Sorry for the empty post. When the same thing happened to my 14" 900mhz g3, it took me 6 or 7 tries with a firewire drive to retrieve all my important files. It was the logic board as suspected and applecare returned my ibook within 3 days. Many of the teacher ibooks in our school have gone out the same way in the last 2 years. All of our student machines are g4's and a few are starting to show symptoms as well. Todd --- Howard Pettigrew <howard.pettigrew at xtra.co.nz> wrote: > Greetings iBook listers > A teaching colleague has just come around with her > G4 14"iBook. She > was working on her school reports when her screen > developed problems. > It suddenly cut out to 1 second screens of red, > green, blue, etc. > When she bought it around, it fired up okay so > thought I would repair > permissions and do an Open Firmware reset, not > really believing they > were the problem. But then the colours struck (I've > never seen this > before - nvram fault/ logic board?). After leaving > it with the > battery out for 30 mins, I tried an Open Firmware > restart, then tried > plugging in an external monitor (just stays black) > and also tried > Target mode (doesn't show up on other machine). > One thing I did notice was that it has no start up > chime. > I left it for a couple of hours and tried it again. > When I opened it > up (I think it may have been left going but hard to > tell) the fan > started and ran for an abnormally long time. Then I > tried to start it > in Open Firmware but although I was holding down the > kyds, it started > normally. Unfortunately, I didn't have the user's > password and so I > had to ring her. I got this off her and started to > drag stuff off > onto an external drive. I had just got the precious > reports off and > was trying to grab all her other documents when it > went into the > coloured screens again - red, blue, green, grey, > black, cycling > through endlessly. I have now shut it again in the > hope I can get a > little more off it. It seems to go for 3 mins before > going into this > cycle. I'll try timing it next time. Any thoughts on > the problem and > solution? > This particular school has had an incredible run of > problems with > their iBooks. This teacher is on her second after > endless problems > with her first and it is only 16 weeks old. Another > teacher had 4 > logicboard repairs until they replaced hers and the > Principals was > also replaced. I wonder about some bad practice in > their use of their > laptops. I understand that there is a design fault > in the hinging of > the screen putting pressure onto the logicboard. I > have always > encouraged kids to either have the screen fully open > or shut, not > 'play' with the catch opening and closing the lid as > they are prone > to do. Any thoughts as to why they have been so > beset with problems > and possible solutions. This is only a 8 teacher > rural school and the > young teacher in charge of computing is tearing her > hair out coping > with the number of computers she has to take in for > repairs. These > are all 12" / 14" iBooks. > Cheers > _______________________________________________ > iBook mailing list > iBook at listserver.themacintoshguy.com > http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/ibook > > Listmom is trying to clean out his closets! Vintage > Mac and random stuff: > http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZmacguy1984 >