[macroy]

Anyone seen something similar? Has no affect on performance, comes and goes when you move windows around. Its not a constant thing, but still annoying. I don't think its a display issues as my external monitor shows the same thing from time to time. I believe it started after I installed Tiger (hm....).

[OpenStep]

Probably a graphics chip problem.. run Apple hardware test?

[mduell]

I'll second the vote for a graphics card gone bad.

Watch for the magic purple smoke.

[bighead]

It's very slightly possible that the graphics card drivers are corrupted, otherwise it is the GPU, and that means you need a new logic board.

[macroy]

Thanks for the analysis folks - ran the hardware test and it came back with an error in the video ram ("error disp /13/2"). Did a little digging and it was a big enough issue with the iBooks that a recall was done by Apple. But no such luck with G4's (although I did see a lot of folks with the same issue on the 15" G4 Ti's).

Most of them did mention replacing the logic board as the only alternative. Which is frustrating. Yea, it is my fault for not having Applecare to take care of this. But still.... you fork out 2500 for a laptop, and the last thing you think you'd need is to swap out the guts when you've never taken it off your desk.... Guess that's the 'cons' of a laptop.... you can't just swap out a card.

[bighead]

Well, it's not a very expensive repair if you do a mail-in. Most logic boards as parts at dealers cost about $800 for 15" AlBooks. A flat-rate mail-in repair will cost you about $330, which still sucks, but is cheaper than paying for the part outright. Plus, if there is anything else on your book that is failing, except for abuse/damage, they'll fix that too in the mail-in repair for the same price. Talk to a local repair center or Apple Store about it.