

540 display issues


Active member
Hello all,

I was recently working on restoring 3 of my machines, two 540C and one 520c.

I purchased a 540c from a local guy about 2 years ago, and found it had the Apple PPC upgrade card, 32Mb ram card and a crazy 811 MB hard drive!!

The bad news was that the display was not cooperating.  When you boot the machine, the screen lights up, but it’s broken into three segments, top, middle, bottom.

I tried to pinch the sides of the display to see if that did anything, and I was able to see a couple of icons, but when I let go it got garbled again.  Even then, the three strips of display remained.

I know that these displays are interchangeable, but I’m wondering if there’s a chance the display is actually ok, but it’s just the controller board that’s attached that is causing the problem.

Also, there are three plastic adjustment screws in the controller board, and I’m wondering about if anyone here knows what they’re for.

Has anyone ever swapped boards with these, or is that just a massive headache?

Another thing I haven’t tried is to swap the cable between the display and the logic board to see if that might be the issue.






Well-known member
I have a box containing what should be the guts of a complete machine if you want to shoot me a modest offer. Screen and boards were working when disassembled from the remnants of a broken 540c. That is to say, the body plastics of the thing were badly bashed, but I do believe the screen with ribbons, etc., is still intact, and that everything should still work.

I had loaned the thing to an adult who had been developmentally delayed, and this is how it was returned to me. Needs to go to a new “forever” home now, as the cat ladies say. I am downsizing after early retirement.

Can sell individual parts if you or anyone else is interested, but I would prefer the convenience of just bunging it all in the post in one go.