How to fix your broken G4 ibook motherboard
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 10:16 pm. 52 comments
G4 ibook motherboard fault.
Apparently there is a problem with some G4 ibooks. It can appear after a year or so in some machines. After being on for a few minutes, they get a blank black screen, the fan turns on, and the computer freezes. This article describes the problem and how to fix it.
What models are afffected?
You might be wondering if your ibook is affected. Here is my guess, if your ibook has built in airport extreme, (which is the case for all ibooks after October 19, 2004) you should be OK!
The original 2003 ibook G4’s (800/933/1Ghz) have the fault. This is the model I have. The “Early 2004″ (1Ghz) models up until Oct 2004 probably have the same motherboard.
The good news, the 60G (1.2Ghz) “Early 2004″ model and all the “Late 2004″ model ibooks (1.2Ghz/1.33Ghz) and Mid 2005 (1.33 and 1.42Ghz) have built in airport extreme, which means a different motherboard.
SUMMARY: Suspected models are M9164LL/A M9388LL/A M9165LL/A M9426LL/A M9418LL/A
IT APPEARS FROM THE COMMENTS THAT THE ABOVE INFORMATION IS WRONG. It appears even models with the new motherboards are affected. I have started a survey here click to see it of the affected models.
What is the fault?
The Danish Consumer Complaints Board did some investigations and confirmed the fault. There is a really good report in the form of a pdf document with close up pictures of the fault here:
www.forbrug.dk/fileadmin/Filer/PDF/ENGF959-orig.pdf
Here is a photo from the paper. You can see the thin black line below the lead which is a crack in the solder.
My ibook is indeed just as the article describes it. The little chip gets hot, and if I press my finger on the chip, it works! Take my finger off, it stops working!
I rang Apple Australia and they don’t acknowledge that the problem exists. They have officially ‘never heard of it’.
The repair:
You need to grab a fine tipped soldering iron and heat up the top few pins of the chip one by one to resolder it to the logic board. Press the chip down while you apply a very clean and fine soldering iron tip to each pin.
This is a very complicated ‘how to’ a bit outside the scope of this site but may be interesting to some. Don’t attempt this one unless you have had lots of soldering experience!
Here are some pictures:
The G4 ibook with the bottom case off. The offending chip is circled.
Here is a closeup of where I have soldered the legs of the chip. You can see the base of the top pins are shinier from the new soldering. I soldered the top 3 or 4 pins on each side, but it’s only the top 2 pins that the fault occurs with as they are the main power pins. I applied a little more solder to the joint as well, that’s why it looks a bit lumpy.
Here’s an alternate crude DIY repair method:
http://johnbakersblog.co.uk/design-fault-in-apples-ibook-g4/
another DIY solution is here:
http://coreyarnold.org/ibook/?p=20
There’s some good discussion on the apple pages here:
My ibook is the late 2004 model… no apparent problems.
Am I safe?
Looks like no-one is safe!
hi ,. my ibook has the same problem but i think the model of the motherboard is not the same like hte picture you put .
i have the ibook g4 1.33 with combo drive ,…. i not have the airport on the same place of memory slots.
can you help me telling me the airport chip model name ?
thanks ,.
Hey!
I have an iBook G4 1.42Ghz (2005). I have to say I have exactly that problem. I pushed down the left side besides the trackpad with my hand and it turned on. Before I couldnt, and I always had the grey screen with the Kernel Panic message on it.. So I guess not only early iBooks have that problem.. so nobody who has an iBook is safe.. sorry to say that guys but it just happened to me…
I got my 14″ G4 ibook 1.07 ghz on ebay. Quite soon after I got it the ibook started to freeze with coloured horizonal lines slowly taking over the screen. This began to happen sooner and sooner after starting up the ibook. If I clamped it to the left of the trackpad it ran ok.
This article gave me courage so I removed the bottom case and heat shield (following the brilliant ifixit.com instructions) and found a couple of rubber pads on the graphic chip (clearly, it had had the easy repair already).
I have unsteady hands but fools rush in so they say, so I bought a 25w Antex soldering iron and a 2.5mm tip. I primed the tip with a spot of solder to get some flux on it and held the tip against the legs of the chip for 2 and a bit secs, attacking only the top3 on each side. The soldering iron did about 2 at a time as they are tiny.
