ibook G4 logic board fix
Update 9/26/2008: Two years and both of my ibooks are still running.
I have two Apple 12″ iBook G4 laptops (800MHz and 1064MHz). One belongs to my roommate and the other belongs to me. My roommate’s died about 9 months ago and mine died about 1 month ago. Both laptops failed with the same symptoms: a black screen and a loud, whirring fan on bootup. If this is not the problem your machine is having this fix may NOT work for you. After doing some reading I found much information on the Apple iBook G3 logic board failure. Apple has instituted a replacement program for the G3s and there are also some hacks available for fixing it yourself. On the G3s it seems the problem is that the GPU becomes partially detached from the logic board. On the G4s it has been speculated that the problem is the same, but this does not seem to be what I have found. Initially, as suggested on some websites, I tried shimming my G4’s GPU by placing some copper strips between the heatsink and the GPU, but the machine still would not boot.
A popular fix that does work is to use a c-clamp to clamp the iBook G4 to a table, in effect squeezing the logic board. Obviously this limits the mobility of the machine and therefore I wanted to try something else. After my many hours of shimming attempts I was left with a still broken computer and a cracked logic board. I began to wonder why the optimal position of the c-clamps do not seem to be above the GPU, making me question if the problem on my G4s is the GPU at all. In a fit of frustration I disassembled my roommate’s ibook and plugged it in. I pressed down on different chips trying to find one that fixed the problem. Some sparks flew, but I found one!
Below are simple instructions of how I shimmed the chip. If you can see broken contacts between the chip and the board, and have the tools and skill, you may choose to solder it as several people have discussed doing in the posts below.
Please note: while this fix has worked for me on two different iBook G4s I take no responsibility for it working on your machine. Also, you must know that by opening up your iBook you void any warranty you may have on it and chance causing even more damage. That said, let’s have some fun!
Instructions:
1. Remove your iBook’s lower heat shield by following ifixit’s outstanding instructions.
2. You should now be looking at the bottom side of the logic board. Here’s a pic of my two ibooks with the problem chip outlined and blown up.
3. Now you will need to place a shim between the chip and the heat shield/case. Here’s the little sticky rubber feet I used and what I’d recommend. I also used a rolled up piece of copper on one iBook, but that was just what I had laying around during my aforementioned fit of frustration. Really, anything seems to work.
The shim must be tall enough to reach the plastic case otherwise not enough pressure will be put upon the chip. It seems that the more pressure, the better. However, be very careful not to damage your logic board by using too large a shim! I suggest trying the smallest shim possible and seeing if it works. If you have problems, increase the size of the shim slightly and try again. Keep going until you find the best fit. If you do find your initial shim is too small, you may find it easier to place additional shims between the head shield and the case. You should be able to see the original shim poking up under the shield, just place additional shims on top of it, making sure that the pressure is evenly distributed.
4. Here are pics from both my fixes. One with a piece of rolled up copper (from a cosmetics tube) and the other with a rubber foot. You may have to re-route the power cable around/over your shim a bit. Whatever you do, make sure your shim will place even pressure on the chip when the case is re-assembled. I decided to leave the copper shim in place (instead of replacing it with a rubber one) just to see if it works better than the rubber one.
5. Re-assemble your iBook. Others have found that the hard drive cable may become disconnected, resulting in a flashing question mark icon at startup, so make sure that the orange hard drive cable is still connected to the logic board and the hard drive. The case may be slightly deformed as the shim should be pushing against it. Try not to use a shim that is too large, though, as it may put too much pressure on the logic board causing further problems.
6. Voila!
My two iBooks have been running fine for 5 7 days nearly two weeks a long time now.
September 30th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Hi there,
Well, I attempted the fix (my iBook just started acting up noticeably yesterday). I’m pretty sure I used exactly the same rubber foot as you, but it doesn’t appear to be working–I wonder whether it’s providing enough pressure to solve the problem.
Anyway, thanks for giving me hope. I’ll let you know how things progress.
October 2nd, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Just wanted to let you know that this seemingly fixed my iBook. Thank you thank you thank you. Even if it is just a temporary fix, it was worth the 30 minutes that it worked. Thanks again!
October 2nd, 2006 at 8:30 pm
guess i spoke too soon, as soon as it was moved it crashed. Back to the drawing board, but thanks! I will keep you updated.
October 4th, 2006 at 8:09 am
I tried this out on my 800 MHz G4 two days ago, and so far it’s worked like a charm! I “borrowed” a rubber foot from an IKEA bathroom cupboard, and used a tiny drop of glue to attach it to the component. I also put a couple of layers of duct tape on the metal shield, directly over the component, to add some extra pressure.
October 4th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
YES good job !! very nice . thanks
October 4th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
Malcom: Are you able to boot the machine by applying pressure to the palm rests?
Darrin: If it worked for 30 minutes I’d say there is hope. Maybe a shim that applies more pressure would work? My shim sticks out and actually deforms the case a bit.
Also, would you guys mind letting me know which model ibooks you have?
Thanks!
-Corey
October 5th, 2006 at 2:58 am
(sorry for my bad english)
In fact, the problem can be anywhere . Each logic board seems different. I’ll try your fix and it’s doesn’t working for my logic board. For moment, only shim between pad and CPU is working.
pacis
October 5th, 2006 at 4:22 am
Many thanks for this invaluable information. My iBook G4 1.2GHz started suffering blackouts and eventually wouldn’t boot at all - only the ‘fan of death’. Having tried the C-Clamp manoeuvre - which worked at first, then subsequently didn’t, I thought I’d give your procedure a try.
I still can’t treat the iBook as a portable - it still seems very temperamental about being moved. But hearing the reassuring chime at start up more often than not, is thanks to your intrepid journeys into the innards of your computer(s).
Thanks for sharing!
October 5th, 2006 at 8:48 am
Pacis: would you let me know what model ibook you have?
October 5th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
ibook G4 14″ 1Ghz SD
October 8th, 2006 at 8:56 am
To clear things up, my iBook worked well even when being moved around. However, a couple of days after the fix, it stopped working again. I was ready to give up, but I opened it up and applied about 10-12 layers of small rectangles made from post-it notes on top of the previously mentioned duct tape (the only thing I had handy at the time). It now bulges out abaout as far as the rubber feet, but it’s up and working again, and so far it’s been completely stable. I tossed it around in my lap on a long drive today, with no glitches whatsoever.
So if it isn’t working for you, try applying some more pressure with a thicker shim.
October 8th, 2006 at 10:45 am
Hi
I have a ibook G4 as well. I live in los angeles and well my boyfriend droped my ibook but i didnt notice till the next day when i turned it on the screen had sort of black spots. Its broken there is a small piece i can still see. It runs well and turns on but just the screen is broken do you know how i can fix that?
pleaseeee sya you know something thanks
byeee
October 9th, 2006 at 11:22 am
Corey, I have an G4 1 Ghz, 12″
October 9th, 2006 at 11:24 am
So here’s an update. I still have the shim in place. I replaced the HD just praying that was it. Well it worked for 4 hours before freezing. I was in iBook heaven! But now I am extremely confused as to what is exactly going on. I don’t have any video issues besides the screen freezing so maybe it’s something else. A fan maybe? I dunno, what do you guys think? Email me at: darrinaw@hotmail.com if you have any ideas! Thanks!
October 9th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
I believe I have figured out what the ACTUAL problem is with the dreaded iBook G4 Logic Board.
When the PCB’s are made the components are attached to the blank using a float solding technique. This is how all electronic components are made today. I have looked at several PCB’s under a very powerful loop (20x) used for doing repairs to such devices and have noticed several weak solder points. This most definitely is the cause of the problems.
It is up to Apple now to make good on the problem. They had the same issue with the G3’s and weak solder joints. In the mean while I am looking into obtaining replacement IC’s for the component in question direct from a component supplier. If I am able to I might just begin offering a repair service to owners of the failed machines. Details to follow!
Thanks, Keith D
October 9th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Well folks, if you are reading this page then you have come seeking help of how to fix your failing or failed iBook G4 laptop.
I have just completed the repairs to my G4 and everything is running fine right now. Upon close inspection with a 10x jewelers loop that I have…
(for finding inclusions in gemstones, my now wife thought that I was crazy when we went ring shopping for our wedding and the diamond the jeweler was trying to sell me as a VS1 had 3 hidden inclusions! They never saw me coming!)
Anyway… back to the findings… located on what appears to be a video processor chip (need to research the number on it) there were 5 very weak solder connections, closest to pin #1 (the position on the chip where the indentation is, for those that do not know where pin 1 is located). After carefully resoldering the pin connections and checking the continuity between the leads and the board test points all appears well. I did as a precautionary measure added a small piece of mounting foam tape directly between the chip surface and the protective shielding that will keep the portion of the PCB from flexing or moving when the unit is in transit.
I will be running system diagnostics on the unit for the next 12 hours straight to determine if there are any other issues with the system. I will be sure to post a followup message in a few days with the results of the repair.
WARNING! I DO NOT reccommend this repair for everyone as you can destroy the chip and PCB if you are not familiar with micro IC repairs. I have worked in the electronics and computer industry for more than 15 years and have worked on very delicate medical instrumentation involving micro IC component repair at the board level. Using the wrong soldering iron & tip, solder and flux can completely render the board useless.
Any questions or comments may be sent to my email address:
keith_deininger2@comcast.net
I will reply within 24 hours of any email sent to me at this address.
Thanks and Good Luck,
Keith Deininger
October 10th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Keith,
Good luck!
October 13th, 2006 at 5:28 am
Keith, are the pins you are referring to at the part of the chip under the power cable? I used a digital camera with 2cm macro to take close ups, and those did look dodgy. I can’t access the pictures at the moment though, so I can’t check if those are the same pins you mentioned.
October 16th, 2006 at 12:31 am
Hey, my girlfriend is experiencing these problems with her computer. I haven’t tried any fixes yet, but this site seems to be more up to date then any of the posts on Macworld or Macnn. So, how has your soldering held up Keith and what would you recommend the average person do in order to fix these Issues? If im not an expert at soldering, what kind of shops should i look out for where they may be able to do this? Also, im sure you guys are aware of the posts made by a guy on some forums stating that he “reflowed” the soldering on his logicboard…is this the same idea? Anyways…If your method is working please let us know and also let the people know where they can get this kind of thing done.
Thank You guys for the help, Corey, Keith and everyone else…It is very much appreciated.
Michael
Toronto, Canada.
PS
Has anyone recently had any experience with getting the logic boards replaced after the repair program ended in march of last year?
October 18th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Hey Corey,
your fix works fine on my ibook (November 04, 1.2 ghz). Although I had two black screens since i fixed it 2 days ago, i am able to work on it. The thicker the rubber feet, the better? … think so. Maybe I’ll try it. In the meantime, I’ll save the money for a MacBookPro.
Jan
October 20th, 2006 at 4:57 am
Hi
I have the same problem, Fan set to full speed, Black screen. (12″ iBook)
I openned the ibook up at placed a folded up post-it note with some tape and it didn’t work.
How hard should I push down?
Should i put something harder on it?
October 20th, 2006 at 9:13 am
Hello again,
Sorry I haven’t replied sooner. The repair resulted in a brief (forty minute) glimmer of hope, during which time I kept video running. During the last few minutes of an episode of Lost, ironically, I lost the machine again. I re-opened the casing and adjusted the position of the rubber foot, but found that the machine lasted for shorter and shorter periods. I replaced it in its box for a week, and last time I took it out, it remained trapped on the grey start-up screen with the wheel spinning, going nowhere. Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to try a thicker shim, but as soon as I do I’ll report back on progress.
Thanks again for your help and advice.
October 20th, 2006 at 9:14 am
P.S. Sorry, I’ve got an 800MHz 12″ iBook G4 with 640 megs of RAM.
October 31st, 2006 at 6:12 am
Well, my iBook G4 14″ 1.33 Ghz seems to suffer from the same problem… It boots correctly, but after some time (about 10′), it “freezes”: I am still able to move the cursor around, but cannot select windows or menus. I can still access the system via ssh.
I tried the fix and was able to use the laptop for about 2 hours. It then froze again, so I am not sure if applying pressure was really helping or not. I have seen on a site that somebody had been able to work around the problem by removing the ATI extensions from the System folder. I am going to try that…
October 31st, 2006 at 5:27 pm
All: I believe bigger shims are key. One of my ibooks black-screened again and I increased the size of the shim and have had zero problems since.
Malcolm: I’m not sure this fix will work for you. My computers were not even able to get to a grey screen and spinning beach ball.
Olivier: I’m sorry the fix didn’t work for you, although I would not have expected it to considering the symptoms of your ibook were quite different from the ones I described above. Best of luck!
November 19th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
My G4 ibook of doom is working 100%! I was fretting having to spend $300+ at the Apple store in Milwaukee…Fan would go on nonstop, blank screen..etc. In my other iMac, I looked up stuff and came across this site. I also came across www.ifixit.com and WHALAH! I used a little rubber stop from a cabinet a few days ago, and so far so good!
Thanks so much for this site. It’s made my life much simpler not having to think of spending $300+ on this repair that I easily did on my own.
Cheers!
Ernesto
November 27th, 2006 at 6:58 am
Arnold,
this just saved me $450 and shocked my wife when I let out a scream in surprise when the machine returned to life. Thank you for this fix. If you ever need a place to stay in Japan, I’ll be more than happy to board you for a few days. That’s just how much this solution means to me.
David
www.lovemademusic.com
November 28th, 2006 at 12:50 am
My dead iBook is alive again - thank you!
Mine still seems to flake out now and again: the screen suddenly goes black, and a re-boot is the only remedy. Perhaps I need a slightly larger shim.
Anyways, thanks for the great how-to!
November 28th, 2006 at 3:27 am
really interesting problem…I’ve tried to solve my problem the same way but didn’t last long..error stripes allover again. But noticed that pressure somehow is to be the solution, because when I don’t use anything at all, the fan is starting directly. So what i did; I placed some rubbers on the metal cover to have pressure more spread out on the board..things are going better now….for the moment
December 3rd, 2006 at 11:56 am
Thank you so much! I bought my 12″ 1.2 Ghz G4 iBook back in Late 2004 and about a month ago it suddenly died on me. I wound up just coming across this site today and figured I’d give it a try, and low and behold about 45 minutes later my iBook was up and running again! (I used the same exact clear rubber pad you did) After maybe an hour of running the screen suddenly went black so I cut the power and rebooted with some extra pressure from my hand and it worked. So I added 5 layers of duct tape to the outer shield over the chip (on top of where the rubber pad was coming through) and it’s currently working perfectly! I’ll continue to be careful with it and monitor how it’s doing, but so far so good. Thanks again!
December 3rd, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Your a Genius,
I pretty much just lent on my Ibook to see wether the problem was similiar,
worked a treat, Think my lap top may now be turned into a desktop. Ah well
Least its working.
Cheers.
December 5th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Hi Corey,
Thank you soooo much for this fix…. you just saved 450EUR for a new logic board… The fan of death happened a few months after the warranty ended
on my friend’s 12″ G4 1.2GHz iBook… I put a cut-down shim i made from a piece of rubber that was in the package with a linksys switch, but she’s still experiencig problems, so i figure the shim is too small. I’ll replace it with a bigger one on friday, and we’ll see how it goes.
anyway, once again: THANK YOU man
you helped us soooo much
December 7th, 2006 at 5:32 am
Have just tried this myself, ibook G4 / 800 MHz. Started occasionally going to a black screen for no apparent reason, got more and more difficult to turn it on, the CD drive would make some noises and it would stop on the ‘fan of death’ before the startup boing.
This works like a charm though, back to normal immediately, doesn’t crash even after tilting the machine a bit and giving it a small shake to be sure. Used electrical insulation tape, as I had it to hand, rolled a little up to make the ’shim’ and stuck it down with another bit.
Much obliged, man. Fantastic how-to.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:30 am
Hey!!!!
it really works fine!!!!
I’ve repaired mine with your tutorial and my ibook 12′ is working “as new” for 2weeks without crash
THANK YOU!!!!
Cheers from France
December 8th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Hi Corey,
I really want to thank you for your extensive posting of this fix. I have a 12″ G4 1.2GHz machine that recently stopped working. I live in Geneva,Switzerland where the local Apple certified repair shop quoted me 900CHF (about $750USD) for a new logic board.
I followed your tutorial and the machine has been operating flawlessly for over a week now.
Some other observations that I’d like to share:
The iBook is only about 18months old. I have used the laptop extensively. However, it was only in the last few weeks before the failure that I was working with the iBook attached to an external display. Long ago, I installed the firmware hack to enable dual display. I wonder if extra power requirements with 2 screens and subsequent related heating and cooling had some effect?
Once I concluded that the problem was intermittent, I did an extensive amount of research to definitively conclude that the chip in question was indeed the culprit. This involved lots of prodding with a non-conductive probe (a chopstick in my case) to SMT chips on both sides of the logic board with many reboots. The only thing that helped was direct pressure on your indicated chip.
I happen to have a very strong magnifying glass. With this you can easily see that there is an insufficient amount of solder reflow along one whole side of the chip. My lens wasn’t stong enough to see the actual poor contact. Not having the right tools to attempt a SMT solder or reflow, I first tried to use a Microtip Conductive Pen to augment the traces. This approach is definitely NOT recommended as the work area is just too small, and the liquid just doesnt flow right. You also risk making a real, potentially destructive, mess. The wedge method works MUCH better.
Is it only me, or does any one else feel this is a serious manufacturing defect? Apple really aught to do something about this! At least alert repair centers to this easy fix and admit there is a real issue here. The people I went to claim to have never even heard of such G4 iBook problems. Yeah right! See http://www.petitiononline.com/ibookg4/petition.html How many of the posters on this petition are probably victims of the same defect?
Anyway, if you are ever in Geneva (want to go skiing perhaps) I’ll also be glad to board you for a few days and act as your guide, you saved me a buttload of cash. THANKYOU!!!!!
December 16th, 2006 at 7:28 am
Corey
Appreciate the effort you have put into this page / fix.
Just experienced the same problem.
I am about to try your fix.
Can you give an indication of how thick you think the shim needs to be?
1mm? more? and do you think it is better if it is soft but rigid rather than hard and inflexible.
Thanks again.
Tim C
December 19th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
holy crap! we are half way through installation now. Earlier today i was arguing with 2 people from apple about why we pay a premium for these computers and when hardware fails it should or shouldnt be covered reguardless of the warranty. of course there are always circumstances, but if a well maintained machine just goes kaput i feel they should fix it.
anywho… mine died about a week ago and after going through all the disk wiping and attempts to reinstall i dropped it off at a local authorized apple fix-it person. 35 bucks later and pissed at the world he says… yeah, you need a new logic board. i tried and tried but the apple people just kept trying to sell me a new macbook. would be nice if i owned a bank and could just shell out a few grand whenever but i dont and i cant.
i cut a piece of plastic from one of those cheese and cracker snack packs my kids eat and shimmed it. i also found the hard drive ribbon loose. i can not say if i pulled it loose when i cracked open the thing or not but i reconnected it and then i followed your shimming tutorial. as i said before.. now more than half way through installation and going.. looks like its going to work cause it wouldnt do anything but show the blue screen and turn the fan on high. if i dont post again its because it worked! thank you for the help. good luck to all and happy holidays!!!!
December 19th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Hey Tim,
I think my final shim may be closer to 2mm, but like I said, try with a small one first and work your way up. I would recommend a rubber shim, like in the pictures. It has work well for me. In fact, I’m writing this on the ibook I shimmed months ago–yeah!!!
Corey
December 22nd, 2006 at 2:01 pm
i,ve just resurected my 12′’ ibook which died about 2 months ago,apple fobbed me off saying that it was not a known problem!!! i told them that i excpected better service that 18 months fron a laptop.and much better customer care.they quoted £400 to repair my machine i told them to take a hike.my machine has been working for 2 days scince i tried your fix i will keep you posted as to how it lasts, thank you.
December 23rd, 2006 at 8:19 am
Hi!
My G4-iBook 800MHz started to show the described symptoms (a black screen and a loud, whirring fan on bootup. Sometimes when it started, it froze with horizontal lines on the screen.) a week ago.
Thanks to your description I localized that also in my case the chip you described was the reason of the problem.
I choosed an another aproach: I resolded all pins of the chip with a small solderig iron and now the problem seems to be solved (hope, that it disapeared permanently).
Jar
December 24th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Hi All!
My iBook started showing the symptoms two days ago and after applying this fix everything seems to be working fine, though I’ve had to adjust the size of my shim (made out of mounting squares) it does bulge out the bottom case a little. You’re a livesaver, this saved me $300 in Applecare charges. I’ll post more with updates on how my iBook’s doing.
December 24th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Hi all,
Did anyone else here purchase their iBook in BC, Canada? We could try to go after Apple for this problem together. send me an email if you’re interested: snakeolake@hotmail.com
December 28th, 2006 at 8:27 am
It’s working…. but I don’t know for how long. i was just posting my delight that I could use my old ‘left for dead’ computer when I got the dreaded candystriped, frozen computer.
So I started from scratch and found that the rubber shim i used had compressed in the area over the chip. I guess the pressure caused it a depression.
I replaced the shim and crazy-glued a small square of hard plastic to the side that lies on the chip. I hope that will keep my new shim in shape. Then I replaced the outer heat shield, on which I glued another small rubber disk.
Then I put 4-5 pieces of duct tape for further pressure and resealed the case.
Since I got about 2 hours, post-shim already, I’m not expectingf the fix to last for the day. But I’m going to give it a shot. I’m typing this on the shimmed computer.
Let’s hope for the best and Thank you Cory!!
December 30th, 2006 at 5:32 am
keep at it i,m on my fifth atempt (door stop & gaffatape) it seems stable right now.worked for 2 days! keep your fingers crossed
December 31st, 2006 at 7:16 pm
My 13 month old g4 1Ghz ibook crapped out last summer and I’ve been trying to find time to fix it. (Actually, waiting until my husband was out of town because I can fix things better without him trying to take over)
I finally cracked it open. I first tried to just put some thick paper in between the heat protector and the case, but that would only work if I pressed down on the hand rest area. I finally found this site to locate the right spot to put my shim. I put a piece of plastic and some electrical tape over the mentioned spot and it’s working so far. I cared most to get all of my pictures and videos copied off. I’m so happy to see my old pics. Thanks!!!!
PS. Apple really let me down on this one. ;-(
January 6th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
I just fixed my ibook G4 800 12″
THANK YOU, THANK YOU
first I used a little piece of rubber like the one on your picture but that was not enough so I placed a piece of card between the heatcover and the buttom case. It has now worked for 3 hours and several restarts.
Michael
January 7th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Well - after this fix working for me, the machine always crashes and goes into fan/dead display mode, and always after 10 to 20 minutes of running. I might try a re-solder and post results.
January 7th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Dave: may want to try a bigger shim, worked for me, unless your good at soldering. Anyone else see the digg post last week about the guy who fixed his g3 by putting a hot candle of some sort on the broken graphics chip. Seems to have re-soldered it.
January 9th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Bought a 14″ iBook G4 used for a friend of mine a little while ago and it died when it showed up. The guy who shipped it said it was working fine before he shipped it and i believe him that it might have gotten bumped around in shipping. Anyway, first thing i tried was the fix mentioned on the page and it worked… for a while. a week or so later i got the expected call saying ‘hey dan, that computer you got for us keeps crashing’ so i’m back to the drawing board. i put 2 pieces of rubber under the metal sheet then stacked some electrical tape on the outside, and the warp in the ibook case when i closed it back up was quite significant, but i’m wondering if the rubber has compressed like someone above mentioned. i’ll have to take it back apart and see. i’ll let y’all know the results. if anyone figures out a good soldering method let us know…
thanks again to corey…
January 11th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Hi Corey,
I bought a used Apple from someone. When I got it by mail, I noticed that the computer had something wrong. It was actually shutting down everytime I tried to move it. I just finished your fix-it yourself tutorial. Yahoo, it is working again. I can move it around it stays on. Impressive website. I think Apple should pay you money for every computer you helped fixing. I tested the computer for 30 minutes. I will use it more tomorrow. I will come back and tell you if it is still working in week or so. My Ibook model is a G4, 12 inches, 1.03mhz.
Little story: Thanks to you I saved the price of a computer! The Apple computer store that ran a check up on it was charging a 1000$ to fix it. They said the logic board had to be changed and that was the only way they could fix it. Forty bucks later, I simply took the computer home.
The best part is that your fix didn’t cost anything.
Thanks again,
Jon
January 11th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
I just wanted to say thank you so much for posting this… I had all but given up on my poor iBook (G4 1ghz late 2004 model) and this site finally came around. I still need to go back and replace my current shim with a larger one, but I get more use out of it now then I have for the past year and a half. Apple needs to man up and address this issue, even if not publicly. We are customers, and we care. Just this past year I have been responsible for the purchase of two macbooks and an ipod for pc users. I love apple computers, and I don’t understand why they won’t love me back!
January 14th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Thankyou so much!
I was dreading having to pay $500 (which I don’t have) to fix my iBook. I was afraid to take mine appart. The info at ifixit was perfect. I didn’t have a spudger and that made me reluctent to try but I had an expired cedit card on my desk and it worked perfectly
To anyone who it didnt work the first time keep tryng. I used a think 2 sided adhisive strip and needed to add to it three times to get the right thickness and it does make the case bulge slightly.
12 inch iBook
G4 1.2 GHz
768 RAM
Hugz,
Jenn
January 15th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Fantastic ! it works…
I tried this lovely fix saturday, and it still works, i saved a great deal of worries about my work there… Thanks a lot, i placed a danish coin (0,25) on the logic board, and a little piece of anti-slipmat on top, and then reassembled, and it works.
14″ IBook G4 bought January 05 (my old iBook G3 from 2001 still works solid)
1,25 ghz
512 ram
Regards
Kasper
from Denmark
January 16th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Had this happen to my iBook G4 14″ about two days after it happened to a friend’s iBook G4 12″. As a former Apple reseller and certified tech I just binned my 14″ and told my friend to get a new MacBook. I’m just sick to death of iBook logic board failures - if it’s not one thing it’s another. I came across this site looking for information on USB port failures on iBooks and thought I’d give it a go.
I’ve used the shim idea previously on G3 iBooks with the video problem and know from experience that shimming is a temporary fix at best. In the end something will give - the shim will compress or the pressure provided by the case will ease as the plastic stretches.
So I went ahead and put a soldering iron with a very fine tip against each leg of the chip that has been identified as being the culprit - just long enough to make the solder reflow.
Gave it some juice and hit the power button and to my amazement the damned thing booted. The video went all wonky soon after so I rebooted it, reset it through open firmware and rest the parameter RAM and it came back up again. I don’t know how long this is going to last for but its at least a start.
My advice to anyone who feeels uncomfortable about using a soldering iron is to find someone who knows how to do this and pay them to do so. Shimming is not a real fix - sooner or later it will give up and applying more and more pressure is no longer going to make the legs on the chip stay in contact with the board as they will just splay outward. Apply enough pressure and you also stand the chance of cracking the board for which there is no fix.
Many thanks to the people who identified this chip as being the source of the problem and a pox on Apple for producing, what is in my opinion, the worst piece of hardware ever - even worse than the Apple 17″ displays they inflicted upon us some years ago.
January 21st, 2007 at 3:33 pm
800 Mhz Ibook G4
Dear Corey,
I am eternally grateful to you for this fix!!
Coudn’t afford to fix the strange outages and disk-spinning on my beloved iBook, so I took a chance and opened up my box and applied the fix. Imagine my disapointment when it continued to malfunction. However, encouraged by others in this forum, I opened it again, and placed an even larger shim in, and lo and behold, its been running beautifully for over a week now. Before, I would be happy if it stayed up for more than an hour, and I did notice that applying pressure could affect the outage. Then I saw your fix, and I must say, this clearly seems to be a manufacturing defect and its a shame that Apple did not offer to repair affected machines. Bravo to you for getting the word out and you have my deepest appreciation.
In fact your fix was pretty easy; at least compared to swapping out the HDD on an Book G3, which I had done and which involved much more dissasembly (why doesn’t Apple make it easier to swap out standard components like the HDD?)
Thanks again!!!
Will
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Thank so much dude.
I just did your clear tutorial, and it seems to work… for now !
I hope it wont go down again.
Congratulations again and SHAME ON APPLE for not taking care of this.
This was my first apple computer, well I guess also my last !
Take care, Paris, France.
Clement
January 22nd, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Hey Clement,
Any advice on finding a job in Paris after I graduate? Your email didn’t work
-Corey
January 24th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Corey, you are the man. I just followed your directions step by step and it works!!! I just had a couple of questions. Do you take your iBook out and around in a bag? Do you move it around the house or do you use it on a desk? Thanks again.
January 25th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
It worked!!!(so far, anyway, 1 1/2 days). Thanks! My G4 died down from one moment to another, I went to a number of sites, until I accidently came upon your ’solution’. I wedged a piece of wood in there(10mm by 7mm by 3mm in my second trial) and it works! Yes, twice it froze in the last day and a half(mostly when it didn’t have the undersection of the computer pushing up on the logic board) but it restarted without problem. Do I like to have a computer that has to rely on a piece of wood inside. Nope! But it works for the time being.
January 26th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Many thanks, because it helped me curing this well-known and spread ibook disease…
It started by some strange lines appearing on the screen, then got worse. I had more and more difficulties to start my ibook up. Up to an ending point when I definitively could no more start it up, having always the fan turning like hell, no “bong” and a black screen.
I have opened the case of the computer, and located the failing component on the logic board that you mention. By putting pressure on it, I could successfully start again the computer. I tried the mecanical solution that is given here, but it was too unstable in my case.
Since I have some skills in microelectronics (and some good tools), I decided to resolderer the failing pin(s). In fact, I found only a single one that was unsoldered : the extreme bottom right one, on the pictures that are shown here.
Now, it works perfectly, even with mecanical vibrations, since some days.
I think that resoldering is the best solution. Those who cannot do it themselves should find some good electronician in their area. It can be fixed within half an hour (with (dis)mounting included), and should cost much less than the “damned” 500 euros for a new logic board…
The fact that this can be fixed by our own does not excuse Apple for the lack of quality of the manufacturing. Such a mistake is at the level of low quality products of South-Eastern Asia… How could Apple fall into such a trap?
Arnaud
iBook G4, 1.2 GHz.
