17" DLSD PowerBook unusual failure mode

[FBSD_Mac]

My PowerBook may have bitten the dust. I haven't seen this failure mode before but perhaps more experience PPC owning Mac users have and can offer advice?

I was testing out the new version of Arctic Fox under 10.5.8 (completely unrelated to the issue at hand) when the screen froze. Initially I was still able to move the mouse but eventually that froze as well.

I had an active ssh login from my ThinkPad (running FreeBSD) and was surprised to see the machine idling (looking in top) even though the webpage I had been loading when the freeze occurred had the CPU pegged. I killed Arctic Fox from the command line but that didn't change anything so I initiated a shutdown from there.

At that point the computer did not restart but was in a partially disk demounted state where it couldn't decipher my UID anymore in response to "whoami". The system still showed the frozen image on the screen and I couldn't run anything from the command line any longer in that state so I did a force shutdown.

Now booting does not turn on the screen, I get a chime once every 6 or so boot attempts, and the optical drive does a seek approximately every 5s or so.

I've tried reseating the top case cable (under the lower RAM slot) a few times (always finicky due to a previous owner ripping out the bale lock) with no change.

I tried feeding it an old FreeBSD PPC disk I had on hand and that spins up for a bit but doesn't seem to boot either (no screen turn on). I can't reset the PRAM or drop to OpenFirmware and I can't eject the disk (so no keyboard or mouse input). Only the power button is recognized.

I tried pulling both sticks of RAM and it gives me a long beep on power-up with a flash sequence on the sleep light (expected) but nothing else.

This seems rather more severe than anything else I've encountered so far.

Is my PowerBook toast or do have other options I can check before I decide if I should try to see if perhaps someone like DOSDude1 or NorthridgeFix (YouTube) could repair it? It might be cheaper to look for another PowerBook but this one is in nice condition with no dents or bad scratches and a good screen.

 

[eyoungren]

A couple things to try, although based on your symptoms, I don't really have much hope here.

Try resetting the PMU (or whatever term it is for PowerPC). I haven't done that in a long time, but it's something like pulling the battery and power cable and then holding down the power button for a few seconds. Then reconnect the cable and battery and try restarting. You may have to Google that.

The other thing to try is to see if you can get TDM (Target Disk Mode). You start with the Mac off, then hold down the T key and press the power button to turn the Mac on (continue holding the T key). If you get a Firewire logo moving across the screen then you're in TDM.

Success with either of these would be proof that your logicboard hasn't died.

 

[FBSD_Mac]

Thank you for the advice -- no dice.

 

[eyoungren]

Thank you for the advice -- no dice.

Yeah. Your LB is probably toast.

 

[Smithwick’s]

Any luck booting to Open Firmware if you disconnect the HDD? Assuming you have an HDD it could either diagnose a failed disk (likely at this age) or a problem with the bus - and at that point you're better off doing a logic board transplant unless you really want the challenge of trying to fix it.

EDIT: I present this idea because a similar technique helped me diagnose a KL failure on my Pismo. Had to do a brain transplant to get the poor thing fixed.

 

[FBSD_Mac]

I haven’t had the time to pull the ‘Book apart yet but don’t have high hopes. I put a solid state drive upgrade into the existing adapter several months ago (I purchased it 26mo ago with an ssd modification already done).

Thank you!

 

[Matias_]

What happens when it turns on? Does the sleep indicator LED stay lit without anything appearing on the screen?

 

[FBSD_Mac]

What happens when it turns on? Does the sleep indicator LED stay lit without anything appearing on the screen?

Yes, along with the other symptoms listed in my first post.

A USB keyboard didn’t get me anywhere either.

 

[Matias_]

I have a 15" DLSD which exhibited a similar failure mode. Although I bought it as dead and for parts so I'm not sure what led up to it.

It would turn on but besides the sleep LED lighting up solid and the optical drive spinning up every few seconds, it did absolutely nothing.

It puzzled me for many months until just the other day when I fiddled with it again. It suddenly came back to life after I connected a known good PRAM battery module and shorted the SYS and PMU reset pads on the logic board a bunch of times.

Hope this helps, I'm not too sure myself.

PS: my G5 Quad has a freezing screen sometimes during full load (intensive compiles etc) while it remains accessible through SSH. As the load eases up, it'll unfreeze. But that's probably not related.

