I bought my first Mac in about 2002. It was a G3 iBook. It was a great machine. I loved it. Sure, it smelled like BO after about two years but it worked great. Then, the infamous logic board problem kicked in and eventually it was out of warranty and the recall wasn’t in effect anymore. I lost video somewhere around 2006 and the poor thing sat on the shelf for the last three years.
I moved on to my favorite computer ever, my 12″ Powerbook G4. This thing was amazing, lightweight, small, fast and pretty dang cool looking. Apple lap tops have always been head turners and this one was no different.
After I started doing more design work and the 12″ screen didn’t quite cut it I moved onto my current machine, the 15″ MacBook Pro. I love this machine too. Despite its major hardware issues.
Back to my iBook. I know that a musician’s first guitar is special to him. For a geek like me, my first Mac is also special to me. So, I had a hard time getting rid of it despite the fact it didn’t work. Tonight, I did some research to see if there was any chance of fixing it at all.
And I struck gold. Or, I should say, I discovered fire… that is, I discovered that fire was the thing that would fix my machine. Turns out that the problem is that over time the video card disconnects from the logic board and all it needs is a little heat to melt and reconnect the little metal balls that are supposed to touch the logic board (that’s the non-technical diagnosis).
So, following this guys advice, I opened up my machine and gave it a shot. I know that fire and computers aren’t really good friends but I figured I had nothing to lose. My machine was already unusable. 
Now, this guy uses gasoline and creates a huge flame. I decided I didn’t want to play with gas and just used a click lighter (one of those ones that you use to light your grill). That seemed a bit safer and a bit more controlled.
And, you know what? It worked. I have life again in my old iBook! Now, I am not totally sure what I am going to do with it. I might just use it in my office as a glorified media player. It’s fairly old and its just about only good for surfing the web (slowly) and playing music. I’d let Cole play with it, but I am not sure it can withstand what he would put it through. I might actually take it with me to Zambia so I don’t have to bring my primary computer and risk losing it or getting it stolen.
We’ll see, I’m just happy that I have it working again…
So, if you have a G3 iBook that has video issues, this is one way to think about fixing it. If you just want to get it on long enough to burn data off of it, try squeezing together the top and the bottom naer the spot to the left of the mousepad. That should fix it temporarily.