Replacing the LCD on a Macintosh Powerbook

A day after I purchased my PowerBook on eBay, it began to develop black lines along the bottom of my screen. I could literally watch a new row of pixels slowly blink out, sometimes forming an alternating pattern before becoming a solid line.

The lines continued to fill up the lower inch of the screen, though it seemed, that it would only be a matter of time before I lost an inch of the 9.8" screen. The solution to repair this was to simply replace the LCD screen. 

Taking apart the casing of the PowerBook's display housing is not a difficult task. It requires removing two screws using a T-8 torx driver. Then pulling down and away the display bezel.

Then four more screws need to be removed to detach the LCD display.

The trickiest part of this process is to remove the ribbon cable from the LCD display. It's a rather delicate ribbon, and removing it from the connector and the adhesive holding it to the LCD display must be exercised with care.

Disconnecting the inverter cable is the last operation before the LCD panel can be completely removed.

The most difficult operation for me in reassembling the unit was reattaching the ribbon cable back into the connector. 

It took multiple attempts to push the ribbon into the connector and slide the locking tabs back. 

Macintosh Powerbook 145

The Macintosh Powerbook was the first series of laptops manufactured by Apple. The Powerbook 145 was introduced on August 3, 1992. It's a mid-range system between the 100 and 170 line, featuiring a 9.8" monochrome passive-matrix display and a 68030 processor. Basically a Macintosh SE\30 with an LCD screen.

I've been looking for a 140 or 145 on eBay and found a good deal for the 145. To sweeten the deal, the owner had recently replaced the caps and the bios battery and included the System 7.1 OS disks,  manuals, and paper work for this model.

Unfortunately, a day after I got it, black lines started to appear at the lower end of the LCD screen. I contacted the seller and he offered to send me another 145 to use for parts. The next blog entry will cover how the LCD screen was replaced.

Here are the specifications for the PowerBook 145:

Requires System 7.0.1 to 7.6.1 (will not run on System 6 or earlier)
CPU: 25 MHz 68030
FPU: none
Performance: 3.8, relative to SE; 0.41, Speedometer 4
ROM: 1 MB
RAM: 2 MB RAM, expandable to 8 MB using a special 100ns pseudostatic RAM card
display: 9.8″ 1-bit 640 x 400 77 ppi passive matrix
ADB slots: 1 port for keyboard and mouse
serial ports: 2 DIN-8 RS-422 ports on back of computer
SCSI ports: HDI30 connector on back of computer
Hard drive: 40 or 80 MB
proprietary modem slot
Gestalt ID: 54
Size (HxWxD): 2.25″ x 11.25″ x 9.3″
Weight: 6.8 pounds

In November 1992, an ad has the PowerBook 145 selling for 2409 USD. That's $3,517.52 in today's dollars.