Caveat Emptor:
PowerBook G3 Wall Street 13.3" Display Issues- 9 Sept. 1999
Charles W.
Moore
Here it is -- my first Miscellaneous Ramblings column for
Low End Mac. Before I get down to the topic at hand, I would
like to thank Low End Mac's publisher, Dan Knight, for his
support of MR, and look forward to working with him and
other Low End staff.If you were a regular reader of Miscellaneous Ramblings
on MacOpinion,
glad you found us in our new home. By the way, my The
Road Warrior column on PowerBook issues will continue on
MacOpinion (now on Thursdays) while the more
news-and-reviews- oriented Miscellaneous Ramblings will be
found here. This realignment is happily agreeable to all the
principals concerned: Dan Knight, MacOpinion's publisher Ben
Garland, and me. I hope it will suit you readers as
well. Uncoupled from The Road Warrior, MR's focus will be
extended to cover desktop and crossover topics as well as
PowerBooks. Now, on to new business.
I suppose it is bad form to begin my first Miscellaneous
Ramblings column here on Low End Mac by disagreeing (mildly
:-) ) with the publisher, but IMHO, the most likely "Road
Apple" candidate among the various Wall
Street G3 Series PowerBooks is not the cacheless
Series I 233 MHz
model (I used one of these daily for a couple of months last
winter, and liked it a lot), but rather any of the Series
I's equipped  with
the 13.3" TFT display. Of course, you could get the
cacheless 233 with the 13.3" screen, which would constitute
a sort of double-whammy Road Apple I guess. The problems with the 13.3" flat screens are, as I
understand it, not with the screen itself but rather with a
bit of very sloppy design work in the way the ribbon cable
connector is secured. This problem was well documented soon after the Wall
Streets rolled out in May, 1998, and has become a topical
issue again as batches of refurbished machines with the
13.3" screen are released. The essential problem with the 13.3" LCD displays is
that, unlike the 12.1" and 14.1" Wall Street screens, the
ribbon cable connecting the display to the motherboard
connects at the left-hand side of the screen rather than at
the back. The cable must therefore make a sharp (180°)
turn to wrap around to the side of the screen, which
stresses the connector, in some cases resulting in
intermittent contact. The video anomalies many 13.3" owners
have witnessed -- flickering, stripes, whiteouts -- are all
symptoms of this problem. Apple reportedly attempted to
solve it with a redesigned cable and connector, and by
putting a dab of epoxy glue on the connection to secure it.
However, many users have reported the problem returning 2 or
3 times. Because the problem is not really with the ribbon cable
per se, but rather with the location of its attachment
point, simply replacing the cable is not a surefire fix or a
guarantee that the problem won't recur. Symptoms of cable
trouble are : whiteouts, lines, and bars on the screen. A typical complaint: - I have a PowerBook G3 with a 13.3" monitor. Alas, I
have had the same problem with mine. The first time, it
began with slight flickering, and then graduated to total
whiteout of the display. I sent it in to Apple and they
changed the cable. While in again for an unrelated cause
(something inside the computer was preventing the battery
from recharging), they once again fixed it. Now, only a
few weeks later, I once again am seeing the flickering
starting. I am getting very frustrated.
Another 13.3" Wall Street owner reported: - Initially, it started with the left hand side of the
backlighting flickering. Eventually, the backlighting on
that side went out for good, as well as the display going
completely different colors a few times.
I finally got so mad, that I bought a 266 MHz model with
the 14" screen. I sent the 250 MHz/13.3" back to Apple
for repair. The first time I turned it on after the
repair, I got the whiteout/northern lights problem. I
immediately sent it back. That time when I got it back,
the left hand side backlighting was off again! However,
it has now seemed to have corrected itself.
Point is, I really need to sell that machine, but I don't
really want to dump my problem on someone else. I need to
know it's going to work for whoever buys it.
For more reports from Wall Street 13.3" owners who have
experienced screen problems, go here: http://www.pbsource.com/contributions/readers/g3seriesdisplay.shtml From what I have heard from readers, although it's been
pretty quiet lately, the 13.3" display issues with the
Series I G3 PBs are unacceptably common and often take too
long to resolve. It says volumes that the Wall Street Series
IIs, introduced in September, 1998, simply dropped the 13.3"
display variant, while the 14.1" and 12.1" models were
continued (with the 12.1" upgraded from STN passive matrix
to TFT). Consequently, I would personally not buy a used or
refurbished PowerBook G3 Series I with a 13.3" display, even
at an attractive price. I will probably now hear from folks
who have been using these units for over a year with no
problems, and I don't doubt that there are many, but the
reported incidence of screen trouble is just too high for me
to want to gamble on it. If you are inclined to purchase one of these PowerBooks,
at the very least make very sure before putting your cash
down that the screen has no visible anomalies at the time of
sale. 
Recent Miscellaneous Ramblings- Using the right rodent helps reduce
wrist pain, 1/17/2000. A look at ergonomics and real-world
mouse use.
- PowerBook hard drive replacement
options, 1/4/2000
- Short Takes, 12/28/1999. Dangers of
ESD, dead and sleeping LCD pixels, and more on backup.
- Pismo & Thin PowerBooks,
12/22/1999
- Short Takes, 12/21/1999
- Cat-lovers, Dog-lovers, and Computer
Platforms, 12/10/1999
- More on the Miscellaneous Ramblings home
page.
Recent Editorials at Low End Mac- Where's the G4/500?, Dan
Knight, Mac Musings, 1/21. "Remember how Steve Jobs announced the
Power Mac G4 on August 31, 1999?"
- The World Wide Web, Dan
Knight, Mac Musings, 1/20. It's grown to over one billion pages
with no end in sight.
- Macintosh 2000
revisited, Dan Knight, Low End Mac, 1/19. Eight years ago
Henry Bortman guessed what today's Mac would be. Today we're
evaluating his predictions.
- Mac shopping at CompUSA,
Eric DeStefano, Mac Metamorphosis, 1/18. "All I have to do is go
into the Macintosh section of a CompUSA and all the loser salesmen
will leave me alone."
- SAM, the Sixteenth
Anniversary Macintosh, Anne Onymus, The Rumor Mill, 1/18.
Cross a Color Classic with a G3 and what do you get?
- New @ Low End Mac:
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BiographyCharles Moore has been a
freelance journalist since 1987 -- and writing for Mac web sites
since May 1998. His The
Road Warrior column is a regular feature on Mac Opinion. Charles lives and works in Port Hilford, Nova Scotia, on the shore
of Indian Harbour Lake and in sight of the Atlantic Ocean. His
newspaper columns are syndicated across Canada, and he writes
regularly for several magazines, as well as doing Mac website
journalism. Charles is also a contributor to MacToday magazine. His current stable of Macs includes a Mac
Plus, an LC 520, a Power
Mac 9500, a PowerBook 5300, and a
PowerBook G3 Series II/233.
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