January 28th, 2007 at 10:41 am
I just wanted to thank you guys for posting this information. I have an iBook G4 1.33 GHz and I tried your method and low and behold voila it came on. I had to do it twice because my shim wasn’t thick enough so I made the shim thicker and place another shim on the heat shield. It bulges out a little and the battery had to be force closed but it work. Thanks again guys YYYYYYYYOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU RRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ed
January 29th, 2007 at 7:13 am
Collective lawsuit would be a good idea. Thanks for the tips. Exactly the same problem, exactly the same chip. iBook G4 800 MHz. I’d suggest telling the partnumber (just to see if it is a common problem to a specific seria or to all iBooks. Mine is UV40758QPGZ.
January 29th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Corey –
It’s been a month and one day. My ibook is still in the game. I don’t want to jinx anything, but so far so good. If there is a heaven, your generous advice has merited you a nice cozy spot some day.
Thanks for sharing. You’ve made a difference!!!
Avi
January 30th, 2007 at 5:32 am
Corey et al-
First, many, many thanks for the time and effort you all have put into this and the amount of info you’ve shared. Secondly, I have question about what we “officially” call this problem. Third, I’m in a position to “stick it” to Apple a little, for everyone here. I’ll explain in a minute, but 1st, what I need to know is, if there is a generally accepted term or phrase for this issue that is known to Apple? Has anyone heard Apple refer to this specific problem as the iBook G4 “xyz” issue or something?
The reason I ask is I have a 14″ G4 iBook 1.42 Ghz that’s still under the original 12 month warranty (for another 3 months). I’m confident I will get them to pay for the repair but there is a crazy Catch-22 involved when contacting them for warranty repairs that are outside the initial 90 day free phone support part of the warranty. They want you to pay them to listen to your warranty issue.
I’ve twice had my 15″ G4 Powerbook repaired, once under warranty, and just last week, under a recall for the same faulty logic board issue, whereby one RAM slot dies and cannot be seen by the computer. Anyone seeing a pattern here?
Both times I was asked for a credit card number or the person on the phone would no longer discuss the issue with me because after 90 days, phone support is no longer free and they considered my calls a request for troubleshooting. I swear I REALLY tried to love Apple when I converted from PCs 2 years ago, but the company is one cold fish. They’re the opposite of their self-described easy to use, warm & fuzzy software.
Both times I avoided this charge by telling them the last thing I desired was any troubleshooting from anyone answering a phone. I explained I had already done the troubleshooting and isolated the defect myself. This last time was much easier as my PB was a repeat customer for the same MLB repair. Both times I was grudgingly told that since I had so succinctly described the problem (and not wasted their time) that the fees would be waived and they would connect me to a PB “Expert” who would facilitate the repair process. FYI the people who answer the phones were called PB “Specialists” and evidently do not rank nearly as high on the Apple food chain as a PB Expert. It would almost be funny if you were not in the middle of trying to get a $2500 laptop repaired so you could go back to work.
Anyway, I’d like to be just as prepared this time. We all know what happens to the iBooks but if Apple is pretending they never heard of the issue, then I may need to use more words to explain it to them and that could cost me. Does this seem crazy?
Finally, I shall do my best to “stick it to Apple” for everyone here. It seems that this last PB repair was done by a monkey or something. I received my PB back covered with greasy fingerprints and food stains. Also, every external screw has (several) big scratches around them and the cover for the RAM slots is gouged very, very deeply. The first repair job was extremely well done and very impressive. This time around, what I see on the outside scares me to think what it must look like inside. Also, the tech was stupid enough to put into writing that my RAM caused the problem because it was not Apple’s brand. They still repaired it for free under recall but removed my RAM from the PB and wrote “3rd party RAM caused issue.” Evidently the FTC gets huffy over certain statements that mislead customers into thinking they must only use a manufacturer’s brand of parts. I’ve seen it in action in the auto parts industry but will have to check into how to best make a fuss over this.
I initiated a complaint with Apple’s customer service (insert oxymoron joke here) and was provided a phone number to speak to a “Senior PB Service Expert” (I guess titles are everything at Apple) because Apple agreed my experience was unprofessional and against several of their policies.
I was just going to let it all go because I was happy to have my PB back. See, I really am trying to love Apple. I can’t help wonder if everyone’s demigod hero, Steve Jobs, would be shocked and outraged at my experience or if he’s the one who instituted the entire customer relations model.
All things considered, I believe I will now milk it for all it’s worth. Given half a chance, Apple shows no one else the benefit of the doubt so why should I do it for them?
Anyway, any and all suggestions on the issue would be appreciated. Thank you all again.
Jim
p.s Someone above commented on Apple repairing faulty logic boards with more of the same batch of bad boards. This is exactly what happened with my PB. As the repair effort (recall) has progressed, the spread of affected logic board serial numbers just widens. A year ago, my defective PB’s ser# was in the middle of the spread. This last time, the the beginning of the ser#s was the same and mine was again in the middle. You get a new ser# when they change the MLB. As they go through the stockpile of spare parts, they find they’re just a defective and so on and so on. Their solution to this is to limit your newly replaced MLB’s warranty to 90 days, not a year like the original. This should save them some money because mine took just about a year to die the 2nd time. FWIW, anyone with a 15″ G4 1.67 Ghz Powerbook, the eligibility for this “recall” is set to end in Feb. ‘07 or one year after your original 12 month warranty ends, I believe.
January 30th, 2007 at 9:58 am
The RAM question is an interesting one. Both of my failed ibooks had additional RAM (non-Apple). Is this common?
As far as a specific problem to refer to when dealing with Apple I am unsure exactly as to what the chip does or even it’s part number. You can be confident in telling them that the soldering on the logic board is faulty. As far as I know Apple has never commented on the logic board issues for this range of serial numbers.
I don’t have my ibooks in front of me, but when I get home I’ll post my serial numbers.
-Corey
February 6th, 2007 at 8:39 am
My iBook does indeed have non-Apple RAM (1 GB), but I had had that RAM installed for nearly a year before these problems started happening.
About the shim, I’ve had to re-shim mine twice since my last post. From my shimming, I think the harder you make your shim the better. Soft shims like mounting squares compress within the case and reduce the effectiveness of the shim. I also replaced the feet of my iBook with the plastic feet mentioned by Corey so that the weight of the iBook isn’t on the shim, that seems to help. Like Arnaud mentioned, the problem area of that chip is on the side that’s towards the power cable. I put my shim on that side of the chip, and thus far it’s lasted over a week without incident.
(being taken to class, etc…)
After reading this site and the related thread on the Apple Support forum, I think this problem is far more widespread than I thought. I would be all for some kind of class-action suit against Apple. When AppleCare expires on the machines that are afflicted by this problem, then far more people will come forward with this.
February 6th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Interesting.
I just came across your site while looking at the apple discussion forums for ibook issues. I bought my 12″ ibook 1.33 ghz in August 2004, and in July 2005 had the “fan of death” during a law school final (yeah, that was fun), and because the ibook was still under warranty, I apparently had the motherboard replaced, or at least that is what I was told - I suspect now that it was, in fact, the logicboard. It is now February 2007, and guess what?!? Once again my ibook ceases to turn on, except to taunt me with the evil, evil fan. Apparently the Apple store here (Portland, Oregon) will send away my ibook, and for $300, fix “everything” that is wrong with it. I have strongly considered doing that, but because I can’t get the computer to turn on, I can’t pull off my any of my files (20 gb of music and tons of word documents all pertinent to school and studying for the bar exam), so I have been hesitant to send it away. I know nothing about computers, and am a bit scared to open up the laptop, but tonight I’ll definitely give your shimming technique a try - even if it is just to access my files before plunking over $300 of the my hard-earned federal government loan money. Thanks for the website, and I’ll be back.
February 8th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
I don’t have a G4 ibook, but may have an item of interest for you who have a problematic graphics on G4 or G3 ibook (and possibly other laptops; lots of Sony Vaio with ATI graphics die a similar death, if ebay listings are any indication).
I recently obtained a G3 ibook with what sounds like the well-known ATI chip problems. I’m presently awaiting a replacement for a defective power supply so I can fully test it and in the meantime have been researching possible solutions.
I found an electronic repair shop in Arizona that uses sophisticated equipment to”xray examine” and “reflow” solder joints on these boards. It would (most likely) require the owner, or someone comfortable with disassembly of laptops, to remove the logicboard for the repair, but may be worth the effort, as opposed to spending $400 or more to have your board replaced with another potentially defective board. This company even has been listing this service (for G3 ibook “or other laptop motherboard”) on ebay for $50 + shpg (quote from ebay listing follows)
“If you are having intermittent video problems with your Apple Ibook or other laptop motherboard we have found that fractured solder joints beneath the ATI Radeon Mobility Video Chips are the cause. We utilize a state of the art rework station to accurately control the reflow parameters on just the subject device. We have had 100% success with this repair and have references available for you. Our repairs are typically completed between 3 days and 1 week. Please call with any questions. 800-718-0206″ (end quote)
the company is First Phase Electronics, their business website is www.firstphasetech.com and they list on ebay under the user name tom1ptech
I have no first-hand experience with them and no financial interest (disclainer), but have read on one list of someone who had 2 G3 ibooks repaired successfully by them. It may be worth a try.
I will try the shim for my G3 first to ascertain that this is indeed the problem, them consider them as a “more permanent” solution.
I feel Apple is totally shirking their responsibilities in ignoring these problems, even to the point of denying their existence. Sure are a lot of people who have the same non-existent problem that is fixed by the same solution.
thanks to you all for sharing their experience and information.
Ray
February 15th, 2007 at 12:56 am
Well, i did the shim job and low an behold, the iBook sprang back to life. BUT, alas, the hard drive would not mount and could not be seen by Disk Utility run from a system CD.
I’m not sure if the cable became detached while i was in there, or if the shim (a little rubber bumper as in above) put to much pressure on the harddrive, a corner of which is on the other side of the board from the bad chip…. I’ll put the hard drive in an enclosure tomorrow and see if it works, but if not, this seems to be a casualty of the repair, as it worked fine before…
February 15th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Thanks so much - it is working - currently 30 min already.
I had figured something similar when I realised by compressing the ibook I could boot it - essentially until I got tired and released pressure. Then I found your page…
Great work!
ibook G4 12″, 1.2GHz 768Mb Ram from March/April 2005
February 16th, 2007 at 1:36 am
Aargh… Now the very same problem as Lisa above - reliable boot but then no harddrive found. Initially it worked fine.
Is the black cable and plug part of the HD installation?
February 16th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
It works with the 800MHz ibook G3 14″ model as well. I had one ripped
completely apart and sitting in a box until I stumbled upon this site yesterday.
My motherboard looked different than your photos so I just improvised.
I used two strips of clear packing tape to hold down a pair of dvds over the
offending circuits. Actually they are taped to the outside of the aluminum
cover. I then put the bottom of the case back on and it started right up. I
to it to school today and reinstalled Jaguar and everything else I could think
of onto the hard drive. This sort of thing may void warrenties and even make
some people shake their head, but it has kept my car running all of these
years.
PS - I have alot of little screws left over if anyone needs some…
February 17th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
for those of you that are having HD problems, you might want to make sure that the HD ribbon cable is secure. It’s the orange looking thing on the top left on the computer in Corey’s pictures.
February 20th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Hi Coreyarnold.
Thank you for this really effective site.
Daughter Julia came around 2 days ago with her ibook g4.Dead display and the blower running on max rev.No other activity.When she told me of 300 Euro for board-exchange and that she was not going to invest money she didn´t have, I got to thinking—
I have soldered, repaired and built electronics/Amateur Radio for some 30 years,so…why not try this one?Last 5 years lots of smd-soldering (microwaves).So, out comes the Weller Mini-Magnastat and the tip for 290 Celsius.Not to forget wrist-grounding-set! And my biggest self-supported magnifiying glass.
All the forums discouraged me.though…I am not a Mac-user…only rudimental software-knowledge/pc over here.
But this French description and your stuff here got me going again.
Botton side up…thin shielding off, find the ic you identify….I bent away the black cable…resoldered all the right-hand contacts to the board.
Ibook oriented so you can read the code-writing just beneath this chip.
The machine is working again.
Of course I will have a longtime-trial run now…but things look good.
So…for anyone in a similar situation as mine…try it. No guarantee in any sense,however. And..yes…DO NOT add solder.There is enough there already-just heat it up nicely.
If you do not have soldering experience, sorry….this is not for you.You would just make things worse.Try finding a Radio Amateur in your vicinity who has enough ( microwave) experience. Most of these people are very friendly if approached in the suiting manner.
Thanks again.
Julia will like this!
Bye
Helmut
February 24th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Lavoro eccellente! ..ringraziamenti per le informazioni..realmente lo apprezzo: D
February 28th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
This is great, as soon as I started having the same trouble, I took my ibook apart and resoldered the ic that was pointed out on the pictures listed above. Viola! Its worked ever since! Its been a week, but yeah it works good! Thanks X 1000000000000!
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:10 am
hey guys.
thanks for all the help on this, especially corey. i just tried to shim it and it worked - but then cut out while running hardware test. i might try thickening it up and see if it helps, but good to see it functioning again anyways. however, i was thinking soldering might be the way to go as it is probably more of a permanent fix, but i havent done much soldering, and nothing on such of a small scale. would it be really hard to do if i could get the gear? i was hoping some one could post pictures and details of what needs to be done to fix this particular problem - if its do-able for a rookie. i ended up buying a new computer, so i could take the bullet if i wreck my ibook trying to solder.
anyways, let me know. any info on this is appreciated.
thanks again,
ev.
March 5th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Worked like a charm on my 1.2 ghz ibook g4. Thanks for the great idea!
I would have never guess to shim that particular chip.
jg
March 7th, 2007 at 12:30 am
Thanks. my ibook g4 is alive again.
March 7th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Thanks, it works on my dead ibook g4 800mhz too. There is an online petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/ibookg4/petition.html Please sign it and maybe some lawyers will pick the case up and file a class action with apple.
March 7th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
As an long-suffering technophobe — indeed, techno-idiot might be more apt — let me just start by saying, fascinating stuff! Who knew what one could do to a fried ibook? Not me. A couple of weeks ago, my ibook began suffering symptoms such as you’ve been describing, and being pretty worthless on the fix-it front, I’ve been considering buying a new (though, obvioulsy, close-out) one. Of course, now you’ve got me concerned that that would be a mistake — and if nothing else, at least attempting to fix my current ibook is worth a try.
Before I start unscrewing it, however, I have a couple of questions that I hope someone out there won’t mind fielding for me:
–My current ibook (which I purchased, like, 3-4 years ago), suffered a logic board meltdown shortly after its one-year warranty ran out. Apple fixed it under its “recall” plan, and it ran fine. Can I assume all of you who fixed your own logic board problems didn’t qualify for that same “recall” plan, for whatever reason?
–To follow up on that, I wonder if the ibook I’m considering (a G4, 1.33 GHz) would qualify for such a “recall,” assuming it, too, goes down the same way. Does anybody happen to know?
–Lastly, isn’t a logic board meltdown covered under the extended Apple Cares program? If so, then can I assume those of you who have fixed your own logic boards didn’t purchase Apple Cares? (I didn’t either, which is why I’m facing my current “fix it / buy a new one / buy something else” dilemma.) If not, then — yikes!
I know, I know, my questions reveal more than a bit of ignorance — especially for someone who has been using an ibook for years. Any guidance you can provide will be appreciated.
Thx, Neal
March 8th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Thanks for the tip, it just brought my iBook G4 1.2 GHz to life. Now, let’s just hope it will last !
March 8th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Man you rock! You saved my college graduation! All of my illustrations for graduate portfolio on March 23rd are on this 1GHZ G4 iBook 14″ which has served me well for almost 4 years now. I booted it up to show an instructor some of my work for portfolio and bang..dead…He really didn’t believe me! So I’m moping around the house thinking about how I’m still going to be in school for another quarter when I found your site ( on a Snow iMac 600Mhz running Panther) You absolutely saved the day! I used a kneaded eraser wrapped in tape so it could conform to the shape of the chip to hold it in place. Well, I’m typing this off of recently revived iBook! I backed up all my work on an external. Thanks again.
Alan
March 14th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Hey, i have a G4 1067mhz with the same prob
Corey, may i ask if ya set with the Rubber feet has failed ya yet?
which of the 2 sets ya have was the one that blacked out and needed a larger shim?
i have the same rubber feet and am going to try on mine. wonder how long it’ll last or how reliable it is.
Hear from ya soon!
March 24th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Well, I finally worked up the nerve to attempt the shim job on my busted iBook (600 mHz, G3), and low and behold — it worked!!!! Or, at least it has for four days now.
When I popped the back off and peeled up the heat sheild, my logic board didn’t resemble the one in your photographs. So, rather than try to place a rubber furniture foot over a particular circuit, I just laid a whole (albiet, small) sheet of rubber furniture feet in the general vicinity indicated in the photos.
Everything closed up nicely, and with no protrusions on the back of the computer, as some of you have indicated. Anyway — it works fine!!! It did overheat one day, with the fan coming on and all, but that’s probably because I was using it on my lap for an extended period of time. (For safety’s sake, I’m going to give it a rest more often…) We’ll see how long it lasts, but I’m thrilled to have saved $300 on a repair, or $1,000-plus on a new iBook / MacBook / Whatever..
Thx, Neal
March 28th, 2007 at 11:08 am
this is amazing. it worked on my ibook G4 14″ today. started crashing all the time and then i started getting the screen going black with white lines all across and what looked like white liquid gradually filling up the screen and then back to blue screen. then the computer wouldnt reach the login window. THEN i found this site. that was yesterday - today i placed a small square of a cd on top of the chip and laid the power cable over the top. then on the outside a small square of sticky foam stuff covered with a few layers of duct tape. and VOILA! as you put it! its amazing. it works. PERFECTLY. its only been half an hour since but at the moment its not sluggish or slow to load like it was before and its not stalling at all. fingers crossed.
iBook G4 14″ 512MB RAM 1.3Ghz
March 28th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Hey
just a word to the people out there. … i have a demon possesed G4 that i bought in 2003. I won’t even go through the problems , I have had with it, anyway i had the same logic board - mother board ( as the people always say at the apple store.) I have some advice, to give go into the store, an actual apple store if you can,and get them to fix it.
From my experience working as a consultant for a auto company , i know about a little thing that apple or your car company doesn’t want you to know about. They will fix stuff beyond base warranty, ESPECIALLY if it is a known problem.The issue is that it is up to the person behind the genius bar if they fix it for free or not. Supposedly they have a 3 year extension on the logic board issues.But i don’t think that they even had that in effect when i got mine fixed, i just patiently politely explained all of the myriad problems i had with the demonic device and she said ‘hey i think there is something i can do for you .”
Whoever said the people on the phone were total A_holes was right.I came close to cussing one out after asking for a refund, seeing that i was on the 3rd faulty computer apple had sent me !! The phone guy wouldn’t even let me talk to anyone else.
anyway try your luck with actual people:) and be nicer to your service consultants for your vehicles too. they can sometimes really save your hide.
March 29th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
It took some nerve to open my precious (but troubled) 12″ 800MHz G4 but I did it! I put a 3mm thick button wrapped in some electrical tape right where Corey explained.
If I had not discovered this strand I could not be writing this. Many thanks to all of you for your brilliance AND generosity!!
Anyone out there wondering: If you have the symptoms (loud fan at boot, random black (or blue) screen, no chime) this is very likely your solution!!
March 29th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Yahoo, this helped me fix a 800mhz iBook G4 that was left for dead.
It appears that the black flat cable that runs over half of the chip in question is causing uneven pressure on the chip - maybe causing it to tilt. I rerouted that cable to go around the chip, and put a very small piece of foam over the entire chip.
Another option may be to route the cable right over the chip, so the pressure is even. This sounds much better than sticking something under the cable, which is going to create even more uneven pressure. I think this is why some people have initial success but it doesn’t last long.
To back this up, I found another picture on the web where it appears the cable is right over the chip. The page at http://www.sterpin.net/uk/ddibookg4uk.htm is showing how to replace a harddrive - no problem with the chip - but take a look at picture number 37. The black flat cable is hiding the chip. In fact, it is so far over that it doesn’t line up with the white connector on the logic board.
So make sure you apply even pressure with whatever shim you come up with.
Thanks again.
Bart
March 30th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Hello and thanks to all for such creative solutions.. I think this is a result of a drop the G4 suffered last week. The problem began as a black screen when I moved the computer. Then I had the “fan of doom” and no “boing” or boot up. Then it lost the fan and as i kept trying to reboot i was met with varying success - sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes it would boot up and I would move slightly and it would die. so frustrating. Now it’s just dead. Question: what are the risks of attempting this fix? Also, if it is so easy for the lay person to fix, why does Apple replace the logic board and charge so much for a 15 minute fix? Could they not do the soldering? Here, in Toronto, Carbon Computing charges 75$ for a minimum consult fee. All repairs are extra. Is it worth it to pay up to 200 - 300 $ or take the risk?
G4 12″ also with added RAM at point of purchase.
I’d sign a petition, join a suit, complain… shame on APPLE
Clarice
April 3rd, 2007 at 11:41 am
Hi!
Many thanks for this wonderful website. The fix took care of the dead screen problem on my G4 12 inch. However, when I start up, it gives me a screen with a flashing Finder icon/question mark.
Since I’m not originally a Mac user, please tell me what to do.
Best regards,
MArtin
April 11th, 2007 at 1:18 am
Both of my machines are still running strong. In fact, I dropped one the other day and it’s still working fine.
April 12th, 2007 at 8:03 am
Hey Corey
Its alive!!!
))
I tried your fix last night on my laptop which has been dead since November last year and it seem to have worked. I have an iBook G4 1.33MHz 14″ (now I do!!!
) and the problem it had was pretty similar to what you described. Fan noise (I hate that noise! and I am deadly scared of hearing it once again in a few days!) and the screen after rebooting would go blue, green and red (alternatively) for a few times and then black… and NOTHING… it behaved like that for the four months after that, until last night.
It is now running for 8 hours. I am quite nervous about it
. Hope it stays alive!!!)
Thanks a million!!!
I would give you a good long hug if you were here.
Thanks again
Rosa
April 14th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
hi corey,
in january i posted to this website, telling my story about the “fan of doom.” after you gave me some preliminary instructions (put weight on the left corner of the palm rest) which worked, i abandoned fixing my ibook until today. it turns on, but shows a flashing question mark on a folder icon. after doing some reading, this apparently means that the computer can’t find my hard drive. do you have any suggestions about what i may have done wrong?
thanks,
allison
April 16th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
I have a 14 inch iBook G4, 1.33 MHZ and after pressing on the chip to confirm it was the problem, I elected to go the route Keith Deininger suggested and resoldered the first five pins since I have an electronics background.
I didn’t have a fine tipped iron but I fudged it by filing down the tip of an old one I have here, and then very carefully applied heat to the first five pins.
So far the machine has been on for hours and is working 100%. I’ll report back later this week.
And Allison, as others have mentioned on here, I suspect you have accidentally disconnected the hard drive cable from the motherboard, it’s easy to do and overlook.
Thanks so much for this information!
Laz
April 18th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Awesome. It works. I’ve gone from an ibook that would refuse to start, experiencing all the problems discussed here, and needed an new logical board ($1300 AUS) to a perfectly normal ibook that does everything as it should. I started with the shim and have recently gotten the problem chip resolded by my brother. So now I don’t have a buldge in my ibook and I do have a computer that works. Needless to say Apple needs to do something about this obvious construction flaw.
Thanks a million, well 1300, for the site and the information. You rock Corey.
justin
April 19th, 2007 at 4:45 am
yeat another thankful individual - you’ve saved my iBook!
thanks,
David
London
April 19th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
I follwed your instructions exactly. My computer now works. (The Apple store told me to trash teh machine and buy a new one)
many thanks for your excelent instructions
Frances
April 19th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Allison, I had the very same problem when I did mine. All you have to do is reinstall the mac software, and it will work like normal again.
April 20th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I fixed my ibook by soldering the pins again!
Since a month or two my 2 year old ibook G4 (1,2gh) had all the symptoms you described. (fan of death, no boot,..) so I was happy surprised I found your site and I could boot again by pressing at the spot you mentioned.
First repairs:
I placed several small plates between the metal shielding and the chip.
But after a few weeks, this repair wasn’t enough. Again fan of death, black screens, beeps,…
Second repair:
I looked for someone who could solder this kind of chip. I found someone and one week ago that guy pushed all the pins more firmly into the logic board.
Now, one week later my ibook didn’t crash anymore. So let’s hope it stays this way.
Thx for the info!
April 20th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Here’s a picture of the soldering one week ago:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lepreinz/457573030/
April 20th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Thanks Corey- my dead (since 3/06) computer is alive again! I followed your instructions verbatim and applied an adhesive rubber stopper shim of 2mm thickness and it works like a dream. All my friends thought I was crazy for researching this topic endlessly on the internet and today I am validated! Even if the shim dislodges and the problem returns, I know know how to work with it to produce a successful result. Thanks again for saving my sanity and $400!
Erin
April 20th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
(continued)
p.s. the above mentioned computer is a 12″ Apple G4 iBook 1.2GHz which was booting up to a blank screen and running fan.
April 21st, 2007 at 9:02 pm
My 1.2 GHz iBook G4 had exactly this problem — many thanks for putting together this site!
I resoldered this chip today, and I am now posting from a computer that I had almost given up for dead. I used a soldering iron with a fine-point tip and a magnifier (but not a microscope) and just touched each pin, one by one, until I saw the solder flow. The melting point of the solder on the logic board was quite high (I had to set the iron to 850 degrees F), suggesting that it’s probably a lead-free process. While I’m all for keeping lead out of the groundwater, we don’t yet understand the long-term aging properties of this solder.
The chip in question is an Intersil ISL6225CA switching voltage regulator, so it controls the power supply to some set of apparently important components.
April 23rd, 2007 at 6:34 am
it worked for me i think (and hope) at first it crashed every 5 min. or so. Now it is working fine for almost 30 min. But mine worked only with a enormous shim (about 8 mm) maybe if this works i will try to make it a bit smaller again and i’ll see what happens. but thanx!
April 24th, 2007 at 12:08 am
I did this fix at 2 am eastern time and its now 3:07 am eastern time
so far so good
thanks so much
you saved me 800 bucks!
April 24th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
After having to had to reshim my iBook a number of times, my trackpad and CD-drive were both failing from the uneven stresses on the chassis (all just temporarily though). I finally decided to solder and made sure to buy some no clean flux for lead-free soldering and repair (in pen form). I used a pretty cheap ordinary soldering iron with a fine point, and stroked the pen over all the legs of the chip before soldering. I heated the top part of each leg (so to make sure I wouldn’t accidentally spread out the solder on the PCB) for about a second or less, so that it started glistening slightly from melted solder. It was a little bit tricky, but not so bad as I thought. Definately not much room for error though, keep those hands steady!
Miraculously, it now works with no shim at all, and the iBook has been up and running all night. I didn’t reroute the power cable though, but there should be enough space inside the chassis so as to not apply any pressure to the chip.
April 29th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Did the fix one week ago, still working great! Posting this message from the iBook! I’ve moved it throughout the house, sitting on the couch surfing, put it to sleep, etc. No problems so far. Thanks Corey!
April 30th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Another triumph! Took a pals old iBook G4 that was showing all the same symptoms and was told the same story (new logic board for $650 CDN). Took it apart using the iFixit link, put in a rubber PC board gapper that had adhesive on one end (cut to about 4-5mm) and sealed it back up. Bam, fixed! Thanks to you for your work in discovering, documenting and making available all this great info.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:08 am
I tried to use a shim first. unfortunately, after some day’s my iBook started to show the black screens again. After my third attempt with a shim I went for the soldering-solution as well. The user comments on this page strengthened my hopes for a good outcome. For now this seems to be the best solution in my case, my iBook seems to work fine again (uptime 6 days). In order to have a better view on the bad soldering joints I used a binocular telescope in the opposite direction. I have put some pictures of this on the internet on the following URL: http://www.yver.dse.nl/logicboardrepair/#A_fourth_attempt.
May 4th, 2007 at 11:46 am
My logic board failed yesterday. My computer screen just flashed colors and made the “fan of death” noise. I was able to complete this procedure and get my ibook working in about 3hrs.
Use exactly three pieces of a CD (about 2mm x 5mm), now broken, place them all under the cable as seen above, which is over the logic board. The cable has some adhesive material on its surface, so stick the first in and each subsequent one underneath the first. Fasten the heat shield, but when you put the plastic cover on, tighten the allen screws just to when they touch the plastic covering.
Try powering up the ibook, if it does not work, go back and tighten the screws again. Do it until the ibook powers up (sound) and you do not hear the fan. That should work. Mine is currently running.
May 5th, 2007 at 5:20 am
Hi there! Just wanted to let you know that the procedure worked fine for me, so far at least. My iBook has been running now for a couple of hours now, I ran Software Update, rebooted a couple of times, and everything fine so far. Before this I was not able to boot the iBook (and keep it working at least for a few minutes) without applying manual pressure, but because manual pressure had to be exercised all the time, it made my iBook useless.
I can only hope that the iBook will run fine for a longer time. If not, I’ll try a thicker shim. I now used a rubber ring which I cut so that it had the same shape as the chip. This ring is about 2-3 mm thick.
By the way, this iBook G4 was a replacement unit which I got from Apple after I had to send in my iBook G3 three times for repair within 18 months time. By then the iBook G3 had been discontinued, so I received a brand-new iBook G4.
May be one day Apple will start another replacement program for this iBook G4 issue, and I wouldn’t mind a MacBook then
. However, I don’t think that will happen for me because when you open up the case, it’s clear that it has been opened non-professionally (a few scratches and dents here and there). But then I had the choice between waiting for a replacement program which may never come and trying myself to get my iBook back to work.
Anyway, thanks a lot for sharing this solution with the world!!
May 7th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Worked for me, I used thin rubber bumpers from Ace Hardware and started with one which got it started, it died after a while, so I added another, which got twenty minutes, then another which got an hour, and finally piled the fourth one on top and had to work to get it to close, but it’s been running for twelve hours now.
Thank you, I almost bought a new computer (this is the second time my logic board died, the first time I ponied up the 400)
May 11th, 2007 at 6:25 am
Yep, I too have the problem outlined on this site. I’ve shimmed using a couple pieces of rubber (one directly on the chip, one on the outside of the heatshield) and I taped a piece of cardboard onto the inside of the case. So far running good, but I think I’m going to attempt the soldering method to make it a ‘permanent’ fix.
