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Blank blue screen always appears after Apple icon

Hi! I often get iBook G4s that can go into the option menu and target mode, but when you select a volume to boot from, or let them boot to the hard drive, they go to a blank light blue screen and then stall. This happens immediately after the Apple icon screen. The Apple icon screen will disappear after a while, there will be a sort of a flash of a screen refresh, and then the laptop will sit on a blank blue screen, and that's it. I've tried all the typical stuff -- removed the RAM and Airport, done PRAM/PMU resets, swapped the hard drive, tried booting to an external drive, etc. It doesn't matter if you try to boot to the internal drive, external drive, or restore media.

I can only assume it's a logic board issue, because I've tried everything I can think of. There are a lot of machines like this, and it's frustrating to let them go, because they seem like they are close to working, and it feels like I'm missing something.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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rdklinc,

Strip the iBook to the logic board level (now you get only the logic board), connect a known working DC in board, connect an external monitor, connect the AC adapter and power the logic board by tripping the two pins in the power switch connector. Check if you get the fashing question mark. If so connect an external firewire hard drive with compatible OS on it, try to boot tripping the two pins. If you still have the same blue screen issue then the logic board is bad.

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Could you try one thing before going after the hardware. Restart the computer and hold down the Shift key until the blue screen comes up and then for about 30 seconds more. I have seen on other machines that when there have been a disturbance with the system, going into safe mode sometimes lets the system recover and then the restart after that it comes up.

It won't hurt to try and see if by chance it helps.

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There a lot of little issue like that related to the failure of what I understand to be a power control chip that controls power to the video processing chip..

I was able to fix on like this with a big wad of electrical tape jammed between the chip and the emi shield.

some people call it a c-clamp fix..

Here's some more info.. http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/iBookG4_...

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Thanks for the post. I don't think that is it, though, unless I'm missing something. Machines with video chip issues generally behave inconsistently or have a black screen, or a screen showing artifacts, whereas the video on these is 100% reliable, and they go into the option menu and target mode without fail, and with a perfect screen. It's just that when you choose a boot volume and try to go further that you get the solid blue screen. It's not a black screen, or the faint dark blue screen that would indicate a video issue -- it's bright blue.

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I agree, I think it's the logic board. End of.

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Why?

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I realise this is quite blunt but I agree with him, he has tried everything I can think of and if it was me I would think it's the logic board.

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ok, I usually just up vote a question if I have nothing to add, but I'm fairly new here

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rdklinc will be eternally grateful.
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