G3 iBook hardware problems

[Stefan Jeglinski]

>My wife runs only YDL3 on her machine. Recently it took to dimming the
>display a lot. An Apple-fancying friend who happened to pass through tried
>a couple things (I didn't watch, alas!) that didn't help, and suggested we
>reboot to OSX and set the brightness control Apple's way (whatever that
>is); but we never got that far. She rebooted -- and now the brightness is
>OK -- but the machine makes a strange faint whine, and the left front
>smooth place in front of the keyboard is hot to the touch. Not hot enough
>to be unpleasant, but definitely hot.
>
>I'm the nearest thing to support she has, and I don't speak hardware. What
>do we need to do? Take it to a shop?

Your symptoms are not the classic ones, but the older G3 iBooks 
(700/800/900) had significant problems with the video chip becoming 
unbonded (or so the story goes). The location of the video chip is to 
the left of the trackpad, where you indicate the hot spot.

The guaranteed symptom of this is the screen going flaky and becoming 
unusable over a short period of time. Only fix is mobo replacement, 
which Apple will gladly do during the warranty period. This 
particular problem became so widespread and troublesome that Apple 
issued a special advisory on it and extended the warranty period. See

http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/faq/

Your symptoms don't sound like this per se, but you should be aware 
of the possibility.

In other-theory news, could the faint whine be the fan on all the 
time, trying to cool things down? That area below the keyboard and to 
the left of the trackpad is one that traditionally gets hot during 
high use. Maybe you just have a problem with pmud?


Stefan Jeglinski