Anyway, thanks for the tip!!
May 11th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Thank you!!!!! Same problem. I used a pretty big shim. This works.
May 13th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Hello everyone and thanks for all the great info! I had all the same symptoms and, much to my relief, found this very helpful page! I put the shim in a little less than an hour ago and everything is working great. I did have the problem where the hard drive cable became detached (pretty easily it seems since it is somewhat glued to the heat shied) but luckily a few have had that problem as well and it is an easy fix. It’s going to be some nervous times ahead but I’d rather baby my ibook than to pay $300+ to fix it or buy a whole new one.
For those that are looking for something handy to use as a shim, I used a poker chip, which I cut in half and placed over the afflicted chip. On top of that a small piece of cardboard and electrical tape to hold it in place. Seems to work well so far!!
Thanks again Corey and everyone with their helpful comments!
May 16th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Another satisfied reader who went the soldering route. Soldering down pins 1 and 28 turned a hunk of parts into a working computer again. We’ll see how long the re-solder holds, but I’m waiting for LED backlighting and Santa Rosa Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros, so I may not have to run this tooooooo long.
May 18th, 2007 at 4:40 am
Hey, hang on, I’m absolutely positive posted an entry here a number of weeks ago regarding the testing done by the Danish National Consumer Agency, where they found this fault to be due to manufacturing errors. Was this taken down or something?!
Slashdot story: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/03/1458259
Official Press Release: http://www.forbrug.dk/presse/nyheder/pressekit/ibookg4/ibook-g4-english/
The Danes are getting their iBooks replaced by Apple, it seems.
SPREAD THE WORD
May 18th, 2007 at 8:39 am
I am currently experiencing the same problems on my 14″ 1.33GHz iBook G4. Is there anyone in the Dallas/Fort Worth area that is willing to re-solder my chip? Obviously, I will be happy to pay someone for their service. I am really surprised someone has not capitalized on setting up an iBook G4 repair service for this know problem… since Apple will not support their work. If anybody is willing to take on this task and has the expertise to do so, let me know.
robertfmorrow@gmail.com
thanks,
Robert M.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
I am incredibly thankful for your guide. The fix worked right away on my iBook G4 (it is about 3.5 years old) and so far I’m not having any trouble (Of course, only time will tell if it will continue to work). I used the top half of a pencil eraser and cut it down to size, taped it down so it wouldn’t move, and then went from there. Thanks, you are a hero for making this so easy!
May 21st, 2007 at 7:52 am
Jacob: Someone attempted to post the entire article, copied and pasted, from the Danish website regarding the flaw and I chose not to leave it up. Instead, I have posted a link to it at the top of the page.
Robert: I believe someone earlier has offered just such a service if you read back in the posts.
Cheers!
May 21st, 2007 at 11:40 am
Corey - THANK YOU so much for sharing your story and your fix and your photos! My iBook G$ 800 mhz was dead dead dead and after two trips to the Apple store I was told - $310 for the fix. Well, as we all know $300 goes a long way towards a new MacBook, however I wasn’t in a place to even have $300 let alone $1000+ so you saved me! Thank you doesn’t seem enough…
May 21st, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Works like a Champ.
Although I have noticed that it is better that i do not move the PB while powered up.
Thanks for taking the time to document this . . . I love the internet!
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Worked for me! As long as I can get my data off, I’m happy. Anything else is a bonus since I’ve bought a new computer.
Thanks so much!!
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:38 am
will you mary me? thank you so much for this. i can’t believe it’s that one chip on each of them and it works for me..now i’ve got two ibooks
May 24th, 2007 at 7:14 am
had the Same problem on a 12 inch 1.33ghz ibook.
the only difference was that on my motherboard, that particular chip was not located in the same spot, but i found the identical looking chip (short rectangle) and i put an erase from a pencil over it. shut the laptop. turned it on.
works.
amazing! its been 2 days and no crashes. so we’ll see.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:56 am
I had this same problem, and used the rubber feet method. I actually put two, one on the chip and one on the shield, aligned so that they push against each other. It worked! I’m a happy man!
May 27th, 2007 at 4:33 am
Man, you absolutely saved my life!!! Thank you so much for this tip. It was the last try i gave my iBook and it worked. I am now on for a backup…
May 27th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
thanks a million for this page of instructions. I have exactly the same problem (what are the odds that this is not a production flaw?). When I got the fan of death I could stop it by squeezing the wrist rest area in the upper left area next to the track pad. I noticed that your spacer images (great images by the way) showed the spacer to be about 1/2 the width of the semiconductor chip that needs to be pressed so I found some plastic (polypropylene, firm but not brittle) and cut it to that thickness. It also completely covered the chip just as you said. I put a bit of contact cement on to hold it in place while putting it all back together. I torxed it down and you can see a slight bulge on the bottom of the case (maybe building computers out of pliable plastic is not the best idea). It started right up and not a sign of a problem. Of course I signed the petition. I am surprised that Apple is not stepping up on this one. Whoever manufactured this for them clearly made a mistake. Thank you once again. Brilliant work.
May 28th, 2007 at 4:52 am
My iBook died in March with this problem, I’d left it until yesterday to do something about it.
I’d considered using a shim but didn’t like the idea of distorting the case or requiring to add bigger shims, in the end I removed everything to get access to the chip in question and soldered it.
I didn’t add any fresh solder, I literally only touched each pin on the chip for less than a second, just enough to get any solder reflowing. It’s really not that hard if you have something to provide good magnification and a steady hand.
A mounted magnifier is great, ideally something with a built in light source. You can get these at most electronic and hobby shops. Else just ask your local jewellers if they’d be willing to do some soldering.
May 28th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Dude, THANK YOU!!!
The fix worked perfectly! I was as upset as any of the other people on this board when my laptop crashed. Thankfully I HAD backed up and wasn’t concerned about data, but I depended on the laptop.
It’s funny about the pressure solution…I fix iPods and one problem I had with an iPod video was the sound only played out of one ear after I changed a broken screen. Confused, I noticed that if I pushed on a wire to touch the logic board the sound was fixed. I put a piece of rubber between the drive and the wire to ensure it touched the logic board and voila, it worked. Maybe this is a running problem. Many thanks again!
May 29th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Thanks a ton!!!
Just did the surgery and it is working without a c-clamp for the first time in months. For my shim I cut a wooden stirring stick into three small pieces, layered them on top of each other, and taped them together. I would estimate the shim had a total height of ~4 to 5 mm.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I’ve got a 12″ ibook 1.2 that is doing the same thing. Nothing on the screen and it just sounds like a fan…
I’ve got a question for all the people who have used this method:
Has it stopped working again? Is this a fix that I could see lasting a few months?
Im going to give it a try anyways, unless i heard from Apple about a recall that probably won’t happen…
May 30th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Nate: both of my iBooks continue to run strong 8 months later.
May 30th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
That’s awesome!
Im going to give it a go! I will try the rubber feet sense most people have used those.
Do you carry it around in your bag and stuff too? Like I won’t be stuck with it on my desk, right?
Thanks so much for this! You rule!
May 31st, 2007 at 2:39 pm
I wish I saw this fix before my G4 laptop died with the fan of death whirling. However it will help just in case it happens again. I lost all trust of the MAC computers especially since they are claiming this is not a problem. Is there something we can do to petition for Apple to take responsibilty for their faulty hardware?
May 31st, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Wow! This is amazing!
It’s working…but now the Hard drive isnt showing up. I tried to boot from my OS X disc but when I needed to choose the drive to put it on…there was nothing to select. Any help? Is it the HD dead? I dont remember that being a problem.
May 31st, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Hi, open it up again…. my hard drive connector popped out of the logic board the first time I opened it all up. Look for the yellow tape over the connector and make sure it is in.
May 31st, 2007 at 10:04 pm
I got a iBook G4 800 256MB (one of the first ones), now has 640MB. Died over the memorial day weekend, but I just re-soldered the chip you found (I work in an electronics research lab
and everything is back to normal 100%
Thanks for your brave efforts!
If someone in the Berkeley area is suffering I will consider helping you!
Contact me at akarcher@lbl.gov
May 31st, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Oh, btw I don’t know which pins were loose, the ones NOT under the cable looked worse under the microscope, but when I soldered there was definitly an excessive ammount of flux on several pins toward the middle of the chip. I think the reflow temperature must have been too low… this means it could be a limited number of logic boards affected, or all of them:-(
June 1st, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Boy, am I glad I found your site (though I wish I’d found it a lot sooner)! I’ve been sitting on a logic board problem for over a year now!!!!! It has been “fixed” twice by apple while I was still in school but of course now the exteneded warranty no longer covers it. I just ordered the tools ifixit recommends and if I only have to pay $17.00 to fix my laptop as compared to what Apple would have charged, I will kiss your feet !!!! (not really).
I think the idea of a class action lawsuit is an excellent one and anyone who knows how to go about doing it I say lets get the ball rolling! With all the ads apple has running now about their reliability if we were to file a suit against them you know they’d be quick to settle with us to keep their reputation they are trying to build from getting tarnished. Or maybe we go to the press ?!? Offer a story to one of the national news shows about how apple is screwing over it’s long loyal users while trying to tout themselves as the only reliable computer company, I bet that would get them to listen to us and give us a satisfactory resolution !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 3rd, 2007 at 2:31 am
Was reading an article on my apple and the system went dead….black and unable to turn back on….sounds like apple still not taking responsiblity. Of course warranty is up.
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Dave.
Thanks a lot! I totally didn’t notice that got unplugged! Thanks so much! I did NOT want to try to replace the HD. It’s working like a charm! Thanks again!
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:56 pm
After having my iBook as a paper weight for the last year and a half, it now works prefectly. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Wow take that back, thought i had it working. Still freezing…
June 4th, 2007 at 8:50 am
i have done what the website has suggested. instead of the blank screen and running fan, i now get unto the initial apple load screen (jus the apple logo) and then freezes….. any solutions?
June 4th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Thanks Dave,
You may have just saved me a grand (for a new macbook). The electronics shop I called said $200 to resolder and a 50/50 chance that they’d overheat the circuit board in the process. I decided to try your route first with CPE 1″ furniture pads (from Hobby Lobby) for the shim. They’ve got a little grid pattern on them. I cut along the grid in a 4 x 2 square which fit perfectly on the logic board and left the pad at it’s full 1/8″ thickness. iBook G4 800 is back to normal! I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
June 5th, 2007 at 12:52 am
Hi Corey,
Thanks so much ! It worked perfectly on my ibook G4 1Ghz bought sept ‘04. It took me only 30 minutes to disassemble the ibook, put the exact same rubber foot than yours and press on ! Will see how long it lasts…
I just had the same problem than Nate, my HD was unplugged during the process (it is under a yellow scotch). I just plugged it again.
Thanks Corey and shame on Apple which refuses to admit the problem.
Sign the petition http://www.petitiononline.com/ibookg4/petition.html
Chris in Paris
June 5th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
I have taken a couple of pictures of the failed solder joint through a microscope and posted them on Flikr. I actually applied a soldering iron to the joint and was able to get a fix without using a shim.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Hey Corey,
You can add me to the long list of people who saved $300 or $1000 after finding your site - thanks!
My 800Mhz 12″ iBook, already on its second logic board, got the black screen and fan of death symptoms last week. I took it to my Apple Store, talked to an AASP, then finally googled “ibook logic board” and found a ton of info on this problem. I followed your excellent instructions and so far everything looks good.
Then I went back to the Apple Store to tell them what was going on and ask whether they’d heard much about it. I talked with a VERY unhelpful genius and walked out more frustrated than when I walked in.
So now I’m going to complain to Apple. I signed the petition (http://www.petitiononline.com/ibookg4/petition.html), but I also plan to call Apple to talk to someone live. Do you have any suggestions about how I can most effectively communicate my frustration to them?
June 9th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Thank you so much! I had to mess with my shim(s), but it did work!
You are awesome!
I used the covers of ear buds to put pressure on it.
June 10th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
THANK YOU FOR THIS WONDERFUL PAGE! Who knows how much money, time, and aggravation you just saved me.
I tried the shim fix, which made the scary fan noise stop but then I was just getting the flashing question mark/face folder on startup. I took the shim out, and the scary fan noise did not come back, but I was still stuck on the flashing folder. So then I read the wonderful comments on here, opened it up yet again, and sure enough, the hard drive was unplugged. Plugged it in, and voila!
All appears to be working just fine now. I signed the petition as well.
June 10th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Oops. I take it back. The fan noise started again about ten minutes later, and I put the shim back in. But it didn’t work, and no amount of pressure on it in an upright position seems to help. The only thing that works is holding it upside down.
As it’s rather difficult to both hold a laptop over your head and type at the same time…suggestions appreciated!
Thanks
June 11th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Leigh: Make sure you try using a big shim, but if that doesn’t work you may try soldering the chip. The fact that it works upside-down makes me think that applying pressure should work. Are you sure the shim is placing pressure uniforming on the chip?
Corey
June 11th, 2007 at 7:23 am
I don’t have the fan whir, but my backlight died. The first Apple service centre thought it was the invertor board. They tried and replaced that, but that didn’t help. They concluded I needed a new display ($$$).
I found another Apple repair shop and they had second-hand displays. They tried that, but found my display is ok (tried it on another iBook) and concluded I need a new logic board. I think I might just crack it open and try this hack.
I believe it’s really time for an iBook G4 Logic Board Repair Program.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:30 am
By the way, my girlfriend has a 1.33 GHz iBook (mine is a 1.2 GHz) and her iBook kernel panics when she enabled her AirPort. The fix for that, for some people, seems to be to put some carton under the thing that holds the AirPort board down. The latest generation iBooks don’t have the AirPort card under the keyboard, but a AirPort/bluetooth board that is harder to reach. Again, pressure is needed to fix the problem.
Could these problems have the same fundamental base: the bad soldering?
June 11th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Well I happened to have the exact same rubber foot that you used, and placed it just like in the picture. I don’t really have a way to try soldering, but I will try a bigger shim. (Why do they have to make it SUCH a pain to get these things open!)
Again, thank you for your help. If I can’t get this thing working, at least I gave it a real try!
June 12th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Hazzah for this fix! My iBook was having issues; and it scared the crap out of me, I was like: oh no! I’m going to need to spend all kinds of monies to fix it!!! Then I found this page; and, I’m like: hey, worth a shot… I tried it; and it’s working like a champ again. Feels like it’s running a bit hotter now, but whatever it’s working!
June 13th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Damn. It turns out the fix isn’t doing the job for me after all. It looked good for a few days, then the symptoms started up again. I’m going to try sending the logic board off for resoldering next.
I found a couple of companies through ebay that offer the service for $50. Has anyone tried either of these? Any feedback to share?
Superior Reball and Rework in Illinois
First Phase Technologies in Arizona
(And here at ifixit is a nice set of instructions on removing the logic board.)
June 13th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Nils, this is how you can get your backlight on.
1. Turn iBook OFF. Turn back ON.
2. Hold Apple-Option-O-F
3. After 15-30 seconds or when you hear the noise Release Keys (there will be a blank or dark screen and then:
4. TYPE:
RESET-NVRAM
SET-DEFAULTS
RESET-ALL
(each followed by “return”, which means press ‘return’)
As for this site, I am going to try to fix my iBook G4 tonight. My screen started out shaky and then a rainbow of death showed up…the monitor is still on just the screen has a million colors on it at all times…and they are going NUTS. so hopefully the shim or soldering will work for me too. i will let you guys know tomorrow!
June 13th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Great post….
ibook G4 paperweight here too… until last week…. just used the clamp…. worked well… removed clamp…. ran for a week non stop…. even w the clamp it is better than my pc laptop….
June 15th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Well, it worked for a couple of weeks, anyway. The first week, on my desk at home, was fine. But after airlining for a week with my laptop it’s now intermittent with the shim. If I “press around” where the shim was installed I can somethimes get it to boot up. So my options now appear to be:
1. Treat the laptop as a desktop so the “shimming doesn’t get disturbed.
2. Try to do a solder repair (2nd electroinics shop verified it’s no better than a 50/50 shot I’ll ruin the PCB, cross flow a solder, or overheat a component).
3. Try a bigger shim (still risky as increased pressure on the board could cause more failed circuits).
I can’t go without a laptop so I guess I’ll give option #3 as shot first, and if it’s no better, I’ll roll the bones with #2.
June 15th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Ibook g4 1.33 mhz/late 2004
did the soldering (as i have access to the tools) and it works ok now
June 15th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Ok. I decided to go all in and try to “reflow” the solder on the troubling chip. I bought an $8.00 15 watt soldering iron and a $15 “Helping Hands with Magnifier” from Radio Shack. Used a bright desk lamp to see, and used a stack of books to steady my hand. Practiced coming in almost vertically to avoid touching anything else on the board for about 10 minutes with a cold iron. Held the hot iron on each pin for 1 to 2 seconds to get a flow. Feared that I might have “overflowed” 1 or 2 pins and caused a short in the process. Didn’t feel to good about it when I put it back together (sans shim). Expecting the worst, I held my breath, pushed the ibook power button . . . . . . AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!!!!!! NORMAL STARTUP! GEEKS HIGH FIVING EVERYWHERE!!!
Recommendations:
1. Try the shim method first. You may have better luck with it than I did.
2. If you don’t have success with the shim, try to reflow the solder. It’s a risky move, but what have you got to lose?
Corey, thanks again for putting this page up. You really did help save me $1,000.00.
June 15th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
P.S. You’ve got a soda in your right hand, open ibook in your left. Where do you think all the pressure from you left hand fingertips are going to? Right to the trouble maker chip, or more specifically . . . right to the weak solder pins on the 1/2 of the trouble maker chip that’s underneath the chord.
Post fix insurance: DO NOT CARRY open ibook in LEFT HAND.
June 16th, 2007 at 4:57 am
Thanks - this has fixed my ibook, which has now booted fine for a couple of weeks, being carried about/abused etc. I used slightly thicker shims, both outside and inside the heat sink so the case is actually bulging slightly (which is basically going to be the limiting pressure the case can provide). This seemed to work better for me than thinner shims.
June 16th, 2007 at 11:15 am
An entrepreneurial thought.
Corey, why don’t you try to sell an advertising spot on your website to one of the two vendors listed in Scott C.’s post? If (big if ?) they could offer the solder repair without pulling the mother board (i.e. ship laptop intact) for say $100.00, I’ll bet they’d get a ton of business We know there’s at least 2,300 people who’d like to get their ibook fixed. If your sight has enough “google momentum” (I’m assuming you get a lot of hits) you would be the perfect place to advertise, as once the ibook owner has been through your sight and applied the shim (or at least pressed around on the case) they have effectively troubleshot the problem to a pretty high certainty. I’d also guess a majority of these ibook owners would gamble the $100 trusting that the success rate is near 100% (First Phase claim).
June 17th, 2007 at 3:27 am
Probably the notorious PWM chip now died on my iBook after a reflow of the solder.
Like I already described here on the 3rd of may, I tried a few times with the shim. This did not work good on the longer term. Then I tried to do a reflow on the soldering joints. I did this very carefull, and my iBook worked very well for a month! But it broke down again :-/.
Then I tried to do a reflow again (this time due to the circumstances, a little bit less carefull). Probably the PWM chip overheated, my iBook does not work anymore.
I’m still in the middle of my graduation project, so this is very unconvenient. I liked my iBook very very much… But lets think positive, files can be converted, and windows PC’s are functional too (kind of).
I updated my previous experience with shimming and soldering on this page: http://www.dse.nl/~yver/logicboardrepair/
Like Keith Deininger already mentioned here, when you go for the soldering, be very carefull with what you are doing (but the more safe shim-approach is not always a good solution too).
June 24th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Awesome!
My iBook G3 was pronounced DEAD 2 weeks ago.
But it was only an opinion. Now it is just fine coz of
every litlle information on this page.
Thank you guys!
and
Sc..w You bloody idiots working at Cortland Wroclaw (Poland)
June 25th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Tried the shim, didn’t work. My iBook G4 1ghz does boot as a firewire target drive so I got the data off it, and it boots normally (except the screen is black). I guess the next step is send the logic board to one of the ebay resolder services (my soldering skills leave much to be desired). Thanks for the write ups and the comments have been invaluable.
June 25th, 2007 at 2:00 am
An electrical engineer told me to use an ordinary hot air gun to reflow the solder - with a small metal funnel connected to help direct the heat. I am going to try this and I will report back - Sounds like it might be easier and less risky than trying the reflow with a soldering iron…
Cheers
June 25th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Considering that my iBook G4 was only 22 months old (purchased in Mar 05 broke in Jan 07 before it went kaput and it’s clearly a design fault of their own I think it’s absolutely disgusting that Apple wanted to charge me £525.23 to repair it when all it took was a simple piece of rubber and pressure! Thanks Corey. It works for about 10 minutes at a time before it goes funky again but it is a damn site better than having my iBook collecting dust in the loft or paying out more to repair than I actually paid for it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
June 30th, 2007 at 2:50 am
I applied the fix described here and my iBook has been working perfectly now for two weeks, instead of freezing after two minutes. And it’s great to have it back! Thank you so much for providing this information.
July 1st, 2007 at 12:45 am
Hi,
I have a 1Ghz G4 bought late 2003. I am in Australia. This recently started happening. I get it all the raimbow lines, screen freezing, fan and blank screen on start-up. I will now be going to an Apple repair centre to try to get them to fix it. I have looked at the Danish report and i think they should fix it. It hasn’t been three years since i got it. Until now the only other problem i had is the HD failing. I also have a G4 powerbook. While researching this I found that they have similar issues. Will keep you updated.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Hey -
My logic board failed for the second time today, and unfortunately, my iBook’s warranty expired 2 months ago… just my luck. Anyway, I am unwilling to pay the $300 to get it repaired, as I was planning on buying a new laptop next summer before I go off to college.
I am not experienced at all with the inner workings of computers and I have never done anything like this before, so I was wondering if you suggest trying this out for someone as inexperienced as I am. This is pretty much my last resort, so I’m willing to try it, but I would like to get it right so that I don’t screw anything else up. Would you say it’s a relatively easy process? If you could give me any more tips, I’d GREATLY appreciate it! You can email me at shab325@gmail.com.
Thanks again!! =)
July 7th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Just wanted to say thanks for your guide. My girlfriend’s iBook has been hanging and black-screening on her for a few months now. It seemed to have cleared up after being left alone for a few weeks, but then died as soon as she took it to a library. This time it exhibited the fan of death effect, so I came here, shimmed it in under an hour, and it worked first time. Hopefully this fix will last, and we won’t need to get the solder fixed.
The orange hard-drive connector did come out when I took the metal sheet off the back, but clicked back into its socket easily. Also, I found it helped to undo the clips on the fourth side of the laptop too; the ifixit instructions suggest that you can take the back off after only doing three sides, but I found my way easier.
I don’t have a spudger (who does?), but I found that the clip of a Bic biro top worked really well. For the shim, I tore about a 4cm square of paper from a nearby envelope, then folded it until it was more or less the same size as the chip.
If you’re reading this and reasonably confident at taking things apart, I’d say go for it - it doesn’t present any serious problems, especially if you follow the fine ifixit guide.
Anyway, thanks again!
July 7th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Well. I bought a G4 IBook in a failuty state from ebay, having first read up on your fix.
Does it work? On and off! I have tried different sized shims, gradully building up the thickness. I am on my third try, and it seems to be fine for now.
What I will say though, is that it certainly has improved things. When I first got the Mac I was getting the “fan of death” every start up. Now the iBook will work for some hours, or even a couple of days before going blank.
I’m hoping this last shim - fitted today will solve it for good. I’ll keep you posted.
I would recommend everyone who tries this fix resetting nvram,pram etc. It seems to help a lot. Also, make sure you haven’t dislodged the screen cable as well as the hrd drive cable.
Anyway. Thanks for posting such a great tutorial on the web.
It’s certainly worth a try, ecspecially as Apple have no real permanent fix for it.
July 9th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
I used piece of plastic i found in my bedroom, flat on oneside but a conical projection in the middle of the other. I placed the flat side on the chip and it’s kept in place by being wedged under the cable pictured above.
It works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oddly found my logic board stamped G3 when it’s a G4 not sure what that’s about.
I’ll post back whether this is a lasting fix..
cheers
July 11th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Hi, I have an iBook G4 12-inch, 1.2 GHz PowerPC G4, 1.25 GB DDR SDRAM (standard was 256mb), bought in August 2004.
Sypmtoms:
My screen (and I suspect all other activity) freezes. My mac also refuses to reboot after this happens. I only manage to get past the apple screen with the turning cog, then we go to a blue screen and that’s it.
Remedy:
Have applied pressure to the palm area on the LEFT side of the track pad just underneath the Apple key and the laptop boots up!
After many attempts to find a permanent fix I have come to the conclusion that shims do work but the laptop is not reliable. I have to move it with care and always use it on a plane surface.
Having said all this, I have had it work for 3 days with no problems, other times it just refuses to work at all. Not bad at all for a job which costs $15 for a toolbox. i suggest this to all the ppl out there with the same problem. Your laptop is useless anyway so might as well try to fix it yourself.
Keep posting and keep fixing!
Nicky
July 11th, 2007 at 10:32 am
First. Apologies for my atrocious spelling on my last comment! I must have been tired when typing it!
The last shim has worked like a dream, and IK have now been running faultlessly for 5 days so far.
For those interested I used a ball valve washer, cut it to the size of the chip, and stuck 2 bits, one on top of the other, to the top of the chip, replaced the heat shield, and have now put a larger shim of card between the case and the shield, so that the pressure is evenly spread on the chip as recommended.
Once again. Fantastic solution - thanks a lot for posting it.
Keep trying and it works.
July 12th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Thanks much. Found your posting in http://www.applefritter.com/node/10193 from nearly a year ago and followed it without much hope. The above article harped about the gpu, so I was a little skeptical after fooling fruitlessly.
Your fix, however, worked the very first time with only finger-clamping pressure (the g4 being still dissassembled, with the top & bottom of the logic board exposed.
A modified stereo component seems to have completed the cure. Thanks very much for finding & sharing your fix.
keyword for google searchers to find you:
ibook g4 freezes locks locked “logic board”
July 13th, 2007 at 12:25 am
I’m having a similar problem with my G4, but pressing down on the left palm rest doesn’t help, so does that mean a shim wouldn’t work?
Thanks.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
I’ve got an iBook G4 1.33Ghz; I got it apart but can’t find the chip. Does anyone have closer-up photos or some indication of the markings on the chip? (Or, if you’ve got a 1.33 and you’ve found it, that’d be great!). Thanks!
July 17th, 2007 at 3:31 am
Sorry guys … my laptop was bought August 2005 not 2004… please forgive the mistake.
July 17th, 2007 at 10:53 am
First, hi to all the readers of this page.
I’m experiencing a strange problem with my IbookG4. Actually it seems to work ONLY if skewed of about 30° :/
As I turn it on, the fan whirs loudly for about a second, then I get grey screen…if a skew the ibook, it boots!! And that’s the same while I’m working with it…if I put horizontal it freezes until I move it again…
Before trying to fix the problem as explained here, I’d like to know if u think this could be the same chip-trouble or could be anything else!
Thank u
L.
July 18th, 2007 at 3:17 am
hi
My girlfriend’s ibook has suffered a similar problem recently.
I’m not familiar with soldering, nor am I keen on taking apart an ibook to fix a problem that essentially stemmed from Apple.
I’m upset after reading what the Apple representative told you. It is a shame that they should behave so irresponsibly.
Another friend’s ibook is on the verge of death as well, it is currently exhibiting garbled video. Hardly a coincidence.
I hope everyone with a faulty ibook leaves a comment here as well as sign the online petition, so that Apple will admit to its ibook’s rotten problem.
http://www.petitiononline.com/ibookg4/petition.html
And then maybe everyone here will get a free macbook after that…
July 18th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
I used this repair on a 800mhz G3 iBook. I stacked small pieces of cut sheet metal, and applied them to the heat shield using aluminum tape. The repair lasted about two months.
The problem really isn’t a logic board issue, but a poorly designed case issue. The case is not sturdy enough to prevent the logic board from flexing. If you perform this hack, you will probably have better longevity if you use the iBook as a desktop computer. Otherwise, the case will continue to flex, and the shims will likely fail.
I will say that about a month ago I convinced Apple to repair the logic board again at no cost to me. I bought this computer in 2001, so I was happy Apple did this. I suspect people who bought their iBooks more recently could have the same results provided 1) they are the original owners, 2) have experienced at least one other failure, 3) are polite, 4) deal with customer relations, not customer service, and 5) come up with a convincing argument why Apple should help you (e.g. I love Apple products, have owned many, am generally happy with Apple products, recommend them to everybody I know, but I am upset with this computer because it has suffered the same problem repeatedly).
July 19th, 2007 at 12:17 am
OMG I LOVE YOU! My laptop hasnt been workin since feb. and its working again thanks to you!
July 20th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
I’ve got this problem and have had some success with shims, but can’t figure out exactly which chip is the solution on a 1.33Ghz model, which looks different from the photos. Anyone had luck with a 1.33Ghz and able to point me toward the correct chip? Thanks!
July 21st, 2007 at 9:50 am
my iBook g4 has logic board failure as well, as much as i like to try this fix out, i cant seem to figure out which part it is. i own a twelve inch iBook 1.33GHz.. can anyone help me figure out what to to with it?
July 24th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Hi,
I have to agree with everyone else…that posting your individual experiences gives me hope. My g4 blacked out and after a reboot I also experienced the ongoing fan. I didn’t feel comfortable with allowing the fan to run all night so I decided to remove the battery. I let it sit w/o the battery for about an hour and was able to use it for 20-30 more minutes before it gave out. I have read through 75% of this page and I now feel confident enough to crack mine open. Before I do, I just wanted to add that my g4 blacked out, followed by a white out, then red, green followed by blue.
Does this sound like the same problem?
July 25th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
If you have a 1.33GHz machine the chip is located slightly further away and is marked ISL6225. It is a voltage regulator chip. For the technically minded, Pin 28 will measure around 1.8V if you have this fault and around 5V if the fault is something else. If you have a 1.33GHz model and you measure 5V on pin 28, the problem may be caused by the integrated Airport bluetooth module. For some reason a faulty integrated airport/bluetooth module also causes the ibook to boot into Open Firmware. Hope this helps.