The ibook has run perfectly all day, playing movies etc. I’ll keep you posted.
Thanks for everything.
You’re a legend Will, good on you! Yes, be sure to keep us updated on how it goes. Mine is still alive and kicking 2 months on.
Wayne
I have one from work apple diagnosed with “Faulty board” Same deal. Push to the Left of the track pad she fires up. Its a 1.33 ghz w airport card and combo drive i think. Not sure of the year. I am going to pull the case off tonight and see if I can see a bad solder joint at the places you mentioned on that IC. If I see some I will hit it with a soldering iron and I will let you know how it goes.
If you are soldering it, you don’t really need to apply solder to the joint. Like Will said, you just put some solder on the iron to clean it, but even then, make sure you blow or shake off the excess. The worst thing is if you actually apply some solder to the chip, and the two leads short out. This happened to me and it was quite hard to get it out again.
I have had a iBOOK G4 for 4 years and for the last couple of days it has been freezing 5 mins into starting up,i dont get a black screen but i cant move the mouse and if i am playing music that will also freeze on the same point,what do you thing the problem is? my iBOOK will always start up but sometimes i can see the apple symbol but will then not load my desktop,if i leave it over night the problem seems to go away,but again 5-10 minutes in and it stops working,is the problem related to the chip spoken off already,i need some help.Thanx
I meant to get back to you guys but forgot the url. Bookmarked now. I let my iron get uber hot and just lightly tinned the tip and applied to iron for about 10 seconds if that long to the two pins you identified. I am happy to say its running nicely daily since and I just put osx10.5 on it. Apple wanted 800 for a new logic board installed. Thanks much for your help the only thing I would suggest is linking to the ifixit chassis removal page for removing the chassis. http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/iBook-G4-14-Inch/Lower-Case/84/5/
I gotta say it was a great help too i think its awesome they put manauls accesable like that.
PS apple are a bunch of nasty names and they should pay for these motherboard replacements for their crap engineering or bad QA on the solder joints.
to those who have a 1.33ghz or 1.42ghz ibook g4:
Your problems may not be related to the graphics card. A number of users seem to be having problems related to the AirPort Extreme module that will either boot the laptop into Open Firmware and stop it from booting into osx with the blinking system folder error, or will kernel panic.
Take it apart and try removing the AirPort Extreme module (it’s a small grey coloured thing held in by 3 screws and has two wires going to it. just left of where the Radeon chip is, at the bottom end of the heatsink) and see if it starts.
THIS PERSONS A GENIUS, YES THE PROBLEM EXISTED AND IS NOW RESOLVED. LOCAL APPLE DEALER WANTED 100 POUNDS TO DIAGNOSE PROBLEM, AND POSSIBLY MORE FOR A HARDWARE REPAIR. AT LEAST THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE IN THIS WOLD WHO ARE GENUINE! CANT THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR THIS WEBSITE!!!!
Many thanks for this fix. Despite the precedent set in Denmark http://mediamac.comon.dk/index.php/news/show/id=17805, Apple Customer Relations will not admit to this basic design fault and offer no support other than the fully unacceptable cost of a logic board replacement as an out of warranty repair. Had it not been for this forum I would probably have had to buy what is now, for me, another suspect Apple laptop product. As it is the machine now works perfectly – indeed the wake up from sleep function now works which it had not done since the warrantied logic board replacement 2 years ago.
Thanks again.
I have a M9165LL/A which behaves somewhat similarly. From a cool state, it boots and operates normally, but freezes very roughly 10 minutes later (except as described below). Then the only option is to hold the power button to turn it off. But there’s no display malfunction – although static, the display appears normal. I notice that the fan runs very briefly when a boot is initiated, but otherwise it doesn’t seem to run, even though it’s hot in my lab, and the processor heat sink and heat pipe get hot. That seems odd to me – if the fan’s functional as indicated by a power up exercise, it seems to me like it should operate later. For all I know it’s directed to turn on, and something about that event causes the system to freeze. Or perhaps some malfunction prevents it from operating (even though the fan is clearly good), and the system freezes because the processor exceeds an internal temperature limit. But I’m just speculating…
The IC described on this page doesn’t seem to be at fault in my case. I gently pried each of the four legs on the right side (toward the optical drive) with a sewing needle, which in my experience illustrates whether a surface mount IC solder bond is secure (the leg will rise a little if the bond is faulty), and they all seemed sound. However, I resoldered the two right side legs on both sides of the IC anyway to be sure (and forestall a future problem). But the system’s symptoms remain as before.
