Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iBook G4 dead :(

R

russellelly

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 23, 2006
139
41
Glasgow, UK
My iBook G4 is refusing to turn on. Yesterday it started going really slow and pressing the power button wasn't bringing up the usual options, so I held the power button to switch it off. On turning it back on it got stuck on the screen with the Apple logo and spinner for a long time so again I powered it off with the holding of the button. I then let it cool down (it was really hot) but now when I switch it on the spinner spins around 6 times then it turns itself off. It is still chiming.

I'm away from home and don't have any discs - anything I can try or is it time for the Genius bar?

Any help much appreciated.
 
I reckon the HD, personally I'd give up sell it for bits and move on to something more modern.
 
+1 for sell it on eBay for parts and upgrade to something current.

It's not worth fixing a PPC laptop... Keep in mind that after your G4, there were G5s, and Intel Core Duos, and, now Intel Core 2 Duos. Plus with 10.6 I doubt you will be supported.
 
I have to agree with most people here, generally when it dies during boot then something very important is amiss. I'd give restoration a go though, but if it won't restore then theres probably little hope for it even if you visit the genius Bar.

Try sucking everything off of it in FW Target Disk mode to another Mac. If the iBook won't even boot to target mode its probably dead beyond resurrection.

Strip it, take out the HDD and try to get anything you can off of it before destroying it (or just take a strong magnet to it, my old iMac HDD looks kinda cool on my desk, its on an acrylic stand I made when I was bored) and see if anybody on eBay wants parts.

I'd say the screen, keyboard and optical drive will be the most likely to sell parts, as there is still (albeit limited) demand for them from other iBook users who don't want to let go and join the Intel crowd.
 
tsice19 said:
+1 for sell it on eBay for parts and upgrade to something current.

It's not worth fixing a PPC laptop... Keep in mind that after your G4, there were G5s, and Intel Core Duos, and, now Intel Core 2 Duos. Plus with 10.6 I doubt you will be supported.
Click to expand...

According to the OP's sig, his iBook G4 is only a 800MHz processor. I thought Leopard needed a 867MHz G4 or higher to run...
 
iDAG said:
According to the OP's sig, his iBook G4 is only a 800MHz processor. I thought Leopard needed a 867MHz G4 or higher to run...
Click to expand...

There's a workaround to get Leoperd running on slower G4s. It's been running fine for months.

Thanks for all the replies. Luckily there's nothing important on it, so that's not an issue. My iMac is my main computer, the iBook's only really used for Internet browsing and DVD playback, both of which there's no need for anything much faster (for me). Will consider a MacBook or cheapo laptop I can run Linux on if it's beyond repair. Will pay a visit to the geniuses and take it from there. Thanks again to those who replied :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back