G4 PowerBook problem - dead HDD or Logic Board?

[eccles291]

Hi there,

I'm new to the site and am having huge problems with my Mac. I've had a good look through loads of threads (and used Search) but haven't found a similar enough problem.

I got it second hand on eBay and it worked fine for a while - general websurfing and wordprocessing - although sadly it seems too old/slow to run ProTools and an MBox2, which is what I wanted to do with it. I'd like to get it working again so I can either use it for web stuff or sell it to help fund a better machine so I can run PT on it. Thankfully, I'd been backing up my Mac using Time Machine before it went wrong so hopefully I can get back everything that was there... if it's fixable!

System Details:

• PowerBook G4 15-inch
• Model no: A1138
• 1.67GHz
• 1Gb RAM (Originally 512Mb)
• 80Gb HDD
• Running on OS X 10.5.8

The initial problem started months ago when I got a kernel panic on startup "We are hanging here" screen that looked like this:

I showed this pic to someone and they told me that it looked like the HDD had died but, being skint at the time, I couldn't afford to replace it so it sat there for quite a while until I could get a new drive. I finally got the money together, replaced the old drive but it hasn't cured the problem.

I got a different screen but still a kernel panic, "We are hanging here":

I've tried the following:

• reseating the RAM
• Booting with only one stick of RAM and in both slots (done this with both sticks)
• Boot in Safe Mode
• Booting from original CDs (OS X 10.2.7 and 10.3.3)
• Reset PRAM (hold CMD + OPT + P + R at startup)
• Reset NVRAM (hold CMD + OPT + N + V at startup)
  

None of this has worked. When I got the kernel panic screens after installing the new drive, I went back to the old one as I figured that because it hadn't helped much the old one at least had the OS on it.

Can anyone advise, please?

Many thanks.

 

[eccles291]

Anyone?

 

[Nameci]

Mods can you please move this thread to the PowerPC Forums. He could get more attention there.

To the OP, hope this helps.

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn2063/_index.html

or this

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1154978/

 

[eccles291]

Thanks for that, Nameci. I'll try and work my way through the Developer stuff and see if I can get any pointers as to what, exactly, has gone wrong with it.

 

[Nameci]

Do you happen to have a Leopard install DVD? If so, boot from DVD and from Disk Utility perform "verify" disk to check for disk errors. Do "repair" if necessary. Or do "Repair Permissions".

Do you have any peripherals connected to your Powerbook? If so, remove or uninstall it.

 

[California]

Looks like logic board fail to me.

1. check your ram.
2. check your ram slots
3. Hard drive fail doesn't look like this but check it anyway.

 

[skinniezinho]

Don't you have the original cds so you can run apple hardware test?

 

[eccles291]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. Sorry it's taken a while to reply but access to the web is limited without my PowerBook.

Do you happen to have a Leopard install DVD? If so, boot from DVD and from Disk Utility perform "verify" disk to check for disk errors. Do "repair" if necessary. Or do "Repair Permissions".

Do you have any peripherals connected to your Powerbook? If so, remove or uninstall it.

Unfortunately I don't have the Leopard install disks. I think that the person I bought it from must have kept them for their other Mac. I tried all the actions I listed in my original post with no peripherals connected at all... not even a mouse as I thought that one of them might be a part of the problem. Sadly, it would seem they had no bearing on things.

Looks like logic board fail to me.

1. check your ram.
2. check your ram slots
3. Hard drive fail doesn't look like this but check it anyway.

I checked both RAM slots as best I can. I did this by swapping the sticks over and also only using one stick at a time in each slot but it didn't seem to make any difference. I'm beginning to fear it may be a logic board failure. Is there another way I can check for a hard drive fail? (He said, clutching at straws ).

Don't you have the original cds so you can run apple hardware test?

Yep, got the original CD/DVDs but it won't boot at all, even from them, so I can't run any tests/repairs at all from the Utilities as far as I know.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

I recently got an "unable to find driver for platform PowerMac 7,3" after I rebooted after using XSlimmer to strip foreign languages and Intel code from system files including the ones in /System/Library/CoreServices. Also meant that Archive Utility would no longer archive with a right-click.

 

[eccles291]

To the OP, hope this helps.

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn2063/_index.html

or this

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1154978/

Well, I've tried reading through those threads a couple of times - especially the Apple developer one - but my ZX Spectrum-powered brain still doesn't understand what the panic logs mean!

----------

I recently got an "unable to find driver for platform PowerMac 7,3" after I rebooted after using XSlimmer to strip foreign languages and Intel code from system files including the ones in /System/Library/CoreServices. Also meant that Archive Utility would no longer archive with a right-click.

I hadn't been doing anything to my machine when it went pear-shaped.