A quick fix to a BIG display problem!
I work in an Orthopaedic surgery research laboratory and we have a lot of macs. We have three MDD Powermacs, one B&W 350 mHz Powermac, a Wallstreet PB, a 1 Ghz Ti PB, and a couple other miscellaneous old school macs. Before I even started at the lab the Ti Powerbook was having quite a few problems with the display. It seemed that every time the Powerbook got even slightly hot (IÕm talking turned on for maybe 10 minutes with just web surfing), the display would become so garbled that it would be illegible and completely non-functional. The only way to fix the garbled mess was to raise the Powerbook on some metal blocks that we had and put a fan to the side of it to keep it cooled.
Today, I went to the Ti
Powerbook to do some research on the modulus of articular knee cartilage
(the details of which I wonÕt go into), but found that the Powerbook was only
giving intermittent display. At
first I thought it was turned off or asleep, but when I hit a function key on
the keyboard and heard a dink system sound I knew that something had gone
horribly wrong with the display. I
jiggled the lid a bit and the display would flash on for a few seconds. Only by holding the lid in a certain
position and applying pressure would it function. I removed the keyboard and
examined the connections aimlessly.
IÕm not familiar with the PowerbookÕs internal architecture, I admit, but I DID
notice that when I applied pressure to the upper left portion of the board, the
display would flicker more without moving the lid. I deducted from that observation that the video connection
must be in that region.
Upon mentioning this to one
of my lab advisors, he was basically gung-ho about taking the Powerbook and
finding a fix to the problem. With
amazingly little coaxing, Andrew walked over to the tool area and pulled a
couple of small screwdrivers that might work in place of a torx
screwdriver. At first we thought the
project to be immediately foiled, but soon found one that worked. He unscrewed some of the top logic
board screws and found the board
wasnÕt moving, so he moved to the backside. With much care, he unscrewed the torx screws and removed the
bottom panel.
We soon found the display
connector. He turned the computer
on with the logic board exposed (!) and by applying a bit of pressure to a
connector on the logic board, found the defective connector that was the cause
of all our display problems.
Immediately, Andrew noticed that the right half of the pins were loosening from the logic board. By examining the digital photos, he was able to show what he meant. We could literally see how the pins did not have enough solder to effectively glue the connectors to the board. The left pins were nice and smoothly connected while the right half of the pins seemed shoddily soldered and probably loose.
With little thought about it, Andrew grabbed the soldering iron that was conveniently sitting next to his hand. [The soldering iron is used normally to make custom lab equipment for test purposes.] He figured the Powerbook is no longer on warranty and if he took it in for repair the technicians would tell him to trash the logic board for a replacement. So solder away he went.
AMAZINGLY, AndrewÕs soldering fixed the problem. We took the Powerbook back to the power supply, powered it on and the display functioned beautifully!
How much do you suppose we
saved on that one!? Lucky for us we
had all the proper equipment sitting there just waiting for us.
-Anthony
Copyright © June 23, 2005, Anthony Pe–a