July 28th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Your solution worked for me. It starts every time now. Thanks for your helpful solution.
July 30th, 2007 at 6:10 am
this fixed the issue!! Apple need to wake up address this and not try to hide it. The danes have proved it to be a design flaw, so I say good luck in court Apple!!
July 31st, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Keith, you seem to be mistaken here. The ISL6225 is made to run with a 5V power supply on pin 28, not 1.8V. It seems to be the same chip as on the 1.42GHz machine.
I have the same black screen, fan comes on high symptoms. On my 1.42GHz ibook, neither finger pressure on the chip (U28, I believe) nor reflowing the solder provided a solution. I also tried finger pressure on a variety of other chips on the back side of the board to determine if any pins were loose, but to no avail.
I believe that this is an unrelated problem and I’m sending it back to Apple for the $300 logic board repair. The ibook is 3 years old and for a circuit board of this complexity, I actually find it amazing that they can make it last this long.
August 1st, 2007 at 1:59 am
Well, I tried this fix about six months ago after my ibook G4 800mhz sitting in the closet for about 6 months before that. The fix worked like a charm, so I gave the laptop to my mom (I got a powerbook as a replacement). I used one of those big white art erasers (the one with the blue wrapper) and cut it down slightly. My mom was so happy to have a laptop, until a few weeks ago when the same symptoms came back. Oddly enough, every time she booted the fans would go for a few seconds then it would boot normally (this was after the eraser was put in). Of course I got extremely nervous every time this happened, but it ended up booting normally.
I would suggest this fix for anyone who is looking for a solution to get them through a short period of time comfortably until the purchase of another computer. I don’t think this is a permanent solution.
I think it is unbelievable that Apple has let all of the G4 problems slide…I don’t see why we should have to suffer with dying or dead iBooks when it was clearly their problem in the first place.
It’s funny because the ibook G4 that I have was a free exchange for a previous ibook G3 that had 6 logic board replacements. 6! I thought I was getting the better end of the deal when they gave me a brand new ibook g4 (a definite upgrade!!!), however now I know the G4s are plagued with the same types of problems the G3s had.
Sigh. I still love Apple, but it makes you wonder why they just didn’t recall every ibook and send reliable replacements. It would certainly have made a lot of Apple customers happy.
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:28 pm
I ordered a very cheap iBook on eBay knowing it had this problem, with this solution in place. Unfortunately shipping may have moved the shim, or made it less effective. I added more, it worked for an hour then crashed, and then began to crash every few minutes.
But, I then added a shim between the battery and the iBook. I think it helps balance the weight out or something, because it seems to be working.. 30 minutes no crash yet.. *crosses fingers*
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:45 am
Corey, You Rock! I cut up a piece of a plastic wire ties and placed it to put pressure on the logic board. Works great! Thank You! Thank You! BTW it was an ibook G4.
August 3rd, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Hello. I did the steps after a year of not touching my “broken” g4. I got the screen to finally work, however, when I turn it on there is a blue screen with a folder in the center which flashes from the “apple face” to a question mark…does anyone know what this means?
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Fixed my dead iBook 14″ by reflowing the solder on pins 1 and 28. They had a joint fault similar to the microscopic photos shown on the Dutch site. Thanks to your page for leading me to the problem chip. I had given the laptop up for dead and gotten myself a new MacBook. Now my wife uses the iBook almost every day.
To Tonya: that is the problem I had. One morning at work the iBook just didn’t wake up. Power cycling it just resulted in full speed fan with the screen very dimly cycling through black, white, red, green, blue.
August 3rd, 2007 at 11:34 pm
From a poor student - thankyou.
After several attempts to get enough pressure the machine is working again. All Apple could do was suggest we spent $1400 to fix it. Your solution was much more fitting to a student.
Thanks again
August 5th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
nice worked for me many tnx from sweden
August 5th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Just “fixed” my iBook G4 12″ 1GHz with this page. When I pressed the HD, the darned thing booted up.
Sounds like a class action to me.
August 7th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Another successful story with a ibook g4 800mhz. One day of uptime, I wish at least the same as you.
August 8th, 2007 at 12:57 am
I have an Ibook G4 12″ with thesame problems. I’m still using a c clamp, but with less and less success. it seems to work better when I take out the battery and run on ac. Why is that? and is there another way to repair without opening the case? I don’t want anything to stand in the way of a replacement WHEN the class action lawsuit happens,but I don’t want to pay for it with a repeated motion injury.
August 10th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Thanks for posting this. My friend is going to try it on my iBook (12 inch Fall 04). There is still hope that my iBook will live again!
August 12th, 2007 at 6:25 am
Paul, yes you are correct the ISL6225 voltage regulator chip does run off 5V but if you measure the voltage directly on pin 28 you will measure around 1.8V if you have the fault identified by Corey Arnold. It should be 5V but due to the fracture it measures 1.8V Coincidentally, if the ibook boots okay, you will measure 1.8V on pins 15&16 which indicates power good and is normal. When pin 28 is fractured pins 15 & 16 measure 0V resulting in a power bad signal and the ibook hangs.What I was really saying in my first post is that if you can measure 5V on pin 28, then you probably don’t have the fracture fault. Best way to resolder pin 28 is scrape away some of the green laquer off the track next to the pin, use a flux pen and then apply solder to the track.That way, the solder will run up to the pin without the danger of shorting to pin 27. Thanks Corey!
August 12th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
IT WORKED! My beautiful ibook is alive again. We used some random piece of thing that is used in electrical repairs. It only took two tries to get it right. I’m treating it like it is a precious stone and backing everything up that I hadn’t had a chance to do before it tried to die on me.
August 12th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Great News! I used a rubber footing from an ikea bathroom cupboard and placed it exactly center on the chip. My ibook G4 is running like it should again! Thanks for the insight.
To ANYONE with these same issues I suggest trying this and to use the rubber footing like you see in the photos. THANKS AGAIN FOR FIGURING THIS OUT!
August 14th, 2007 at 12:30 am
Thanks a lot for your page; I attempted the repair on a colleague’s ibook yesteday and it has been working for several hours without problem. I used some paperboard to compress the faulty component. The iBook used to start up with blank screen and fan running at full speed but worked normally when I pressed hard with my hand on the left side of the case (near the trackpad). As soon as I released pressure, the computer would freeze and the screen shut off… hopefully the problem is completely solved now.
August 14th, 2007 at 7:20 am
Regarding the picture above of the “little sticky rubber feet”:
Is there a name brand and model for those? Are these the same as glue dots?
My mac stopped working, with the symptoms described in this article, so I’d like to try this fix (no warranty). However, I’d like some precise recommendations as to the shim (manufacturer, part numbers, etc).
August 14th, 2007 at 10:20 am
I opened up the G4 computer and used a button that I cut in half. I glued it down with a glue dot and the computer now starts.
Now, however, I get a question mark box. The G4 will not boot up, but at least it gets that far. Does this mean I need to reinstall the operating system? I bought the G4 used and the person I bought it from did not include the installation disks. I emailed her to see if she has them.
But if she does not, is a complete reinstall needed?
I expected much better out of Mac’s than this. This is my first Mac and it broke down within 2 months (the person I bought it from had it for 18 months). Once my desktop PC breaks down, I had planned on switching to Mac, but I doubt I will now. I am waiting for the operating system to come out for pc’s
Any advice or help is appreciated.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Just answering Richard. August 3rd,
You have probably dislodged the orange Hard Drive connector. Look again at Corey’s instructions.
Open it up again and make sure it’s connected. You should be fine then.
It’s just the system being unable to find the drive to mount.
August 15th, 2007 at 1:02 am
Hi!
Thanks a lot for this hint!
Although I fixed the logic board permanently by soldering the two pins that had bad soldering!
Reaad all about it here:
http://www.forbrug.dk/fileadmin/Filer/PDF/ENGF959-orig.pdf
It requires at least a 4x microscope and a very fine soldering iron.
Don’ t do this if your not sure of what your doing or don’t have the right gear!
August 15th, 2007 at 5:23 am
Thanks. I recoverd my i book from the dead,¨
I used furniture pads worked fine.
August 17th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
First shim has now failed. Tried second, larger shim and it worked for about a week. Now I’m going to ship it off to First Phase Technologies for a reflow.
August 18th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
This also worked for me. Thanks, I will be going to work tomorrow to do some soldering..
August 19th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Thank you so much! With your help, a piece of plastic and ten minutes of time, I’ve saved $400 and a THIRD headache due to a faulty logic board. You are my saviour!
August 19th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Wow it worked thanks a lot took a few hrs. At first I was getting the screen with the mac os folder. Kev fromAugust 14th, 2007 helped me fix it when he said “Just answering Richard. August 3rd,You have probably dislodged the orange Hard Drive connector. ” it too me awhile to find where the hard drive’s connector was so this is for people who need to fix the folder after they have done the steps listed by Cory.
1. The hard drive cord is an orange cord that has yellow tape over it.
2. It is located on the North Left on the motherboard or directly in the opposite direction of the fan, on the left.
3. You will see the yellow tape, take it off.
4. Push the black head back into the socket
*When you put the aluminum hood back on make sure it does not disconnect the hard drive chord again. Anyways hope this helped. Thanks again Cory you’re a genius.
August 20th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I can’t seem to find the ATI graphics card on my G4 1.4 mghz iBook. It sure isnt the chip in the picture above. Has anybody tried First Phase Technologies on Ebay or the blowtorch method? Any success??
August 21st, 2007 at 11:10 am
Hey all,
I’ve been meaning to post that I had an EE buddy of mine re-flow the solder on one of my logic boards. It worked for a while, but then it broke again. Maybe he did a bad job, but it also could be that the case allows the logic board to flex, which breaks the solder. Can someone comment on the permanence of their solder fix?
Thanks!
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:37 am
Hye!
Ahrg! My iBook G4 14′ 1GHz from october 2004 failed with the logic board symptoms described everywhere after 30 months of attentive utilization!
I signed the online petition and hope that apple will recognize their faulty.
I am a mac user since my childhood. But presently very disappointed
August 24th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Apparently this issue led to settlements in Denmark…
http://www.forbrug.dk/presse/nyheder/pressekit/ibookg4/ibook-g4-english/
http://www.forbrug.dk/presse/nyheder/pressekit/ibookg4/lab-report/
Just had this happen on our iBook G4 1.2Ghz this morning. Going to try this fix over the weekend.
Apple should be forced to follow in Microsoft’s footsteps in how they’ve handled their X360 issues. This should not be acceptable. Class Action suit indeed.
Thanks for your post!
August 26th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Thank you! We were profoundly disappointed with Apple’s response to our logic board failure, and the estimates for a repair. We didn’t attempt a solder, but the shim seems to be working fine. So far so good…it started right up.
August 26th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
How do I determine that it is in fact the logic board that is the problem and not the hard drive?
August 27th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Hi guys.
Here’s my history:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=3246705#3246705
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=3261857#3261857
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=3348601#3348601
My iBook worked all right for almost 2 months before it started to crash again. The sympthoms were the same, not as frequent as before but often enough to make it impossible for me to use it.
The iBook has laid on the shelf since that when I took it apart yesterday for a closer look again.
I checked the resoldered pins and found that pin 28 (Vcc) of the ISL6225CA chip moved when I poked it with the probe of my multimeter. It was not attached to the solder point at all! This explains why adding pressure on the chip fixes it.
My soldering iron was not powerful enough to resolder this pin because of the large copper area this voltage supply pin should be connected to, so I had instead to solder a thin lead between this pin and a resistor connected to the same copper area.
This was a _real_ fault on the logic board. I don’t expect problems anymore. Keep your fingers crossed.
More than 2500 iBook owners have signed the petition (http://www.petitiononline.com/ibookg4/petition.html) since I put my name there last year and Apple has not reacted in any way. Amazing.
Regards Sixten
August 28th, 2007 at 4:32 am
Hi to all,
I am jut preparing to open my Powerbook G4. It has same symptoms as most of above. It has loud fan, black screen, don’t startup at all…
Just want to ask, is the same chip for PowerBook G4 like for iBook
P.S. Many thanks for giving me hope that this will work!
August 29th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
I add my thanks to this long list.
My iBook G4 (933MHz) has been running for a couple of hours now, after I added a 1.5 mm plastic shim. This probably isn’t quite thick enough, as the system will still froze (after 20 minutes though, rather than 0.3 minutes before) when I first booted up because I was using it on my lap.
I thought I would mention that the initial symptoms on my machine were slightly different from the base case. I believe that my problems started after the iBook fell from a table. After that, it could only be used on a flat, immobile surface. Otherwise, the screen would simply freeze, the harddrive would make a couple of last sounds, and it would be time for a reboot.
This situation gradually deteriorated to the point that I could rarely get past the login, even on the most stable of tables. I do remember hearing the “fan of death” a few times, but definitely not all the time. Nevertheless, the shim seems to have at least temporarily fixed this. I may try to have the chip soldered, if I can find somebody to do it for me.
So there is my story. Thanks again!
August 31st, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Dude, you are a flippin’ genius! I am eternally grateful for your discovery and your awesome explanation and pictures. My ibook was gonna cost $700 to fix the logic board, but I did this instead and it’s working like new! Thank you thank you!
September 2nd, 2007 at 12:19 am
Hi, Corey:
My wife’s laptop ‘died’ yesterday, with all the symptoms (fan spinning wildly, black screen, wouldn’t boot). After hours of looking around, found your site, got hold of a pencil with an eraser; cut the eraser and placed it on the chip, and voila!, was able to boot into target mode and make an emergency backup.
The machine has been up for four hours now, and most importantly, the info has been transferred securely.
Kudos and thanks.
September 2nd, 2007 at 12:20 am
BTW, posted a link to your site at the following thread @Apple:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5243546#5243546
September 3rd, 2007 at 4:15 pm
I have two iBook G4’s - the 12″ runs at 1.0 GHz and the 14″ runs at 933 MHz. Both would freeze up. The 14″ suffered from really distorted video. If you visualize splotches of melting plastic radiating from a few points and melting downwards with darkness sloooooowly trailing from the top, that’s the image I saw when I powered up the 14″ iBook.
I used the rubber feet shims pictured in this blog. Both produced marginal results. I was able to get a reliably working pair of iBooks if I left them alone. Once I moved them , the problems came back. Even that distorted video came back on the 14″ iBook.
I then used a biggger shim. I kept the rubber feet, but I put additional rubber pieces a few millimeters thick on top of the existing rubber feet with double-sided tape. These rubber pieces once looked like the characters from a game called Loco Roco. They were handed out by the Sony rep at a toy store.
So far, the 14″ iBook works well, even when moved around. I’m still getting frozen video once in a while on the 12″, especially if I carry the iBook with one hand clamped on the GPU area. I’m considering an even bigger shim, but fear that the bottom shield will warp too much to re-assemble.
September 3rd, 2007 at 5:42 pm
This worked for me. You have NO IDEA how grateful I am! It’s now September, and my computer went out back in January. Miracle! You are the greatest. Really.
September 3rd, 2007 at 6:13 pm
hey, thanks for your site, hasn’t totally solved issues on ibook g4 yet but on the right track for me. Sent a little loot paypal for your efforts.
September 4th, 2007 at 10:56 am
I posted a comment on 25th June stating that my iBook worked for 10 minutes at a time before freezing up. Well even better news, I put a slightly bigger shim on the chip and voila from the 25th June up until this day my iBook is working a treat! COREY, YOU DA MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 4th, 2007 at 10:57 am
By the way Corey did I forget to tell you, YOU DA MAN!
September 5th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Hi,
Ok I have a question, has anyone heard of this problem on a MacBook Pro. I just bought a refurbished one in June with the works. Then about a month ago(only a month of using it) I tried to turn it on and it just keep running and had the gray screen. I didn’t buy the applecare and the closest Apple store is over 100 miles away So i called them up and well none of them seemed to have ever heard of my problem and just kept saying it was a software issue(something they don’t cover) and to just back up my stuff and reinstall.
Well I get home and hook it up to my iMac with a firewire cable and it can’t even find it. After a week of frustration being told a dozen different ways to try and save my stuff ( wasn’t going to reinstall if I could save my work) nothing worked so I tried the reinstall and it couldn’t even find the disk.
So with about the 20th call to Apple (me still being understanding) They tell me i’m going to either have to take it to a place that works on Mac or mail it back to them at my own cost (I don’t think so)
So they have had it since Aug. 13 today I finally call wondering when they are going to let me know when they will get in some part they have been waiting for(I found out today it was the logic board) Since Aug. 15.
Does anyone know if they replace only the logic board will that erase everything I had on there???
September 6th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Do you think that simply touching the solder gun to it might get it to work? Assuming I make sure that the solder doesn’t run into adjecent connectors ofcourse.
September 8th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Did the re-solder + piece of cut eraser… I actually just did all the pins. Overkill perhaps, but I didn’t feel like reopening it later and I figured more than one pin could the the problem. It’s been 2 hours, and so far so good.
September 9th, 2007 at 3:28 am
Many thanks, man! My Ibook kept crashing over and over until I tried your fix…
The assistence said to me I should throw it away!
Just one question: how permanent is this fix? Should I find someone that can soldier it or can I leave it as it is now?
September 9th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
What I want to know is what is the status of the complaints against apple… have they acknowledged the problem at all anywhere? if the Danish are successful, couldn’t everyone else begin class action suits? Are any G4 users lawyers? Has anyone taken this story to the media? How else can we apply pressure?
By the way, I did the fix about 10 or 11 months ago - had it soldered by a electronics guy. It worked beautifully until today, when suddenly, the screen blipped a few lines and went black, although sounds indicated it had started up. Tried the pressure on left side of track pad and it started up with the screen. So a new fix is required.
September 9th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Thanks for posting this fix! My computer failed to boot and external pressure worked intermittently. Used shim approximately the thickness of two stacked dimes and computer has been working for days without crashing. Case bottom has slight buldge but rubber feet on bottom of computer still ensure it lays flat. Thanks again!
September 11th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
according to the report of the danish consumer agency :
http://www.forbrug.dk/presse/nyheder/pressekit/ibookg4/statement-of-claim-40317-1637-english/
which shows the electron microscopic proofs of the solder deterioration..
e.g. http://www.forbrug.dk/fileadmin/Filer/Pressefoto/lodn3.jpg
the chip in question is not the GPU itself, but a power regulator ISL 6225CA ( regulating also the GPU power)
Now this chip should NOT be soldered lead free if I understand the Datasheet right.
Experts please comment..
September 12th, 2007 at 1:01 am
I just use your method and a Lego brick to let my iBook G4 come alive!
http://swf.com.tw/?p=109
Thank you very much!
jeffrey
September 13th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
So, has anybody actually called apple regarding this issue? I kind of want to call them to see what they would say, but I’m pretty sure they’re just going to tell me that my iBook is out of warrenty and there’s nothing that they can do about it. I would have gotten the Apple Care thingie, but because I live in Florida, I couldn’t because of the insurance laws and crap.
Anywho, I guess I might try this, I was looking into buying another logic board, or there is another iBook for sale at the pawn shop for 350…
September 13th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I think it’s pretty terrible that so many people are told it’s not a known problem, in light of this:
http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/faq/
My extended warranty ended only a few weeks before this problem happened.
I have to say I used that thing every day under all sorts of conditions. It was a workhorse … I even wrote my Ph.D. thesis on it! However, it’s pretty bad when the thing dies with a logic board problem three weeks after the extended warranty ends… oh and the logic board replacement program from Apple is ending too!
In any case thanks for this site because I was able to get it working long enough to boot it into target disk mode (hold T on boot) and plug in a firewire cable, plug the other end into my Mac Mini and transfer off my data.
I opened up the case and tried pushing on things but I’ve had only limited success with this. One note: when I opened up the case the hard drive cable stuck to the metal shield and wouldn’t let go … so watch out for that. Also, the only time I was able to get it to boot with the case off was when I was holding down where the hard drive cable goes into the logic board … but I don’t know if that was coincidence or not.
Anyway I’m worried that this thing is toast since I can’t boot it while applying pressure to the GPU any more but I am greatful that I was able to get my data off!!!!
September 13th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
[quote]
I just use your method and a Lego brick to let my iBook G4 come alive!
http://swf.com.tw/?p=109
[/quote]
I couldn’t read that page but the video with the fire at the bottom is hilarious!
Can someone please translate what he said about using the fire to fix this problem?
September 16th, 2007 at 5:52 am
Hi,
I have a 12′’ ibook G4 1.33ghz(mid 2005). Facing the same problem: power on with no screen display. Tried using the shim method to exert pressure on the spoilt chip but no result.
Can anyone give me some advice on this please?
Thanks!
September 17th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Thanks for the great website. As far as legal action goes I have been looking into a CAL (class action suit) but seem to think there may be people already on top of it.
Regardless I would recommend filing a letter of grevience with Apple Corp. and carbon copying your local newspaper and the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle (largest media paper closest to Apple corp.) I will do the same as soon as I have time.
Apple is not about to do a recall on this unit (mine a G4 1.33mHz) due to the fact that they prolly lost their shirts on the last one (G3 iBook) and its a publicly owned company with a very tight projection for its quarters.
I am so upset over this issue. I am typing away at my iBook clamped down with a C clamp until I can make the time to attempt this repair. I would prefer Apple to offer me a free repair in the meantime though as I am unsure that the offending chip with the cold solder joints is in the same position on my unit as in this website. $300 for a defect! Why am I responsible for a mistake Apple made? By paying that I am subsidizing all of the frequent repairs they have/are done/doing for the 1 year warranty and the extended warranty on this and similar units. Customer relations was not happy when I tried to argue that point.
Please everyone raise a rucus, send it in writing, hoard the Apple discussion boards with replies to people in this situation and eventually these corporate apes who could care less about the .0001% of us demanding a recall because it wont play a role in their annual sales projections will cough up the heart to take care of this issue once again…
September 17th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I had black screen, flashing colors: red, green, yellow, white, grey. Eventually it would boot. On three occasions (not all) the fan would run fast. Research brought me here. Tried the shim, used a thin strip of aluminum folded back on itself 3 times, about 1mm thick. First boot was still black but second and it came up. Too early to tell if it’s “mostly” fixed. iBook G4 1.33Ghz 2 years old. I’ve had iBooks since they first came out (clamshells) and every iteration there after. Have had 3 logic boards die but also my brother’s Wallstreet PB, and my Dad’s iBook too. But, I’ve also had COUNTLESS hours of computing satisifaction, like, 2-3 hours a day average for years on end, so, while I find the junky logic board design to be dissapointing and annoying (and expensive), in the grand scheme of things, I still love my Macs.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Drat! My iBook G4 12″ (1.0 GHz) still gets temperamental. The biggest shim I tried was two of those rubber feet *AND* several 3/4 inch squares cut up from business cards taped together with double-sided tape.
I’d tolerate the occasional freezeup if I could consistently replicate the behavior. The laptop still freezes up even when sitting still with minimal pressure on the palm rests.
I can’t find anything on reflowing the solder on the offending part listed here. I’ve only found videos and directions on reflowing the BGA for an iBook G3.
I now want to shim the GPU on my iBook G4. Would I need to extract the entire logic board to do so? I’ve only gone so far as to remove the bottom shielding as indicated in this set of directions. Now the case won’t close on the ports side, boo hoo hoo. I confess, I can’t figure out which chip’s the GPU, but only because I haven’t really seen the chips. I’ve only seen their undersides.
Thanks for reading!
September 19th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
so far so good 2.5 hours in with a pencil eraser!
I tried yesterday with a smaller shim… it improved my startups, but didn’t last. If I jarred the machine at all it would go dead.
So today I took out a whole eraser from a #2 pencil, laid it sideways (pretty much that same size as the chip!) and crossed my fingers. It has stayed on ever since, enduring a car ride in my backpack and some “test” smacks to the infected area.
I am happy not to be spending 1500 dollars on a MacBook today! (someday, though!)
Thanks man!
September 20th, 2007 at 10:35 am
Another update. It ran all morning for several hours, then went black. Took forever to get booted up again, ran for a few minutes then went black. During boot attempts experienced flashing colors, black with fan and such. Logic board no doubt, different chip, perhaps. This was with no shims. Shim didn’t seem to help me yet. Oh well. This iBook only made it two years. I love the Mac OS but can’t afford to replace hardware at this rate (third logic board failure in three iBooks) Might have to go over to the Dark Side and get a Dell or HP or something. FWIW I am very gentle on my machines. They travel a lot but always in my care and not abused. Maybe the MacBooks are better (but I said that when I bought a G4, hoped they’d be better then the G3s).
September 21st, 2007 at 7:48 pm
I just did the shimming trick with a little rubber foot from Radio Shack (12 of them for $2.09 — not bad). So far, I’ve gotten a couple of hours of active (laptop) use out of it and all looks to be well.
For the two days between the time it failed and I had time to fix it, I kept it running with a carpenters spring clamp — one of these:
http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/282932/2/istockphoto_282932_spring_clamp.jpg
It clamped hard enough that the mouse button was stuck down, but an external mouse proved a suitable workaround. The clamp preserved some portability, but I did have to be careful not to bump it too hard or the machine would predictably lock up.
Thanks for figuring this out and posting such good instructions!
September 22nd, 2007 at 2:44 pm
I added one LRF last night and got several hours of use, but the machine locked up this morning and showed the typical symptoms on restart. The clamp restored it to working order.
I pulled the lower case again, but not the heat shield this time. I stuck a second foot onto the heat shield on top of the place where I could feel the first one underneath and replaced the case. There is a bit of a bulge in the case now (by about the thickness of one of the feet) — so the case is actually applying some pressure now.
The machine is working now and if I don’t post again, the fix has worked.
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Thanks for this page. This just started happening on my gf’s 5 month apple g4 (1ghz) that we bought used from a 3rd party.
The shim method worked but took several tries as the initial shims weren’t thick enough. I also used a rubber foot of some kind. And it has to be thick - around 4mm.
From the referenced link, it seems pin 1 and 28 are the problem on the chip. And because of their outer position, the soldering joints are easy to fix with a regular iron having a simple conical tip. Here is summary how to reflow the solder for both pins:
Use a needle to put a tiny amount of liquid rosin on the pin (this will alow for a better heat transfer). Tin the soldering tip of the iron. Now just hold iron to the pin for a few seconds (do not add solder) until the solder liquifies. Remove the iron.
You will now have a nice solder joint.
September 24th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
My wife’s old ibook just bit the dust. It froze while within the OS, upon reboot was a pure black screen. We did get it to cycle through the red-green-blue color pattern once, but now it only stays blank. I don’t hear any fans running, the only way I know it’s on is the “dong” on boot and the caps lock illumination.
Would these symptoms match the fix oulined here? She has a mac book pro, but there is still valuable stuff on this box.
Thanks!
September 25th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
First off, the problem: 1.2GHz 12″ iBook G4, exhibiting the “fan of death”
(looks like it’s not limited to the older G4 or G3)
I read through, and looked at the photograph of the suspect chip from your disassembly guide (1st thanks), and then worked out where that was to be able to place the C-clamp (2nd thanks)
From having a machine that wouldn’t even chime, I have now copied around 20 Gig off it (using firewire target disk mode) onto a spare Hard disk.
I’m now at the re-installing the system stage (it glitched while part way through an install, leaving it unbootable)
Others have said it, and I’ll add to it. You’re The Man!
:-)
(may even summon up the courage to make the internal fix)
September 26th, 2007 at 5:27 am
3 words. Thanks a lot!
Simple cheap and it works. My model G3 128+128MB 40GB IInd series.
To tell you the truth, screen blinking occasionally and freeze the system. But at least it can be switch on, save important datas, and play with it until totally break down.
Try to keep it until 10.5 launch and buy a new pro.
September 27th, 2007 at 1:39 am
update:
First try was not effective, so i did it again.
In this turn I use a MicroSD card case (transparent, soft plastic, with edge). Cut down the half, and then customised it to shape I need to fit on logic board, avoid any damage parts close to it.
Now its better then the previous polystyrene version. It provide precision and hard enough pressure.
September 27th, 2007 at 8:53 am
I just called apple for the second time on this problem. I managed to get them to fix it in january of this year, and it worked fine for the past 9 months. Now it’s dead again and the won’t budge. I am worried also about “repairing” it myself because I don’t want to invalidate my chance to be part of any lawsuit. What to do…what to do…?
September 27th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
I tried your shim idea. Even made sure I got the same mm size shown in your pictures. I had one quick burst of startup tone and than nothing. Just the full blast fan. All day I have been trying it over and over. Checking with my loupe and trying different shims but nothing. I am very appreciative of the site but disappointed it didn’t work for me.
The offending iBook is a G4 1.2 ghz 14.1
P.S. How do you get a CD out of the slot drive when the iBook won’t boot? I was hoping it had a manual eject like my old slot load imac, but nothing.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I have had my logic board fail before (about 9 months ago), and I sent it to Mac to fix, and its been working great…until last night. I got the flashing red, green, blue, white, striped screen, so I already knew the problem (from my previous logic board problem). I researched a fix other than an Apple fix, and came upon this thread…I just finished “shimming” the chip and started up and its been working for about 20 min. *crosses fingers*. Thanks for the help; looks like you might have saved me $300! For everyone else: I used the pencil-eraser (cut in half lengthways & duct-taped to under the black band) to shim my 14″ iBook G4 (1.33 Ghz, 512 ddr sram), so hopefully this can give hope to others…Thanks Again Corey!
September 28th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
OMG, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I gave my girlfriend my relatively new iBook G4, at the time it was near new, and a few weeks after she had it boom, nothing. The computer appeared to of been dropped and had been sitting in a drawer at her house for the last 6 months or more. I recently acquired another G4 iBook with a dead HD and in terrible physical condition. After swapping out the logic board and some other componants with hers, to make it in better physical shape/appearance, all seemed to be fine. I suffered a small cpu speed decrease which wasn’t a biggy but when I ran a system update the whole thing came crashing down. I had heard that other computer I recieved had a bad logic board but I had my suspisions. Anyways I thought I had two iBooks and not a one working until I just happened to stumble on this page, I have no idea how when trying to remeber. The fix worked wonders. Temporarily using foam feet off a radio shack project box, used all four, 2x wide and stacked so 2x deep as well to get the necessary pressure. If it fails again I will get a buddy of mine who is a B&O stereo repair man here in town to re-solder for me. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR POST!!! I was well rewarded by my girlfriend and you made me look good. Again thanks!
