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Ibook Clamshell No Charging Light or Power

Ih8reno

Ih8reno

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 10, 2012
1,383
207
I just picked up a blue clamshell for $20. When I tried it out at the buyers it was finicky but turned on and worked just fine. Bring it home and I can't get it to power on. Battery is long dead but I have the correct power adapter from my other clamshell. No charging light comes on and it won't boot. I've tried pressing the reset, also the Pmu and still nothing. Am I now the proud owner of a cool paperweight?
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Ih8reno said:
I just picked up a blue clamshell for $20. When I tried it out at the buyers it was finicky but turned on and worked just fine. Bring it home and I can't get it to power on. Battery is long dead but I have the correct power adapter from my other clamshell. No charging light comes on and it won't boot. I've tried pressing the reset, also the Pmu and still nothing. Am I now the proud owner of a cool paperweight?
ImageImage
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Try removing the battery and holding the power button for 30 seconds with the battery removed. Also try a new PRAM Battery.
 
Nothing doing. I know the power adapter works as it boots my graphite ibook.
 
It's possible that the DC board is bad, either from a damaged connector or a faulty component. I had this with a Dual-USB iBook G3 a while back, just swapped it out with a new one and it was fine.
 
Intell said:
Mostly correct. The 12" Powerbook has a capacitor like the iBooks.
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Learn something new everyday. I mainly only do repairs on Intel(l) Macs so that is where most of my experience comes from. Sorry for the confusion I may of caused to the viewers. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
 
I would definitely try a new DC-in board. That has fixed several iBook G4s for me. Pull out the battery and plug it in, and hold down the power button, and if you can hear any noise, maybe a small buzzing, then it is the DC-in board.
 
Altemose said:
Learn something new everyday. I mainly only do repairs on Intel(l) Macs so that is where most of my experience comes from. Sorry for the confusion I may of caused to the viewers. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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Don't feel too bad. Many people on here miss that tidbit of information.
 
Nope no noise, I did notice last night where it plugs in got a bit warm.
 
Ih8reno said:
Nope no noise, I did notice last night where it plugs in got a bit warm.
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I would replace the DC-in board. Symptoms are: You hear it buzzing or a cap buzzing, it gets hot (I burned myself on a DC-in board on my first iBook once :D), If you twist around several times and it changes colors briefly, extremely hot adapter after a while, etc. Also, one easy way to check is digging into the iBook and checking the jack into which the DC-in board plugs in, and seeing if a multimeter detects voltage. If not, it is indeed your DC-in jack.
Picture demonstration:
test-incoming-voltage.jpg
 
Unfortunately I don't think I have the skills to do this. Guess it'll have to be a conversation piece.
 
Ih8reno said:
Unfortunately I don't think I have the skills to do this. Guess it'll have to be a conversation piece.
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It's not impossible to do :)
You can find extremely detailed free instructions on www.ifixit.com.
If you don't want to do it, I wonder if there's anybody in your area that would do it: it's not super expensive part on eBay, and shouldn't be that much for someone to do it.
 
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