That particular IC seems distant from the display, but I take your word that it’s related to display functionality. But I don’t observe any display anomalies, so the combined evidence seems to indicate that in my case some other presumably temperature related intermittent flaw is involved. But it’s sure not clear to me what it could be.
When I initially started troubleshooting, I had no idea that there was a pervasive iBook problem, so I did the usual things to try to narrow the search down, including running memtest in single user mode. Under that test, the system never froze – it ran for about fours, glitch free, at which point I concluded that the ram was good and shut the system down in the normal manner. I also tried reinstalling OS 10.5 many times, normally with line power of course, but the system froze about 10 minutes into each installation – except when I did so with the power line disconnected, running from just the battery, and allowed the screen to go dark for energy conservation. But when I moved the mouse to activate the screen to check progress, the system immediately froze. As before, I don’t think the fan ever ran (though I’m not certain whether it did in either case, and especially during the memtest run – I wasn’t paying sufficient attention to the fan then).
I suppose all this may point to temperature rise related events – maybe memtest doesn’t exercise the processor or display drivers except trivially, and battery only operation energy conservation functions reduce the temperature rise too – I don’t know.
Sorry to babble. Bottom line (so far): Does anyone know of any other component bonds (or components themselves) that commonly fail, or have any other clues to suggest? And does Apple still provide any relief for this problem – is a board swap or some other free or low cost repair available from Apple at this time?
Thanks tons for this page and the fault description – even though I’m still fighting the battle, this page has helped enormously!
Regards, Bruce
PostiBkR@AirplaneHome.com
Hi Folks…
I have an 1,33 12″ iBook G4 (Mid 2005) which was produced in April 2006…
So do you guys think my iBook could be affected?
Greetings from Switzerland, Steve
Well Steve, if it’s working it’s not, at the moment! If it’s not working then it probably is! So keep using it and hope for the best!
Wayne
I have a 2004 Ibook 1.33 which had a new motherboard under warrantee. A year later, after Applecare expired, the book would not start and has sat around on a shelf for the last year. I just followed Corey Arnold’s advice above. I used a sandwich of adhesive putty and fine cut cable ties to compress the chip. I am staggered that it works and it was so easy to fix. I have had 24 hours trouble free use now !! Shame on Apple for denying they have a problem ! I’m back into PC’s now because of it !
hi …
i have a 2004 ibook g4 (800mhz)..it wont boot….i get a black screen after the chime just when i press the power button…. and NO fan sound
sometimes it starts when i press de touchpad …….
my symptoms are diffrent than the ones described on the article but it sounds like the same problem for me!
im i right?? will this fix work for me???
Well you could take it to an Apple Centre and see what they say. Or you could take the back of, and press down the chips with your fingers and see if it works. Does the machine work if you clamp it together just to the left of the trackpad?
at the apple centre they told me the ibook is dead and is out of warranty….
it works if i press it near the touch pad…buy it freezes if i stop pressing the ibook
but im getting a start chime and no fan sound at all..and a black screen….
the symptoms described on the article are black srcreen and a fan sound
for me is the same problem than the article one but i just want to make shure it is…..
>it works if i press it near the touch pad…buy it freezes if i stop pressing the ibook
That sounds like it to me! Your options are to stick something in there to hold the chip down, or try to solder it. But be warned – it may make things worse if you mess up!
Hi, it all makes sense now – I have an I-MAC G5 that I bought 3years ago and it has the same problems, freezes, kernel message appears, black screen and sleep button didn’t work for ages…
Apple shop will charge me £400 for replacing the motherboard!
My advise is, try to get it fixed elsewhere… shame I didn’t know about the forum before…!
My Ibook G4 has the same problem. Tried to solder like you mention over here,started it up and some light came up of the screen.
But nothing else.
So I started all over again , but now nothing happends anymore.
If I place my finger on the chip it feels VERY HOT.
So I shut it down before anything got damage. (or am I to late?)
