[SPiNdustrious]

Hello,

I have an iBook 500 running 10.2.4 that I just sent in for service and got back this week. It works fine, though I have yet to call Apple and find out what was wrong.

Last night I took it out in the middle of a flight to get some web design work done. I opened it (it was closed and asleep) and the screen worked but the colors were all wrong and not in any discernibly consistent pattern. It looked solarized and generally too red. I worried that the x-ray machine might have damaged something but after a restart with a still-solarized screen, my iBook finally snapped to at the login screen. All better.

Upon getting home, I again opened my iBook and again the damn screen was solarized. Since I wanted to check email and read the news, I was just putting up with the ugliness until I was willing to take some downtime for my often lengthy restarts. Suddenly, the desktop switcher changed my desktop image and everything snapped back to normal.

What is going on? It seems like an OS problem, not a hardware problem to me... Is there a preference file I can trash?

In other news, after playing around with a novel hint from Mac OS X Hints, I think I damaged my pref file for the Displays pref pane. Where is it so I can clean up?

Thanks,

Peter

[hew]

Originally posted by SPiNdustrious:
Hello,

I have an iBook 500 running 10.2.4 that I just sent in for service and got back this week. It works fine, though I have yet to call Apple and find out what was wrong.

Last night I took it out in the middle of a flight to get some web design work done. I opened it (it was closed and asleep) and the screen worked but the colors were all wrong and not in any discernibly consistent pattern. It looked solarized and generally too red. I worried that the x-ray machine might have damaged something but after a restart with a still-solarized screen, my iBook finally snapped to at the login screen. All better.

Upon getting home, I again opened my iBook and again the damn screen was solarized. Since I wanted to check email and read the news, I was just putting up with the ugliness until I was willing to take some downtime for my often lengthy restarts. Suddenly, the desktop switcher changed my desktop image and everything snapped back to normal.

What is going on? It seems like an OS problem, not a hardware problem to me... Is there a preference file I can trash?

In other news, after playing around with a novel hint from Mac OS X Hints, I think I damaged my pref file for the Displays pref pane. Where is it so I can clean up?

Thanks,

Peter

Is it perhaps a light red appearing on top of the screen? If so try moving the monitor up and down and see what that does. If it goes away or goes away and then comes back you have a hardware problem. I have it as well on my 500mhz iBook, it looks to be the wiring. I don't have Applecare, but it doesn't appear too often for me so it's not a big deal. You'll probably want to bring it in again though and get it checked out.

[posthumanus]

this unfortunately happened to my desktop

then within a week the whole thing just died. turned out to be a (US$450) fried logic board.

my advice: BACK UP YOUR FILES, NOW.

[SPiNdustrious]

Hmmm, they just replaced the logic board....

Does this mean I got a dud?

-Peter

[Gul Banana]

Try pressing command-option-control-8 - if this lets you turn that effect on and off at will, it is perfectly normal.

[CheesePuff]

Originally posted by Gul Banana:
Try pressing command-option-control-8 - if this lets you turn that effect on and off at will, it is perfectly normal.

or command-control-option-*

[SPiNdustrious]

This keystroke gives me an inverted grayscale effect that I imagine is for people with some sort of visual disability, but none of the strange and decidedly more random solarizing.

Since posting, I have been unable to get it to solarize...

Who knows. I sure don't.

Peter

[DeathMan]

apple support will be useless to you unless you can consistently recreate the effect, and can tell them exactly what you're doing to do that.

At least this is how it has been in my experience.

[Person Man]

Originally posted by SPiNdustrious:
This keystroke gives me an inverted grayscale effect that I imagine is for people with some sort of visual disability, but none of the strange and decidedly more random solarizing.

Since posting, I have been unable to get it to solarize...

Who knows. I sure don't.

Peter

Try this. Go to System Preferences...

Now choose Universal Access. Under the Seeing tab, click the big "Switch to White on Black" button. Then go to the Displays control panel, and set the colors to either "Thousands" or "Millions"

There's your "solarize" effect.

It's a preferences file corruption. Later today I'll post the files you need to delete.

[SPiNdustrious]

Originally posted by Person Man:
Try this. Go to System Preferences...

Now choose Universal Access. Under the Seeing tab, click the big "Switch to White on Black" button. Then go to the Displays control panel, and set the colors to either "Thousands" or "Millions"

There's your "solarize" effect.

It's a preferences file corruption. Later today I'll post the files you need to delete.

Sounds good. But I can't open the Displays pref pane. It claims to be loading the pane, but then System Prefs just crashes. I'm guessing I have multiple corrupt preference files...

Thanks,

Peter

[Person Man]

Originally posted by SPiNdustrious:
Sounds good. But I can't open the Displays pref pane. It claims to be loading the pane, but then System Prefs just crashes. I'm guessing I have multiple corrupt preference files...

Thanks,

Peter

Try creating a new user and opening the Displays Pref pane from there. If that works, then it most certainly is a corrupt prefs file. If that does not work, then you'll probably need to replace the Displays Pref pane files themselves.