SOLVED Depressed about my White iBook

[Nanette]

She's been sitting there for years now. On a shelf, closed, resting? Dieing? :'(

The graphics card stopped connecting to the monitor at around the second year I owned her. I remember going into the Apple Store and the "Genius" guy showing me how to slowly massage the back of the iBook to get her to work properly again, telling me, "it's a defect that Apple isn't going to fix and the manufacturer won't fix. Sorry".

She worked really well for years using that technique. The massaging, working, massaging harder, working, massaging, massaging and more massaging till that eventful day when no amount of massage worked.

I loved her. She did everything I wanted so well. She was so small, so pretty, so perfectly white. I loved that white. Just so bright. It was as if she were my own little electronic Angel.

Now...I miss her. Ok, I admit it, I feel guilty. Guilty because I just didn't have the funds to fix her at the time. Hell, I still don't, but..but I see here there every time I look in that direction in the office. Just sitting there waiting for the day she's fixed and can work again. The problem is, I don't even know if she is worth fixing. Will she end up on life support, barely alive, barely thinking, always wondering if tomorrow is that fateful day the life support will stop working.

So many years have passed. So many software up grades. Even if I got her fixed and loaded an OS that she can handle, will it be new enough that she can handle anything I now own? What do I use her for? Her OS is so old that even today's browsers won't like her. Hell, they barely like my Grey and White G4.

So now you know my dilemma. Her body is in perfect shape, but her internal organs have just gotten so old that they don't even want to let her jog no mind run, and right now, she's not even crawling.

Is it possible to somehow upgrade the white iBooks into a new computer? Like some kind of SciFi movie, where they transfer young internal body parts into an old body that just continues to look young on the outside. Is it possible to use that beautiful white shell and put a whole new internal body inside of it? Can my little girl once again run with the big girls rather than walk slow (or worse, her current condition, sit and...die)?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

-Which exact model is the Mac?
-Which version of Mac OS?

I have never heard of the "massaging technique", nor have I ever heard heard of an Apple Genius recommending that as a solution. There isn't any way to replace internal parts to upgrade that Mac. Only RAM and the hard drive can be replaced.

Sorry,

C

 

[dbdjre0143]

Hi, I stumbled onto this site based on another's suggestion and registered just so I could respond to this post. Depending on what model iBook this is, it can likely be fixed for a couple dollars with some effort. I've not personally run into this issue, but I frequent the PowerPC forums section of MacRumors, and I've read about several others who have.

The solution that is generally accepted is to place a spacer on the GPU chip to hold some pressure that forces it to make better contact. It is like permanently massaging it as you described. See Post 7 (by weckart) of this thread for what I'm talking about: (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/question-about-snow-ibooks.2162300/#post-26992496). I know there are more detailed descriptions around over there of the issue, but that's the one I found with a quick search. Feel free to start your own thread there, and I know some folks will describe it for you!

As far as what you can do with it today, once again, it depends on which model it is, but many of us over on that forum use PPC Macs daily. There are techniques for watching YouTube, some up-to-date browsers, and of course there is all of the software that was around when they were new. PPC Macs are a very fun rabbit hole to go down, and your nostalgia for that machine will certainly make it even more fun for you should you choose to fix it.