PowerBook G4 17"

From Appledefects

The PowerBook G4 17" 1,67 GHz Aluminium Release Date: Feb 2006 Base Price: USD$2699

Until replaced by the MacBook Pro model line the PowerBook G4 17" was Apples highest priced mobile computer model line targeting professional users.

LCD display defects

The PowerBook G4 17" model revision 3/2005 (model numer M9689) introduced in end of February 2005 and discontinued in October 2005 suffers from minor quality lcd displays and bad craftmanship. The units affected are produced in Shanghai, China in a factory labeled W8.

As of 6/19/07 175 owners of this model revision have substantiated their claims at http://www.crosspond.com/Apple/, all displays showing clusters of permanent 1 pixel wide lines stretching vertically across the screen. All defects occured spontaneously about 15 months after purchase during normal use.

The lines tend to have yellow, cyan and pink colors and successive reports show that the number of lines on each display tends to grow; one display shows more than 50 lines. As of this writing there is one documented case in which the defect of the appearance of the lines progressed into a grave failure of the display: Parts of the display became unresponsive, blacked out and all colors became kind of inverted and have a greenish tint.

The precise cause of this issue, besides bad manufacturing and quality issue, can only be speculated upon because as of this writing no attempt has been made to open the lid enclosing the display for further investigation. A possible origin besides the interior of the lcd itself can be the data display wire connecting the logicboard and the lcd panel. Faulty contacts can cause parts of the display to be driven improperly.

This topic is currently discussed in several threads of the Apple discussion forum: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Meanwhile Apple tries to cover up the issue by deleting threads in the Apple discusions forum. The main thread with more than 4000 views and more than 100 answers got deleted. Threads with identical topics were deleted, also threads asking about the whereabouts of threads that were deleted.

A growing database website has been setup to collect and document all damages. [10]