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12" powerbook won't post

R

ryannuffsaid

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 4, 2007
13
0
Santa Clarita, California
I just bought a powerbook, and I'm trying to get it to turn on. It doesn't have a hard drive, so obviously it won't be able to get it to boot. I just want to be able to get to the flashing folder. When I press the power button, the computer does nothing, not even the fan spins. The only indication I have that it is on is the caps lock light turns on. I've tried resetting the pram, but the screen stays blank and does nothing. I don't have any ram modules in it, so it shouldn't be a ram problem. Any ideas?
 
I would have thought that if there's physically no drive, the machine wouldn't do anything. I think the folder icon appears if there's a problem reading the start-up volume, but I may be wrong.
 
IIRC the fan doesnt spin unless it gets hot enough. It should spin for a second right when you push the power button and then turn off.
 
hmm... no fan on startup, but I can see the fact that I don't have a physical being a problem. I just found out that it didn't even come with the hd cable. I thought maybe if I tried target disk mode it would start up, but I got the same result
 
have you tried connecting to an external monitor while target booting to another mac?
 
ryannuffsaid said:
the 12" has 256 built in, I was saying that I don't have any aftermarket modules in.
Click to expand...


If you are trying to boot into Leopard with 256 ram, you may not have enough ram for start up. And I don't know of any Mac that comes with a "hard drive cable" (i.e. a firewire cable.)

I'd take out the battery and plug it in with an external hard drive. Sometimes the battery messes with Pram.
 
is it plugged in with the plug input area glowing green?

Seems like a silly question but it happened to a friend where their battery was run down and their plug wasn't working. They immediately thought the logic board had fried...
 
I had this...

Pull out the cable linking the optical drive.
Then try Bluetooth, HDD and airport card.

Component isolation - get rid of anything other than Logic Board and power - and pray.

F
 
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