G4 Titanium will not turn on

Hi, Kyle. If the Tibook was sitting around for a while before it was given to you, and AC power was disconnected during that time allowing the main battery to go completely flat, then the internal backup battery has also gone flat. A Tibook generally won't start up if that backup battery is dead. But it's a rechargeable battery, so it would be worth seeing whether it will still take a charge. To do that, remove the main battery and leave the Powerbook's AC adapter connected for 48 hours. If at the end of that time you are able to start the Powerbook on AC power, the backup battery has been charged. If not, the backup battery may have to be replaced.

Either way, the next step is to try to charge the main battery: reinsert it and leave the PB turned off for at least 24 hours. Then see whether any of the lights on the battery come on when you press the button next to them. If none do, or just a single one flashes, the battery has been left discharged too long and will no longer take a charge; you'll have to replace it if you ever want to run on battery power.

It's possible that the PB has some other, more serious problem that will prevent it from starting even if the backup battery gets charged, but most such problems will manifest themselves with some signs of activity: beeps at startup, hard drive sounds, the Num Lock and/or Caps Lock lights coming on, or something. If you're getting nothing whatsoever, do the battery-charging routine first and see whether it makes any difference. Post back with results.

HI, Kyle. Good news that your battery problems seem toi be under control. Now you probably just have to deal with a corrupt operating system or a damaged disk directory, both of which are comparatively simple.

Boot to your preferred or latest OS installer CD — either a retail one or the model-specific one that was originally shipped with the Tibook; not a model-specific one designed for another Mac — and open Disk Utility from the Installer menu. Select the hard drive in the left panel of DU and the Erase tab in the right panel, and erase the drive. This is a gift computer you've never used, so nothing on it is yours, and you can dispose of it all. If you'll want to boot into OS 9.x or have the drive seen by any other computer that is running OS 9.x, be sure to select the option to Install OS 9 Drivers on it before erasing.

After erasing the drive, reinstall the OS and whatever other software you have on it.

As you'll have figured out by now, you can't proceed any farther than you are right now without a suitable OS installer CD or DVD.

If I have to purchase a new
operating system, will the latest system, OSX
10.4.(x) work with my notebook?

Kyle:

Yes, it will.

Can anyone please help me?
My G4 Titanium just won't turn on. I tried all most every possibility that posts here. Charge the backup battery over night, charge the main battery over night, reset the PMU, unplug the PMU ... Just nothing works, it just won't turn on.

But after unpluging the PMU and plug in the AC Adapter, the main battery starts flash for about an hour and it stops. Nothing else works. Please, somebody help me.

Thank You very Much!

Hi, kitloo, and welcome to Apple Discussions. Unfortunately, what you're doing is completely unclear to me. It isn't possible to "unplug the PMU", so apparently you're confusing the PMU (Power Management Unit) with something else. Can you describe what you are unplugging, or where it's located?

You also say "the main battery starts flash for about an hour and it stops." Again I am mystified. Batteries don't flash. What is actually flashing?

Please tell us which model your Powerbook is (processor speed, at least) and what OS version(s) you're running on it. Also, describe precisely what happens when you try to turn your Powerbook on. What do you see? What do you hear? What if any error messages appear?

Have you tried powering the PB with a different AC adapter?

Thanks for responding so fast eww ...

My friend gave me this Tibook. It is a 500mhz/768mb/15inches Tibook running on OSX 10.4. It stopped working for him one day and it had been there for around 3 months. Then he gave it to me. When I press the power button, nothing turns on. No sound and no screen. I open it up and unplug the wire from PMU that connects to the 4 backup batteries. Plug in my AC adapter, press the power button, nothing turn on (no screen and no sound). But the main battery start to flash for a around an hour and it stops. I don't know if it is charging the main battery or not. I left it sat there for over night, and press the power button next day, nothing turns on.

Please help ... Thanks

It stopped working for him one day and it had been there for around 3 months.

If the Powerbook was running and suddenly shut down, and it hasn't run since, it undoubtedly had a hardware failure of some significant kind. In that case, there's nothing surprising about its failure to start now. It's a good guess that the backup battery (that array of four disc cells you mentioned) was drained when you received the PB. But if you've followed the usual suggestions to charge both batteries, and the PB still won't start, even on AC power with an adapter that's known to be good, it needs expert testing and repair.

If you don't have an AC adapter that you know is good, take the PB to an Apple dealership and ask to use a demo adapter on the display floor for a few minutes to test whether the results are the same as with your own adapter when you connect it to the PB.

I still can't imagine what you mean by "the main battery starts to flash". What is really flashing? The sleep light? The AC adapter plug light? The Caps Lock or Num Lock light? What?

My guess is that you've got a failed AC adapter, logic board or PMU, but it's also possible that the main battery's connection with the logic board is loose, or the DC-in port's solder joints to the logic board are cracked, or the port is otherwise damaged. I'm sure there are other possibilities I haven't thought of. Unfortunately, diagnosing these power-related problems (if you can't find a loose connection somewhere) is usually a matter of replacing parts until you figure out which one was faulty.

Thanks again ... eww

The lights I am talking about are the four little lights on the main battery. When I plug in the AC adapter, the first light starts to flash for about an hour and it stops. I don't know what is this flashing indicates. Can you please tell me if you know.

Thanks

OK, so it's one of the charge-level indicator lights on the battery. When all four of those come on after you press the button beside them, the battery is charged to capacity — whatever its current capacity may be (and it may be far less than when it was new). When only the light next to the button comes on after you press the button, the battery is at only a small fraction of its capacity. When you press the button and that light flashes, the battery is nearly discharged: it usually has too little charge left to run the computer at all. Whichever lights come on when you press the button, they should all go out again by themselves a few seconds after you release it.

None of those lights should come on without your pressing the button beside them. If one does, even flashing, and it continues to flash for an hour, then I suspect there's something wrong with the battery. If the button were stuck in the depressed position, as I suspect it would have to be for your light to behave as it does, I don't know what consequences (if any) would follow. Can you depress the button, or does it already seem to be fully depressed?

I'm still in the dark about the exact nature of your Powerbook's problem or problems. Even if your main battery is faulty, the Powerbook should be able to start up on AC power without it installed. Since it doesn't, there's another problem, or more than one. There may have been a cascade of problems since the one that caused the PB to stop working three months ago, but without knowing precisely what happened then or what steps were taken to remedy the original problem, it's impossible to guess confidently what was wrong then or what's wrong now. I think you're going to need to take the PB to an authorized service center and have it looked at.

I have a similar problem and hope somebody can give me some hints.
My PB won't start if the battery is plugged in. But if I remove the battery, it works just fine under AC. However, as soon as I plug the battery in, PB dies immediately. The charging light goes yellow, and the area around the light goes hot very quickly.
Could anybody let me know what happens to my PK?
Thanks!!

PB G4 867 MHz Mac OS X (10.4.6)