User profile for user: TJJ
TJJ Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Wallstreet PMU - Dead or Alive?

Greetings all. I recently received a Wallstreet (1998 Model M4753) from my mother-in-law with a known history of instability. The laptop that is. Mother-in-law and I are both Mac fanatics. Long term goal is to upgrade hard drive, add wireless and pass onto college daughter. The Wallstreet booted up ok, appeared to be stable. Did add some more memory (256M) on the top slot, and upgraded to OSX 10.2.8. All applications worked ok. But the unit would not reawake properly and had to be physically powered down (plugs out, battery removed). But it would boot up ok. After reading thru all the glorious postings on the Wallstreet, I determined that the internal PRAM battery was defunct. Went to PBFixit, and after building up some courage dove into the disassembly of the Wallstreet and replaced the PRAM. Amazing how they fit all those components into such a small package.

But now I appear to have fallen backwards. Wallstreet will not power up (no chimes, dark screen, no CD drive activity). Have tried all the power management reset suggestions multiple times (press/hold the four reset keys (shift-fn-ctrl-power) for 30 seconds both with battery in/out, AC plugged in/out), but to no avail.

Current status: Wallstreet does not respond to power up button. Press/hold the four reset keys (shift-fn-ctrl-power) for 30 seconds results in sleep light (?) glowing green constantly. Another brief press of the four reset keys (shift-fn-ctrl-power) turns the green light off

Replacing the old PRAM has no effect on the response. Have I killed the PMU?

But on the upside, can now dissasemble the Wallstreet to a bucket of bokts and piece parts in my sleep!

Would appreciate any help/suggestions on what to try next.

Thanks and Happy New Year TJJ

Wallstreet M4753, Mac OS X (10.2.x), Also have Wallstreet Laptop and original Bluberry iMac

Posted on Jan 2, 2006 2:32 PM

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11 replies
User profile for user: jpl
jpl
User level: Level 7
28,285 points

Jan 2, 2006 7:30 PM in response to TJJ

TJJ,

I commend your efforts in resurrecting a Wallstreet...it is still a nice machine but somewhat temperamental when it comes to OSX.

There is always the remote possibility of static-discharge harming a component but if you were careful, then I would put that at the bottom of the list.

One component known to fail and cause a no-start is the keyboard; carefully disconnect the keyboard ribbon cable, connect just the power adapter and try starting.

Are you sure the microprocessor card is fully seated? If any question, remove the top memory module, then press down hard on the right side next to the HD where the multipin connector resides. If still no response, you might remove the card and examine the pins making sure none is bent.

If you do get her up and running, the wake-from-sleep failure is either a software or power manager or marginal RAM issue...should not be too hard to diagnose.

Message was edited by: jpl
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User profile for user: TJJ
TJJ Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Jan 2, 2006 8:33 PM in response to jpl

JPL

Thanks for the response. While I do not have an ESD strap, have routinely grounded myself to house ground throughout process. Will keep that in mind though.

Removed the keyboard connections, but the power on atempt had no effect - not even a hum, blink, flash or whirr. Reattached keyboard and condition is as before. The the power management reset causes the green light to come on and stay on. Second attempt turns it off

Did have some seating problems with both the hard drive and the processor during the PRAM battery replacement. Both are verifiably firmly seated, and all pins appear in good order. Could I have damaged anything if the processor was not seated correctly during a power on attempt?

Of note, the external batterry does not appear to be charging anymore. As part of the power management reset, I let the fully charged batterry drain down overnite with the sleep mode light on. Today after several hours the battery still has only one LED of four lit. Is there a further test I can run on the PMU? Are there any sources for replacement PMU's?

Thanks again

TJJ
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User profile for user: jpl
jpl
User level: Level 7
28,285 points

Jan 3, 2006 10:31 AM in response to TJJ

TJJ,

I doubt you caused damage with a poorly seated microprocessor card since this happens occasionally without any ill effects.

Your powerbook should still respond when these parts are removed: keyboard, main battery, optical drive, HD. I would remove these items plus disconnect the power adapter, then allow the powerbook to sit at 24 hours to allow the PRAM battery to drain. Then connect just the power adapter and see if it will respond...it should boot to a flashing '?'.

