I thought this was going to be a post about a DEAD PB540c display, but after a day of sitting unplugged and sans batteries, it is back to normal.
Anyway- perhaps someone can add their $0.02. I picked this laptop up a week or so ago, was starting to figure out how to get stuff into it from my peecee, and was generally bonding with it. After installing Netscape 4.05 and puttering around on the net, it locked up a few times and required a couple of "forced quits." One lockup was bad enough to require a forced restart, and it came back up with a washed out picture of Netscape (when it had crashed) while it appeared to boot normally (chime, drive spin up, etc). The washed out picture got lighter and lighter and disappeared into white. That was all I could get for 3 or 4 reboots. The booting appeared normal, but the display was whited-out (I did try messing with the brightness and contrast). I threw my hands up, and came back in a day. It booted up tonight with everything normal.
What the heck is up with this PB?
thanks,
Mike
in most cases, this would be a cabling issue, it can be something as simple as a cable coming loose. Are you comforatable about going into laptops? If you are, this link migh be just for you:
http://www.repairyourmac.com/PowerBook_500_Series.pdf
I believe that is the apple repair manual. I found it whilst google for powerbook 540 take apart.
I suppose that I might of bumped it a bit during the several reboots that I inflicted on it. I might have bumped it a bit more as I took it off the workbench and sat it aside. Of course, who knows if anything I did helped at all. I'll have to see if it does it again and try a little gentle bumping, flipping, etc.
I'm pretty comfortable going into it, and appreciate the repair manual link. I wasn't quite to the take apart stage yet! I figured I might get some guidance in the direction to look.
I hope it's as easy to field strip as my pb100 was.
thanks coius-
mike
Be forewarend - the PB540c was designed to be difficult to work on, it seems! The easiest PowerBook to open is, hands down, the 100; compared to that, the 540c is a Chinese puzzle box. Perhaps this manual will help.
Rob
I see that someone had already posted a link to that repair manual. But it is a good one!
I've been inside two 520s and a 540c, stripping two of them right down.
They're not too bad to work on, and IIRC you can access the LCD cable without removing too much.
The key, for me at least, was to keep the parts and screws laid out in order of removal. There's a couple case screws that are different lengths, and mixing them up causes The Trouble.
Thanks for the comments, y'all.
I usually use what I've heard attributed to Edison, whereby you lay things out in the order of removal- plus I draw pictures. The pb has been behaving for a day, and is also much less squirrely since I took Netscape out and put Icab 2.9 in. Perhaps the machine really doesn't like Netscape.
I'll probably go into the machine anyway, just to make sure.
thanks,
mike
The one piece that ALWAYS gives me trouble is the part just above the keyboard. I always have a hard time getting it to "snap" into place before I put the keyboard back in. And, since it is plastic, be very careful not to over tighten the two screws that go into it from inside the port door. Of the 4 5xx laptops I have, I'm fairly sure that only one *might* not have had the threads for those screws cracked/broken/stripped before I got them. I'm sure service techs complained about that piece and those two screws alot.
That one, and the "chin" piece on the bottom of the LCD would be the two worst parts of the PB5xx case, IMHO. Be very careful of that part too as the clips just LOVE to snap off if you blink wrong.