The display on my four-year-old Powerbook G3/FireWire (Pismo) is
starting to flake out. It's had the usual regional dimness for a while,
mostly the lower-left corner, and I assume that's the CCL bulb. However,
now there's something digital going on. It manifests itself in
shimmering red areas extending to the right of strongly-colored areas,
as well as a general zebra-effect with every other column of pixels
getting dim. (Oddly, I never have trouble reading my usual thin black
text on white background.)

To temporarily fix it, all I have to do is to squeeze the screen at a
point about 1" below the top and 4" from the left edge. Sometimes it
works for a while, other times it immediately returns, but the squeeze
always fixes it again.

I've opened up the computer, and the panel is a Samsung LT141X7-124. My
pressure point is right where the cable from the motherboard plugs into
the display. However, I played with the connection and couldn't get it
to fail, so I'm guessing that's not it. There are also wide areas of
traces going to the edge of the display, presumably to the lines
controlling the actual LCD cells, and my guess is that some of those
aren't making complete contact.

So, questions:

- Assuming it is NOT the main display connector, is this something I'm
likely to be able to fix?

- If I can't fix it, any suggestions as to model number and source of
LCD panel to replace it? (The cable to the display is designed for that
connector placement, so the form factor must be the same.)


Thanks,
Dan

--
Daniel T. Griscom Work: (781) 665-0053
Suitable Systems Fax: (781) 665-7106
152 Cochrane Street
Melrose, MA 02176-1433 http://www.suitable.com/