering. For the $20 SmallDog price, I'll try to replace it myself.

[pat++]

You can try to get the cable from here :

http://www.preowned.com/

If I remember correclty, I paid $12. Good luck, my iBook didn't survive after the home made repair.

[Dave N]

Originally Posted by pat++

Good luck, my iBook didn't survive after the home made repair.

Yikes! I just received my reed switch from SmallDog today and am all set to try the home repair tonight. I'm pretty good at tinkering with stuff, so hopefully everything will go OK. If it turnes out to be more than I can handle, then there is a certified Apple repair shop in town.

[seanc]

How did the repair go? Easy, hard, super hard, so hard I broke my Ibook?

Sean

[Ambassadeur]

Originally Posted by seanc

How did the repair go? Easy, hard, super hard, so hard I broke my Ibook?

Sean

Hopefully it's not still going on. Poor Dave...

[seanc]

Yeah, i'd have a hard time going near that lovely shiny case with a screw driver.
The Ibooks aren't the easiest to dissasemble and re-assemble either.

Sean

[Dave N]

Well, it was more difficult that I thought. Keeping track of where all the little screws went was the hardest part, plus that fact that I didn't have access to a computer while performing the "operation", so I couldn't look at the disassembly pics as I went. Oh yeah, it didn't help things when the end my little #6 torx driver twisted itself removing the display screws.

I did manage to get the reed switch replaced. The "reed switch" is only a small unit of the replacement part, which is mostly wires. So I got it in and put my iBook all back together and switched it on -- DOH! The backlight was completely dead, although I could still dimly make it out with a flashlight (classic reed switch failure). After re-disassembling it (much easier the 2nd time around) and checking the reed switch wires, I found that I had bent a prong when plugging the reed switch wire connector back into the display board. There is a small jack located on the board in the display housing that is probably 0.5 cm wide and houses 4 wire prongs. The reed switch wires plug into this, and it's in an awkward position. Everything on a laptop is so tiny and delicate that you must be very careful when un/plugging components. Unfortunately, I must have had things misaligned when I plugged it in, so now there is a bent prong in the little connector and my display does not light up.

There are two options as I see it: 1) replace the connector on the board (or pay someone to do it), 2) jump the bent prong by soldering a wire onto the back of the connector where it goes into the board, and then connect the jumper to the corresponding reed switch wire. The third option is to just use my iBook with a monitor until the new iBooks (hopefully) come out at WWDC in a couple of weeks, buy a new iBook, and sell this one for parts.

[seanc]

Hmmm, What about gently bending the prong back? I've done it many a time when I've managed to shove a hard drive jumper in between the prongs insteag of on them. If you bend it back gently it should be allright. Could/did you take a picture?
Seems a waste of a laptop for one little connector, i'd try to replace that if possible. You could buy a broken Ibook of ebay and canabalize it (maybe even use your parts to make it work). I assume the 'board' is the logic board.

Sean

[Ambassadeur]

Did you try to bend the little prong back into its original position with a miniscule screwdriver or some comparably small tool? (Or did it break?)
While exchanging the HD in my clamshell I, too, managed to bend a connector pin, in my case one of the display-connector. I managed to bend it back and, thankfully, everything was still working. It took some time and a very very steady hand but it worked (glad I was sober that day).

[Ambassadeur]

You beat me there, Sean

[seanc]

I sure did. You definately need a steady hand for this. I see no reason why it shouldn't bend back though unless it's already snapped or it's really mangled.
Since you said you'd either replace the connector or the Ibook, I'd just go for it. Break it and you can buy another connector, or an Ibook, your choice.

If your selling cheap i'm interested. Postage to the UK will be expensive though!

[Dave N]

This connector is on a board in the display housing itself, not the logic board. It's in such a position that I can't actually see the bent/broken prong, only the end of the 3 that are still there. Since I can't actually *see* the bent/broken prong, I'm assuming that *is* the problem and that there were 4 prongs there to begin with. There is a lead coming out the back of the jack housing where the broken wire would be and it goes into the board, so I feel fairly confident that the prong was there to begin with, and that it is indeed bent/broken.

Sadly, I doubt that I could get anything in there to bend it back straight, let alone see what I'm doing. I will have a better look at it tonight, and see if I can remove the board to get access to it. After 4 hours of toil last night I decided to quit and come back to it with a fresh mind. Hopefully I can repair it, because you're right -- it would be a shame to sell an iBook for parts just because of one little jack. On the other hand, I really don't want to put much money into fixing this one. I'd rather just put it towards buying a new one. Maybe WWDC will bring a major upgrade...

[seanc]

It would make sense for the board to be removable. It's probably the inverter board.

There's one for $29 buy it now on ebay.com.
$29 is a bit expensive for a piece of circuitry but $29 versus a $999 Ibook

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

Sean

[Dave N]

Yes, that's it! See that little square piece of taupe-colored plastic on the right end? That's the plug that I broke.

I'm certainly willing to spend another $30 to fix my iBook. I'm just not prepared to spend $200 or $300, if it came down to that.

Thanks a lot for posting the link. I'll probably end up buying one of these.

[seanc]

Glad we could all help you get there in the end and hope you get it fixed soon. Tell us when it's all back up and working again.

Sean

[Dave N]

Woo-Hoo!!! I fixed my iBook!!!

I had to wait about a week for the inverter board to get here, but it only took about 15 minutes to replace it and now my screen works great! My iBook has a few very minor nicks in the plastic where I pried it apart, but nothing you would be likely to notice if you weren't looking for them. After running my iBook from a 15" CRT monitor for a couple of weeks, I have to say that I really hated it. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed the freedom of a 12" iBook and Airport card until I had to sit at the kitchen table to use my computer. Oh well, all is good now.

Thanks to those who made the suggestions. If it weren't for me ruining the inverter board jack, this repair would have cost me $25. It ended up costing me about $60, which I guess is pretty cheap compared to what I would have paid someone else to fix it.