-Matthew Pare
–
Pare Technologies
Drupal Consulting, Themeing, and Module Development
806.781.8324 | 806.744.3025
www.paretech.com
September 28th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Oops, didn’t see the request for model numbers. Mine was a ‘a1054′ 1.2Ghz, BT, AP, CDRW. Pictures I took during the process, including the logic board swap, can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/paretech/sets/72157602189322404/.
Peace,
Matthew Pare
–
Pare Technologies
Drupal Consulting, Themeing, and Module Development
806.781.8324 | 806.744.3025
www.paretech.com
September 28th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
@ Peter: February 16th, 2007 at 1:36 am
Often when you remove the bottom shield. Here is a pic, http://www.flickr.com/photos/paretech/1453931449/in/set-72157602189322404/, with a note that highlights the connector.
Cheers,
Matthew Pare
–
Pare Technologies
Drupal Consulting, Themeing, and Module Development
806.781.8324 | 806.744.3025
www.paretech.com
September 28th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Magic - cheers buddy. iBook died a few months ago and I’ve been booting off my iPod so this fix is much appreciated. Slight difference for me, it was the big square IC under the HDD that I had to squeeze. This kicked the HDD back into life and allowed me to boot up normally.
September 30th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
My ibook 12″ shows all the classic signs of the problem you describe here; sometimes it works after i hit it, but 9 times out of ten, I get ” the fan of death” and a black screen. I can see vaguely what you mean in this ‘fix’, but since I am an arsehole, and a virgin one at that, can you please explain what you mean by the word “shim” - it looks like bubble wrap to me, but I am sure it isnt.
So can you please tell me what a/the “shim” is, and where i can obtain it from.
also what is the “heat shield” - is it simply the back/bottom of the laptop, undoable with small allen keys?
In short, can you further clarify these relatively clear instructions, so as to clear up any ambiguities for ppl like me, who though arseholes, still paid good money for an ibook 2 yrs ago, and would be kinda pleased if I cld make it, well, work.
At the momeni I am using an old eMac 700Mhz G4 640 MB ram, OSX .2.8. I love Tiger on my dying laptop, and if I cannot get the bastard to work, I suppose I’ll have to buy tiger for this old emac. Help. Simple arse-proof instructions pls
October 1st, 2007 at 2:22 pm
I sure hope this works… i don’t want to shell out the cash the apple store wants to fix this problem.
I know of two log board “failures” and i am sure that there’ve been more.
So, I’m going to walgreens to buy some little sticky pads i guess….
October 4th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
I have a 14 inch I-Book from fall 2003 that has had the logic board go out six times. I just wrote Apple a letter to express my frustrations as they will not fix it anymore now that my apple care is over.
October 4th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Ummmm, iBook died last night. Classic high fan noise and being a pain in the ass in general. Read about the candle trick, but that was for the G3, read about this one. Happened to have all the tools needed for a G3 operation I did a couple years ago. Did the entire thing in about 20 minutes or so. VERY EASY! If you’re new to computers, this should still be easy. There is 12 screws. Use the ifixit manual and you’ll be fine.
thanks a ton! Almost picked up a fresh powerbook after thinking I was screwed. Obviously, gonna start saving for one anyways, but yes, thanks! Will post back in a few weeks with results.
October 5th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Wow! Thank you so, so much. Granted, I’ve had my laptop on for about five minutes, but this after months of it sitting there, broken. Shame on Apple for not attending to this problem. Who cares if we only make up a tiny percentage of iBook sales? Word of mouth goes far beyond the 3,000 plus customers who have signed the petition. My iBook G4 broke one month after the warranty expired - really lovely.
Anyhow thanks a mil for the wonderful website. I’m so happy now
October 5th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Well, that 12″ iBook (1.0 GHz) mentioned on September 3 and 19 is essentially fixed. I got enough nerve up to take the top shield off. I think my 12″ iBook’s problem is the same as Proctor’s. Apparently, the GPU is partially detached on both of our machines.
My shim consisted of two pieces of aluminum cut from a square foot sheet I purchased at Home Depot. I also left the foam in place on top of that offending ATI chip as I spread some Arctic Silver 3 on the two pieces, the foam, and the underside of the heatsink.
The fix could still work with only one of these pieces shimmed inside, but I really didn’t want to take apart that top shield again. I had to press my thumb hard on the heat sink just over that ATI chip to put the last screw on the heat sink in place.
The laptop seems to work as expected, no matter how I hold the laptop. That was an issue before because flexing the logic board seems to aggravate the detachment between the logic board and the GPU.
I would still prefer the culprit to be that smaller IC featured in this blog - at least I would only need to take apart the bottom shield instead of both bottom AND top. Yes, I left the original rubber foot shim on THAT integrated circuit in place.
Wheeeeeee!
October 5th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
I followed the instructions (used a small plastic shirt button) and voila!
Awesome fix! Still VERY dark on Apple for not acknowledging the problem.
We’re all kinda in limbo until they do. Don’t want to pay for a new logicboard and don’t want to buy a new notebook (my third!).
October 6th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Hello, I had the same problem with my ibook g4 14″.
I did the shim procedure on both the chip and the video chip.
But it kept freezing after 5-10 minutes of use…
I noticed that when it got to certain temperature it frozed.
So, what I did is that I installed a program that lets you change the treshold for the fan to go On, so I changed it to have the fan always working…
I got lucky, but this time took longer time before it frozed again.
What I finally did and trust me, this one worked….I set the brightness of the lcd to minimum and BINGO! now it doesnt freeze at all…..
Thanks for your advices and sorry about my english..
David
October 7th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Hey man, it worked fabulously. In fact I’m writing this comment on my iBook right now. I did everything just like you instructed, and viola. Nothing like a $2 solution to a fix a $400 problem…
However, like a previous comment stated, I’m have been frantically backing up everything on to my external hard drive. I really cannot afford to purchase a new macbook, so I’m hoping that this fix will satisfy me for another couple months.
October 7th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Hi there. Tried shimming - seems to work as long as I don’t move the computer too much - otherwise it freezes.
Thanks for the suggestion.
BTW - mine is G3 900 mhz
October 8th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
I tried it and it didnt work for me….:(
October 10th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Thanks for pointing out the problem. I chose to resolder the little smd and bing bang boom, boots every time now. Great info!
October 11th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
my shim works and then doesn’t. I’ve tried a few things and it’ll work and then all of a sudden die. I think I’ll be sending mine in for a reball, $50 plus shipping isn’t too bad. Give that a shot and go from there. Did pick up an older 667mhz TiBook in the meantime.
October 11th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Hi! (i’m swedish, have some indulgence of my poor english)
Must start with telling you how fantastic I think this site is!! Feels like there is some hope left for this world. This is the true democratic use of internet!!
Now to my question:
Does anyone have experience of ibooks loosing power while charging?
I just bought this new (original) battery. It charged up to 60% and now it will not charge again. My iBook is also from the year 2004 and I changed battery because I thought it was “simply” old. But now when the new battery don’t work either, I’m thinking a lot of the “sudden-iBook-death-syndrome”.
What do you think? I have litterally plought through all forums I could think of. Believe me; there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people with the same problem as mine.
Thanks again, for this blog-page
October 11th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
thanks a lot arnold for the nice website and all the other for advices and comments (also nices links there: http://www.powerbook-fr.com/ibook/rubrique9.html or http://www.applefritter.com/node/10193 but the best is definitively here). you computer cracks are really great! last week my g4 1.33ghz died in this strange way. i was already prepared to buy a new one or to try to give it to fix; then i discovered on the net that i wasn’t alone with that problem. it’s a beautiful work for the community, nice philosophy! apple should at least sometimes take a look on the net to see what is going there in order to fix their own shitty quality…. continue like that and tanks again!
October 14th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Well, the C-clamp fix definitely worked on my constantly freezing, 1.2 ghz iBook G4, so I next moved on to purchase a T-8 torx screwdriver, and those clear, rubber feet from Radio Shack. After multiple tries and crashes, I used an extra foot between the case and the aluminium sheild. So far so good, and I am writing this from the iBook. I can’t believe that this is actually working and yes, the chip in question is the notorious ISL6225CA.
You are “indeed the man” Corey, and the entire iBook community owes you a debt of gratittude for this fix. I doubt Apple will ever do anything about this apparent defect. Eventually I will move to a newer iBook or MacBook Pro, but for now, (knock on wood) this unbelievable fix is working. Thanks my man!
October 15th, 2007 at 12:52 am
Worked like a charm.
Thanks much.
October 15th, 2007 at 6:45 am
hey, thanks for the article, I have an ibook g4, and until now the only way I could keep it running without crashing was by using G-clamps on the casing of the unit. needless to say, this made it impossible to carry around and was the cause of much embarrassment whenever I needed to use it in class. Now that I know exactly where to apply pressure, I can once again proudly display my little mac and spit on xp machines. thanks again!
October 15th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
i think the petition needs to be amended to include the 1.33 1.2 and other ibooks as it seems to be an issue across the board…apple has got to improve quality control
with the margins they are charging this is rediculous
i could put up with it when their systems were 50 to 100% more than anything else but built so well they never failed..but the latter years has seem quality control diminish tremendously..
i’m mac since 84 mind you…..apple needs to take and get the hint here!!!!!!!!!!!
October 16th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Thankyou so much for this! I had trouble finding the chip as it wasn’t on the same spot as yours, but i think i got it, don’t know thought as sometimes my computer ran for hours without a problem, i spoke with a technician and told me that it was in fact a defect with this model and that they could sort of fix temporarily but that i should think twice about investing in a problem that would most likely resurface with time.
Most of you seem to have had problems with old models of the g4, i got mine last year and i think it was manufactured in 1995, but the problems are pretty much the same, can’t boot up, fan of death (although not everytime i managed to boot), and random shutdowns.
I’m planning to file a formal complaint with a costumers protection office that the government has here in mexico (and surprisingly does help out pretty much in all kinds of consumer related things) i don’t kno how much they’ll be able to help as this is an internatioal problem, bu hey any small victory may help in the long run to force apple to take responsabilty for aproblem that seems to be popping up everywhere. I will keep you posted if this goes anywhere.
oh and as for what model i’m using it’s an ibook g4 14′’ 1.4ghz
.
October 17th, 2007 at 10:49 am
I have a G4 14″ 1.33 that had this chip problem appear. I did the “squeeze it while booting” and it worked great. I considered shimming, but then I thought I would go ahead and have the logic board superior reballed. That didn’t work. One month and counting, still no logic board and no replies from company. So my question is about an upgrade. If I find a 1.42 ghz logic board for a 14″ iBook will it fit in my original 1.33 ghz ibook?
October 17th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
ok, so i did the fix… however, now the question mark flashes everytime i turn it on… I check all of the connections and it’s still giving me some trouble. any advice?
October 18th, 2007 at 2:02 am
Dear Corey!
Thank you! With your help I revitalized a Ibook G4 12 inch 1000mhz.
October 18th, 2007 at 6:50 am
great, I’m thrilled with the advice my G4 is working again..I had tried contacting apple who had said it was the gpu and that i needed a new logic board..and your great advice has sorted the problem…I put a washer ontop of the gpu and also extra cardboard inbetween the steel cover and plastic housing and bingo it worked..
October 19th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Another update. Got board resoldered at First Phase Tech. Can boot and she runs and doesn’t crash but I’ve got blue screen artifacts all over. So, well, almost fixed. 14″ iBook G4 1.33
http://homepage.mac.com/jvandyke/Computer/PhotoAlbum135.html
October 21st, 2007 at 2:20 am
I tried this fix and after a couple of adjustments to the shim, was able to use my iBook G4 for about 5-10 minutes at a time. After a few uses though, it quit booting altogether and now only blows its fan–unless I rest my elbow left of the trackpad to place pressure on the chip. The shim I’ve got is pretty big already and bulges through the plastic case a little. Even when I am willing to sit with my elbow on the computer for a long time, it inevitably crashes after a few minutes and I have to unplug it and pull the battery to stop the screen from flashing colors.
Any further suggestions? or should I just make the shim bigger still? I tried resetting PRAM and PMU. I wouldn’t believe it if my iBook can’t be fixed since so many people seem to have fixed theirs. Thanks for the excellent help though Corey.
October 21st, 2007 at 6:09 am
thank you from japan, also thank you again for my itune database,
seems the same symptom. hope apple’s sincere response.
really. it sounds to fix with bamboo chop stick and plastic card with
that
/takeshi watanabe
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:25 am
Someone gave me an iBook G4 800 MHz 12″ to examine. It exhibited the classic symptoms - loud whirring fan, no video, and no Apple chime upon powerup. Resetting the PRAM and PMU didn’t change its behavior. I couldn’t shut it down with the power button. I had to unplug the AC adapter and yank the battery out.
I put pressure on the affected area with my hand, and the iBook worked as expected. I then administered what I’ll call the left-handed litmus test lift - I lifted the laptop in the air with my left hand grasping that affected area. The video went out and couldn’t be restored. I was able to shut down the iBook with the power button.
I used the rubber foot shim featured here. The iBook passes that left-handed litmus test lift. I’ve installed Tiger and will be running updates shortly.
Woo hoo!
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:10 pm
hi, tried the fix and it worked for a while, now nothing works. Im guessing that the connection came completely loose. I found this http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/faq/ and if your ibook serial number is within the range of UV117XXXXXX to UV342XXXXXX you may be able to get your ibook repaired. I contacted apple and finally got to talk to a person only to be told that my model was not within the range though they did say that they would document the case and if a program opened up for my particular model then they would notify me. My ibook is a 1.33ghz i think. Cant really tell for sure since it wont turn on.
has anyone had any luck getting a repair from apple?
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:11 pm
and does anyone else have the same model with the same problem?
October 23rd, 2007 at 7:17 pm
My latest shim is so big that the iBook actually teeters around when I type. It worked for great for about 10 minutes but now the sucky-ness is back and it won’t stay on for more than 5 minutes at a time, which is basically enough to log in and fix the clock.
I have one last idea:
My shim is a combo of plastic sandwiched between poster-mounting stickies, stuck to the inside of the heat-guard and business cards between the plastic and heat-guard. I noticed in Corey’s photos above that his shim was placed under the black-elastic-wire-holder thing. However, I can’t move the black-elastic thing at all because it is attached to the motherboard.
–Do you have to tear or break the black-elastic thing free from the motherboard so that you can stick the shim under it?
Has anyone made a successful shim without moving the black-elastic wires? and is moving them dangerous/bad for computer?
October 25th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
This fix worked for me. I used the rubber foot on my G4 1.2 GHz 12″ ibook. I accidently unplugged the hard drive cable while popping off the plastic case, but this was easily fixed by plugging it back in.
Rubber feet are probably the best shim, as they do not conduct and are sticky.
Enjoy your fixed ibook.
October 27th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Been shimming my iBook for a few months. Needed bigger shims each time until finally no shim seemed to work. Figuring I had nothing to loose I’ve tried soldering the chip. I have no soldering experience so this was risky. I filed down the tip of my old soldering iron and placed it on each “leg” of the chip for about 20 seconds. (Only later would I read that “leg” 1 and 28 were the bad ones) I’m not sure it has worked, but I am typing this on the ibook, still with logic board exposed, time will tell.
I too have sent a letter to Mr Jobs over at apple. Sadly my 3rd one, venting my frustration at the company. I like the OS and want to like the company but am finding it harder with things like this going on. If another company made a product that ran OS X, Apple would be in trouble.
October 28th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
@Geoff
It seems you are having the same problem that I was, but even worse. You should be able to un-stick the black power cable and re-route it around the shim, just be careful (there are instructions on ifixit). However, it may be that no amount of pressure will bring your ibook back. Maybe you should consider soldering it?
October 29th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Worked for me with identical shim, for a couple of hours. Maybe it got compressed after that but it became more erratic and the problems went from instant death and death while sleeping to trouble booting, and some video issues during boot a few times. I also have this thing where my hard drive, if you listen closely, makes a kind of “light saber” sound whenever I move the ibook (G4, 12″), even if you move it really slowly. As if it can track whenever you move in any direction in space. I found a few mentions of this problem on other web sites but not in conjunction with this problem. This happened at the same time for me, AND very conspicuously after I installed a new battery (an ebay special, maybe that has something to do with it–though running back on the original battery doesn’t seem to help now). Maybe the hard drive sound and the timing of the battery replacement are coincidence, maybe not. Any similar stories? The hard drive thing is something you’ll only hear in a really quiet room, but it’s there all right.
October 29th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Sadly my soldering job failed and my iBook is again a paper weight. Surprisingly I got a reply from Apple in regards to the letter I wrote. They are requesting a phone call with me to discuss my problem -which prompted me to re-read my letter to make sure I didn’t say anything inflammatory
. I have had positive results from Apple in the past about my issues so I’m wondering what the outcome here will be. But to be honest, I don’t expect a fixed computer to part of it, and that’s what I need. I’ll keep you guys posted as to the out come. And if anyone has anything I could tell Apple to help plead this case, post it quickly I’m expecting a call back within a day. Or email it to me here gawlerj AT yahoo.com
October 31st, 2007 at 8:18 am
i might have to try this tonight.. ill check my serial number first and see if i can have apple fix it.. but i dont imagine that will pan out.
three days ago my screen went black when i was using it, then red, then green then blue and kept cycling. when i turn it off and try to reboot, it stays black and the fan comes on. it becomes very difficult to turn off and the whole process repeats itself. occasionally ill get it to work.. i thought it may be a heating problem, but i bought a cooling pad which made no difference.
does this sound like a logic board problem?
i brought it to a mac store and to best buy this morning, they both said it sounded like it.. but i didnt want to shell out that much money to run a diagnostic.
the tech at best buy said that the casing is extremely difficult to open and get back together.
so if im going to open it up and try the shim.. how do i get it going?
November 1st, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Many thanks for your web site and information.
Have fitted the shim and my G4 14″ 933Mhz is now working again.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Meh, a few calls back and forth have passed. The “Relations guy” has told me he’ll pass my issue off to some other technicians (I can’t recall what he called them right now). In short I think this is the brush off from Apple. He made sure I understood my computer was over two years old and had no apple care and no reported issues prior to this, etc etc.
At first I thought there might be some hope, but the more I spoke the more I could hear in the back ground the other “relations people” in the call center this guy was working in, so clearing there was not much this guy could do other than ask and few questions and provide some canned answers.
I hope I am wrong.
Thanks for the website though, you got me through a few more months.
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Oct 2007
iBook G4 (1.07 Ghz) wouldn’t boot.
Screen stayed black and fan raced.
When pressure was applied to the left of the trackpad it would boot and work just fine
Haven’t found a shim that does the job consistently yet (Wonder if my shim is too soft), thinking about soldering.
Just wanted to add another name to the list. I wonder how many we are.
I didn’t sign the petition ( http://www.petitiononline.com/ibookg4/petition.html ), because it doesn’t include my model. I believe the petition is too narrow. More models should be included.
Action needs to be taken. Is there anyone spearheading this?
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:34 pm
I needed a new computer but didn’t have the $$$$ to buy an expensive new one. I lurked on ebay for a year. I finally saw an ibook G3 12″ 900 MHz listed on ebay with a good description of what was wrong with it for an amount of money I could afford. I searched the forums etc and after reading this set of posts decided to bid and try the shim fix.
I won the auction and installed the shim. Then I carried the ibook back and forth between home and school with no protective case and the shim stared to lose its magic. It would still function if I placed pressure to the left of the trackpad but that got tiring on my becoming arthritic hands. I read Guy Kuo’s posts and decided to try the hot air/heat stripping gun fix rather than the geektechnique candle fix.
I was amazed by the success of the fix. I used the computer for 6 months and no problems. Life was good and I was enjoying my newest mac aquisition. (I started my computing life as a proud original owner of a 128k mac and have been a loyal mac owner since)
Then one night after a marathon (dial up) session on the internet by successive family members (4pm to 2am) the ibook screen flickered again and crashed.
I started cruising the posts again and reading all the various comments on what people have been doing since my repair 6 months ago. I spent a lot of time thinking too, about what caused the logic board failure after 6 months of working well. I decided the issue was heat. I had stopped carrying the ibook everywhere when I read about flex being a problem)
The 6 months the ibook worked, I used it on a cooling mat that had fans powered through a usb cable. It was also made of metal (aluminum?) and did a very good job of acting as a heat sink and dissapating the heat. The temperature difference was very noticable when the ibook was on the mat.
Then my daughter moved to university and took the cooling mat with her. The ibook repair failed shortly thereafter.
I am going to undertake the repair again. This time I will try the solder gun as described in the posts here. Thanks for the idea and info.
In many of the forums people mentioned a connection to heat building up (either because of the ibook being left on for extended periods, or program use that stresses the cpu), and the subsequent failure of the repair. Heat would seem to be the issue in XBox failures as well as some other notebook failures I have read about in my searches of all the posts.
I will also purchase a new cooling mat as I think running the ibook on the mat will prolong the life of the fix.
Those of you who have failing shims, try placing the ibook on a cooling mat and see if things improve.
November 3rd, 2007 at 6:23 am
Pleased to say mine is still working 3 months down the line. It is constantly being moved, and is in use every day.
Invaluable - I couldn’t live without it now. Bought for £90 on ebay, fixed for 18p!
November 4th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Hey was wondering if you could post a photo of the hard drive connector I have put a shim in the computer and managed to get the screen running and no more fan of death but instead i am getting a flashing question mark?
Thanks
November 4th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
So, the shim did loosen up after a while… but now we have it soldered.
Kudos and hats off to Helmut for providing good working soldering instructions! To reiterate and elaborate for those thinking of doing the solder job: I dropped $100 on a proper Hakko ESD-safe iron; don’t even think of soldering this with the standard hobby iron as the pins are teeny tiny and you need real control of the heat you’re using… Solder with care.
As Helmut said, set the iron to around 290-300C with a superfine (around 0.7mm) tip and use no additional solder… a $4 magnifying glass from the local Ace hardware came in handy, attached to my work light… Magnification is Required, do not attempt this without a magnifier, the pins are too small to see clearly without it. Pics on the site make it look way bigger than it is.
Add No Solder! Bridging 2 pins = bricking your book. Be careful.
There’s enough solder there, just get it to flow. No easy job, but a steady hand and a good iron got that iBook back up and running.
November 5th, 2007 at 6:39 am
Tried it out on my ibook, and it has been working for over an hour. Now, will it continue to work? I don´t know.
Here I was thinking about getting an 1800 euro macbook. This fix cost me exactly 4 cents (I shoved 2 two-cent copper coins in there).
November 5th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Well, Apple called me back. As expected it’s not enough of a problem to fix my iBook so far out of warranty. So I’m done. I’ll try re-soldering again. As for what we can do about this, I STRONGLY recommend each and everyone writing a letter to Apple Addressed to Steve Jobs, 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, CA 95014. And telling them what happened to your computer. You will most likely get a call back and eventually be told what I was told but maybe, just maybe this will tip the scales in our favor for repairs or some kind of reimbursement. Include your serial number with your letter.
As for future Apple purchases, buy the extended warranty. Or buy a PC.
Again thanks for this website.
November 5th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Still working! This is awesome, best hardware detailed fix I’ve ever seen. Thanks for everything
November 8th, 2007 at 2:39 am
I did what you said and my computer is still alive. I put a small foam sticky in there for my shim. I hope the heat won’t get to it, but since you used a rubber foot, I think it should be okay.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:23 am
My girlfriend’s sister tells me: “My ibook is dead, the screen’s not working, I took it to (a local computer store) and they said it’s absolutely broken. THey are going to take the info off the harddrive later this week.” Me: “can i have it after you’re done? I’ll put YDL on it.” Her: “Sure”
One week later
“Here’s the iBook. The computer guy says that if you get it working he’ll give you a job.”
…
He didn’t give me a job. But i got a free iBook. Thanks man.
November 9th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I tried the shim method the other day when my iBook G4 started acting funny. It worked for 30 mins then the screen turned red, blue, green, grey and then went blank! its blank screen now when i turn it on…. does anyone know how to fix that?
November 10th, 2007 at 7:29 am
My wife’s iBook G4 800 MHz has also developed this problem. In hindsight, there’s been some indication that it was developing for quite some time — when waking it from sleep there would be a few color lines flickering in the top left corner of the display, some of which would remain until you did something that redrew that portion of the display.
A couple weeks ago, it started failing frequently, and soon after, constantly. This was, perhaps not so coincidentally, right after I had popped open the iBook to extract the tip of our Kensington power adapter that had come off inside the DC-in socket — obviously in getting inside the iBook I applied a little additional stress that failed the solder connections.
I implemented Corey’s fix, and it worked for an hour or so and then started failing again. Now you need to apply considerable pressure to the guilty IC to get it running, and if you let off even a little, it hangs immediately.
I’m thinking of trying either the soldering iron or tealight repair methods, but will also call Customer Relations and give them grief over this. Given that the exact failure mode, and the short-term solution, is so easily identified, and with the Danish findings, this is clearly a manufacturing defect. Am hoping to get either a discount on a new MacBook for her (I think the $300 or so fair value of a used but working iBook would be reasonable), or have them send me a new logic board and I can do the swap. But I’m not expecting much.
I was thinking that collecting more data than the petition has might be useful to us (and the ongoing class action suit — the current status of that seems to be that Apple has twice now filed to have it dismissed, the judge agrees but gives the plaintiff an opportunity to refile the complaint). I can set something like that up if there is interest — some of the data I would think could be useful would be:
- contact info (name, country, email address — kept confidential)
- iBook model, serial number, purchase date
- previous repairs (particularly logic board replacement)
- failure date(s)
- failure symptoms (display symptoms, fan symptoms)
- corrective actions taken and their success (shims, heat, soldering, reflow)
Any thoughts?
November 11th, 2007 at 12:06 am
Wow, you’re amazing, my ibook 1G is live again.
wish it gonna last a long time..
November 11th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
For the technically minded, here is some information.
I have resoldered a few of these now and none of them have failed so far. However, a friend attempted to do the repair by re-soldering and it went horribly wrong, he broke pin 28 of the IC. I purchased some new IC’s from Newark.com. Next I removed the damaged IC by slicing off the pins as close as possible to the IC with a dremel disc cutter.(WEARING SAFETY GOGGLES)Removing the pins is then very easy; as soon as you touch them with a soldering iron they just jump onto the iron tip! I then cleaned the board up using nail varnish remover (acetone) and placed a vacuum cleaner close to the board to suck up any small powdered bits that came off the dremel. I then soldered a dab of solder to all of the pin locations. I glued the new IC into position using a small blob of red RTV silicon sealant. I then applied a liquid flux using a flux pen that you can buy off ebay.This is the bit that really helps the solder to flow. Finally I just touched each pin in turn with a slightly hotter than normal soldering iron and the solder flowed easily without shorts. After this everything worked fine. Hope this helps.
November 13th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
if it had not been for this page i would have been trying the same thing on every chip on the board until i got it right because i (through trial and error ) figured out what was going on in my g4……thanks sooooooo much for this page…..i’m typing this on my newly rezed ibookg4….thank god…
-sean-
November 15th, 2007 at 2:37 am
Dear Corey,
thank you very much for your solution. My daughter’s iBook died yesterday and after looking for information on the Apple discussions board, I found a link to your page. I followed the instructions and I’m writing you this on the said iBook, that is working flawlessly.
She’ll be very pleased when she returns from the school!
Thank you VERY MUCH again!
Héctor (from Germany)
——————-
iBook G4 1Gh 768 Ram
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:08 am
I have just resoldered the last four pins on the offending chip on my iBook G4’s logic board as per instructions here, and my computer has now been running for 24 hrs. Fingers crossed! I could clearly see thorugh a 10x jewellers glass that the solder joints on the last four pins were discoloured and cracked.
This was all after apple advised that the logic board was faulty (which I told them) and told me it would cost Aus$1590 to repair! Which is more expensive than a new iBook with Leopard! They did not want to know about the solder issue. I think I will go back and tell them precisely what I did to repair it!
Anyway, I will add my name to the online petition and write to apple.
Thanks for all the advise and info!
Steve
November 23rd, 2007 at 7:17 am
Thanks Corey, my wifes G4 iBook 1.2Ghz machine started doing the fans of death, I instantly knew what it was and took it to a Mac tech to get a quote (hoping to get it replaced by insurance) he quoted me $1448, when I bought it new 22 months ago it cost $1449 (with an Airport Express) the first time I did it it worked for a couple of days then failed, so I got a rubber foot and put a CD over it to spread the weight and now it’s working fine!
Thanks again - virtual beer for you. Cheers, paul
November 23rd, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Hey! Thanks for the instructions! My 1.2 GHz G4 iBook failed on Thanksgiving Morning! At first, I wasn’t getting anything … no fan or anything … but applying pressure to the palm rest got the laptop to start back up. But after that, I wasn’t able to get it to do anything … I just got the whirling fan of doom.
But, after conducting emergency surgery on the laptop following your instructions, I got it working fine! Huzzah!
Take a look at the picture:
http://billymuyo.blogspot.com/2007/11/power-music-electric-revival.html
November 24th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
My friends G4 died on her last year
.. i told her it was because it was a mac..haha (i’v recently changed my mind about them, they are really quite smooth running!) Anyway i knew i could fix it with enough research!! So i offered her $100 dollars for it and she said yes!! Right away i started looking on the internet for stories about the G4..(I figured somebody had to have had the same problem) Luckily i found this website right away and was very excited about the number of people that had the same problem, amd that could be fixed so quickly! Anyway to make a long story short i took it apart soldered up the connections.. and Baam! It worked just like that!! My friends that were watching were very impressed!! She however was very upset having spent so much money on trying to get it repaired with no luck. She just went and bought another one at cost… ouch! Now i’m a proud owner of a G4. She say’s ” i don’t know why your so excited about a 2 year old computer… it’s a the lower grade to mine”.. I reply with.. i only paid a $100 bucks for mine.. how much did you pay!! hahaha
November 24th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Hello all! Kudos sir for posting this info.
First, a suggestion to backup your data: try and try again to boot from the install disk by holding the C key. Once you have, it is stable and you can run disk utility from there and save images to an external drive. I had to resort to this because it would no longer boot into Target disk mode either. I am having this problem now with my G4 1.42. The layout on the mobo’ is a little different than the ones pictured and I was wondering if anyone could point me to the problem chip on my board. Also, someone mentioned there is a related problem with the airport “card” on these models. That was the first sign of trouble for me so if anyone’s got more info on that I’d appreciate it.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
This solution works for me. So fat i’ve fix two ibook and now I got problem on the third one. It seems like the GPU chip location is totally different than the other two which I already fixed.
