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Joolz 55

Q: PowerBook G3 400 Mhz Lombard (2001) won't power up, no sign of life

Problem fixed now but I want to share this (rather scary) experience with anyone facing a similar problem.

All of a sudden the Powerbook G3 Lombard wouldn't turn on. I knew it wasn't the power supply as it worked fine on my other powerbook Clamshell. I'd press the power button and nothing. Not a sign of life anywhere. Suspecting a problem with the connection I went through the hassle of opening up the computer to check the connection (not a fun or necessary job, as it turned out).

Frustrated and running out of ideas I turned to this forum for help. The very first post I saw was from a user with a similar machine having the exact same problem, following a power outage at his house. It pointed to one small and often ignored little battery, the PRAM battery.

I didn't think it would make a difference but I followed the steps described by another user responding to that thread and sure enough my machine powers up again! Total time to fix: less than a minute.

So I want to share these findings in hopes that it helps someone with a similar problem. It really is easy:

1- Remove the battery, CD/DVD drive and unplug the power supply.

2- Remove the keyboard by pulling back the two tabs just above the 1 and zero keys (top row), then tilt up the keyboard and it will come off (careful, it connects via a wire so be gentle).

3- Disconnect the PRAM battery connector. The battery is located just below the DVD drive, so as you remove the drive in step 1, you can see it. It's a brown plastic casing with 3 wires coming out of it, being red, black and white. The connector itself is white. Just gently ply it upwards. This step is critical.

4- This may not be necessary but do try: press and hold the reset button at the back of the computer for a few seconds (use the end of a ball point pen, button is located beside the Ethernet port.

5- Plug in your power supply and power that sucker up!

Note that if your PRAM battery is dead as is the case with mine, the computer will still work fine but it won't save certain things, such as the current time. This is why you'll get a message that says: your computer clock is out of date, etc. Or sometimes something such as a power failure may confuse this battery, so this drill may be useful.

To test to see if your pram batt is dead, try this: power off the system and connect the pram batt back. Try to restart the Mac. if it starts then the batt probably just needed a flush. If it still won't start, then you need to replace the Pram batt.

Now I need to go buy a new PRAM battery. But I'm just so relieved that my old machine is still going strong. For a while there I thought I had lost the Powerbook but we all know that these Macs run forever.

too many Macs to list, Mac OS X (10.5.8), Mac user since 1989 and happy ever since

Posted on Oct 15, 2009 2:00 PM