PowerBook Duo 230 screen issues and weird noise?

[MajorOwned]

Hi everyone,

I was hoping someone might be able to give me a steer on what's wrong my PowerBook Duo 230 - there's lines down the screen and it's making an odd noise

I recorded a video last time I got it down from the attic (4 years ago!) to record the noise. Anyway, it'd be awesome to get it usable again, any guidance welcome

 

[MacTech68]

Hard drive failure - the servo is trying to spin up the platters and can't. That's the sound. Warming it up a little MIGHT help to free it, but even if that works, it's anybody's guess when it will re-occur. It could be a hardware failure of the servo circuit on the hard drive that runs the platter motor at a specific and regulated speed.

As for the display, I hear that surface mounted capacitors leak and can corrode tracks on these old LCD displays. Either that or a failed display, bad display cable, or simply a display cable that needs re-seating. Careful, the display cables are thin plastic that is easily split if mis-handled.

However, the display problem could even be that the hard drive is halting the POST process, so video RAM is not being cleared - you'll see this on a working PowerBook. An odd half light, half dark screen and then just before booting the screen is cleared and works fine.

 

[MajorOwned]

Interesting, thanks for the detailed response.

So step 1 would be to source a compatible hard drive somehow and re-seat the monitor cables?

Should be an interesting project...

 

[MacTech68]

Yes, however, a SCSI 2.5" HD in working order might be a long shot - you could go down the Compact-Flash card with CF to SCSI 2.5" adapter, but they are pricey.

Keyboards on these models are well known to fail too. The silver tracks printed onto two sheets tarnish and no longer close the circuit when the keyboard is pressed. The silver tracks are so thin that cleaning them is almost impossible.

Meanwhile, you may want to hit google for:

"powerbook_200_series"

for a few hints.

 

[weckart]

Interesting, thanks for the detailed response.

So step 1 would be to source a compatible hard drive somehow and re-seat the monitor cables?

Should be an interesting project...

Cheapest source of a SCSI laptop drive is to buy another working PowerBook of the right vintage, unfortunately. The few bare/extracted drives available are at a ridiculous premium as is the speedy CF/SCSI adapter MacTech68 mentioned.

 

[95yjman]

Glad someone posted about this, mine seems to be doing the same thing..