Ok this is going to make some of you cringe. A week or so ago I was opening a can of lucosade (a gassy glucose beverage) and a very small amount sprayed onto the LCD 12" display of my 2 year old G3 ibook, which was turned off at the time. None went on the lkeyboard or 'hinge' joining the kboard to the display, but a little sprayed the screen itself which instantly dried with a tissue. I thought no more about it as it had been the tiniest splash, but next time I turned the ibook on the screen was just black! not a sign of life.
I tried plugging the 3phono to three way minijack display *mirroring* lead into the composite minijack socket on the ibook and tried it through my TV (I dont have a spare monitor lying around) Though obviously not ideal it did confirm that the computer was still functioning ok. Graphics were fine but text was illegible until I'd lowered the resolution way down to 640x480 in system preferences.
I was wondering this: There's a VGA connector that came with the ibook. kind of like a one centimeter square of pins at one end to what I guess is some kind of short scuzzi (sorry I didnt join this game until USB had appeared:-)at the other. If I was to buy any old second hand cheapo even, dare I suggest a PC computer monitor.... would it work if I connected this lead between it and the ibook? I'd lose the lovely portability aspect of the ibook but its a shame not to get some more use from it just coz the screen is knackered. Or does anyone think there a slight chance that it might be repairable fairly cheaply.

Apple have had a problem with the graphics board in iBooks dying. Yours might be suffering from the problem. Go to the Apple site and on the opening page at the bottom is a link to some information about this. If yours is affected, Apple will fix it for you.

Thanks Evesapple that's very interesting. My only worry is that if the mac tech engineers diagnose the fault as being unrelated to the stated 'component failure', but due to some other problem, would they consult me before going ahead with what I'd imagine is a very expensiove LCD display replacement?
ibooks have easily halved in price since I bought mine in 2001
(I think I payed around £1.500.00! I dont want to get a repair bill for as much as I'd pay for a new ibook.
I do qualify as my ibook's serial number falls within the group which may have failed due to this mysterious 'component' giving out. So its definately worth exploring.
thanks again,
John.

If your serial number is in the range then chances are your logic board has failed. I'd say 90% chance it's the logic board failure and you'll get a free replacement. It's unlikely your Lucozade caused the problem. I've seen a few people come into the local Mac store with this problem already, all asking to buy a screen. The techs have checked it each time and found it was a logic board failure. You can tell them not to repair it if it isn't the board.

Good luck.