Wallstreet and Tiger (a working setup)

Sorry for the late reply. Great, I am glad that this time the message went through; I am still wondering why the first one was removed.

More info about my bulky update. Actually the complete list of the updates should be the following: 500MHz G4 CPU with 1MB cache, AC/sound card (on its way; I was tired of keeping soldering), left hinge, PRAM battery, DVD-ROM (in search for a PCMCIA decoder card), RAM up to 512MB, new battery, PCMCIA Wi-Fi card at 54Mbps, PCMCIA USB 2.0 card.

Definitely not a bad final setup for a 10 years old machine. Money-wise I suppose I went close as I would have got a Pismo in very good conditions (but without at least a new battery and a G4 CPU).

Among the possible factors affecting the installation of Tiger on Wallstreet, I read that somebody included the type and amount of RAM so I kept 192MB throughout the whole installation process, in case this may help.

The system appears surprisingly snappy (the G4 as well as the RAM playing a good role here, I suppose) and it has become, or better returned to be, a working machine.

And now the "issues" that show up with the original CPU as well as with the G4 one:
- the Debug menu in Safari was missing: after some day of surprise and confusion, I found this Terminal command that calls it back on duty: "defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu -bool YES"
- System Profiler can not distinguish the two RAM pieces and just sees the total amount: any explanation or solution?
- the Brightness slider in the System Preferences > Displays is missing: of course it can be solved through third party applications still... anybody knows how to make it appear?
- ADB mouse: if not connected from boot or if the PowerBook went on sleep, it becomes so slow to be unusable (apparently, according to Apple, it is normal for ADB devices but until Jaguar I always plugged it and unplugged it without any problem); anyway now an optical USB mouse is much better
- the "About this Mac" window does not show the serial number when clicking on the OS X version: any explanation or solution?
- coconutIdentityCard and coconutBattery give meaningless values: any explanation or solution?
- GoogleEarth (4.2.0205.5730) was not working and the Earth appeared as a white globe; then I saw that, enabling "Preferences > 3d View > Graphics mode > Use safe mode", it works although it is not blazing fast, of course
- Login window keyboard layout: this is somehow annoying since, whenever the login password is required (i.e. not the authentication window for, say, software install), the keyboard layout is not the system one (unless in a user change when the previous user had the Italian keyboard, in my case) but supposedly US International or alike thus password entering may become a challenge according to the characters involved; again: any explanation or solution?
- battery remaining time is/was missing (apparently this is also an issue with Pismo and Tiger): the percentage of charge is calculated but the time estimate remains always on "calculating..."; I discovered that there is a trick of substituting the "/System/Library/SystemConfiguration/PowerManagement.bundle" with a Panther or Jaguar version, repair permissions and reboot, still I am experiencing not reproducible misbehaviors with the battery management (including not recognizing or not charging the battery...) and I hope, but I am not sure, that the yet-to-arrive AC/sound card may solve them unless I got a defective battery: any better idea on how kicking it to work properly?
- I tried also Gimp and NeoOffice: roughly 30 seconds and one minute respectively to start but rather usable afterward
- some heavy graphic functions of the system are simplified, such as the "rotating cube" for the user change becoming a blue screen or simply the lack of the "stone in the water" effect in Dashboard; at the same time, Exposé is perfectly working as well as window effects
- Wi-Fi and USB 2.0 work perfectly

Well, that should be all. I would really appreciate additional comments... as well as explanations or solutions for the issues.

Regards,

Giulio

jpl,

Thanks for the valuable information.

Yes, I was almost sure that I could not use the DVD player under OS X but thanks for the confirmation. Still I suppose I could use the one under OS 9.2.2, right?

With regard to the brightness, I forgot to mention that also the physical slider above the keyboard simply does not work but I recall I read it is a standard behavior (as long as something can be defined as "standard" with such configuration).

Yes, I already saw that page on ADB connections while I did not know about the Wallstreet peculiarity. Never mind as I am going with a great optical two-buttons mouse.

Interesting explanation about the serial number: I had no idea it worked that way.

