I've been fretting about my poor wee iBook since it developed an intermittent fault with the LCD display backlight about a month ago. At first I thought that the display shutting off as it was lowered to 30 degrees was normal behaviour to which I hadn't paid much attention in the past. But I had a nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right - especially as I've had the iBook since September 2001 and am used to all of it's nuances and foibles.

My disquiet was eventually proven to be well founded between Christmas and New Year as the display started to flicker on and off at normal open angles and during normal operation. A close inspection showed that it was the LCD backlight that was shutting off as I could still see the faint outline of the windows, etc. Since the flickering was induced by movement of the hinge I had a sneaking feeling that some wire(s) that were routed through the display hinge had become abraded or broken. A quick Google search showed that many others suffered the same problem and that some had undertaken their own repairs. For example The Hilleard Fix...

In the middle of last week I contacted the Univerity's authorised Apple supplier and had a word with their service department. I was told that the least expensive repair would cost around £250! Since I knew what the problem was I asked if I could get hold of the part myself but was told this wasn't possible. It was looking like I'd need to get the part from the likes of Smalldog in the USA. Fortunately I came across the Apple - Discussions - Backlight problem (inc solution) post on Thursday. So at 4pm I faxed through an order for an 'iBook Dual USB Inverter Cable with Reed Switch Apple Part# 922-5017' to VIS - £34 inclusive of tax and shipping. The part arrived in the first post the next morning!

On the assumption that I would have to undertake the repair myself I'd also personally ordered - on Wedensday - a set of precision cross-point screwdrivers from Shesto Direct to augment my toolkit. They arrived Saturday. I'd also downloaded/printed several documents that described the steps necessary to make the repair. For example, there's currently a working link to the appropriate service manual on Stan's Page about his iBook Flickering Screen Problem. This service manual doesn't include the steps necessary to take apart the LCD display but I figured that if I got that far how difficult could taking apart the display be in camparison to the very complicated disassembly instructions for the main unit of the iBook? The answer of course was 'quite' difficult especially as one of the allen screws refused to budge and the allen wrench stripped the head. I had to cut a slot in that one so I could remove it with a flat-bladed screwdriver! B-} BTW, the allen key that was the closest fit was a 1/16th imperial.

To cut a long story short, the replacement of the part took 3-4 hours over an elapsed period of about 6 hours. It would have been an hour or so less had it not been for the stubborn screw in the LCD panel and the fact that once I got down to the disassembling the screen hinge it became apparent that the Airport antenna cable that was also routed through the hinge was literally just being held together by the last strand of the shielding as it had worn away almost completely. It fell apart as I moved it. So I had to patch it with two new wires - one for the shield and one for the inner core of the miniature coax lead. This did, however, explain why I was getting terrible Wi-Fi reception ;-) I suspect that, in fact, the Airport card was getting virtually no signal to/from the antenna. Since it is only relatively recently that I installed an Airport card in the iBook the damage to the antenna lead was already done and I had no way of knowing that the poor reception I was getting would not always have been the case! I am delighted to report that since the repair I now get excellent reception - my soldering skills must still be up to scratch. Incidentally, I read in the forum posts that some people had experienced greatly improved reception and some greatly impoverished reception after their iBooks had been repaired by Apple. I believe that this is explained by the repair or damage done to the antenna cable during repair. Fingers crossed that my patched repair lasts.

So, I managed to replace the dozens of screws, bits of tape, shielding, etc., in their correct places - well at the 2nd attempt for several ;-) - and the iBook is back up and working just as well as ever - better in fact due to the Airport reception. Hopefully I'll never need to do this repair again. I wouldn't be so daunted the next time and could probably get the repair time down to 2-3 hours now that I know what to do.

So that's the story of my iBook repair for the broken/flickering backlight problem and the patch required to its Airport antenna cable. Normal service has been resumed. I'll probably not be shutting the lid quite so often now and will elect to put the iBook to sleep manually from now on and only shut the lid when transporting the machine.

I'm prety chuffed that I managed to effect the repair myself and that I've saved the Department at least £200 and haven't had to send the iBook away for a week or so.

Now, perhaps, I can resite my Netgear 824M to a more convenient place in the house now that it doesn't need to be sited immediately above the room in which I do most of my wireless surfing.