Any idea? I didn’t manage to get the model of that iBook because it belong to my customer. But here is the specs. 12-inch, 1.33GHz powerpc, 512MB ram, 40GB HDD, APX (non removable type. I think it is combo card, which mean Airport extreme + bluetooth), BT. From the information given by my customer, she bought it from taipei, taiwan.
November 26th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Most excellent! I used a shirt button to shim and lo and behold, my (not so) trusty old iBook G4 800 MHz is once again alive and kicking. Thanks a lot man!
November 27th, 2007 at 4:06 am
Thank you is not enough to say for the help you have given in this post. My step-daughter and her housemates G3 and G4 are now fixed with both heat and shim methods. Apple really need a wake up call as the rest of the world cannot throw away such useful things as a broken iBook.
Happy days ahead for us all.
November 28th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Just to clarify a couple of points. Coreys fix is aimed at the voltage regulator chip which has two slightly different locations depending on earlier or later versions. The main problems it targets is the fan of death/black screen on boot up. It may even be possible to boot up, but the ibook crashes with “venetian blinds” across the screen because the regulator chip supplies the graphics chip. However, there is a seperate problem with the G4 which is in fact the Radeon graphics chip as demonstratetd by Sam1487 on Youtube. But Coreys fix won’t help here because this chip is a ball grid array and a chip reflow is required. It’s very similar to the problem suffered by the G3 ibook. By the way, although the Youtube blowtorch fixes the problem, it’s not recommended!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT_xuSI-gDw
November 28th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Always knew this was going to pop up at some point, but I just had my iBook G4 12″ 1GHz give me the black screen of death, the whirling fan of death, and vertical lines of death in the past 24 hours. I’m still desperately trying to find somebody with serious soldering skills as mine doesn’t quite encompass the use of 0.7mm points. For the time being, I used some Scotch Double-sided Heavy Duty Mounting Squares and used an Exacto knife to place right on top of the IC. I used three layers and had the cable rest right on top of it; it worked like a charm. The only problem is wondering how long this temporary fix would last or how long until permanent damage is done.
If there’s anybody around the Baltimore, Maryland region, please let me know!
November 28th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Well, I did the fix and was able to get my computer to boot up completely, successfully, twice so far!!! It appears to have worked. Thank you sooooo much for sharing this fix with the world. Screw paying $500 for a logic board!!
November 30th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Hello everybody!
I set up a webpage to collect information and to connect affected people with this logic board defect.
http://www.bluesalamand.de/ibook/
If you’re from Germany, please go there and leave a note, perhaps we can achieve more if we’re a mass
Greets, André
P.S.: Thank you, Corey, for this guide!
November 30th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
First off i want to say thank you for this site!
i bought my iBook g4 (1ghz) in September 2004, within a couple weeks i had my first logic board failure. After sending it in for repair under Applecare it failed again within a month of the first repair. Since the second repair all has been well, until today. About three days ago i disassembled my iBook to upgrade the hard drive, and for the past couple days it was fine. However, when i attempted to boot it up earlier today i had another failure. After 90 minutes on the line with Apple i was told that for around $320 they could fix it., and i said i’d get back to them. After googling the problem i came across this site and have been running my iBook clamped to my desk for about an hour now. Tomorrow i will attempt shimming, and i hope that works.
Shame on Apple for not acknowledging this issue.
December 3rd, 2007 at 3:48 pm
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Corey.
I had two iBook G4, on 12″ 1064 Mhz and a 14″ 933 Mhz, both with the death fan issue. I was about to dump both computers as a friend of mine gave me the link to your site.
After following your instructions and “repairing” both iBooks, they are just working now as they did when I got the iBooks.
Thank you so much dude for the info.
December 6th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Hi there,
Have just attempted the fix. It took 3 attempts, but I may have discovered something that might help others.
1st attempt I used a 5mm plastic/rubber spacer directly onto the chip. This did not work. I then added a 4mm aluminium plate (50mm x 30mm) between the plastic case and the heat shield, worked for about 15mins. Lastly I replaced the original plastic/rubber spacer with an aluminium washer 30mm in diameter and about 4mm section. This certainly seems to be better and has been running for over an hour now. I wonder if the problem is not just pressure, but temperature too?
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Nick
December 7th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Thanks ever so much, this fix worked brilliantly. (fan of death/ black screen) Much easier than re-flowing chips!
December 10th, 2007 at 5:14 am
Hi just a tip, first time I tried this i cut up a thin-ish rubber (or ‘eraser’ if you’re American) to cover the chip with. This works for a short time but eventually proves too soft and doesn’t apply enough pressure.Use somthing more rigid and plastic and you should have more luck.2days and no blackouts.Thanks Corey!!
December 10th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Thanks Corey! I bought a 2nd hand ibook G4 800Mhz from a colleague of mine, all was going well until it kept blacking out then i got the fan of death. After finding your site i attempted a fix with some rubber pads from the bottom of some mini-speakers, these worked for a short time but still kept blacking out after a while, i kept adding more but kept having problems. Eventually i decided to replace the rubber pads with a harder shim from the bottom of another electrical appliance, this seems to have done the job as the rubber from before seemed to have compressed and was not putting enough pressure on the chip as was required. Thanks alot for the fix! And in the process i have become an expert in opening up the back of an ibook, got it down to about 30secs flat! Thanks again Corey
December 10th, 2007 at 11:50 am
My girlfriend purchased G3 iBook off ebay a year or so ago and before long the logicboard failed. Apple quoted 300 pounds to repair- More than she paid for it! So its been sat around until this week when she decided to sell again, trawling through ebay we found a link to this site and decided to undertake the repair, found that the previous seller had already had a go!! Anyway i thickened up the shim and touch wood everything is ok. Live and learn! Thanks for the help.
December 10th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
When is Apple going to do something about this!
This did work for me too. I used the rubber furniture protector and so far it’s sorking fine. Thanks for all the information.
December 10th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
This worked! Thanks.
1.2Ghz ibook G4
December 11th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
First off, Corey, you are a god among men.
That being said, this took me several attempts to get right. I really probably should have read more into it, but the excitement got to me. I started with two pieces of cardboard pressed together (2mm) on top of the chip- nothing happened. It took me awhile to get the guts up to pull the black strip off the chip, the glue on it was pretty gooey and I didn’t want to accidently tear anything else up with it. I used a tiny flathead screwdriver to scrape the glue off slowly. After the cardboard I tried a rolled up piece of electrical tape (4mm). It worked for about 20 minutes, then shut off, back to the fan business. When I opened up the computer again, the tape had been squished and the inside spiral pushed out. I’m guessing the heat affected the glue, making it not hold. Next I tried three cut down rectangles of double sided mounting tape (4mm). It also worked for about 20 minutes then shut off. The next day it worked again, then shut off. When I opened up the computer the tape had been smashed down and formed around the chip (I left the paper on the tape so I could take the tape out easily). Finally, I found a clear dot to put on the bottom of a chair (nearly identical to Corey’s) and put it on there. It’s been working for 24 hours without a problem, and it’s been moved several times, including being used on my lap.
So, in summary, use something that won’t deform with pressure or heat. The clear dots for the bottoms of chairs seem to be a match made in heaven.
December 21st, 2007 at 12:04 am
Hi Corey and fellow iBook users,
I just wanted to thank you for all the research and information provided from this site. I read through all the instructions and strings here and came up with my own method on repairing my iBook G4 1.2 GHz.
My iBook was not working for over two months now, and I was really bummed that my favorite laptop was out of commission. I tried my best at trying different repairs and none of them worked. I’m so happy to have stumbled upon this site which has so much useful information on here. Here is what I did to get my iBook working again:
I am very comfortable in soldering small IC chips, so I brought out my adjustable 15W/30W soldering iron, tinned the tip with Rosin Core solder, and started to reflow the solder on pins 1 and 28 on the problematic chip. I believe these pins to be VCC and ground since they are the first and last pins. After doing that, just to be safe, I placed a tiny dab of Arctic Silver 5 on the chip, and spread it throughout the top of the chip. I also placed a copper U.S. penny on top of it to have it act as a heatsink to cover any type of thermal issues for the future. I then placed a small eraser about 3mm thick on top of all of it and taped it down with electrical tape. There was a slight bulge after putting everything back together, but the two screws that go in horizontally where the battery release springs are kept the system flat.
My system has been running for 2 days now with no problems. If there is anyone in the Los Angeles, CA area that needs help, don’t hesitate to ask. You can email me at toydawg@charter.net
Thanks again everyone and especially to Corey. Have a great Christmas and New Year!
Best regards,
Anthony
December 22nd, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Hey,
I have a g4 1.2 ghz laptop and it went down in august. After attempting to work out what it was with an apple care guy and failing i spent 5 minutes online and i discovered that i had a faulty logic board. I went out and bought a clamp which helped out for several weeks. Then it began to lose its ability to turn on, not to mention any stability. It was also awful as it had clamp attached to it.
I was afraid to do the shim myself so i had a shop who did apple repairs to work on it. It worked for 24 hours :p I had them remove the shim and i was told that i should stop using the clamp method as this would press the heat shield into contact with the board and cause further outages.
After another period of time my laptop ceased turning on. I then choose to do the shim fix myself as i thought what had i to lose. So off i went and followed the instructions to a tee and low and behold my laptop works again, hell thats how i’m currently writing this reply.
Cheers to you!
December 24th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Thanks a bunch!
I took a chance on eBay with a reported “dead” 12″ G4 iBook, after having found this thread. ($225 USD) I have a daughter going to college next fall…
At first the computer worked fine, then the black screen of death and the “fan on full speed” on bootup. The system would not run for more than 5 minutes.
Then, I applied the shim to the chip in question. So far, no problems at all with four hours of continuous operation.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your fix. Apple should come clean on this one….
Happy in Texas,
Kenneth
PS: I also have a couple of extra screws if anyone needs them (ha).
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:53 pm
It worked!
Many thanks for the easy to follow instructions and for saving my computer from the trash heap.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:22 am
Thanks for the brilliant fix, my trusty 4 year old 12″ 800Mhz 256DRAM iBook Froze for the first time this week, and would not run more than 10 minutes cold or boot up at all warm after that, I nearly cried. I fixed it and hour ago and so far so good.
A few remarks:
1. As an ex-Apple Diagnostic Technician (I got laid off when Apple moved its PCB production from Cork, Ireland to Singapore in ‘98, the start of the quality rot IMHO) I am uncomfortable with the shim and would prefer to have the offending chip re-soldered by an expert electronics reworker, but in the backwater where I now live such a person is hard to find.
2. On the non-Apple DRAM question, I think the problem may be provoked not by the DRAM but by the procedure for installing memory. My iBook never froze in 4 years, though lines appeared sproadically in the top left quarter of the display.
A few days after I lifted the keyboard for the FIRST TIME in four years of ownership and struggled to get it back in place, my computer freezes. I think the action of replacing the keyboard may have resulted in a certain amount of flex on the logic board, provoking the failure.
3. being an inveterate re-cycler I used one of my iBook’s rubber feet for a shim (two others are long since lost anyway, it seemed to be about the right dimension based on your fix and the subsequent comments).
Anyway Corey you have saved me a lot of money and heartache (my 25 year love affair with Apple Computer was really strained in the last few days, and I was already thinking of spending money I don’t have on a new MacBook or even A PC LAPTOP
I was that sick of Apple and their lack of consideration for the most loyal and caring customer base any corporation could ask for). So if you are ever in Ireland look me up if you need board and lodgings for a few days. Once more thank you so much, all the best for the future.
January 4th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Thanks for the info. I soldered the legs on mine as it looked kind of problematic on pins 1-4. It booted back up we shall she how long its lasts. Thanks again for the pointers.
Don’t have that extra cup of coffee if you are going to attempt the solder route. I just heated the pins to reflow slightly. But still that chip is tiny..
Bob C
January 4th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Thanks for the solution!
I just contacted apple to ask what percentage of iBook G4 logic they have replaced. After holding for 40 min, they told they did not have the info and if they did they couldn’t release it customers. I was given an email to send my official complaint.
have you seen this document yet?
http://www.forbrug.dk/presse/nyheder/pressekit/ibookg4/ibook-g4-english/
Thanks again!
-Adam
January 8th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Dear Corey,
Thank you so very much for your step by step instructions and diagnosis!!! I am currently teaching in Honduras and when my computer started acting up I knew I would have no one to turn to! Plus no funds for repair or a new computer. My friend did the dirty work as I looked on…success! I cannot thank you enough! It worked like a charm.
Leah
ibook G4 1.07 GHz
January 10th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
You have given me hope.
My iBook G3 (800mHz) purchased in 2003 has been a great workhorse for me, even wrote my PhD thesis on it! Then in April 2005, I got the lines on the screen and then it would only start to a black screen. Luckily, Apple had the Logic Board Repair Recall/Extended Warranty so I brought it over to the university and they sent it to Apple who fixed it for free. And it worked great! Until December 2007…
Just last month, the exact same thing happened - lines on screen, distortion, then start to black. This time I brought it over to the guys at the Idiot Bar at the Apple Store. But shockingly and curiously the computer was fine when they started it up. They told me that if it was a logic board problem, I should buy a new computer because it would cost $400 to replace the logic board and they didn’t think it was worth it for an old computer. Not that I’m surprised, they are a store that needs to sell new product.
So I decided to call Apple and see if the extended warranty was still in place or if I could get it fixed by them because even though the computer is over 3 years old, the logic board is less than 2 years old. But after talking to 4 different people (and having to retell my story each time, how annoying!), they told me that it wouldn’t be covered and it would cost $300-$500 to fix.
I was just researching local independent Apple repair shops and options for buying a new logic board and fixing it myself when I found your website! I am going to try this when I get home tonight! I have faith that it will work! I think that walking through the mall to the apple store with the laptop in my bag hitting my thigh was enough to get it working again and that is why they couldn’t recreate the problem at the idiot bar. I can’t wait to get home tonight and try it!
Also, my serial number falls in the recall range, but they told me that they would only repair it once and that the recall had expired. Maybe I need to be more forceful on that? Maybe I won’t have to if this repair works!
January 13th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Thank you so much for this. I’d given my 14″ iBook to my girlfriend after I inherited a 17″ PB. A couple of months ago it crashed and was sitting around the house. I was going to give it up when I came across your website. Went out to the hardware store and got the feet and the Torx driver. So, $5 and 45 minutes of work and it’s up and running again. It was so easy to do. New life. Again, thank you.
-B
January 14th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
YAY! It worked!
Well, the problem with the G3 is similar but the repair is slightly different. I removed the casing as described on iFixit (awesome site for instruction) and then filed in the space above the logic board as described by this site: http://www.powerbook-fr.com/ibook/bricolage/repair_g3_video_en_article797.html
I used 3 layers of sticky foam poster mounting tape and my computer now works great!
I feel so empowered. Thanks!
January 15th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I made a low profile clamp with three pieces of wood and a nut and bolt and it solves the logic board problem for varying amounts of time. It works as well as a clumsy c clamp or clamping to the desk and is still portable. In any case, it’s a good way to diagnose the problem before opening the case to install a shim. I think resoldering makes more sense as a permanent solution but was wondering what equipment was used by the person who had success with this technique. I’ve done lots of soldering but none of really micro. If anyone is interested I can send photo of the clamp. Mike fortunare@cox.net
January 16th, 2008 at 6:36 am
Same as Caroline :
My iBook G4 (800mHz) purchased in 2003 has been a great workhorse for me. Then in April 2005, I got the lines on the screen and then it would only start to a black screen. Apple had the Logic Board Repair Recall/Extended Warranty (I had to fight because my serial was a couple of numbers after the recall…) so I brought it over to the university and they sent it to Apple who fixed it for free. And it worked great! Until December 2007…
Now, instead of lines or distortion, my screen keeps going black every 10 mins and I have to force shutdown and restart… sometimes the fan will just go wild on startup but usually the ibook goes back on track but as soon as I move the power cord or the computer even just tilting the screen ; poof, it goes black again… forcing me to restart again and again. I don’t have any money for a new mac, and still, I hesitate to put the money on a product that lost all of is quality since the last ten years… shame on you Steve Jobs with your Ipods and prostituting Mac label…
I will also try tonight your little procedure, if it works, you will get another contact ! (in Paris this time !!!) i’ll keep you guys posted tomorrow…
January 16th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
My 1ghz 12′ ibook I bought used turned out to be shimmed on the video power chip. It went out, I would shim it bigger, it would work for a while then go out again. After seeing the photo of micro cracks I tried to re-solder with a filed soldering iron tip with no luck. With no options left but buying a new board I carefully heated each side of the chip with a butane micro torch until the solder flowed. Both the video power and a nearby component smoked and my hopes were not high but It has been two weeks running better than ever no problems!!! Thanks for your website identifying the problem. I hope this will help anyone brave or desperate enough to try it.
January 20th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Bravo Corey!!!
I used the soldering method.
Cheap radio Shack Soldering Iron which has a protruding needle tip.
NO SOLDER!!
Used a mounted magnifying glass, 1 hand to hold iron the other hand to hold the first hand steady and carefully touch pins.
Heated pins 1(has a dot) and 28 for about 10 seconds.
•Accidently applied too much pressure to pin 28 pushing it into pin 27!
DOHHHH! Pushed pin back into place. Scraped between pins using a pin or needle to make sure there is no short. Then reheated pin 28.
Ibook Happy now.
Thanks
January 27th, 2008 at 3:39 am
Thanks a lot for your instructions and the wonderful solution! Finally worked up the courage to try this after sitting on a useless piece of white plastic for a few months.
I placed rubber (cut from tubing i think) about 3mm thick between the chip and the black cable, as well as between the heat shield and the plastic case. It worked fine but started having kernel panics within 15 minutes of booting up. Not having seen this prior to the fix, I assumed it was related to something I must have adjusted/touched/wrecked while inside the ibook, but some online research led me to believe it was a RAM problem.
True enough, System Profiler told me I only had 256mb when I was supposed to have 512mb (256 wired in, 256 in slot). And the Diagnostic portion showed a failure on Power-On Self Test, as well as an Empty DIMM1 slot. Then I realised that for a few months before I had the logic board problem, I have been seeing 256mb RAM when viewing “About This Mac” and I never realised I was being shortchanged. I just assumed my ibook only came with 256mb.
So I decided to remove the 256mb in DIMM1 slot that was not being recognised by my ibook and viola! It has been working fine for a few hours now. Now to consider whether to get a replacement RAM chip or not.
Will check back in a few weeks with more updates about the status of the shims and the ibook.
Cheers
12″ ibook G4, late 2004, 1.07Ghz, 512RAM, 30gb HDD.
(p.s. my ibook had been sent in for logic board replacement before, while still under Applecare. this second time happened shortly after the end of the 3 years. dang)
January 28th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Took me 10 minutes and now my iBook G4 1,2 Ghz works fine.
Many thanks!
January 28th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
i am sitting here right now with my elbow pressed on to the left hand side panel of the mac after reading your advice and so far it has been working ok. havent tried putting in the rubber foot but seems ok at the moment. thanks for your advice, keep you informed if anything new happends. thanks again!
February 4th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Thanks heaps, I’ve added an entry on my blog about how to fix this via soldering it up. I think if you know someone who can solder, this might be a better option. Thanks again! Wayne
http://macintoshhowto.com/
February 5th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Just a follow up. I decided to solder the chip in question and thought I had accomplished my task, only to be brought back to reality by the black screen!
I can solder, having be a bench tech inthe 80’s and it semed that I reflowed the solder in question. But it appears that I didn’t reflow all the layers. I put a foot that comes in the standard Cisco swicth package on the chip. That did it!
I am happy to be writing you from my repaired G4 iBook .
Thanks for research into the problem
February 7th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Hey Whassup
I had this problem with my ibook g4 and I’m living in an area where is kinda difficult to find a apple repair centre so just when i was about 2 throw my ibook outta window i saw this trick and tried it. At first it didn’t work but after some tries and increasing the pressure it finally worked. The ibook case is a bit deformed now but it doesn’t matter. Don’t be afraid of putting pressure cause that’s what makes it work.
Thanks man, u saved my ibook
February 11th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Corey,
Thank you! The rubber foot method has been working for two days now without interruption.
Are your ibooks still working from the shims more than a year after you wrote your post? You later wrote a post saying that you soldered one of them (unsuccessfully). Why did you try the solder–did the shims stop working? Did you ever get that ibook fixed?
I don’t know how long the fix will work for me, but I plan to be very gentle with my ibook from now on. Thanks again.
Hopefully,
Dan
February 11th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Works like a dream! I used the blue isulation foam from a dead ipod hard drive (apple need to step up there quality control) folded several times and so far it’s all gravy
February 14th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
yes, it works, most of the time. i had to open my ibook three times to find the right pressure. one rubber wasn’t enough, now i have one on top of the chip and another on the shield in the same place. this makes a big bump in the plastic bottom, so i had to put four higher rubbers under the ibook. once a week it hangs, but a bit pressure with the fingers, a restart and it works fine for several houres. thank you all!
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:15 am
I followed all the instructions and the computer turns on without the fan going and all the funny colored lines– which is a start! but now, once my desktop fully loads, it just continues to start from the beginning again and reload over and over and over again!
any helpful tips?
thanks for the help so far
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
WEll I tried the shim and it worked OK for a bit. Certainly long enough to get the data off. But there seems to be a law of diminishing returns with bigger shims needed after a while and shorter periods before the iBook freezes up. Anyway after leaving the iBook on the shelf for six months I though what the heck I’d try the soldering. First thing to say is the pins on the chip are very small. I bought a 1mm bit for the soldering iron and it was still big. Also your average magnifying glass is not powerful enough you need something stronger to stand any chance of seeing what you are doing. So — I touched all the pins with the iron for a couple of seconds and re-assembled. To my surprise it works and indeed stayed working all day. A software update caused it to freeze and video intensive apps can be problematic but for basic surfing and web browsing it all seems fine and will run all day. So far so good.
April 29th, 2008 at 8:22 am
You’re amazing! My wife’s iBook had the exact same problem as you described. She has thousands of pictures and memories on there and we were worried we would never get them back, not to mention school work, music and other programs. This fix works great and has allowed us to get it up and running and be able to put all these items on her new MacBook. Thank you so much!!!!!
May 4th, 2008 at 4:02 am
Hello and thanks for this trick. It worked perfectly on my iBook 1.2HGHz
May 4th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Awesome!!! my ibook that been dead for a year is back to life. Not that its totally necessary now since i bought a powerbook, but having a second working machine is great. Thanks for the solution. I had it fixed once and gave up after it went down again.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:56 am
ibook G4 1.33 GHz
Medium sized plastic black and orange squeeze clamp from Lowes or Home Depot :
place 1.5″ in and 1.5″ up from left side of ibook.
good temp fix for me before the shim fix, which I’ll be trying soon.
So far with the clamp, I’ve shaken the computer, bumped it around a bit and have been playing a dvd movie, itunes etc with no problems.
Anyone get anything out of Apple or did they stop offering help altogether?
Thanks to all the people who posted.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:01 am
thank you, so far this seems to do the trick. it had been almost a year and a half since my last logic board failure and replacement. since i don’t have apple care or a warranty,(the computer is four years old) i needed to fix it myself this time. I thought i was going to have to replace the logic board but who knew that the same technology that saves the builiding and construction world, saved the laptop. the shim to the rescue!
May 13th, 2008 at 11:39 am
I ended up not using the pressure fix as I need something more permanent for a portable laptop - there’s a novel idea! However, were it not for this and other related forums I would most certainly have been at the mercy of Apple for a very expensive out of warranty repair (although the ibook has already had one logic board replacement whilst still within the warrantied period) or have been forced to purchase another Apple laptop - towards which my confidence would have been severely dimished.
The solder fix seems quite straight forwards and I am very grateful for the advice received. I have remonstrated with Apple Customer Relations and am persuing the issue with the Department of Trade and Industry Trading Standards office.
See http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/09/05/danish.ibook.ruling.upheld/
May 14th, 2008 at 7:34 am
Hey guys,
I work for a school system and i ust wanted to say that this totally works. Ive had to squeeze the crap out of a colleagues G4, but it works everytime. thanks for this pics for the internal solution, ive conned him in to giving it to tme
May 16th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Hi !
Many thanks for your board. It has been very usefull and I’ve fixed by ibook succesfully.
B. Regards
May 26th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Just used a adhesive putty sandwich with layers of putty and cut to size plastic cable ties on top of each other to give chip compression - does it work ?? You bet - typing this on it right now ! How long will it last for ? No idea !
Thanks to everyone for the input ! I have honestly had enough of Apple for life now though - I don’t see them with the same enthusiasm anymore !
May 28th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I did this to my ibook G4 and it worked great! Before it would turn on, the fan would whir, but there would be nothing on the screen. Now it starts up and it’s been running solid for 15 minutes total. Hopefully it’ll keep going. Thank you so much for coming up with this solution and saving my ibook from being a paper weight. You rock!
June 1st, 2008 at 3:08 pm
i have a 12 in Powerbook g4 that seems to be suffering from the same issues.
i have placed a rubber foot on a chip that closely resembles the one in the tutorial. i was just wondering if anyone would know or have an image of where to put this shim on the board of the 12in pbg4.
regardless thanks for the initial input.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:27 am
After having patched up a few G4s now, I have (though some painful trial and errors!) discovered that not all shims are equal.
So far, my “winning combo” that lasts long and can withstand the shakiness of being on a bus and being “transportable” and not coming loose is:
(from bottom to top layer):
on the board:
small clear plastic “foot” that is rounded (bought at Canadian Tire in my case)**
on the heat shield:
(inside): foamish, compresable material (used a foam ring from a CD-R spindle myself)
(inside, underneath foam): one to two pennies (taped down of course)
(outside, facing chassis): another plastic foot **
chassis:
(inside): one or two pennies
(outside): to prevent/minimize cracking due to warping of chassis, add four large felt furniture “floor protectors” to prop up your laptop further and allow airflow underneath for additional air circulation. Place them at each corner, save the battery corner where you’ll want to place the felt foot just above the battery, not on it (lest you ever share batteries, or go without someday).
** NOTE - tried flat clear plastic feet like pictured in the article, but it tended to melt and compress too much too quickly - rounded is better for heat dissipation and compression - basically all the pressure being exerted on the top will distribute more evenly in the rounded ones it seems.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Thank you so much for this fix!
My ibook quit working and I was desperate, but then I found your site!
I hope it will last for some time because I haven’t got money to buy a new one.:-)
Thank you, thank you very very much!
June 6th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Oh dude!
Thanks so much for making this info available. I approached apple with my fan of death laptop and they said they’d have to replace my mother board, which would cost me around £500!!!
It took me 20min to do the above and its been 3 weeks today and my laptop is still working fine!
I owe you!
June 8th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I have a iBook G4 12 in. I Googled my symptoms and found this blog. I followed the shimming instructions exactly(I even had the exact clear rubber bumper in my junk drawer) and the computer worked for another 3 days! I thought I was in business again. Then the symptoms reappeared. I called Apple to verify that there were no recalls that I hadn’t heard about. They of course denied everything and said I was 4 years out of warrantee. Sorry. I think there is a post above about the permanent solution. To resolder. So I took a took a field microscope(the kind you look at leaves and plants with. Or as strong magnifying glass with a friend to hold it) to see the culprit chip up close. There is a site (I posted below) that identifies pins 1 and 28 as the pins that are the ones that are the power supply for the chip. Multiple cycling of turning the computer on and off eventually fractures the solder joint. So i took a 15 watt soldering iron and sharpened it with a file and tinned it with solder shaking off all the excess solder.(A post above says don’t add solder. It already has enough. I then touched pin 1 and waited to see the tell tale solder melting “look.” I then removed the iron and repeated on pin 28. Its fortunate that pins 1 and 28 are on the end. Otherwise it would have been much more difficult to fit the soldering iron between pins. I immediately put the computer back together (I was able to do this easily because I used ifixit.com instructions) and walla! I’m typing this post after two days of running my computer. I’m hoping for another 4 years. I found the following article and report on PDF to download a really informative study the Danish did to take Apple to court on this very issue. There are some extreme closeup pictures of pins 1 and 28 along with the fractures. http://www.pcworld.com/article/131548-1/article.html?tk=xlr8yourmac
June 13th, 2008 at 4:00 am
Hello everybody,
first of all, pardon my english in advance, it’s not so good. So: after reading all the posts in this wonderful little blog (thanks corey, you saved my Ibook!) and placing a lot of shims (until the Ibook decided that it was enough…), I decided to shoot some macro photos with a canon ixus camera to the famuous chip that corey highlighted in the beginning of this long story, and… I saw the pins with broken solderings!
I resoldered them with a normal solder with a needle tip and no mangifying glass, using adhesive insulating tape (is it correct? I hope you will understand what I mean) to isolate the pins during soldering.
And now my Ibook works regularly all day!
Thank you all!
Giuseppe, Italy
June 21st, 2008 at 10:15 am
Brilliant! My ibook G4 is now in working order. Thank you.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:13 am
Check out the solder solution I did. The shimmy and reheating the pins worked for almost a year, but then died again
http://fernieville.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/levels-of-geekness/
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Thank you so much for this guide!
I’ve got an iBook G4 that I bought about 3 months ago on eBay.
Being a student, I’ve got a pretty limited income, and I rely pretty heavily on my beloved Mac. I used our other computer to look up “ibook screen failure” and got as far as the Apple Support Forums before I found your site.
The instructions were clear and well-written, and the fix was very fast.
I’m still having a frozen screen every so often, but that’s infinitely better than having a $450 paperweight!
As said before, I can’t believe Apple refuses to admit that there’s a problem. Hopefully they’ll sort this out (and send us all new iBooks?)
Thanks again.