Can you tell meif he chip becoming hot as to do whit the fact that the soldering is not good, or does it mean that I did fried it up?
Agreed, this man is twice the genius than any schmuck you’ll find at an Apple bar.
Hi there, thanks to your post I think i’ve saved 700 bucks. My sister’s ibook went flashing a week ago. I decided to send it to Apple Autorized Service but they told me it was the Logic Board ! I read this article and dowloaded a pdf from ifixit and insert two layers of 3M doble sided tape. I discovered also that the aluminium cast internal frame was broken near the battery compartment.
Here you can see the chip.
And the broken frame.
Now the ibook is working fine, hope it will last :]
Thanks.
Had identical problems with my iBook G4 1.07 Ghz. After lots of despair and many many late nights of troubleshooting/online searching, I found people with a problem like mine.
Tried pressing and padding, they didn’t work on my machine. Tried an impatient solder job…and I messed it up. I shorted the chip out and wrecked it.
Luckily, it is a standard chip. I ordered a new one from some company online, plus this time I got the proper soldering equipment. Cost me about 30 bucks altogether.
Soldered the new chip on. She’s been working fine for a year now.
Took a video of it, but its pretty crappy so I’ll spare you.
But just remember: IT CAN BE DONE!
ADD TO ABOVE POST: My aluminum frame was also cracked near the battery compartment. (In its lifetime it had taken several drops onto the concrete).
Hi there, with your HowTo, i was able to repair my beloved iBook. The complete repair (including the “surgery”) took about 90 minutes, i was VERY carefull and i think you can manage to repair the book within 30 minutes as well.
anyway. my baby is running perfect since, and i’m a happy man.
THANK YOU GUYS !!!! SO MUCH !!!
Hi everyone. I did it four times (four different iBooks) right now – but it helped only once… Poor thing!
But I got a question to “JayLovesiBook”: where did you bought this “standard chip”? I tried google over and over to find someone who sells ati bga/ic or whatever you like to name it. Found nothing. So could you please post the name of the reseller or just the search-string for google. I even don’t know what to look for. I made a short-circuit to my chip.
Thanks…
I’ve had my Ibook G4 (late 2004 1.2Ghz) repaired three times by apple with this problem. This last time they refused to fix it because the laptop was out of warranty and the prior repair was four days beyond its 90-day warranty. The store person told me Apple was repairing them with defective motherboards and that the fix would not last. I will try this one. Thanks!!
I fixed mine by bending the pins on the chip to the motherboard with a spudger. It’ been a month and still going strong.
Well my ibook worked great for the last 5 months then the hard drive died. I ripped it a part put in a new 7200 rpm drive. That sped it up nicely. I forgot to attach the speaker cable. Pulled her apart and attached ran great for two weeks. My wife is using it the other day starts tap tapping on the palm rest. Up pops the old chip issue again. I just pulled her apart again and put some pressure on the chip. Up she went. So I am going to try and tin the leads again. Ill let u know how I make out. I don’t need the Ifixit manual anymore because now I know it off the back of my hand. You think attempting the solder job is a pain…. Try replacing the hard drive in one of these sobs. Both the upper and lower chassis and metal shield have to come off! It took 5 times the time as fixing the video chip ( or whatever IC that is)….
You say that when you apply pressure you rcomputer works again. I have fixed my computer with rubber pieces and it worked! However after awhile the screen goes blank or if I move the computer around too much it goes blank. I try applying pressure to the problem spot to no avail. My only option at this point is to reboot the computer. Any tips?
Check out Hammerhead Technologies (www.hammerheadtech.com)—they did the required re-soldering for $75, shipping extra.
I was experiencing the same video/freezing problem with my iBook, a late-2004 model (1.2GHz). I followed you guide and applied the clean tip of a 30-watt pencil-styled soldering gun to the top 2 pins of the chip (I didn’t add any additional solder). The iBook seems to work fine now. Thanks!
I just put a peace of tinfoil over the chip and heated it up with a lighter, then I used a soldering iron and heated the pins up with no additional solder a now it seems to work fine thanks for the help!
Almost 2 years ago I had the same experience with my iBook 12” bought in 2005. I fixed it. It has been working perfectly so far.
What u need to do :
1 – open the mac and identify the chip.
2 – keep a finger pressed on the chip and switch on the mac.
