Whole lot of trouble.

Question

Whole lot of trouble.

2 weeks ago my backlight went out on me. I replaced the inverter-board and everything was working fine. I had replaced superdrives in the same model so this was a no brainer.

Today however I tried to restart the machine and it only boots about half the time. One in 3 boots actually have a startup chime.

I cannot get video mirroring to work with a S-video cable or DVI.

Since the machine usually refuses to chime I have no idea if my PRAM resets are working and I have reset the PMU about 20 times in the last hour trying to get this thing to work.

Any suggestions?

Powerbook, Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Jan 17, 2007 8:13 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

eww

Level 9

53,028 points

Jan 18, 2007 8:57 AM in response to Aaron T. Yates

Hi, Aaron. Try booting to an OS installer CD or DVD. If that doesn't work, or doesn't work consistently, you have a hardware problem, and it sounds suspiciously like the logic board is bad. It's probably going to take more testing than you can easily do yourself, unless you have ready access to a supply of various known-good replacement parts. Do you have an Apple Hardware Test CD? If so, will the Powerbook start up from it, and what does it report?

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Answer 2

Jan 18, 2007 2:06 PM in response to eww

I can't even see the screen so a hardware CD does me no good.

Although I did get it to boot once after letting the battery drain completely and got a open firmware memory error, which from what I understand could be a pram problem.

I'm just in such a bad situation here, I know it is probably the logic board. And I really don't want to pay $500+ USD for a four year old powerbook.

Please any suggestions?

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Answer 3

eww

Level 9

53,028 points

Jan 18, 2007 2:14 PM in response to Aaron T. Yates

I've heard of people getting logic boards for much less than $500 (not installed, though), but it takes some luck and/or a lot of shopping around. And if you bought one, of course you'd have to hope that was the answer, because if it wasn't, you wouldn't feel very good.

Phone some of the following shops for possible advice on testing and/or for repair information:

http://www.pbparts.com (parts and repair work)
http://www.dttservice.com (parts and repair work)
http://www.powerbookresq.com (parts and repair work)
http://www.powerbookmedic.com (parts and repair work)
http://www.tekserve.com (parts and repair work)

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Answer 4

Jan 18, 2007 2:23 PM in response to eww

Thanks a ton. I might take it apart and clean the connections and remove any dust or anything else. Although I am pretty sure it is false hope at this time.

I do have a relative with the same model, so I will try to swap out various components.

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Answer 5

Jan 19, 2007 8:09 PM in response to Aaron T. Yates

Logic board bit the dust today, not even a complete boot.

Hopefully I can get it repaired cheaply. Apparently Backup 3 failed to catch everything I needed to have backed up. So I am left with few options.

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Answer 6

Jan 23, 2007 10:03 PM in response to Aaron T. Yates

Ok, so I have the thing booting now. I approached the situation like some arcade boards I couldn't get working and carefully removed every spec of dust around the CPU.

But I have two issues.

Most importantly I have a vram issue. Is it possible that the board is not set properly and that is why I am having issues? Or is it more likely that I have a bad bank and my logic board is still completely useless?

My other problem is that my hardware test is passing everything but vram. However the machine refuses to recognize it's HD. This is really bad considering that I just put this drive in my Mac Mini to get the contents off of it and it was working literally an hour ago. Will the hardware test "pass" the hard drive if one does not exist or show up?

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Answer 7

eww

Level 9

53,028 points

Jan 24, 2007 6:12 AM in response to Aaron T. Yates

If your VRAM isn't passing the hardware test, you need a logic board. The VRAM is soldered on and can't practically be replaced. If you're a true magician with a soldering pencil I suppose you have nothing to lose by trying, but the chances that you can succeed are very small.

If your hard drive was working fine just before you put it back into the Powerbook, you may have damaged the HD cable in removing or reinstalling it. A number of people have reported that that cable is surprisingly delicate and can be damaged even with careful handling. I wouldn't have said that based on my own limited experience with them, but apparently it's true.

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