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KeriVit · Apr 7, 2003, 07:56 PM

What the heck is it? I got my PB only 4 days ago, and today- A yellow line appeared from top to bottom. It's about 6" from the right. I have tried changing the desktop, the resolution, the number of colors, restarting, massaging. I disconnected peripherals, I quit everything, let it cool down, held it a different way, it hasn't gone away...

Anyone have this in an Al-Book?

Please help me, I just got this baby up and running... installed numerous programs... oh well...

any thoughts?

�tomic · Apr 7, 2003, 08:02 PM

Originally posted by KeriVit:
What the heck is it? I got my PB only 4 days ago, and today- A yellow line appeared from top to bottom. It's about 6" from the right. I have tried changing the desktop, the resolution, the number of colors, restarting, massaging. I disconnected peripherals, I quit everything, let it cool down, held it a different way, it hasn't gone away...

Anyone have this in an Al-Book?

Please help me, I just got this baby up and running... installed numerous programs... oh well...

any thoughts?

Can you post a picture so we can take a look at it...?

KeriVit · Apr 7, 2003, 08:05 PM

Originally posted by �tomic:
Can you post a picture so we can take a look at it...?

Excuse my ignorance- how do I post a pic- can't remember the key command and I don't know where to post it.

KeriVit · Apr 7, 2003, 08:10 PM

Originally posted by KeriVit:
Excuse my ignorance- how do I post a pic- can't remember the key command and I don't know where to post it.

Never mind- I remembered the screen shot stroke- but it's not on the screen shot... !!!

OldManMac · Apr 7, 2003, 08:23 PM

Sounds like a call to Apple is in order.

daSilVetZ · Apr 7, 2003, 08:30 PM

lol. Take a pic of your pb- with a digi cam.

KeriVit · Apr 7, 2003, 08:54 PM

I'm so funny- huh?

I'll see what I can do- the camera's around here somewhere...

Will it help (the pic)?

ibook_steve · Apr 7, 2003, 09:11 PM

You don't need to take a photo. If you've got a yellow line that doesn't show up in screen grabs, then you have a bad LCD panel. You should pretty easily be able to exchange your machine.

Steve

KeriVit · Apr 7, 2003, 09:16 PM

It's just that I've read previous posts on other forums, and Apple hasn't taken care if it. That doesn't make sense to me, but...

I guess I gotta just get on the horn...

bartman00 · Apr 7, 2003, 10:07 PM

a line of pix is a problem with the lcd.. it just happens and has nothing to do with Apple, the modle or anything. It happens and they WILL fix it. What you hear people whining about is having one or two dead pixles and Expecting Apple to fix it. They wont. I hate to tell them but Apple has the best by far replacment policy reguarding LCD screens.

Bart

Arch. · Apr 8, 2003, 01:58 AM

I dont mean to be a smart ass, but I think its funny that people dont come out of the wood work and tell this guy he does not deserve a repair. What about this "failure within margins" mantra you people seam to preech? I think its funny that consumers take this crap as a given. If AMD or Intel make a chip with a small flaw-they make another one. I dont buy the logic expressed on this board that a product with no flaws just is not worth it in terms of cost to the consumer. Maybe the manufacturers should have higher standards than the consumers....thats why I bought this laptop was because it is quality. Sorry, I am not trying to stir up the s-hit so to speak.....what do you guys think?

forcelite · Apr 8, 2003, 02:19 AM

you can knit pick anything to death. The fact that 1 pixel is dead still leaves your screen 99.999999999% not-dead. Thats a pretty high sucees rate. You could cry about a small scuff on a new pair of shoes and they MIGHT give you a new pair, but I bet that scuff represents more than 99.999999999999999999% of the product, get the point.

The fact is we dont live in a perfect bubbled world. Us as humans can only deal with what we are given and at the current moment every computer company seems to think that 5 pixels or more is ok, I am sure they do throw away a bunch of lcds cause they have alot of dead pixels, and to get the error rate down to 0% would end up costing you and me more. Companies dont even have to issue a warernty, it just so has it that the standard for a quality company is to issue a warenty, just as the standardd for dead pixels is 5.

urrl5201 · Apr 8, 2003, 06:01 AM

Contact Apple immediately. This is not normal. Don't wait another day.

iohead · Apr 8, 2003, 06:09 AM

Originally posted by forcelite:
you can knit pick anything to death. The fact that 1 pixel is dead still leaves your screen 99.999999999% not-dead. Thats a pretty high sucees rate. You could cry about a small scuff on a new pair of shoes and they MIGHT give you a new pair, but I bet that scuff represents more than 99.999999999999999999% of the product, get the point.

That's too many 9's after the decimal - one dead pixel on a 1440 x 900 would give you only four :-P

Karim · Apr 8, 2003, 06:56 AM

Your computer has either a bad motherboard (GPU related circuitry), bad video cable or bad LCD. Call Apple, they will be happy to fix it.

You might try an external display for the hell of it, if that works without the "line" then you can narrow it down to bad LCD cable/logic or bad LCD panel itself.

KeriVit · Apr 8, 2003, 09:16 AM

Originally posted by Arch.:
I dont mean to be a smart ass, but I think its funny that people dont come out of the wood work and tell this guy he does not deserve a repair. What about this "failure within margins" mantra you people seam to preech? I think its funny that consumers take this crap as a given. If AMD or Intel make a chip with a small flaw-they make another one. I dont buy the logic expressed on this board that a product with no flaws just is not worth it in terms of cost to the consumer. Maybe the manufacturers should have higher standards than the consumers....thats why I bought this laptop was because it is quality. Sorry, I am not trying to stir up the s-hit so to speak.....what do you guys think?

