Powerbook G3 Wallstreet II PDQ - Corrupted PMU

[everett1911]

Hi there. Yesterday I bought a powerbook g3 in perfect condition with two working(!) batteries and the cd drive and floppy disk and all that jazz. It also came with a belkin wifi pc card as well as a usb pc card. It has Mac OS 8.6 and Mac OS X 10.2.8 on a separate partition.

I was super happy and boy is that thing heavy! But then I made a mistake. I pulled the wifi card out of its slot and the powerbook had a kernel panic. No biggie I thought, I'll just have to reset the machine.

Mistake number two.
I remembered seeing instructions on the rear about resetting the machine when (I assumed) it's unresponsive. After all, apple of all companies would know better than to put instructions to something that can have far-reaching consequences in plain view! so I did Shift+FN+CTRL+Power. The thing reset.

And now I have to following symptoms:

1. Batteries are no longer recognized. If I put the powerbook in sleep mode then unplug the ac adapter, the power light will still blink showing that the batteries are functioning (And besides, there's the batteries' LED indicators showing that they still have charge, and I used the machine on the way home in the subway to write things so I know the batteries are alright.)

2. I can't boot back to Mac OS 8.6. No matter shenanigans I try, the machine will still boot into Mac OS X.

3. The screen goes blank when Mac OS X is loading. I then found out that the whole screen shuts off until I press the backlight buttons after OS X has loaded.

4. Whenever I reboot or shut down, the screen goes garbled like you'd see on a broken LCD screen. It's a nasty mess.

I did some searching last night and found out the most likely cause was a corrupted PMU. So I searched for a way to reset the PMU on my powerbook and whaddaya know, it's the same key sequence I used to reboot after the kernel panic. Oh. So I can only assume that the PMU got corrupted something fierce when I reset the machine after the kernel panic, but now I have no idea what I could do because no matter how many times I do this, how many times I reset PRAM, the problem is still there.

So what else should I try?

 

[zappaesque]

3 and 4 are, well, "normal" for a Wallstreet running 10.2. My bud has a 266 Wallstreet and it did the same things you described while it was running Jaguar. Upgrading to Panther (with Xpostfacto) fixed the issues. The quick fix for the backlight issue is to boot into classic Mac OS, and back to X. The only other option, that will fix the backlight issue, is to replace the pram battery, as it's dead.

The glitchy screen is just Jaguar being Jaguar on the Wallstreet. Nothing you can do about that.

Boot up the machine, and hold alt-option-p-r. Let it chime three times. Let go of the buttons after this and let it boot as normal and see if that fixes your issues with 1 and 2.

More info on the backlight problem: https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=725185

 

[everett1911]

3 and 4 are, well, "normal" for a Wallstreet running 10.2. My bud has a 266 Wallstreet and it did the same things you described while it was running Jaguar. Upgrading to Panther (with Xpostfacto) fixed the issues. The quick fix for the backlight issue is to boot into classic Mac OS, and back to X. The only other option, that will fix the backlight issue, is to replace the pram battery, as it's dead.

The glitchy screen is just Jaguar being Jaguar on the Wallstreet. Nothing you can do about that.

Boot up the machine, and hold alt-option-p-r. Let it chime three times. Let go of the buttons after this and let it boot as normal and see if that fixes your issues with 1 and 2.

More info on the backlight problem: https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=725185

I already zapped pram a few times, and like I said in the original post I can't boot into mac os 8. whenever I select it as the boot volume, it reboots to mac os x like nothing happened.

As for the backlight stuff, it didn't do that until I got the kernel panic and used the reset key combo.

 

[zappaesque]

Do you have a classic Mac OS CD that you can boot up with? If so, do that, and drag the System suitcase out of the System Folder. Drag it back in, and reboot.

The backlight issue is well-known with Jaguar and Wallstreets. Here's someone else who had the same issue, and they're all over the place if you Google them: https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/8828-resurrecting-my-wallstreet/

To quote: "...and now I remember why I stopped using it on the WS. Even with the 10.2.8 update, every time it reboots, the backlight is off. I have to press the brightness button to bring it back."

And another: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20030705092330230

Why it manifested itself when your 'book panicked is just a luck of the draw scenario.

 

[everett1911]

Do you have a classic Mac OS CD that you can boot up with? If so, do that, and drag the System suitcase out of the System Folder. Drag it back in, and reboot.

The backlight issue is well-known with Jaguar and Wallstreets. Here's someone else who had the same issue, and they're all over the place if you Google them: https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/8828-resurrecting-my-wallstreet/

To quote: "...and now I remember why I stopped using it on the WS. Even with the 10.2.8 update, every time it reboots, the backlight is off. I have to press the brightness button to bring it back."

Why it manifested itself when your 'book panicked is just a luck of the draw scenario.

So the OS 8 system folder has been corrupted? How did that happen?

I'm gonna have to find an image or something for os 8, I like OS 9 but with its different memory handling I can't run stuff like After dark and older games and software.

 

[zappaesque]

Possibly corrupted or unblessed. Not sure which, but the method I described will rebless the System Folder.

Check macintoshgarden.org for OS 8.

 

[everett1911]

Possibly corrupted or unblessed. Not sure which, but the method I described will rebless the System Folder.

