Freaking screen on 540c

[MultiFinder]

The screen on my 540c seems to be totally haywire. Whenever I'm using it, the whole screen will go glitchy, jumpy, jittery, and then black. Then it'll come back, start glitching, jumping, jittering, flicking, and then go black again. What's wrong with my little PowerBook, my favourite of all my old Macs? It's unusable right now because of the screen. Just a few minutes ago it stayed mildly visible long enough for me to tell it to shut down

Please help! I love this little PowerBook and really want to help it!

 

[TheNeil]

Have you checked the cable between the motherboard and panel? Backlight connected OK?

TBH it sounds like a worn/badly fitting cable

 

[MultiFinder]

I popped off the little front cover down by the bottom of the screen (and broke all but one of the little clippies in the process ), and reseated all the connectors. That actually seemed to make it a little worse :-/

With the weekend coming up, if people here give me suggestions, I can totally tear that little guy down if that's what it takes. Yay for having free time

 

[MacMan]

I would also say it could be a loose cable. A strip-down and re-build solves these kind of problems 80% of the time . Just be careful around the display cable as these things are very easy to tear. Also, make sure that the display connector is properly clipped into the socket on the motherboard/display board as a loose cable will cause alot of weirdness.

Good luck!

 

[MultiFinder]

*sigh*

/me gets his PowerBook 500 Repair Manual

Or rather, I will when I get home from school

My calc teacher probably frowns on his students taking apart PowerBooks in the middle of class

 

[MacMan]

I used to take in PowerBooks and other computer bits to work when I was at a desk in a factory office. Quite often there were periods with not much work to do, so I'd use the time productively tinkering with computer bits! No-one seemed to mind so long as I got the necessary work done for my job.

 

[MultiFinder]

Well, I dove in and have located what appears to be the problem. Where the ribbon from the logic board to the screen connects to the logic board, it's a tall, thin connector. It wiggles ALOT. So, I used the advanced pressure-application method (stuffing some tissues between the connector and something solid inside ) and that seems to have alleviated the problem to a great degree. It still freaks out at times, but now when it does, leaning the screen back all the way seems to correct it.

Thanks guys for helping me to save this wonderful little PowerBook!

/me goes back to playing WarCraft II on it