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netdog

macrumors 603
Original poster
Feb 6, 2006
5,760
38
London
A friend was just given a PowerBook G4 in perfect condition (seemingly). It has just been sitting on a shelf for several years and worked fine before it was shelved.

Now when she plugs it in, the orange light on the cord lights up orange, but when she tries to boot the machine, nothing happens. I mean nothing.

Is there something simple that this could be? Wondering if there is a little battery inside that is needed that could have gone dead over the years of idle sitting, or something like that. I just don't know PowerBooks very well.

Any and all help appreciated.
 

BigTroll

macrumors member
Mar 21, 2010
76
0
I had a PowerBook G4 titanium that wouldn't boot, i ended up taking it apart and unpluging the PRAM battery and that allowed it to boot.
 

netdog

macrumors 603
Original poster
Feb 6, 2006
5,760
38
London
If the PRAM battery is dead, would that prevent it from booting?

When she tries to start it up, nothing at all happens.
 

BigTroll

macrumors member
Mar 21, 2010
76
0
If the PRAM battery is dead, would that prevent it from booting?

When she tries to start it up, nothing at all happens.

For some reason if the battery is dead it will not do nothing when the power button is pressed, they say either remove the regular battery and leave it plugged in 24 hours so it can charge the pram battery faster, or just unplug it, really it doesn't make sense to me as if the pram battery is dead why should it matter if its plugged in or not, but after i unplugged it my titanium fired up.
 

mr1970

macrumors member
Feb 15, 2008
78
0
I had all sorts of boot problems with my G4 PM before I changed the PRAM battery. Worth a go - it's a cheap fix and if it doesn't work, no harm done.
 
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