[PB] Vertical stripes on Powerbook G4

[illovox at comcast.net]

Hello Ruqayya,

This might seem strange to you, but can you send me pictures of your tiBook?
Might you also send me the details of the sale on ebay--the page of the
auction, so I can check out the seller?  I had a 667 w/1 gig ram and an 80
gig hard drive stolen from me recently.  I am trying to track down any
leads.  I hope you can help.  As for the stripes, one of two problems.  A
connector which you can fix or a motherboard problem, which you can't.

Run - Seattle

> From: powerbook-request at listserver.themacintoshguy.com
> Reply-To: powerbook at listserver.themacintoshguy.com
> Date: Fri,  7 Oct 2005 05:15:25 -0700 (PDT)
> To: powerbook at listserver.themacintoshguy.com
> Subject: PowerBook Digest, Vol 8, Issue 1
> 
> Message: 10
> Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 05:15:18 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Ruqayya Abdus-Salaam <ommiqayya at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [PB] Vertical stripes on Powerbook G4
> To: powerbook at listserver.themacintoshguy.com
> Message-ID: <20051007121518.51454.qmail at web60818.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Please help. I bought a used Titanium Powerbook G4 15" 667 MHz with 1GB of ram
> and an 80G hard drive running Tiger. It came loaded with software from ebay
> with a 30day guarantee. I was ecstatic for the price. Worked great for the
> first month I had it. One night I was working on it and the screen suddenly
> zapped out to vertical stripes. I restarted it and it came back - but not for
> long. It gets hot - sometimes enough to "shock" my wrist but I don't know if
> this has anything to do with it. I can get it to come on for a few minutes at
> a time but the least jarring movement will zap it out again. Sometimes it
> works for a couple of hours then "zap". It may get small fuzzy squares then it
> goes to vertical stripes.But when it does come back with a clear screen the
> data is intact and the image is clear.
> 
> I thought it was a problem with the connection between the screen and the
> computer because I had a similar problem with my old G3 Wallstreet - which
> still works great - and I just connected it to an external monitor with no
> problems. But when I connected the G4 to an external monitor I got the same
> vertical striped image. ??? I've seen on some lists that there is a loose plug
> inside that can cause this problem but would it still affect an external
> monitor? 
> 
> I took it to the local Mac service station in Dakar. (I'm a teacher at a U.S.
> school in Senegal in West Africa) I'm really not too confident in what the guy
> told me. He said that it was a problem with the System software and wants to
> dump my hard drive and do a clean install of the system. He said that there
> were so many corrupted files (the guy I bought it from gave me a lot of free
> stuff) that it was easier just to re-install. Now I'm not an expert - but I
> know that a software problem wouldn't cause a machine to zap out if my 7-yr
> old bumps the table. I ask myself why he didn't just use Techtools or Norton
> or something? Plus - I really don't want to hand over my software cds and
> dvds. 
> 
> Please advise. They're the only authorized Mac service station in Senegal.