My PowerBook 145 is dying… anything to save her?

[superpantoufle]

Hi all!

I have a PowerBook 145 that's been running 24/7 for the last year or so, serving pommel-s.ch, a website about my collection (down at the moment, obviously). Yesterday I noticed the site was down. I checked the PowerBook, only to found she had crashed, and the lower half of its screen was bright orange.

I rebooted and cold booted her a couple of times. She's running fine, but the lower half of her screen is dead. The upper half acts normally, while the picture is blurry with a lot of artefacts.

It's nothing but bright orange. It also stay orange when the backlighting is turned off. Here are two pictures. The first one just after a cold boot, the second one with backlighting off. Any clue to what happened? Any chance to fix this easily, or is the LCD panel just dead?

 

[bibilit]

Hi,

Can be those LCD capacitors going bad, but no sure.

 

[superpantoufle]

I forgot to mention that I took her apart, disconnected the inverter board and interconnect board, and reseatted everything.

Thanks bibilit! Are those caps easy to change? I'm no soldering master… I've recapped my LC III and plan to do it on my compacts when I find some time, but I fear it's not as easy on a PowerBook!

 

[bibilit]

Never done myself, but all those PWB are known for capacitor failures in this area.

Most have problem with contrast.

http://macintosh.vanegten.com/?p=262

 

[nvdeynde]

The SMD capacitors in the LCD panel are definately bad and leaking but from what I can see, the LCD panel is probably beyond repair as the video circuit of the lower part of the LCD isn't working anymore. Probably the IC's in the LCD panel are faulty because the capacitors have failed.

I have recapped all my PB100 series LCD panels: it's not an easy job as one has to take the LCD panel apart while keeping it dust free and it are tiny SMD caps as well, so I'm afraid advanced soldering skills are needed with a very fine soldering pencil.

Go for a trash PB140, 145 or 160 and take the LCD panel from this one and recap it.

 

[techknight]

Buffer IC failed. I can tell that. I may have an LCD kicking around. I cannot remember for the life of me, if those displays use chip on film buffers, or if the ICs are actually mounted on the surrounding boards.

 

[James1095]

If there are caps in the vicinity of the IC, it's worth replacing those to see if it fixes it. It's possible that the IC is fine, but the conductive electrolyte leaked from capacitors is shorting things out.

 

[techknight]

Not if its a COF. leaks wouldn't hurt anything, should be sealed.