National Consumer Agency of Denmark: iBook Lab Report

Okay, so back in 2006, the consumer agency of Denmark did some research on why the iBook G4’s logic board seems to break after 12-18 months. Turns out it’s almost always the same fault: a ISL 6225CA chip where the pins 1 and 28 are badly solded to the board, which makes the solder crack. This is why clamping or shimming the iBook makes it work, it rejoins the solder temporarily. Several users have tried to solder the break or shim the motherboard. Shimming only seems to work for a while, while soldering seems to work great.

It’s odd that I had such a hard time to find this report, given that it’s by far the most common reason why an iBook G4 breaks.