 

[FBSD_Mac]

Now that is intriguing, @Matias_ !!

This 17" has a dead PRAM battery in it and I haven't yet replaced it because it is part of a USB daughter-board and not exactly cheap. Definitely cheaper than a replacement logic board (if one can even be sourced -- struck out at MacPalace yesterday).

Where are these SYS and PMU reset pads?

This frozen screen persisted after the rest of the OS was completely non-functional -- really odd. The board is still minimally functional as it correctly detects no RAM inserted and will also charge an inserted main battery if plugged in.

 

[eyoungren]

Now that is intriguing, @Matias_ !!

This 17" has a dead PRAM battery in it and I haven't yet replaced it because it is part of a USB daughter-board and not exactly cheap. Definitely cheaper than a replacement logic board (if one can even be sourced -- struck out at MacPalace yesterday).

Where are these SYS and PMU reset pads?

This frozen screen persisted after the rest of the OS was completely non-functional -- really odd. The board is still minimally functional as it correctly detects no RAM inserted and will also charge an inserted main battery if plugged in.

Are you US based? eBay is generally where I picked up parts for PowerPC Macs when I needed. If you can't find anything though, you could always buy a dead PowerBook from eBay and harvest the part.

 

[FBSD_Mac]

I’ve been watching eBay since this happened on Saturday but the pickings are slim right now.

 

[Matias_]

The board is still minimally functional as it correctly detects no RAM inserted and will also charge an inserted main battery if plugged in.

Yeah mine behaved like that as well.

I haven't yet replaced it because it is part of a USB daughter-board and not exactly cheap.

You shouldn't have to replace the whole USB daughterboard. I suggest to take the module apart because I don't have an A1139 so I can't exactly verify but it should just be a a small lithium polymer battery inside. It can be had from Amazon for $10. I have bought 2 for my A1138's and they work well, might order a third now that the other one started working: https://www.amazon.com/Cameron-Sino-Replacement-Battery-PowerBook/dp/B0CWH4RK89

Where are these SYS and PMU reset pads?

Service manual, page 156: https://powerbook.micahgartman.com/ss/ss_pbg4_17_dl_167_15_133ghz.pdf

I don't see SYS_RESET but the A1138 service source also made no mention of it. Don't know what PMU_NMI is (Non-Maskable Interrupt perhaps?), mine doesn't have it.

 

[FBSD_Mac]

Thank you!

It will take a while to get the PRAM battery. Is there a safe method to do the reset procedure without that battery?

I found a close of up of the correct portion of the board online showing the reset pads (for anyone looking to do this as well look to the lower right of the large black chip in the upper left corner of the image):

 

[FBSD_Mac]

The battery came in this week and I had a go at installing it:

The new one is between the black plastic shield and the USB board (which in the image still has the original battery installed). The old one was stuck down pretty hard! I pried it off with as much shearing force as I could with a plastic guitar pick but even then the foil cover distended a fair amount.

I did get the new battery in place and the USB board reinstalled along with the Super Drive.

Sadly, I haven't had any success with getting the PowerBook to boot. I did the System and PMU resets many times and checked booting with the Power Btn pads (which do act as expected). No change in behavior.

I also tried unplugging each of the HD and the SD components to see if that made any difference -- no change in behavior.

After giving up on the logic board reset pads I reassembled everything and tried the no battery or AC 5s power button press. The machine still won't boot. It did run the fans full blast for a short period which I believe indicates a PRAM reset was successful and the optical drive now runs long enough to sound as though it is trying to boot from the inserted disk (which I still can't remove!) but otherwise it is the same.

I'm leaving it plugged in just in case that new PRAM battery needs charging to do what needs to be done but I'm not sure what else to do.

Any further suggestions, @Matias_ ?

 

[Matias_]

Sadly I'm at a loss, sorry. 🙁

It did run the fans full blast for a short period which I believe indicates a PRAM reset was successful and the optical drive now runs long enough to sound as though it is trying to boot from the inserted disk

You've done everything I tried and it's behaving exactly the same as mine did up to that point (I was quite startled by the 100% fans, guess I know what that meant now) with the fans and change in optical drive behavior but mine just started working suddenly....

Could be that I just got lucky, or that there is some sort of more complex fault in your case. I really don't know.