One day, Mac OSX (on iBook, purchased last summer) was kind of slow to start up the welcome screen, and suddenly the screen started flashing violently and eventually went completely gray, rendering my computer useless. Most of the time I start it up, hear the sound that means it is turned on, and then nothing. Sometimes though I can get it to start up and stay for awhile before it crashes. I ran the Mac Hardware test, and it detected a VideoRAM error one of the times I got lucky enough to get through the whole test without the screen going blank. What could have caused this, and is there any way to fix it? I have not yet called Apple Support, afraid of a repair estimate of $500 or something, and I did not buy an AppleCare protection plan, which I am regretting every second of my days. Does anyone know how to fix this? Please, I am at my wits end, as iBook was a grad. present and I cannot afford to simply buy a new one. I though these things were supposed to "Just Work"?!!!

If when you say "last summer" you mean the summer of 2001, your repair support from Apple is still valid. Note: phone support ends after 90 days, but repair after a year. If your support has expired, that's a different story. As far as I know, the video card, and therefore VRAM, is integrated on the logic board. If the VRAM has really gone bad, you'll have to, probably, replace the logic board. Note: I think I'm right, but I could be very wrong, and others might correct me. ----chri.s-