3 – if it works – then send the motherboard (in an antistatic plastic envelope) to a soldering place where they do this kind of work ( I found one in u.s. – look on ebay – quite cheap )
4 – when the motherboard is back reassemble and enjoy.
Having fixed my ibook by re-soldering and then having it fail again almost immediately, I started to do a bit of proper investigation and research. Close examination of the photos in the Danish investigation report showed that pins 1 and 28 were lifting off the board, rather than shearing. Why should that be when the others stay fixed? The report also stated that the cause of failure was power-cycling (lots of heating up and cooling down) That got me thinking about what happens when a logic board heats up and cools down – I think I’ve finally worked it out. When the ibook powers up and is running at operating temperature, the board (being copper-clad fibre-board) expands. When the ibook is off, it cools down and contracts. Not a problem – as long as the board has room to expand. Close examination of my ibook revealed that the screws which mount the board to the ally frame were secured tightly – preventing any expansion of the board. The board would still expand, but instead of expanding outwards, it would be forced to bow. Therefore, lots of power cycling would be the same as taking a logic board and waggling it about – no wonder pins are breaking contact with the pads! So I re-soldered pins 1 and 28 again and this time loosened the board mounting screws so that they were firm but not tight. Several power cycles later – still good. If this really was the root cause of the faults, how many thousands of boards were replaced, only to fail again because the techies tightened the mounting screws down again – just like before!
While you’re in there – it’s always worth a try!
Good work Rob!
Hi guys, I have the same problem with my 14″ G4. I tried resoldering it, but I messed it up. I need to order the ISL6225 but I can’t get it here in Singapore. Could anyone help me buy it from there ? I will arrange for payment. Any kind soul to help ? This is my email roslih@singnet.com.sg
Thanks…..
Hi
There is a company that specifically deals with the pin 28/1 issue, as well as 3 other G4 iBook logic board faults.. They wouldn’t reveal the other 3.. I’m guessing one of them is the video chip under the heat sink..
Anyways the company is superior reball and rework.. shoot them an email
the guy there is named Dale.. the price for repairing either the G3 or G4 video Issues is $50USD.. you remove the logic board and mail it in.. the repair, test and mail it back.. the whole process takes about 3 weeks when you take mailing into account.. the cool thing is if your board is completely kapaut.. there is no charge to you, and they mail you back your broken board as proof..
I send in about 4 at a time.. only one has come back unusable
There is another company in Arazona.. the name escapes me.. but they only reflow the soldier.. the company above reballs the connection which makes it ‘as new’
Also if you try to soldier the pin 28 and 1 issue.. and it isn’t fixed.. chances are it’s something else and you should stop and mail the board to the guys above
Good luck
Simon
hola. hi, i have a same problem, i will try repair. thanks for your information.
regards
LUIS FERNANDO.
My trusty G4 iBook 1.2 just keeled over (black screen with fan buzzing) after all these years.
When I spoke with one Apple Certified tech, he denied that there was ever a graphic chip/logic board problem. When I explained that the same thing happened to my G3 iBook (within the recall period) and Apple replaced its logic board for free, he still denied the problem! All he wanted me to do was purchase a new MacBook, pay to have my hard drive removed, and then toss my G4 into the garbage heap.
I thnk I’ll try the solder or shim trick. What do I have to lose? Thanks guys for the tips!!
Hi everyone!
First: Thanks a lot for the information, also everone for posting their experience and additional info. My iBook (1.2GHz) died on me yesterday, with the symptoms described above (black screen, fan noise, no chime sound). I applied the fix today afternoon and got it to boot again. I also loosend the screws holding the logic board as suggested by Rob. Looks good so far.
Cheers,
Jacek
First of all thanks for all the info mentioned abowe. I have the same problem with my ibook g4. It freezes half was in the middle, sometimes when the osx is working and sometimes the ibook doesn’t even start -i just have a blue screen.
The service told me that it’s the logic board and needs replacement. Tonight i checked the website and wanted to try, but the idiot in the Apple service forgot to put in my hard drive in the computer after checking it in the service.
So, thinking that apple doesn’t acknowledge the problem and the authorized services can’t even remember putting back the parts on the computer, it’s worth a try.
will post the news here..
Hi again!
