PLEASE help, new PB won't turn on

[williamsonrg]

My girlfriend, who goes to another college so is 6 hours from me, just bought a new 12" PB, and now it won't turn on. It is plugged in, but she hits the power button, and nothing happens. No light comes on, nothing. She said that for a moment she thought she felt it vibrating like it was working, but she thinks she may've imagined that.

Can anybody help? She doesn't have time to take it to the Apple Store for a few days, so I would most appreciate any assistance anybody can give.

 

[lbodnar]

Try on battery without main power. Try on main power without battery.
Reset PMU (is PMU reset button near memory slot on 12" PBs?)

 

[varmit]

My girlfriend, who goes to another college so is 6 hours from me, just bought a new 12" PB, and now it won't turn on. It is plugged in, but she hits the power button, and nothing happens. No light comes on, nothing. She said that for a moment she thought she felt it vibrating like it was working, but she thinks she may've imagined that.

Can anybody help? She doesn't have time to take it to the Apple Store for a few days, so I would most appreciate any assistance anybody can give.

I would gets a PMU issue. I don't want to say she is stupid or anything, but make sure she has it plugged in to start with since I have known people to kick out their wall plug and not know it, which makes it a dead battery. First, she should press the control key, the command key, and the power button simultaneously. If this has any effect, the computer will start up.

If not, she should: Reset the power manager by simultaneously pressing and then releasing Shift-Control-Option-Power on the keyboard. Wait 5 seconds. Press the Power button to restart the computer.

I got the info for the PMU reset from here, make sure I got the right one. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449#faq10

 

[wordmunger]

Try removing the battery and reseating it. I've had a similar problem a couple of times, and it's always been due to a slightly loose battery.

 

[williamsonrg]

First, she should press the control key, the command key, and the power button simultaneously. If this has any effect, the computer will start up.

That worked! I'm sure this is a dumb question, but what did that do? We're new to Macs...

 

[williamsonrg]

Try removing the battery and reseating it. I've had a similar problem a couple of times, and it's always been due to a slightly loose battery.

It was plugged in, and the lights on the bottom said the battery was fully charged.

 

[nbs2]

when you have more than one battery, it's rather useful

It was plugged in, and the lights on the bottom said the battery was fully charged.

This may be misunderstanding your point, but I thought I'd mention it just in case. Even if the battery is not properly seated, the indicator lights will come on. I find the lights useful for two things - one is to check the power on the battery in the laptop and the other is to check the power level in my other battery. Of course, you had it plugged in, so my point is pointless in your case.

 

[williamsonrg]

This may be misunderstanding your point, but I thought I'd mention it just in case. Even if the battery is not properly seated, the indicator lights will come on. I find the lights useful for two things - one is to check the power on the battery in the laptop and the other is to check the power level in my other battery. Of course, you had it plugged in, so my point is pointless in your case.

I see what you're saying. Like you said, it's not appropos to this particular discussion, but that's good to know.

I like my Mac. If only I knew what I was doing.

I couldn't have said it better myself... That's why I wish I knew exactly what control-command-power did to the PB...

 

[fistful]

does she give it a minutes to load? Mac OS X startup is a little different from windows which confused me at first, I'd hear it chime but unlike windows the screen doesn't give any indication that it is loading for about 10 seconds. When I first received mine after the chime I kept restarting it as I thought nothing was happening. I doubt that's it but it is a possibility, good luck.

 

[varmit]

That worked! I'm sure this is a dumb question, but what did that do? We're new to Macs...

Truefully, I don't know what that does. It might be what initalizes the computer to start, and someone at the factory forgot to do it. Because resetting the PRAM and the PMU are different key strokes, and I don't have any information on what those do. Glad it worked though.

 

[williamsonrg]

Truefully, I don't know what that does. It might be what initalizes the computer to start, and someone at the factory forgot to do it. Because resetting the PRAM and the PMU are different key strokes, and I don't have any information on what those do. Glad it worked though.

Odd indeed... she's had it for about 2 weeks now, and this is the second time it's happened. If it happens again, we'll just take it to the Apple Store. Thanks for the tip though!

 

[wordmunger]

It was plugged in, and the lights on the bottom said the battery was fully charged.

I've had this happen to me even with a fully charged battery and the computer plugged in -- if the battery's not properly seated, it still won't start up.

But it sounds like your computer just crashed and you needed to restart -- different problem.

 

[superfunkomatic]

command+control+power used to be referred to as the "three fingered salute" on the older pre-g4 macs. if you'd locked up the operating system - which happened quite a bit in mac os 8 and mac os 9 you could kill everything and force a reboot of the computer. i think that only works on the laptops now. the g3 and g4 desktops have a reset button on the front of the machine that does the same thing.

 

[williamsonrg]

I've had this happen to me even with a fully charged battery and the computer plugged in -- if the battery's not properly seated, it still won't start up.

But it sounds like your computer just crashed and you needed to restart -- different problem.

It's hard for me to say, since I wasn't there, but the night before she had properly shut her computer down, so it's hard to see how it would have crashed. She ad it set to turn itself on automatically at 8 a.m., but the laptop was closed, did that maybe confuse it somehow?

It's fixed for now, so it's not a big deal I suppose, but I like speculating with all the Mac geniuses here.