Battery. Now, this is upgrading from "issue" to "problem"... Since a couple of days (i.e. since I updated with the current updates of Quicktime and Security so I do not know whether it is a coincidence) the battery either does not get recognized or it does not charge. I tried all the usual PMU reset, PRAM zapping, Battery Reset under OS 9.2.2, swap between Jaguar and Panther PowerManagement.bundle with permissions repairing, and slot change without any success. The final stage is that the battery is recognized as zero charge but it does not charge and the symbol on the menu bar remains as a plug and not as a lighting. After all the resets, only one light out of four on the battery is on. I have some hope about the AC/sound card being the culprit so I will be able to provide more details whenever it will arrive. Tomorrow I will also do some cross-tests with the old battery. Alternatively I will have a brand-new-100-dollars-and-more battery that I can not use (though I am starting to think that, even if unlikely, the battery itself could be the reason...).

... to be continued

Regards,

Giulio

jpl wrote:
Please don't find any more things that don't work... 🙂

You mean things such as hot-removing the DVD-ROM drive being the shortcut for a likely kernel panic? 🙂 Just kidding, I am deeply amazed by these machines and their expandability.

The random misbehaviors occur with the old battery too so my attention is moving toward the AC/sound card or other parts (charge card, PMU card, ...). While I wait for the former to arrive and be tested, would you have some good guess or opinion about the possible cause for batteries not being charged or recognized without a particular pattern?

And: what do you mean by

jpl wrote:
Also boot into 9.x or boot to 9.x CD and test battery.

You mean with third party utilities (suggestions?) or what?

More to come when the AC/sound card will decide to land...

Thanks,

Giulio

mmmhh... amperage when charging (in those few moments) is around 250mA while the PB 1.33GHz ranges from 2000 to 3000mA.

The problem is that so far I can only use the PowerBook with something pushing the adapter plug upward otherwise there would be no contact at all, i.e. wiggling the sound card is NOT an option. The AC/sound board is somewhere much beyond its end of life due to many (bad) soldering it went through. In other words, until I get the "new" board, any test will have a very weak meaning. Especially in the last soldering attempts I remember that I had the impression that I spoiled something...

Sometimes I get the X, other times I get the plug but certainly the charge is not complete, occasionally the battery gets charged but after a while the plug comes back.

I forgot to write that also a deep brush with Onyx did not change the situation. And also that, though everything is possible, the battery is from a very good brand, probably the best one for these PowerBooks.

From the very interesting information you wrote, my hope for a bad sound board has increased. I am really looking forward to get it and test it.

Thanks,

Giulio

Here we go again...

Last week I received the new AC/sound board and today the brand new replacement battery. Now there should be no excuse not to work...

So far I just removed the old original Apple battery (around 1000 mAh remaining), that was behaving normally apart from the reduced charge and I inserted the new one... well, the guy here is still at 12% and it never went to "charging" while on the menu bar I have the plug symbol. Also the time remaining to the full charge is still "calculating..." without going anywhere (note: I substituted the /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/PowerManagement.bundle with the Jaguar/Panther one to have the calculation working correctly as it did with the old battery but not with this one).

Now, although I feel like doing any kind of test, I think I will manage to refrain myself and let it like that overnight but I am really afraid that tomorrow morning nothing will be changed. So the questions:
- what could be the reason for this second battery to (mis)behave like that? I would exclude a second faulty battery. Better: maybe the first one was good as this one... why the PowerBook should behave correctly with an old Apple branded battery and not with these ones?
- theory apart, I would go for the usual procedure: PMU reset, PRAM reset, total discharge then replug, some tests also with the native Tiger /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/PowerManagement.bundle. Some suggestion with regard to the order of the procedure? Something to avoid?

Of course, I will contact also the support of the online shop to check whether they may have some good hint.

Best regards,

Giulio

jpl,

Thanks for the support and the suggestions.

Yes, I forgot to mention Battery Reset 2.0, right bay, sleep/off, hardware stuff. I do not want to think about the logic board since it is a great upgrade... What puzzles me most is that hardware failure is supposed to show also with the old Apple battery...

I will keep you posted in the coming days about the outcome of the tests.

Regards,

Giulio