Too bad, the symptoms appear again. It runs most of the time but it can crash anytime. I looked up the ISL6225 Datasheet on google and – as far as my understanding goes – is supplying the power to the DDR-Memory which could be the reason why 3rd-party RAM and removing the additional RAM may affect the symptoms. (Link: http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/FN9049.pdf)
Another thing i thought was interessting is the fact that Intersil is not anymore selling/producing the ISL6225 but the newer yet compatible ISL6227 or ISL6229. I wonder if it would by possible to replace the 6225 with one of the newer chips.
Greetings from Hamburg,
Jacek
I just lost use of my ibook 800. My symptoms are a bit different, and being new to actually trying to fix or solder
I wonder if someone recognizes the following symptoms.
I noticed for several months that the underside of my
ibook was heating up quite a bit, and sometimes quite quickly, so the pattern was not always the same. Then
I noticed that if I turned it off, there were problems getting it to boot up, and I had to hit a few of the major keys to wake it up, so for a while I just let it sleep. Yesterday, I was running Itunes and it simply stopped
running and the screen went dark. Unable to get any response from the on off key and any alt/cont/del wasn’t helping either. The charging light was on, and
the battery and charger seem ok. There were several off the cuff guesses here in california, but I wonder if anyone could give me advice or some idea as to what has failed. Was it the MB, logic board, HD, or???
Bev
I have a g4 ibook 1ghz 256mb had it checked out and they said motherboard and lcd bad… at power on the fan would run high fan, and motherboard wouldnt come on at all no screen, tried clamping down with fingers left side of track pad and to my surprise it started and ran a whole day
had a soldering tip that hit like 2 of the chips like inst.. did like 10 sec on top 3 on ea side, then did it maybe once again on ea for 5 sec.. on 30 watt setting, 15watt would have worked but tried hotter and just heated till chip felt semi hot… it has worked flawlessly since
adrian
Hey, I’ve had my iBook G4 since 2004 for uni 2 years ago it started having the symptons everyone is speaking about. Took it to the Apple store in London twice and both times I got told its the logic board it would cost around £600 to repair and I should buy a new one. Being a broke graduate I resided myself to using a cheap and dodgy PC until I could afford a replacement.
Fast foward to 2009 started a cool job and was given a MacBook by my boss (happy days) just out of curiosity I decided to do a target disk mode to try and salvage a few old files at first it didnt work but once i dug around on a few forums low and behold i stumble on this. Squeezed the left side and my G4 springs into life. I’m no solder wizard so i’m takin this link to a mac repair shop round the corner from me to see if they can fix it! It looks like a 15 min job and it’ll prob cost me £30 but well worth it if it means getting my old files back!
Thanks Everyone!!
Guys,help pliz.I have a g4 ibook.the computer is running but the lcd is dark.Could it be the same chip problem?
Well, another success story. . .
My iBook shut off two night ago. I was soooo pissed, dismayed, and hopeless until I happened to stumble upon this site when I google-searched “iBook g4 broken won’t start screen.”
So, after reading through all of the posts I decided to give it a try. . . .
First, I tested it to make sure that when I clamped just left of the touchpad it started up-which it did.
I’m in Bangkok, so it’s hard for me to mail it to the US-based companies that fixed it. But fortunately, I found a friendly Thai computer expert who happened to have a soldering iron.
I took the computer apart (which was not as easy or quick as I expected) and then showed him the chip location (which I found from the website) and his soldered it back in place.
It’s worked all last night and this morning and I’m hopeful that it’ll keep on pluggin away.
Thank you so much to whoever figured this out and posted it on the web. Can’t imagine how much money and hassle you saved all of us!!!
Rob, like others have fixed their iBook by soldering the chip and wondered why it fails again. This chip runs too hot around the top end. It’s the chip expansion that breaks the solder at pins1 & 28. The only answer to that is a heatsink. I soldered the pins and check it works without having to press on the chip. I cut a square of heat resistant plastic with a hole cut out for the top of the chip. I then cut a 1mm thick aluminum strip to sit over the chip, running in the direction of the cable. You can work out the dimension by the measuring the space up to the larger components. I used heatsink paste on top of the chip and a strip of rubber on top of the cable so that the case keeps pressure on the heatsink. The plastic protects the components below from shorting out on the heatsink.