I'm not following you here... Are you saying that I don't deserve a repair? Am I supposed to live with a yellow line down my screen? It's not few pixels on my screen. I work on photos and movies that take up the majority of my screen. Am I expected to look around the line? The thing is 5 days old!!
I didn't pay $3200+ to *live with* something like that.

mcs37 · Apr 8, 2003, 09:23 AM

Originally posted by KeriVit:
I didn't pay $3200+ to *live with* something like that.

I agree, and I think Apple will fix that. It's not a dead pixel, which is hard to notice anyway. That's a serious problem that they should most definitely fix. If they didn't I would never buy from them again. Something like an annoying yellow line down the screen is not something you can easily ignore, like 1 "dead" pixel in a 1440x900 matrix.

In 1995 we bought a Gateway machine (Pentium 90 MHz, 16 MB RAM, 1 GB drive---wow!) with a 17" CRT. The CRT was fine initially but after a few weeks it suddenly became tinted yellow. Nothing could fix it, and they replaced it.

Although I have heard many horror reports of Apple's customer care, I think this one qualifies under their warranty.

OldManMac · Apr 8, 2003, 10:22 AM

Originally posted by Arch.:
I dont mean to be a smart ass, but I think its funny that people dont come out of the wood work and tell this guy he does not deserve a repair. What about this "failure within margins" mantra you people seam to preech? I think its funny that consumers take this crap as a given. If AMD or Intel make a chip with a small flaw-they make another one. I dont buy the logic expressed on this board that a product with no flaws just is not worth it in terms of cost to the consumer. Maybe the manufacturers should have higher standards than the consumers....thats why I bought this laptop was because it is quality. Sorry, I am not trying to stir up the s-hit so to speak.....what do you guys think?

I'm not taking you as a smart ass, but all manufacturers have a "failure within margins" mantra that they observe, especially concerning LCD screens. I agree that this case merits a warranty repair, based on what's been described, but Apple WILL NOT repair/replace a screen for one or two dead/stuck pixels!!!!! If you know anything about LCD manufacture, you'll know that it is incredibly difficult to make a screen with millions of pixels that are perfect, and the reject rate is over 10%, which is why these screens are still expensive.

How do I know this, you ask? I work for Apple, and I am intimately familiar with their screen repair policy.

OldManMac · Apr 8, 2003, 10:24 AM

Originally posted by KeriVit:
I'm not following you here... Are you saying that I don't deserve a repair? Am I supposed to live with a yellow line down my screen? It's not few pixels on my screen. I work on photos and movies that take up the majority of my screen. Am I expected to look around the line? The thing is 5 days old!!
I didn't pay $3200+ to *live with* something like that.

Why are you still posting about it here, the next day? Call Apple!

KeriVit · Apr 8, 2003, 10:58 AM

Originally posted by KarlG:
Why are you still posting about it here, the next day? Call Apple!

I was waiting for Support to open... just chatting in the meantime...

PBAddict · Apr 8, 2003, 02:38 PM

Sounds like a damaged LCD connection cable, if you leave it will get worse i.e more lines. Send it back to Apple for replacement. It will not fix itself and it is not software related.

nobitacu · Apr 8, 2003, 03:51 PM

Yea, just call Apple, I'm sure they will be able to fix this problem for you.

Ming

forcelite · Apr 8, 2003, 04:12 PM

apple will defiantly fix this becuase it is more than a few pixels.

jtbowden · Apr 8, 2003, 06:28 PM

This is definately an issue that Apple will fix or replace. A line of bad or stuck is caused by a power route to a single row of pixels shorting or burning out. Essentially this can be the same problem as with a single pixel, but in a bad place on the silicon. But, because it does cause an ugly line on your screen, Apple will fix the situation.

darkenn · Apr 9, 2003, 01:04 AM

Don't take no for an answer from Apple. The screen alone is like 2,000 USD so just explain exactly what you said, I didn'y pay 3,200 to live with it.

Good Luck my friend.

penmanila · Apr 9, 2003, 04:18 AM

having worked on many powerbooks, this is most surely a bad video cable and not the screen itself. would still require a trip back to apple, though.

Ryan1524 · Apr 9, 2003, 04:24 AM

a yellow line definitely warrants a repair...contact them asap.
good luck..

KeriVit · Apr 9, 2003, 12:25 PM

Yeah- thanks all.

FYI- they're taking it for repair. But won't send me a box yet, because my Serial # states that my PB was manufactured on 4/5/03, yet I received it on 4/3/03. So I have to wait 48 hours to get past the confusion...

djjava · Apr 9, 2003, 12:45 PM

Originally posted by KeriVit:
Yeah- thanks all.

FYI- they're taking it for repair. But won't send me a box yet, because my Serial # states that my PB was manufactured on 4/5/03, yet I received it on 4/3/03. So I have to wait 48 hours to get past the confusion...

congrats... you were able to get apple to repair the problem.... now, the other 99.99999999999% of us, on the other hand....

ibook_steve · Apr 9, 2003, 01:45 PM

Originally posted by penmanila:
having worked on many powerbooks, this is most surely a bad video cable and not the screen itself. would still require a trip back to apple, though.

I disagree. If it was a bad cable, there would be a lot more problems than just one bad vertical line. The whole screen would probably be messed up. A single bad line indicates that that line of transistors are probably toast. A replacement LCD is definitely in order. Also, somebody thought the LCD was $2000 alone. This is incorrect. How could the 17-inch iMac cost $2000 if the whole screen cost that much? In quantity, I'd guesstimate they cost between $300 and $700, depending on the size of the display for the portable.

Steve