I don't know of any user tests that can determine whether the microprocessor card or logic board or sound/power card or power supply card or PMU card has failed other than swapping known-good parts or having a tech diagnose the issue.

Message was edited by: jpl
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User profile for user: waka
waka
User level: Level 1
0 points

Jan 4, 2006 6:45 AM in response to TJJ

Hi TJJ,

You seem to have exactly the same problems with your Wallstreet that I am having with mine ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=293999&tstart=0 ). When you power the machine up using the reset key combo, do you get fans as well as the sleep light? If so, your symptoms and mine match exactly.

However, I don't have a solution. I can tell you that my Wallstreet has never been opened--I haven't worked up the courage to dive in and remove the PRAM battery yet--so I doubt you caused your problem when you took the machine apart.

waka
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User profile for user: TJJ
TJJ Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Jan 5, 2006 10:02 PM in response to TJJ

Succcess!!

As JPL suggested, went back and throughly reseated the processor board. And low and behold the Wallstreet has restarted. The processor is extremely sensitive to being dislodged. Even putting the heat shieled on can knock it loose. But when assembled and screwed down, the heat shield does appear to hold it in place.

Also of interest, my Wallstreet model has no fan or L3 cache. Reports as 0K (zereo K). Recall seeing that on the apple profiler for this serial number. Wonder if I can put some on without changing processor?

Now to move forward with more fun stuff - getting a wireless PC card, bigger 40G hard drive (and will format to an 8G / 32G as noted in the discussions).

Thanks for all the inputs, and WAKA - keep the faith and hopefully all will work out

TJJ
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User profile for user: jpl
jpl
User level: Level 7
28,285 points

Jan 6, 2006 10:50 AM in response to TJJ

TJJ,

Good work...persistence does pay.

If your 8GB partition is not available for OSX (grayed-out), reduce the size to 7.8GB or so.

Your Wallstreet should have a fan:
http://www.pbfixit.com/Guide/3.15.14.html

Apple did sell a "cacheless" 233MHz, but I am not sure how the Apple System Profiler reports it. If a Wallstreet has backside L2 cache that fails, I believe the Profiler reports it as "missing" or "0 K" or it is blank...just don't know. But there is no way to add L2 cache since it is soldered on the microprocessor card. You can, however, replace a cacheless 233MHz microprocessor card with a faster Wallstreet card but which card is compatible depends on your system bus speed. The first Wallstreet release had both a 66MHz or 83MHz bus speed; your Profiler will reveal its speed. Even a move to a 233MHz w/512K cache will give you a 70% speed boost over a cacheless 233 according to MacBench tests. The cards available are 233/250/266/292/300MHz but you must know your bus speed.

As an example, you can buy a used 250MHz w/1MB for $50 at this site; check out all the other speeds.

http://www.pbfixit.com/cart/customer/product.php?productid=168&cat=&page=1
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User profile for user: glk
glk
User level: Level 1
0 points

Jan 15, 2006 5:07 AM in response to jpl

jpl,
You have given so nice advices to tjj ! I hope that you or someone else can help me, too.
I have a Powerbook Wallstreet Lombard 400 MHZ. Since several weeks, I had a message about a problem with the cache memory when I restarted the computer; the computer was still working, but I had to use the reinitializing button every time to boot it.
Last week, I think I have done a mistake : the computer crashed, and I have pushed on the reinitialisation button without to have turned off the laptop before. After that, it is no more possible to boot it. When I push on the reinitialization button, I get just a flash or a remaining light, but no sound. And it will not restart.
I have changed the PRAM battery. But no result.
After that, I have tried to do the same things as tjj : remove the battery, the PRAM Battery, the optical drive, the keyboard, the modem, the HD, and wait 24 hours. But the laptop had not restarted unfortunately. And I am afraid, I have damaged the keyboard ribbon, because there is no more light on the caps lock button.
What should I do ? Have I to change the microprocessor card ? Or something else ?
I thank you in advance for your help.
glk

Powerbook G3 Lombard 400 MHZ Mac OS 9.2.x
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Wallstreet PMU - Dead or Alive?

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