FIrst thank you to all for your help the other day… this time it wont come back… any hints???
I left my house yesterday and came back 3 hrs later and my computer was dead… I have no clue what happened. I have left all out for a hour or so in addition to doing the plug in / no battery w the 5 second hold… HELP…
I took it to the genius bar and he said I had discharged a shock while replacing my hhd or my super drive( but I usually make sure I am clean / dry and i do all surgeries on my desk blotter) so his conclusion was the logic board…
any other short cuts / experiments I can do to try to power it up. I am using a friends dell…ugh - I HATE VISTA to figure all out. Thank you all for your prompt help.
Sometime around 22/5/09 (at 16:23 -0400) swimmer35 said:
I took it to the genius bar and he said I had discharged a shock
while replacing my hhd or my super drive
Hang on… this is extra info. When did you upgrade your machine? If
it has been running okay for a while since then I’d challenge that
statement. It is still theoretically possible that that is the
cause… but not likely.
However… PowerBook G4? It has (had) life in it still, but perhaps
this is really just a rather harsh way of the computing gods telling
you it is time to get a newer machine…
Do you have a new motherboard battery on hand? It’s a 1/2 AA 3.6 v
Lithium battery, you can find it at Radio Shack or the local
equivalent. It’s colored like Barney – purple and green – and easy
to find on the motherboard.
Without a working motherboard battery, a Mac will either start up to a
black screen, or never start up. It’s $6 to figure out if that’s the
cause, these batteries last about 5 years of heavy use, but once
they’re gone and while they’re dying, they can be the cause of
seriously evil behavior.
Walter
On May 22, 2009, at 4:23 PM, swimmer35 wrote:
FIrst thank you to all for your help the other day… this time it
wont come back… any hints???
Sorry, just read this and I had already said it needed a motherboard
battery – missed where this is a PowerBook. Forget what I wrote.
There is a battery in a PowerBook, but if you lose it, the only bad
thing that happens is your clock thinks it’s 1969 again.
I got if up and working… sort of… seems that it only powers up when I do the pram reset option command p r power.
and when it boots the mouse is frozen, cant turn on the caps lock light… so it definatly sounds like the pram battery - is that the same as the mother board battery you all mentioned?
I could just replace the battery but it looks fused on to a metal piece that atttaches it to the unit… i dont think I want to rip that off.
is there a way to do it… or is it better to just buy a whole pram unit?
thank you again for your advice…
I hate vista BTW… cant wait to get bessie working again. Keith it could be but right now I cant afford a new one… though I am keeping my eyes open to another used…
Look on the Apple site for the instructions on how to reset the power manager, if you haven’t tried this yet. It’s similar to resetting the pram, but operates in a different part of the machine.
I want it well documented that this is the first email I am able to
type from my g4…
I am going to do a rundown (of all of your GREAT ADVICE) incase others
have problems…
Unplug and take out the battery.
do the 5 second hold
DO NOT put the battery back in… just plug it in for several hours.
reboot at some point… now I was able to do this but 2 things were
happening… yes the clock thing… also I kept having to do the PRAM
reboot to start it… after another 8 hrs - boot up on its own YEAH!!
but no track pad / keyboard - ugh… … thought the pram needed more
charging …not…
I plugged in an external mouse and was able to click through mac help
(finder) to disc utility - repaired disc and permissions… WHALLLLA!!
the keyboard and the trackpad now working… in addition my pran
battery is removed… I have ordered a new one…
you guys are the best… I could not have solved this issue with out
ya’ll
Jules
On May 22, 2009, at 6:36 PM, Paul Bradforth wrote:
On 22 May 2009, at 23:30, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
There is a battery in a PowerBook, but if you lose it, the only bad
thing that happens is your clock thinks it’s 1969 again.
I keep doing that and I don’t even run on batteries …
