Starting, but not starting since turned on FileVault, installed Mac Office

Question

Guys, I need you! My iBook, Dual USB G3 is acting up. I have never had any problems with it. I recently took all my itunes off, so I freed up like 8 gig of space. She was whirring along quicker than ever. I bought Mac Office and installed it. I also turned on FileVault because of work I am doing. Unfortunately I did both within a few hours of each other. Unfortunately, because I would love to blame Microsoft for this, but I also started FileVault at the same time (about the 5th of Jan). ...and now this computer is almost 6 years old! Anyway, these last few days it has been freezing on me more and more. That's weird. Then this afternoon it froze while I was downloading something. So, I started it up and tried again. The same thing. So, I started it up again. This time wasn't going to try that download. But the screen never came on. Crazy. It made the 'ta da' noise, and the hard drive whirred, but no screen. So, I started it up again. One of the startups led me to the login page once. But once I got to my desktop I couldn't move the mouse. So, I started it up and tried again. I emailed some friends who know a little more, and they suggested a safe start and and a restart and to turn off FileVault. So, after many tries, it finaly started up again, with a jibberished up screen. But it was enough to click on restart. Then as it restarted I tried to turn off FileVault. It was going until it said, 4 more minutes. Then it froze again. For awhile when I turned it 'on' after making the 'ta da' noise, it would accept CD's, and I can turn the sound up and down, but no screen. What do I do now?!
Should I just keep trying to get it up so I can turn off FileVault? Would this be top priority? Should I try a PMU reset?
Thanks so much

Answer 1

It is really not relevant that your serial number is included, since the program gradually was expanded to include all G3 Dual USB iBooks. The symptoms are what make me inclined to think that there may be a problem.
Here in the U.S., Apple has been making a few exceptions to that three-year time limit.
Is your external drive FireWire?
Have you turned off FileVault? It may inhibit copying (but, having never used it, I'm not sure about that).
With a FireWire drive, you can make a bootable clone of your hard drive, saving absolutely everything. I use SuperDuper! to do bootable clones.
If it's a USB drive, you can copy over your Home Folder (the one with your short user name and the little house icon). That will get everything except your OS, applications, and peripheral drivers. For a fresh installation (Erase and Install), those will need to be installed from the original sources (discs or downloads).
If you're somewhere where service is hard to come by, you may want to consider trying the shim fix suggested by John Sawyer in the Apple Discussions Displays Forum:
[Y]ou can often fix this yourself by removing the iBook's bottom housing, and placing a shim of any sort, about 1mm to 1.5mm thick, onto the raised square on the bottom shield. I use a Scotch mounting square--you can get them in hardware stores and many grocery stores. When you reinstall the bottom case, it will press against this shim, which will press against the graphics chip, and may allow the chip to come into better contact with the logic board.
John Sawyer
CJS Macintosh Repair
Instructions for removing the lower case:
iFixit.com