June 27th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Just tried the shimming on my ‘05 iBook, has been working perfectly for a few hours now. Just wanted to share some info with everyone that may be helpful, I took my computer to the Genius Bar at Apple yesterday and after they couldn’t get past the black screen, I was told Apple would repair it for a flat fee of $280 (US). This, I was told, would cover any cost for say a new logic board, motherboard etc….REGARDLESS if the cost was over the amount paid and so long as no intentional damage was found on the machine. The reason I bring this up is because like many of you here, I had read this article after a google search of my symptoms but prior to my visit to Apple and decided to take the machine in to see what they found. After hearing the price quoted to fix, I said I’d have to think about it and was told I had about a year and a half before the machine was considered too old to be serviced. Soooo, I decided to try the home-made fix knowing that if the machine goes bad in say the next year, I can still return to the Apple store and they will charge $280 for the repair. Something to think about as it seems Apple will charge this price for machines that are under 4 years old. Your experiences with Apple may differ from mine and I totally agree with everyone here that there is obviously a huge problem that Apple clearly is in denial on but since as of now they haven’t acknowledged this issue, at least I know I have the option to have them service it and how much it will cost if it fails again. Hopefully it won’t come to that or they will finally accept what we all know….there is a flaw in the ibook design. Thanks again for the great instructions. Hope my two cents is helpful as well.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:57 am
Soldering seems to have worked for me–been running smoothly for a week. I have basically no soldering experience and used a borrowed soldering iron with a huge clunky tip, and no magnifying glass. Didn’t add solder, just touched all four corner pins for a couple of seconds. No visible change whatsoever, but my ibook now boots. Thanks everyone for the pointers!
Also, following a recommendation from my dad, I used a sewing needle (he recommended the tip of an x-acto knife, but I didn’t have one) to actually push the tips of the pins down into the solder while heating them. Find the pin with the tip of the needle, get a grip on it, press down; apply soldering iron to pin for a couple of seconds; remove soldering iron but keep pressing down with needle for a few more seconds; remove needle. May be a longer-lived solution that way.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:45 am
Two pennies taped together with electrical tape worked on my iBook G4 800Mhz, at least for the last hour or so. Thanks. This is the second time this has happened to me, and the last time cost a lot of money. Looks like you posted this originally right after or around the time of my problem, so I just missed this simple solution. I want my $280 back. Cheers.
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Ty for this easy explained fix, I used a rubber tip you get with Aopen desktop cases.
I cut the rubber tip in half and it provided perfect pressure as it seems to be working still!
July 5th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
This along with shimming the GPU fixed my 14 inch iBook (see pictures on my site for chip location it is the piece of paper on the bottom) It helped after my fixed failed the first time and I am typing this on the iBook in the pictures on my site!
July 5th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
portlandrock you can try shimming the heatsink and all 3 soder points on the bottom under the heatsink like i did on my site (just click my name)
July 5th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Man, your a hero. I used a guitar kepo (or keapo or kapeo, i dunno the spelling) to clamp my computer down and it started for the first time in a month! Thank you so much for doing the research and sharing it with us all. Too bad the people at the apple store don’t know this!
July 7th, 2008 at 4:33 am
it was pin 28, clearly visible under magnification
was able to move the pin with a toothpick
required heating for 3 sec with 25W iron, no additional solder
maybe the chip gets hot cause a cable covers this area
very disappointed in apple’s quality, there are many other connectors that look bad/cheap!
July 7th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Hi there,
just repaired my iBook G3 800 MHz using 4 Ratpadz Ratpad rubber feet. Worked like a charm.
July 8th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Got another iBook G4 12″ (800 MHz). Turned it on to what looked like pure backlight, just no image. Tried the fix with a round rubber foot, and I was able to install Tiger and run the software update with the laptop on a table. That’s important because the next day when I was in a public library and wanted to run Software Update again, the laptop went back to pure backlight and I had to shut it off to reboot. The laptop was in my lap as I was sitting in a lounge chair. I was able to replicate the behavior and it didn’t go away after putting a thinner rubber foot ON TOP of the current one. I actually put this second piece on top of the metal shield instead of directly on the first piece or the offending electronic part.
I then simply tried one bigger rubber foot. This one was square but was higher than my previous one. I’ve run Software Update several times, and I’ve been able to bring the laptop back from a sleep state. I think this particular setup’s working well.
Vincent
July 9th, 2008 at 5:12 am
another add-on to my former (now disappeared) post:
i believe you need to solder the chip shown in coreys pix:
a shim would only press the chip itself onto the logicboard but not extend much force on the pins and the faulty connection, unless you would shape a shim so that it pushes only onto the pins (e.g. hollow center)
the case i had was a broken pin 28, i was able to move it with a toothpick!
after soldering everything works fine now, but i believe that the cable covering the chip heats up that part of the circuitboard (incl solder)
thanks, corey!
July 11th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Works!!!!!!!!
I follow all the instructions
Thanks I only spent $2.70 for the rubber foot
Awesome
July 12th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Great advice.
We have an iBook G4 15″ since a bit more than 4 years. So far I had twice a “funny behavior” that was: The iBook wold not start…. removing the battery -and no ac adpater connected- solved the problem….
Now it was really different, 12 hours ago it started giving problems vertical “sweeps” black ..gray erasing the screen… then when rebooting nothing or a “huge noise”. Removing the battery (quite in bad shape by now as is the original one) and renoving the power produced sometimes a black screen and then a loop of red, blue, green screens…..
I tried the advice (the iBook we have has more screws than the one in the web page that is indicated -ifixit’s… great page- )
I did -so far this procedure twice….. The first time I used a piece I cut from a rubber (as i do not have at hand what is proposed here), the piece had about the sime area of the chip in question and a thickness of around 3 mm.) and sticked with a bit of duct tape. I also must say that i was not pushing the black ribbon away. The iBook started fine to teh surprise of my little daughter that had a look when I was doing that on the chip and said “This computer is not going to work anymore”…. nice to be trusted like that at that moment
… It lasted about 10 minutes and then the same…
I opened the iBook right away and place a harder plastic piece (used to cover screws in assembled furniture (4 mm. thick). I PUSHED the black ribbon a bit away -it has some glue that touches the chip a bit ), so that the pressure is all over the chip and used duct tape to hold it in place. So far I’ve running for two hours, rebooting and running some TV programs in the browser so the processor gets “warm” and see if the plastic holds to that (CPU Top according to iStat Nano up to 67 Celsius degrees) and it holds.
THANKS a lot for this great great advice…. I had no problem about loosing data as I have backups and with time machine this was up to date…. but after booting, rebooting etc., pressing all possible keys, trying to boot from a CD (that was by the way accepted but I coudn´t eject any more !!!) I was about to give up with the iBook.. Then I came to your page….. great… I’ll update over the week what happens…
Hugo
July 14th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Hooray it works! Thanks Corey. I used a piece of rubber from the end of a pencil. I’ve also taped the whole ibook to a cookie sheet so the computer’s still semi-mobile but the case can’t flex.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
hi guys …..this fix works perfect…….
but my ibook has another problem besides this one
my ibook wont charge the battery at all …… the battery is new and the charger is new also………
is it a logic board problem?????
July 17th, 2008 at 10:28 am
AWESOME POST three layers of old sim card taped together was the ticket for me saved my daughter going mad this summer hols as she has to have WOW (the game !)
Thanks a million
July 19th, 2008 at 5:43 am
I own the machine that jkaestner soldered for me and then posted here about two weeks ago. It has been rock steady since he reflowed the solder on the chip in question. He told me he reheated, reflowed all 28 pins, one at a time just long enough to melt the solder. Not overdoing this seems to be the trick so that the chip is not permanently fried by too much heat.
In short my laptop is as good as new. No worries about shims being too small or coming loose. Finding someone with soldering skill seems to be the way to go if you want a more permanent fix. One of my other friends fixed his old Powerbook the same way and it has been running problem free for over a year and a half.
jP
July 19th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I waited six months before doing this fix, fearful that it would in some way damage my computer. It was a lot easier and less intimidating than it looked (and only ended up costing me five dollars for a Torx screwdriver). My computer is up and running fine. Thank you.
July 20th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Dude!!!! Thank you so much I used some folded up posted notes and a rubber foot from my computer desk. When I turned the computer on the laptop was good as new. So far so good, this laptop help me graduate from undergrad and grad school. Once again thank you so much!
July 20th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Carry Arnold,
Thanks for the info. I applied the pressure as you described and found that it worked like a charm. I also found that this has been a problem that has been identified and accepted by Apple as a warrantable issue. Please look at the following article posted in the UK but the issue is the same!
http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=19148
I’m wondering if Apple will step up to the plate and make it right for all the poor souls that have been plagued with this ugly problem.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:29 am
works here ! between shim first, resolder next Ok now.
BTW French lesson here:
it’s a “loupe” not a Loop,
and ‘Voila” - not wahla - it means see here
Free French ed. from Vassar college…
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
This fix worked for my 12″ g4 but I wanted a more reliable repair. I took the board to someone that works electronics. Bottom line I was able to fix the board because of a loose solder joint on pin #28 of the chip referred to in the “g4 logic board fix”. Re-soldering this chip takes some specialized tools but didn’t seem exceedingly difficult. This repair was done with specialized solder and flux and hot air soldering iron under a microscope.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Darned if it didn’t work! Wahoooooo!
July 30th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
i just wanna thank you very much, the fix works perfect . Genius!
August 2nd, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Well the shims (bits of rubber) kept failing for me. One kept moving (even with some glue) and another one broke. Looks like the combination of heat and pressure is too much. Anyway I bought a 15 W soldering iron from Radioshack and that appears to have done the job. Didn’t use solder, just pushed down on each pin for about a second. It’s been working for an hour now. I’ll post again if it goes wrong.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Well, it worked for about six months (I left a note here in February). But now the symptoms are different–I get a frozen screen and then sometimes get hung up at boot up, along with the occasional [typical] fan of death. I removed my board (wow, that was pretty elaborate!) and sent it to First Phase Tech. I know I had the problem that First Phase is good at solving–I just hope that my shim in there for six months did not cause any other problems on the logic board. I will send another update when I have one.
August 10th, 2008 at 10:15 am
I recently had the same problem with my iBook and the shim worked! Although for just a short amount of time, adding pressure to the bottom made it work again, so I do know there is hope and my machine isn’t dead forever. Just wanted to say thanks a lot!
-Clark
August 11th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Could you possibly help me locate this chip on a 14″ G4? I ccan’t quite find the same chip on mine.
August 12th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Having trouble locating the chip on the 14″ iBook. Could anyone tell me what the type on top of the chip says? Or better yet, point it out on a 14″. Thanks!
August 15th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Whilst changing the hard disk in my iBook G4, 12” 1,3 GHz, and trying to disconnect the blue & white power cable connector, the socket has come off the motherboard. Can this be resoldered?
Many thanks
August 17th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I have a G4 ibook 1.42 with 512mb built-in bought in 4/06. We recently moved and have been watching dvds on it as the tv is not in the LR yet. The book gets really hot, of course, but it has started shutting down at about 30% battery. Annoying, but reboots as soon as the ac charger is plugged in.
I get that note about setting the clock manually(the auto box is checked?) and it does say that some erratic behavior may be experienced. I laid awake lots last night reading this thread, but my situation does not entirely fit the mos here. I consider sending to to AZ for a tune-up or maybe I need a new battery? Not sure, but do appreciate the commentary and the post from the UK suggesting Apple may be ready to own up? Auto companies have to, what’s to stop Apple?
August 20th, 2008 at 3:36 am
I have a 12″ iBook 1.33 GHz (mid 2005) and experiencing problems with the airport card. From time to time (late very often) it can’t find any wifi networks. This model iBook has an integrated airport/bluetooth card. I haven’t found any manuals how to take apart this iBook, so I’m not sure how the airport is “attached to the motherboard, or if it is indeed integrated.
If I know what to do I’ve no problems opening the iBook and solder pins (have experience with SMD) or putting a shim on a certain (wich?) chip to provide the necessary pressure.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Chalk up another successful repair with this fix (for now anyway).
August 29th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Freaking awesome! I love guys like you… you are what make Google so BITCHIN.
August 30th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Thank you very much for you tutorial. I’ve just managed to fix my girlfriend’s iBook with it. I used just a regular rubber foot (took one out of my laptop) and it worked like a charm.
August 30th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I gotta say after 4 years my wifes iBook 1.2Ghz finally showed signs of an issue like the GPU one that every one seems to have. It’s not exactly the same, but the fix does work. I’m not sure what the problem is with her iBook, but it has to do with the ATA bus. The HDD is not the problem as I swapped that out for a new 160G. The system has always attempted to boot, just the HDD dosen’t seem to be recognized and if it wakes from sleep, then the system just kinda hangs till you apply a little pressure to the left side of the case. Since I will have to get her a new laptop sometime soon, I decided to try the shim method of repair, and it has worked a little bit. The system seems a little more stable, but I might need thicker shim’s. I used the round sticky feet from another device. Ahh well its good enough for now. Thanks for this site and the info.
September 1st, 2008 at 6:54 pm
THX 4 the tip, it really works on my iBook G4.
Mexican Apple support sucks.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Hi Guys
While I’m quite comfortable wrist strapped into a PC case, a misbehaving ibook G4 was foreign territory for me. However armed with your excellent instructions and a shim made from multilayered 3M doublesided tape - we’re back in business. Boots first time every time.
BTW why do Apple use so many (only slightly) different size screws in their innards.
Keep up the good work.
September 6th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I recenlty upgraded my ram to 1.25 gbs then installed leopard and all the upgrades, after installing the upgrades my g4 fell into this stated of coloured screens. So I wiped the hard disk and reinstalled leopard and since had the same problem.
When this first happend(coloured screens) i could boot the computer after mulitple attempts. But now i have audio disk in the disk drive and the computer refuses to boot. Does anyone know anything about these coloured screens and so forth at the present my g4 refuses to operate
September 14th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I purchased a new battery for my ibook from BrilliantStore and at this point, I now have over 6 hours of life with the brightness turned way down and the sound off. I calibrated it and well, let’s wait and see. Around $73 though the model number did not show the 1080A, I slapped it in and voila’! Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Praise the Lord!
September 16th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
This is another update for fellow Mac i-Book users. My i-Book G4 finally gave up its life a few months ago when the video processor chip (the one in question) died completely.
When I began having the problems of the video dropping out, I went in search of solutions and found one that worked, however with the bouncing around and flexing of the PCB the solder points broke loose again. I have since purchased a new MacBook and have nothing but praise for the device. I will always be a proponent of Apple products, but I still own and operate several other computers including a Windows 2003 Server, Linux SuSE 10 Server, A Linux box for a dedicated firewall and IDS system for my home office network.
The life expectancy of any laptop is around 5 years, so if you have reached this time mark, you might want to consider upgrading to a new unit. The processor, memory usage, OS, and battery life have all increased significantly. With my new MacBook (Which is actually 1y 9mo old) I can squeeze around 6 hours of life from the original battery before putting it back on the charger. I will probably upgrade this model to a newer one in about a year. Like the smaller screen size of the Mac book pro and would like to keep it that way. I would rather have the larger memory capabilities and perhaps replace the mechanical HDD with an solid state flash type drive for even more power savings.
If anyone should have questions for a seasoned Mac Certified Engineer, please do not hesitate to contact me at my email address.
Best Regards, Keith
September 18th, 2008 at 11:00 am
WORKS PERFECT FOR ME!!!!
Thank you very much, this kept me from selling my old good ibook g4 at ebay…
GREAT JOB!
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:37 am
Still tickin’! What a relief.
September 24th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
I just did this fix on my 14 inch/933 iBook. Everything seems to be working great so far. I used “Home Center Plastic Bumpers” that I bought from a local Walgreens.
The only issue I had was when I was putting the iBook back together I accidentally put one of the longer hex screws that goes in the back in the center and it went all the way through my iBook and came out the heat shield under the keyboard. Again everything seems to be working fine now though. Thanks for this fix! It saved my iBook and/or my wallet.
September 25th, 2008 at 3:45 am
Just tried this and it’s working so far. Let’s hope it stays that way! Cheers Corey
September 26th, 2008 at 12:08 am
I have a 12′’ ibook G4. Just out of apple care warranty about 6 months. When i turn it on to boot up i get a solid Blue screen……fan comes on but won’t boot up….tried restore disc but nothing……any help greatly appreaciated….thanks
September 27th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
This works!!!!! I have a 12″ ibook 1.07 GHz PowerPC G4.
It had a black screen and a loud, whirring fan noise on startup.
I used a thick, clear rubber foot to repair my computer back to normal.
I did exactly like the picture. Thanks so much!!!
September 28th, 2008 at 8:04 am
While searching for a solution to a problem I was having with my G4, I came across all these sites describing the problem that my son had on his G4 several years ago, the black screen and noisy fan on start up. His G4 has been sitting in the basement for the last two years, so I thought what have I got to lose and I tried your fix. It worked like a charm. Now the computer does turn on and boot up and actually works fine for about 15 to 20 minutes, when all of a sudden the screen goes black. I have to force it off with the power button, but I can then start it up again no problem, but in a short time it goes back to the black screen. Any further suggestions would be helpful. I don’t know much about computers but with my new found confidence, thanks to your site, I am willing to give anything a try.
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:34 am
IT WORKS! My Ibook G4 800 MHz 12″ resurrected last night from the jaws of (fan of) death. Used a 3mm thick adhesive rubber foot. Thanks a lot Corey Arnold!
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Awesome! It worked. Saved me $300 for a new logicboard the repair guy tried to sell me.
October 5th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I think I love you!!! My computer has been sitting around for 2 months and now it works again! Many, many, many thanks!!
October 6th, 2008 at 2:38 am
Thanks a lot ! I lost two ibooks G4 to this problem. Symptoms:
- the screen freeze 1 minute after powering
- by pressing left to the trackpad, the system works.
Your solution worked perfectly: I used a shirt button, 3mm thick, centered on the component. I used some tape to keep it in place (risky?).
I moved the cable completely on the side, as suggested by some people ( the uneven pressure of the cable could be the source of the problem).
My ebook has been working perfectly for 1 day.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Works for me on 2nd try, cheers.
First attempt, I wedged cardboard on top the chip, on the side which wasn’t covered by the fabric encased cable. This only worked for a short while.
Second attempt, I pulled up the cable (it was glued down) and wedged the cardboard between chip and cable (as shown in the pictures). Apparently pins 1 and 15 are the dodgy ones, and these are beneath the cable. The Danish document was very enlightening.
Has been working for 2 weeks.
Corey, you say your ibooks are still running after two years. Do you carry them around much, or do they just sit on the desk?
October 10th, 2008 at 12:05 am
You are amazing! My iBook G4 kept blacking out if I would move it and sometimes for no reason at all…anyway I tried your method and it WORKED!!!! Thank you so much for taking the time to posted this info! You saved me so much heartache and Money!!! Thanks a Million!
October 10th, 2008 at 12:52 am
Juhu! Thanks a lot.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Cheers Corey! Chalk up another iBook G4 (12″, 1GHz, early 2004) fixed today using your technique. I’d been putting this off for a couple of months as taking the bottom off the machine looked a bit tricky, but it really is not too much of a hassle and only took around 30 mins.
Amusingly I used an rubber door closure stop from one of my ancient kitchen cupboards, it was around 3mm thick. Just need to fix the cupboard now (only joking there…)!
October 11th, 2008 at 5:59 am
just though i’d share my experience - have been looking up about the logic board problem as my parents have a 12″ G4 ibook and they were experiencing weird things going on - like only booting into firmware, black screen, fan noise, etc. I tried the shimming technique last night and it didn’t work - i was going to try the heat thing but just before i tried it i checked again and noticed that some of the g4 ibooks were having problems with faulty airport cards. One last go - I opened the ibook up and took it to bits and removed the built in airport card. It now works fine. Solved it. Model is G4 12″ ibook - 1.33 GHz.
thanks for giving me the confidence to open it up..
October 14th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Hey, thanks so much for this. ibook G4 late 2004 konked out with this exact problem yesterday. Applied this fix with a rolled up piece of copper and sure enough the ibook is back. thanks a bunch.
on another note, this is just further proof of this flaw in the 2004 ibook.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:36 am
Fixed my laptop last night for the price of a set of screwdrivers, instead of a new logic board. Thanks! For reference, a slice of a plastic cork from a wine bottle seems to work as a shim.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:48 am
PS If you need instructions for taking the machine apart (I did), look at
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/
It’s pretty good, but you will need more tools than they say - having a selection of Phillips heads 00 to 1 really helps.
October 20th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Okay, my symptoms are the same or close to it. I have a Ibook G4 (I’m not 100% sure what version is) but when I hit the power button it makes “the fan of death” and the screen stays black as it makes the mac opening sound. Then it comes up and does the white screen with an apple and the rotating circle. After that it will sometimes boot up and run for maybe 5 minutes before freezing and not doing anything. I believe it is the same problem so I am happy, but does anyone have any suggestions for normal household items that one could use as a shim? Like a chip of wood, I don’t know. Thanks for writing this thing man I hope it helps.
October 20th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
1 month ago i did this repair in an ibook someone gave me as a gift and it worked so i gave it to my best friend, and she es so happy with it eventhough it still blocks from time to time im going to try a little more presure hehehe and come soon to tell you what happens Cheers!!!
October 21st, 2008 at 6:47 am
Many and many thanks!!! You saved me 850 EUROS!!! (the highest request since now). I used a three folder plastic badge with rubber on both side all taped toghter. IT WORKS! (Thank god!)
October 22nd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Thanks for putting this info up. I successfully repaired a 12″ iBook G4 with it.
I didn’t go with a shim though, I just resoldered the chip in question.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
My Ibook has been in coma for almost a year now, today I finally found the courage to fix it using the soldering iron. AND IT’S ALIVE AGAIN!! Thanks Corey and everybody for sharing your information and experiences! It was not that hard actually, if you have the same problem, try the soldering iron, even a noob like me could do it
Just a simple soldering iron and a magnifying glass is ok already, no fancy stuff needed. Thanks again =)
October 27th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Many thanks my iBookg4 had become nothing but a paper weight. I have incured a new problem though, If left inactive for over an hour I return to find my coputer at the login screen? Any advise. thanks
October 27th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Thanks a ton! This is great. I owe you one.
October 28th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
My Ibook did the exact things, i open it and do exactly what its write… And now my Ibook is working and the screen doesnt turn black!! Wowww… Thanks a lot!
October 30th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Thanks! My 14″ is still running after 7 hours, without any difficulty. Hopefully this has done the trick for years to come! Keep my fingers crossed!-)
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:30 am
Suggestion of alternative method to soldering pins 1 and 28.
My son used to have trouble with the power switch of his eMac, which exhibited an (easily proven) deficient solder joint.
Being a chemist, he made a mixture containing Silver Nitrate and honey, and applied a small drop of it to the faulty solder joint, with the aim of depositing some silver that should bridge the gap in the joint.
THIS WORKED !!! After a few months, the same problem occurred, but this time he fixed the problem by applying the Silver Nitrate mixture more liberally. His eMac has been working ever since.
Wouldn’t the Silver Nitrate method be a more benign method (no heating involved, smaller chance of producing shorts) than brute force soldering?
p.s. If there is any interest, I can look up the details of the mixture he used.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:32 am
no wonder the occasional punch to the keyboard would make it work for a few minutes. Now I have a button and a piece of tape holding it down.
AND IT WORKS!
November 6th, 2008 at 8:41 am
ibook g4 still running after 4 years thanks your solution. Thanks a ton.
November 8th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I could kiss you! A year ago I lost a file that was hugely important to me, my families genealogy database going back 500 years and containing thousands of people. I had spent years transcribing it from old books and file and never realized that the Application folder on my iBook was not being copied to the external hard drive.
The fix above is the ONLY thing that worked. Briefly, my iBook died again, but I got it on long enough to retrieve the file I needed.
THANK YOU!!!
November 11th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
thanks while i have a unique issue where my battery will not charge on top of the logic board issue, this has fixed the black screen of death for a day so far *crosses fingers*
squeezing left of the trackpad had the additional result for me of turning the charging light back on, though it didnt seem to be sending current to the battery. pretty strange but hopefully your fix will last until i can afford a new macbook
cheers!
November 13th, 2008 at 2:58 am
Yep, another satisfied customer, this time a G4 14in. Front looks a bit ragged after I used a screwdriver to pry open the plastic, but otherwise okay. Used two sticky kids’ foam stars with the tips cut off for the shim. My computer does lapse into the blue lined screen occasionally, but crucially I rescued my photos. Thanks hugely
November 13th, 2008 at 9:44 am
I was about to consign my ibook to the scrapheap but found your site, SUPERB! its actually worked…bravo for putting this vital info out there, lets hope it lasts…
November 13th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
May you live to be a thousand years old, sir.
November 13th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
This solution worked for my wife’s 12″ iBook G4 on November 12, 2008. Thanks a ton!
November 13th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
For me, it only worked for a couple of months. To boot my computer I have to apply much more pressure. Back to the C clamp for me.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Tim:
Try a bigger shim.
Rodney:
I use my iBooks around the house. Both cases are starting to crack around where the shim is, but they still work.
All:
Soldering may work, but I found that my re-soldered joints broke again. The case allows the motherboard to flex, breaking the joints.
November 15th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
I had a 14″ iBook G4 1.33 that was dead in a closet for 6 months…I bought a new MacBook Pro and took it back as soon as I saw your site. Followed the instructions and “bam” it works!
You literally saved me $2000…thank you! Btw my airport card seems to be working 100% better for some reason. I am in heaven!!!
November 17th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Many Many Thanks
fixed my ibook G4 1 Ghz with the same symptoms.
:-)
November 17th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I think I was searching on the Apple Support page, or perhaps some other forum when I was searching for a fix to my computer’s boot failure problem. I kept seeing your posts and updates about installing shims here and there, and kept thinking, “What an idiot. What is this half-baked jury-rig that this guy keeps going on about?” The only fix I saw out there more ridiculous was the “c-clamp fix”. Finally, I saw that you had a fix and even made a website about it, so I thought, “Nothing else has worked, perhaps I’ll check it out.” Well I read the page and just squeezed the computer really hard with my hand and the machine booted right up, something I haven’t been able to do for awhile. Allow me to apologize for initially discounting you posts.
So, I think I speak for all of the cheap tightwads out there when I say Thank You for not only coming up with a fix, but taking the time out to post it online.
Best Regards,
phillyhouse
iBook G4 1.33 Mhz
November 17th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
i had noise in the power-on-chime and a color cycleing display when powering on the ibook.
thanks to you, resoldering pins 1 and 28 works for me to bring it back.
but the power-on-chime-noise was still there.
after two weeks the book began to freeze while working with it.
next few power-on’s it had horizontal and vertical colored lines in the boot-screen.
now the screen is black but it still boots and i can work on it over network via vnc and ssh.
anyone any idea?
thanks,
frank
November 27th, 2008 at 6:12 am
Dear Corey,
thank you so much for posting these instructions! My ibook G4 refused to start up all of a sudden on Friday, exhibiting a black screen and fans on full blast, which I was told was due to logic board failure. I opened it up and, following your instructions, inserted a furniture foot similar to the one you used - it has been running now for 24 hours and I am hoping it will last. : ) I really appreciate your generosity in making this information available, especially since I am in the final stages of my thesis and really could not afford a new computer at this time. It was quite a lifesaver. Thanks so much! M.
December 1st, 2008 at 1:33 pm
This fixed worked beautifully — for about 3 weeks. Now it’s going on the fritz more and more. Too bad.
December 1st, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Hi Corey,
Thanks for this info - Fix worked great for me. Was using the C-clamp method, but now I can take my Ibook to work with me, which is necessary. I ended up using two shirt buttons, one directly over the chip on the logic board, then a second one on top of the heat shield (the first button didn’t provide enough pressure and I was too lazy to take the heat shield off a second time - seems to work great now). I also used some electrical tap to hold things in place - not sure if that was a good or bad idea, but seems alright.
I’ve found that the computer will still lock up if I try to move it too abruptly, but putting it to sleep prior to moving can usually remove this problem. If I need to move it over long distance, put it in a computer bag, etc, I just do a shut down prior to moving it, then start it up when I get where I’m going - seems to work fine. Is this issue something that can be fixed with a slightly larger shim?
thanks
bob
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
iBook G4 12″ 1.2Ghz - Loud fan, black screen, no start up. Twenty minutes later… works perfectly. I happened to have a package of the clear rubber stick on feet which work great. Well done and thank you for the ifixit link on disassembly.
December 2nd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Holy balls.
Best. Fix. EVAR.
Thanks for figuring this out and allowing me to help a few more Macs live to see another chime.
Cheers!
December 3rd, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Hi there,
My Ibook G4 lay 2 years on a shelf in my office with a broken logicboard
Once in a a couple of months I tried to start it up and hoping it was all a bad dream.
Then I saw your repair instructions site and immediately started unscrewing my Ibook G4, I had nothing to loose anyway..
After some adjustments with the thickness of the layers of the shim it worked like a charm!
I was very happy with my “new” computer.
However I was very mad at the same time with the so-called “professionals” at the Mac store who told me it was the logicboard that was broken and that it would cost me so much money I could rather buy a new computer.
Respect for you for letting my Ibook have a second chance and ***** them at the mac store!
Cheers!
Thijs
December 5th, 2008 at 11:18 am
This apple was a try on advice of a friend, and had the shortest life of a book ever.
Now let alone this black death of Mother Board:
some rainy days (I now have an “older” Thinkpad - what difference to the better!) get me to follow your description and look with a microskope. What I see is lack of reflexes on the soldering, which looks like sand. Could be a condition of technical soldering, however if you have a result like this on manual soldering it would most probably be a “cold” spot.
So I removed the protective layer around the legs of the IC and used high temperature+short time plus kollophonium on resoldering, which ended first with partly no lead on top (guessing: filled gaps below?) and after additionaly solder now with shining reflexes:
result:
the phoenix out of ashes.
Now I will wait how long that bird flies - and if it crashes again exchange the chip or bridge the legs with fine wire (hope not, I have different things to do, maybe simply get rid of it).
Thank you Apple for keeping me busy on rainy days -
Seriously: thanks for your advice, without which the book would be waste by now.
Apple again? To many worms inside ….
December 6th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Hi. I tried this fix. Funny thing, when I tested it by applying pressure on the right spot while the computer was opened, it start up perfectly. Once I put the case back together again, though, the same grinding and spinning is still going on. Any thoughts?
December 9th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Thanks very much!
I had the same problems as everyone else - colored lines all over the screen, then super-fast fan and no screen.
I glued half of a rubber pencil eraser to the top of the crappy chip and closed the case. It worked for 5-10 minute intervals then would shut down again. So, I then glued two pennies to the outside of the heat shield, so that they’d press up against the pencil eraser when the case is closed.
It’s been running non-stop for a week as I’ve been downloading several BitTorrents continuously. I’ve literally left it on day and night, expecting to come home from work or wake up and it’ll be frozen again, but it’s been good every day now.
Thanks again!
December 10th, 2008 at 6:41 am
As I fixed the aforementioned problem the flashing question mark icon at startup occured. Even though the hard drive cable seems to be connected. I tried it again without the shim and made sure the cable is plugged in but it still shows the
flashing question mark icon.
What can I do?
December 11th, 2008 at 4:03 am
Hi Corey, as I fixed the aforementioned problem the flashing question mark icon showed up at startup. I checked the plugin of the cable and tried it again without the shim - now even the c-clamp method only provides a flashing question mark folder at startup.
What can I do?
December 12th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Corey, thank you so much. I am writing to you on my ibook g4 right now. The fix was relatively easy. Thank you for doing the leg work and sharing it with others with a detailed description. My wife and I couldn’t afford to get this fixed right now and we have pics that I hadn’t backed up. Not only have I been able to back up the information, but I am able to use it in general. Thanks again!
December 13th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Hi,
I’ve had various degrees of success with this. Can anyone provide an image of where the same chip is on late G4 1.4Ghz iBook?
All help will be greatly appreciated!
December 13th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Thank you for rocking so hard! My machine is happy to be back up.
I used an eyeglass repair kit- both little sticky pads.
December 14th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
hey corey,
i fixed an ibook g3 with a similar technique some time ago. now i got myself this new old ibook g4 and guess what… its crapped (well i guess thats why it was so cheap
i didnt know that g3 and g4 logic boards were so different, so i was pretty clueless how to fix it. then i found your page here.
well what can i say, the g4 is up and running (im actually writing on it).
i used similar shims (mine are a bit smaller) but had to rearrange em, cuz the ibook startet to freeze again. in the end i guess its like:
more shims = more pressure = better results
thx a lot pal for sharing this with us. you sure saved some ppl a shitload of money!
December 14th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
My son had been having the boot up problem for close to 9 months and it progressively got really bad. He finally decided to buy a new Mac laptop and he sold the G4 12″ to his younger sister. She managed to find this thread and I have just completed installing a shim. It booted up on the first shot. I shut it down and restarted it five times without a hitch. Hopefully this is the fix! Thanks for your detailed explanation and photos they were a great help.
December 16th, 2008 at 3:31 am
UPDATE:
plastic/rubber shims didnt work out for long. the glue melts after some time and the shims are pushed aside… resulting in a freezing ibook.
im using a folded piece of aluminium now. placed it directly on top of the chip and additionaly rearranged the powercable to run on top of that. brings a lil more pressure and holds the aluminium in place.
so far its running fine
December 16th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Scott Love, I have a G4 and I put a shim on top of the power cord and one on top of a big chip in the same area where the G3 fix was put. It seems like pressure in that area, at all, will help out. What I also did was moved the shim around then screwed on a couple of screws on the inner shield then I tested it (repeated a few times). Finally, I found an area that worked. Hope this helps.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Corey,
First off, thanks buddy for posting your experience, let alone investigating this beyond the GPU.
Recently came up on a 12″ 1Ghz iBook. My first attempt at a shim did not work. Heated chip connectors with soldering iron and it booted a couple times then nothing.
Finally, added a shim of folded up paper slightly bigger than the chip. Put the bottom shield back on. THEN folded up another piece of paper about 2 inches by 2 inches in hopes to distribute the weight.
Works like a charm. I can pick it up, move it, etc.
Thanks man.
December 18th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Wow!
Great solution, just replaced the harddrive 2 months ago and I thought I had to buy my oldest daughter a new machine. It works fine and I hope it will stay so.
Thank you sooooo much!!
Keep up the good work.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
After soldering the legs of the chip as described I gave it to my daughter - and it is still up and running.
December 21st, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I bought 2 ibooks off ebay about a year and a half ago. I was crushed when the first one died after a month with the screen of death. I was able to use the second one until August, when it had the same fate. I found your tutorial and fixed my second one (ibook G3 700mhz) in September, and it fired back up! I used the little rubber feet I found at the Home Depot and it got it back and running. It is sensative to movement, it does tend to do the screen of death every once in a while, but closing it quickly and reopening, or rebooting seems to stop it. Any idea why it tends to do this more often now? It gets hotter from what I’venoticed in about 20 minutes, but I can’t complain. About to do the fix to my first ibook and hope it works!
But has anyone else had that problem where it gets hot and screen of death occurs? I cant have it at angles anymore, or sit it on my lap, just on a flat surface.
But still…saved me $1600 for a new MacBook. Thanks so much!
December 24th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Well, you just saved me!!! I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t found your guide!! So a 1000 thankyous from me
December 28th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Thank you very much. I did reanimate my broken ibook, which was lying in the cellar for over 2 years.
December 29th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
thank you thank you thank you
January 3rd, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Seems to have worked for me. I used a tiny piece of rubber tubing (extra from shortening triple-flange plugs for some headphones), and the machine has been running for about eight hours without problems. I slapped it around a bit to see if it was pressure-sensitive or anything, but it seems fine. Thanks so much!
January 5th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Now, I have 2 working macs instead of 1! I’d already bought a new MacBook Pro after I “jarred” my ibookG4 (Powerbook6,3 machine) 1GHz fairly hard. I knew the machine was still “there” because I was able to transfer everything off it onto the new computer (firewire). The Macstore wanted to replace my logicboard and charge me more than the 3 year old machine was worth for labor and the logicboard - so - I bought a new machine.
Then, some months later, I found your post. SO far so good. I’m hoping the little rubber bumbers stay put, they are slightly adhesive, having come from the extras for a cabinet. The worse part is taking off the shell - but the step-by-step from ifixit was awesome! I’m not screwing the shell on all the way just yet, until I know if I have to add some layers behind the shim (thought I’d try the duct tape on the back of the metal plate if need be.)
You are sooooo awesome!
January 7th, 2009 at 3:16 am
Corey! your method worked for me… it did come back to life. (per say)
i did a hard drive test. and it comes up a s error.
do i need to buy a new one..? or did i move something i shouldn’t have?
i only moved the black cloth-like wrap around the small cables.
pls advise… anybody… it may save me from buying a new HD.
cheers all.
souldegreebar@yahoo.com.au
PS- i’m sure Apple has learned of this site by now… hope u do something guys… it’ll make ur sales go up if you own up to ur mistakes. people will be more complacent in purchasing when they know you support the product 100%
January 9th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Hello!
FANTASTIC!!!!!!!! It really worked and I’m really greatful.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:09 am
I just want to thank you for this post. I was at my wits end and about to part out my G4 1.33 14 iBook when I saw this.
I first tried something small and it seemed to work or so i thought. Got frustrated and copied your copper roll. I used a cut up soda can.
Up and running no issues.
Thank you.
January 11th, 2009 at 7:28 am
Had a similar problem with a late model G4 iBook. The board layout is a little different, chip is in the general same area but turned thru 90 degrees and slightly further to the front on the logic board. But the rubber foot treatment still seems to work.
Here’s hoping……….
January 14th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Cory, Cory, Cory !
it worked , and I did it myself !
My secondhand ibook G4, 1069 mhz, 40G, 512 ram, started cutting out. Screen went blank, and hard drive wouldn’t boot - just got a noisy fan. It got to the point it would come on at all, or when the fan came on, I couldn’t switch it off. I parked it for a month.
Anyway on finding your website, I did the ’squeeze test’, and heard the reassuring clicks when I clamped down on the left hand side of the outer casing.
So I ordered myself a set of screwdrivers, folded an index card to use as a shim,, printed out you instructions, and set to work.
I now have a fully functioning ibook - 12 hours and counting.
Thank You !
January 15th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Tried this yesterday using a little rubber foot I had lying around from B&Q. Worked like a charm so far (24 hours and counting). A bit concerned that if I drop it at the right (wrong?) angle it the shock will be transmitted to the logic board, but apart from that, it’s a fix MacGyver himself would be proud of.
January 26th, 2009 at 12:49 am
THANK YOU!!!! I recently got a Macbook pro for Christmas and was going to use my ibook for Traveling etc… I had not used it for almost a month when I decided to take it to work a couple days ago when it magically had a “black screen” and the “fan” started whirring. I couldn’t believe it It was like my ibook knew I got the Macbook Pro and was on strike. I looked up it’s symptoms and found your logic board fix and knew I had nothing to lose. IT WORKED and took less than 20 minutes! I used a rubber foot like the one in your picture (had extra ones on hand). Thank YOU Thank YOU Thank YOU!!!!!!
ps sending this from my fixed ibook
January 30th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Thank you for the detailed instructions. My iBook G4 1.07Ghz died a few months ago, just out of warranty and since it was dropped, I wasn’t going to hassle Apple about it. Although I have had very good results with Customer Service in the past.
I was getting the black screen and the fan and the only way to shut it down was to pull the battery out. I followed your directions and used a piece of silicone. So far so good. I am beginning to think that I will talk to Apple about this issue now, though. I figure the more people that call, the more they have to acknowledge that there is an issue.
February 1st, 2009 at 9:35 pm
My laptop had been re-sodered 2x and broke again a few months later each time. I just set it aside and used my desktop for the past 2 years until I finally did this. I wish I had done it at the beginning instead of paying to have it fixed. I did it myself and it works. Imagine that.
February 2nd, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Hey Thanks
Add me to the long list of greatful people that have benefited from your well done and very helpful post. I can’t believe there are this many people with the same problem on one post. After being told by the local “Apple Repair Experts” here in Montreal i thought my ibook was dead and not worth repair so I bought a new lap top. More that a year later I found this post and still had the ibook in storage so I tried your solution and was amazed that it worked and my ibook is working again!
Thanks!
February 12th, 2009 at 10:27 am
A friend soldered it, fully working now since a week ago! Apple Genius asked me 500pounds!!!
Thanks!!!
Roberto
February 14th, 2009 at 6:59 am
Corey, you have made me very happy. I had the fan of death, was planning to shell out for a new machine. Tried the fix - it worked reasonably well but was still crashing. Took it apart maybe 3 times, each time increasing the press on the chip. I now have 2 coins and a couple of bits of cardboard rammed in there and have not experienced any problems for over a month now.
I thank you.
February 15th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Hey, just wanted to say thank you very much. It worked! I had been squeezing my ibook for the last couple weeks trying to eek out a few minutes of surfing and I was getting more and more frustrated. I thought I give this a try and success! I will add though, for people attempting it, that placement of pressure on the chip is important. At first I put the rubber foot toward the side of the chip seen most covered in Corey’s pictures. It didn’t work. Then I looked closer and saw that he’s under that wire. I couldn’t get the wire unstuck so I put a second rubber foot on top of the wire more toward the other side of the chip. Success! So if you try this and it doesn’t work consider moving the rubber foot (I used a Lowes self adhesive stickie found with the caster coasters) more centralized on the chip for figure out what side of your chip might be the faulty one. I guess the best move would be dead center.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Cool, thx, just saw this thread and fixed my ibook G4 that layed flat during 2 Years!
THX
February 25th, 2009 at 3:44 am
Thanks!!
I did solder the connections of the IC again myself an now the machine works!!! Thank you very much!! I am not patient enough to find such a cause by my own.
God bless you.
February 26th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Because I’m not a very tech inclined person, I was advised by the IT guy at work to take my iBook to a television repairman to solder the chip back. And voila! AUD$50 and few hours later, my baby came back to life. And bloody APPLE wanted $1500 for a new logic board replaced! Corporate criminals!
March 1st, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Corey,
My iBook G4 has been sitting in the closet for 2 years after the “fan, black screen, no boot… etc.”
Your instructions were so detailed that I felt confident I couldn’t screw it up anymore than it already was. Viola, your remedy worked like a charm.
YOU make me happy!
Cheers and Thank you!
March 4th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Instead of fixing my bike on a rainy day here in Holland, I just fixed my iBook!
Thanks a lot guys!!!!!
D.
March 5th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
thank you so so so much!!!
the little peace of plastic that is in my lovely little mac is now worth 150€
thanks from berlin
:malte
March 6th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Hi Corey,
My story is similar to the others: my ibook G4 PPC 1.07 Ghz suddenly stopped working for no apparent reason. I first talked to the local mac shop and after refusing to pay 75 bucks for a complete diagnostic, was told that the motherboard was most probably fried and that it would just cost 1200 dollars to replace it. As i wasn’t too happy about this, I decided to seek help with the millions of connected friends on the web instead. I quickly found the clamp trick, tested it and, oh miracle! it worked. I then found your page and realized that I was not alone. I tried the fix with a shim made of rolled up tape and it worked for half a day. Tried again with a shim made of two stacked up pieces of credit card wrapped in tape and it worked for half a day. Decided that you were wrong after all and that the issue wasn’t this chip but the GPU. Tried to locate the GPU and stuck a shim on it: no luck. I then managed to talk to apple support and after much arguing with 3 different people, I got them to admit that it was common problem but that they would not extend the warranty for me. However, as I didn’t sound like a happy customer, I got a 125 bucks voucher to buy a touch (ie. you are not happy with the reliability of our products but you know that they are so much cooler than anything else on the market so go ahead buy more!). As a last try, I then opened the box one more time and stuck a shim made of 4 pieces of credit card. It has now worked fine for a month! The moral of the story: the fix works provided you are not afraid to use a thick shim (4-5 credit card thickness).
Thanks a lot for taking the time to share this fix in details! I am genuinely happy that I will not have to give more money to apple right now.
Seb
March 10th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Thank you! Thank you and Thank you!
On day 1 since doing your mod and so far so good
March 12th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Thanks Corey, it works like a champ on my housemate’s iBook G4; she’s stoked! I stacked two of Master Caster’s 3/4″ crystal clear surface protectors ($4.79 for 20 at Staples) on the center of the chip, underneath the nylon HDD cable cover. As long as they don’t melt, she should be good to go. The case bulge is perfect because it actually adds a fifth foot to the bottom of the case, especially since the three non-battery feet are missing.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
An update regarding the heat tolerance of Master Caster’s 3/4″ crystal clear surface protectors - Master Caster said they can withstand up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit so there shouldn’t be a problem with melting.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Hey i just tried this on my ibook G4 1.22. i did not work! before i would turn on my ibook and it would just go to this white screen and not display anything! i would plug it in through the VGA adapter and it worked complete fine in the monitor. i did everything exactly as you said and i have built computers before so i know what im doing! what do i need to replace to get the computer working again?
March 24th, 2009 at 5:10 am
Well, mine was playing up. Tried the rubber foot trick. Works 90% of the time. Happy with that!
March 25th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Just picked up an iBook G4 from eBay. The seller took it to a shop where they told him it was a bad thermal sensor on the board, and laptop was freezing intermittently because it was overheating. I saw that this obviously wasn’t the case and searched out an answer which lead me here…
Though I did not have the black screen / no video error, the iBook would consistently freeze after about 10-15 minutes of use. After resorting to power down the machine to reboot, it would not load the OS or an install CD/DVD. I diagnosed the problem by laying the iBook flat on a desk and pressing on the palm rests while booting. Low and behold the pressure allowed it to boot from CD, and as soon as a I let go it locked up again!
The logic behind this quick fix makes sense, since we are applying counter pressure to the GPU heat sink to make a “solid” connection on the weak solder points.
I started by using 1 piece of the rubber foot shown in the example. This allowed for a bit of time and the ability to reboot the system, however, I had to apply more pressure (ie. extra shims) in order to get this working properly. In addition the example, I cut a 2 inch square of crate cardboard and taped it between the plastic shell and heatsink, below the rubber shim.
At last my iBook is working and ran for 6 straight hours with no issues. As i type this, it is from my iBook. From one techie to another, thanks for the great tip!
March 27th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
By God it worked!!!
Thank you
Bob
March 29th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Wow. What a curious remedy! Thanks so much. This worked like a dream… and to think I was actually contemplating the advise given by the Genius Bar at the Apple Store: new logic board $280 + installation!!! Thanks again (^u^)
March 31st, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I used your method to fix my iBook back in November 2008. My laptop is still working perfectly now for 4 months. I took a chance this week and brought it aboard a 4-hour flight in my bag, and it still works great.
April 6th, 2009 at 9:26 am
I tried this as well with a 12″ 1.2 Ghz after it quit working - on a logic that was only a couple years old, btw!
It worked for a couple weeks & then went back to shutting down at randon again, if it booted at all.
So I pulled the bottom covers off & ran a hot soldering iron over all the contacts.
It works again! I hope…
Thanks.
April 8th, 2009 at 5:38 am
Corey, you’re a genius.
I’ve an ibook g4 800 that I update to 1124 MB Ram and 160 GB Hard disk that I use only for travelling to store my travel photo’s. It does stop function after only two weeks after the upgrade (I made it myself) and apple center tells me it was irrimediately broken logic board, and tah I must Buy a macbook air. I don’t wanted to pay for a machine that I use only for travel. I apply your fix and now I’m in the run again!!!! Umbrella to apple!!!
Does your ibook is still running now?
April 15th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
THANK YOU SO MUCH! YOU JUST GOT ME A working 1.33GHz iBook G4 with 14″ screen and 60GB hdd for $150. It had the video problem so it was only $150 and free ship. I got it today and followed ur guide and it works fine! THANKS!
April 19th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I was so sad about potentially having to part with my mac when it stopped working but found a link to your site on the Apple forums. I used these instructions step-by-step and it worked perfectly (for now)!!! Thanks so much!
May 4th, 2009 at 1:27 am
Thanks a bunch! I used 2 dimes wraped in electrical tape worked great! saved me $100 for a new logic board. Thanks a lot.
- Nick
May 16th, 2009 at 5:59 am
Hey Corey…
YOU ARE THE MAN. i just fixed my G4 12″ 1 GHz ibook with the explained method. just need to install osx again and see how its working. i guess fine since the g4 is starting up every single time - the screen is finally displaying again.
thanks soooo much. i will share this with a couple of my friends here in germany. guess they are gonna love it as well!
Peter
May 20th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Hey, thank you for providing such a great tip… The iBook G4 was showing the fan of death and nothing fixed it… Took it to an Apple store here in the UK 2 years ago and they said the logic board had failed and it would be cheaper to purchase another one… I was handed the laptop to have a play with this year after sitting in a box for 2 years and I decided to use a hot air soldering iron and run it along both sides of the IC chip in question for about 1 minute… AND IT WORKED!!!! re-assembled and it has now been running all day without any problems!
May 28th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Cory,
Thanks for taking the time to put this up for everyone else’s use. I have applied this to my 14′ G4 and it’s been running well enough for me to get things done for a year and a half now. As some others have reported the fix worked perfectly for about a month and then deteriorated, however it is still much better that when the problem (sudden video dropout, no boot) first cropped up. I have a problem in that it will not recognize the onboard memory any longer however I can work around that.
Thanks again,
Sam
June 6th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Oh my god, you’re a genius ! Thank you so much! I was able to fix my big sisters old ibook G4 with your advice. Great guide, I can’t describe how thankful I really am
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Hi all,
iBook G4 12″ 800mhz quit working last week (black screen, fan noise). Found this page, tried squeezing the case in the indicated location and the machine would boot.
Decided to go straight to the solder fix.
Put a new tip on the soldering iron - a pointy one instead of a chisel tip.
If it matters, this is a Radio Shack soldering iron with replaceable tips.
Didn’t tin the tip, so as to minimize the possibility of creating a solder bridge between the chip legs.
Heated each leg of the offending chip until the solder melted. The chip stayed cool, so I was hopeful that it would work.
Put it together, and it started right up. It’s as if there was never a problem. Wow! Thanks!
We’ll see if it keeps on going. I’ll post if it fails again, but I’m pretty confident that it’s fixed for another several years.
Later,
Doug
July 1st, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Ive never opened up a computer for any reason. This was so easy to do thanks to your detailed instructions. Thanks for saving me some money since I was able to transfer my necessary documents to a new computer without paying someone to do it.
thanks thanks thanks!
July 13th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Thanks so much for this site. I have a G4 1.2Ghz ibook. I bought it used 3 years ago and was aware of the G3 circuit board problem so I always treated my ibook with extreme care. Didn’t matter - It happened to me too. I was desperate - tried everything I knew to bring it back to life to no avail. Went home, had a good cry on my iMac’s shoulder (the white part). Came back to work on friday and searched the internet (on company time) and found this website.
Friday night I attempted the BIG FIX. I looked very closely at the chip and its solder connections and could not see any bad area’s but all I had was a magnifying glass.
I then cut 3 credit card pieces almost the exact same size as the chip and used double stick tape to fasten them to the top of the chip. That didn’t work. So I dis-assembled again and added 2 more pieces for a total of 5. This made for a total of 3mm and I should also say I rerouted the cable so it no longer was over the chip. It has been 3 days with one failure to start so far. I am considering reflowing the solder if it acts up again.
Thanks Corey
July 21st, 2009 at 8:03 am
My 14″ibook (PowerBook6,5; PowerPC4, 1.1), but Sheldon did the fix night before last.
After the first reassembling, the hard drive quit. Apparently got disconnected in the process. He went back in, & reconnected successfully
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU,
Mary Ann Schafer
July 25th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
I used this fix on my 800 mhz G4 when I was getting ready to give up. For only a couple of bucks and a little, and I do mean a little, bit of time it has been working like a charm for months. I fixed it in Feb. 2009 and as of July it is still humming along with a total software upgrade to boot. Thanks for posting this!!!
July 28th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Hahaha I can’t belive it, but it does work. We used the “Palm” method and sure enough the machine booted.
Because this is not one our fleets machines we are not going to bother to fix it, but I am quite sure that it would work
Good job!!
July 29th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
works gr8!..thaks soo much 4 tha 411!!
July 30th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Thanx man !
Work perfectly since 2 years !!!
August 2nd, 2009 at 5:46 am
Hi Corey,
My iBook packed up while I was in Spain on holiday, and I found your thread while in a little cafe on the beach. Got it home to Austria, followed your instructions (used a cut up rawl-plug as a shim and taped it onto the cable). It is working 6 hours later. Thanks, you’re a star!
August 4th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
FLASHING QUESTION MARK
so i went through all the steps and and got the flashing question mark. i only see one place where the harddrive cable connects so i disconnected it and put it back in but still no go. is there soemthing i could be missing here??
thanks, jared
August 18th, 2009 at 6:33 am
Hey, I tried this on Friday night, and it worked!! I was so excited. 3 years and finally my ibook was working again…i was soo excited. Note the ‘was’. I turned it off the other day before I went to bed, and I checked it yesterday and it wouldn’t turn on. At all..No loud fan noise either. The adapter didn’t have any light on it either. Any ideas?
August 22nd, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Using Master Caster Surface Protectors has worked for me so far (~2hours). The only difficulty was locating the problem chip.
Quick question to anyone who used this method and has subsequently used their iBook G4 for some time-has anyone tried opening it up later on (say a year or more) to check on the condition of the surface protectors? Could they partially melt? deform? etc.
August 24th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Worked for me. I used half of a pencil eraser. Same chip. Thanks for the info! Let’s see how long this fix lasts.
August 25th, 2009 at 1:37 am
Genius! Your curiosity saved my ass and a hundred bucks for a logic board!
August 27th, 2009 at 6:15 am
Thanks alot i swear i wasnt goin to buy a new laptop yet…. The shim worked perfectly…. thanks again..
September 4th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Your instructions have made a dead, $35 iBook a working laptop. Sweet. Thanks!
September 13th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Worked perfectly first time!! Unbelievable. My wife’s iBook died three days ago. Followed your insructions and ‘ifixit’s outstanding instructions’ to the letter and fixed within an hour. I am still gobsmacked. Ur a genius and thanks so much for putting this on the net. Huge brownie points scored!!!lol. THanks again.
September 20th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
When my iBook started crashing today with vertical stripes I though it was a goner. Thanks to all of you, I’m typing this on my iBook.
I cracked open a beer, disassembled the iBook, found the chip that was causing the problems(the chip under the black wire from the optical drive) and re-soldered the pins. Now it has been working for a few hours, I hope it will hold up.
September 26th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I used the Scotch guard version of those plastic sicky doh-nuts but i stacked two up and it worked like a charm! Thank you so much everyone that had a hand in this!
September 27th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Thanks for this very helpful site. I was scrambling to identify my problem after the startup chime and video were lost. I had never heard of the logic board issue.
After unearthing the logic board I wasn’t confident in stacking shims. On ebay one service wanted $50 plus about $13 shipping. As a gambler I decided to try a company asking $30 with free return shipping.
So far it’s a winner. The turnaround was less than a week, with excellent communication and return Priority Shipping. The logic board is working fine.
It’s a classified listing, not an auction, for a company called GPU Medics. The ebay reference can be found under, “Apple ibook Logic Board ATI GPU Repair Service.G3 & G4″
September 27th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Corey–thank you so much! I was hesitant that I would be able to take my ibook apart and put it back together again, but with your link and tutorial I was able to. After 3 years of sadness due to my lost design files and software, I finally have a working Mac again. Thank you so much!!
here’s hoping!!!
just fyi to all - I used 2 dimes wrapped in a sticky sealant, wrapped in electrical tape. I do not think it was enough pressure because I had to tape the casing to the body for some extra support. I just hope it stays… it’s only been a couple of hours since i ‘fixed’ my ibook
September 29th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I used the C-clamp idea to enable me bring it back to life long enough to pull the files off. I’ll leave it to the client to see if he wants to get it fixed. At least he has his data.
Thanks for posting.
October 1st, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I had a g3 (not a g4) which died, and so I got another one, which also died. The photos of the underside don’t match perfectly, but I figured out where to shim (somewhere near the upper left corner of the trackpad), and the
solution has worked well. I was in Mexico at the time, and I used a 10-peso coin, wrapped in plastic tape.
I think the repair has lasted 6 months, but it still crashes when it’s been run for hours, or moved.
Best thing for me will to be to try to mount the laptop on a piece of plywood
and somehow bond or clamp the lower left and upper right corners to the board…
So it won’t flex.
PS if your repair works, and then fails, like mine, sometimes you can “flex” the unit (pressing the top right and bottom left corners down)..
and then re-start it. Probably isn’t good in the long run to do this too many times.
steve
October 8th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Saved me a few hundred dollars.
I estimate you’ve saved people about $100,000 all together.
Thank you so much!
October 11th, 2009 at 3:28 am
I traded a friend of minds a set of 10′’ MTX speakers for this laptop…he said the screen did not work..sent it to a repair guy that i know of and he said i need a new motherboard…so i gave up…until now….i have had it sitting around for months now… till i found this tutorial..i took a small pieace of leather that was hanging off my wallet (lol…really old wallet) and i folded it a couple of time and used that…My IBook works…thanks alot and my friend is not going to be happy when he finds out i fixed it with a piece of leather myself..
October 17th, 2009 at 5:33 am
Just repaired my ibook 800MHz in descriped way. Great! Thankyou very much.
Bu i didn’t shim, I pressed the pins of the chip with a needle carefully into the solder.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
I’ve done the procedure with a similar, if not the same, rubber foot. The iBook isn’t working consistently since. Yesterday, everything seemed to be fine, but the problems are back today. Sometimes it starts up and suddenly crashes (the screen turns black) after a couple of minutes. Sometimes it crashes immediately after the chime. Once, the fan went crazy again. Any ideas about why the repair hasn’t worked or what to do next??
Thanks
October 24th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Unbelievable - my computer has worked fine since we tried the “shim” fix about 2 months ago. It started turning off and/or having only a black screen with fan running. I really thought I was going to lose my pictures, documents, etc. and have to buy a new computer. Thank you, thank you!
October 28th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Reporting from Brussels : one more ibook saved.
November 1st, 2009 at 7:46 am
The magic continues. So glad I found your website. Worked like a charm, even here in China.
This will get me into year six using the same laptop. Thanks so much!
November 4th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
This worked for me. Just now. Thanks so much for taking the time to post this.
!!
November 12th, 2009 at 5:24 am
Thank you,
my shimmed 2004 G4 1,2GHz does a normal performance for three days now. I´d have a big problem if not. Let´s see what happens.
Greetings
November 13th, 2009 at 8:17 am
I’m glad this worked for the majority of people here, but i am not so lucky. After reading up on this blog, searching the internet and watching videos i cannot find the chip that is supposed to be shimmied. Im using a Ibook G4 14″ bought in Australia in 2005, the layout of my board is different to everybody else, when i lift the L shape up there are no chips on the underside of it.. Please someone help me locate it!! thanks
November 13th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Working like a champ. Thanks
November 21st, 2009 at 10:57 pm
holy shit this worked on my 12″ powerbook. what the hell, how!!
Tito
November 27th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Oh my goodness!!!, I was just about to take my frustration out on my ibook with a sledge hammer!, but I’ve tried this and it now works for the first time in three weeks of trying everything else you can imagine.
I’ve placed a button on top the GPU then replaced the heat shield then folded a piece of A4 paper six times and put it over where the GPU sits then put the cover back on.
Disk Warrior did not work, clean install would not work either nor applejack…will be interesting to see if it lasts because I can’t afford a new laptop…
November 30th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
If you ever pass through Louisville, Kentucky, I will buy you dinner.
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I tried this and succeeded after buying an ibook off ebay last June. By July, I was having issues and is successfully ran through late November.
I DO want to mention that equal balance/pressure seems important, especially if you plan to move it around.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:33 pm
This page still is a gold mine of info! I just rescued an iBook G4 from the trash with your solution. Hopefully it will last a while. Thanks!
December 17th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
This is just absolutely fabulous, thanks so much!!!
My iBook G4 (14 inch, 1.33 GHz, model late 2004, running Leopard 10.5.8) had exactly this problem with the CPU fan + screen and now it works again!!! I used exactly the same rubber patches you used. I’ve put 2 on top of each other directly on the chip and then two on the metal shield at exactly the same spot of the chip. This gave / gives the right pressure. Just simply great!
I still have another problem and I hoped that was related but unfortunately not (although at least I can use my laptop again and that’s more than great!): the built-in RAM module isn’t recognised for quite some time now. I’ve put an extra 1 GB RAM in and then the built-in wasn’t recognised any more. I’ve put the old 512 MB RAM back but still the internal built-in RAM is so-called “empty” (as stated under “Memory” in “About this Mac”, “More Info”. At start-up there’s this crashing sound and if you go to “About this Mac”, “More Info”, “Diagnostics”, it says “No information found”.
So, it recognises the new 1 GB RAM I put in and that works perfect, but I just want to know if somebody knows what could be the problem with the internal RAM and how to maybe solve the problem. Thanks!
December 19th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
just got the shim job done for a client worked like a charm was really fast too. i chose to use a bundle of electrical tape