Check macintoshgarden.org for OS 8.

Thanks. I hope this'll do. Will that fix the laptop not recognizing the batteries as well? These still work.

 

[zappaesque]

Not sure. If all else fails, you can try Battery Reset.

Info (download links don't work on this page): http://lowendmac.com/rivera/06/apple-battery-reset.html

Download: https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/3653/apple-powerbook-g3-series-battery-reset-updater/download

Failing that, you may have hosed your charge board when you pulled the PCMCIA card. IIRC, it's located under the palm rest and it's replaceable.

 

[everett1911]

Not sure. If all else fails, you can try Battery Reset.

Info (download links don't work on this page): http://lowendmac.com/rivera/06/apple-battery-reset.html

Download: https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/3653/apple-powerbook-g3-series-battery-reset-updater/download

Failing that, you may have hosed your charge board when you pulled the PCMCIA card. IIRC, it's located under the palm rest and it's replaceable.

Thanks, I'll try that as soon as I get home from work.

 

[AphoticD]

Does running the command 'bless --folder9 /System\ Folder' work in a Jaguar/Mac OS 8.6 setup?

 

[everett1911]

Does running the command 'bless --folder9 /System\ Folder' work in a Jaguar/Mac OS 8.6 setup?

I tried the command but it says "Can't determine mount point of '' and '/System Folder'

 

[LightBulbFun]

a PDQ is an OWR Mac so with defaults loaded it will not boot into OS X unless someone makes it so, as by default it loads the ToolBox ROM and should boot into whatever classic OS is installed assuming its blessed, if its not blessed you should at least get a blinking floppy then you can boot from a Classic Mac OS CD and bless the system.

if its currently booting into OS X, see if you can get xpostfactor launched in 10.2.8 you should be able to use that to force the machine to boot into Mac OS 8.6 by selecting "restart in: Mac OS 9" and hitting restart, if this does not work

then go to to options and set "input-device" to keyboard and "output-device" to your graphics card then untick auto-boot? then close the window and hit reboot in xpostfacto you should end up at an OF prompt, then type reset-nvram hit enter and init-nvram and hit enter (some OWR macs use init-nvram rather then reset-nvram but i cant remember if the PDQ is one but it does not hurt to type both) then type set-defaults *enter* type reset-all *enter*, this should properly clear the NVRAM and set defaults and it should boot into Mac OS 8.6 or at least a blinking floppy

hope this helps gets your PDQ running

 

[AphoticD]

I tried the command but it says "Can't determine mount point of '' and '/System Folder'

Try using the full path to the OS 8.6 system folder .. like '/Volumes/Macintosh HD/System Folder' .

OR...

if its currently booting into OS X, see if you can get xpostfactor launched in 10.2.8 you should be able to use that to force the machine to boot into Mac OS 8.6 by selecting "restart in: Mac OS 9" and hitting restart, if this does not work

Do what @LightBulbFun says...

 

[everett1911]

a PDQ is an OWR Mac so with defaults loaded it will not boot into OS X unless someone makes it so, as by default it loads the ToolBox ROM and should boot into whatever classic OS is installed assuming its blessed, if its not blessed you should at least get a blinking floppy then you can boot from a Classic Mac OS CD and bless the system.

if its currently booting into OS X, see if you can get xpostfactor launched in 10.2.8 you should be able to use that to force the machine to boot into Mac OS 8.6 by selecting "restart in: Mac OS 9" and hitting restart, if this does not work

then go to to options and set "input-device" to keyboard and "output-device" to your graphics card then untick auto-boot? then close the window and hit reboot in xpostfacto you should end up at an OF prompt, then type reset-nvram hit enter and init-nvram and hit enter (some OWR macs use init-nvram rather then reset-nvram but i cant remember if the PDQ is one but it does not hurt to type both) then type set-defaults *enter* type reset-all *enter*, this should properly clear the NVRAM and set defaults and it should boot into Mac OS 8.6 or at least a blinking floppy

hope this helps gets your PDQ running

I just tried all that and it still doesn't work. I'm hunting through my stuff for a blank cd to try and just wipe the hard disk and reinstall os 8, but there's something I noticed regarding the batteries.

I can now unplug the machine after it has booted and still use the batteries! Also the batteries will charge while it is powered off. However I cannot boot it unplugged and the batteries won't charge while the machine is powered on.

Progress!

 

[LightBulbFun]

if thats the case then its not cleared NVRAM properly, have you tried pulling the main battery and disconnecting the PRAM battery and letting it sit for a couple days? that should reset everything

 

[everett1911]

if thats the case then its not cleared NVRAM properly, have you tried pulling the main battery and disconnecting the PRAM battery and letting it sit for a couple days? that should reset everything

I just took the laptop apart and unplugged the pram. The laptop won't boot off the battery but will stay on if I plug it and unplug it while it's running, and now I can finally boot to os 8.6. The thing though is that it says "The system software on the startup disk only functions on the original media, not if copied to another drive" with the option to reboot. I assume I can boot to open firmware and start to os x but other than re-installing os 8.6 is there something I can do to make it boot? I copied the system folder from the cd image I got off macintosh garden last night.

 

[everett1911]

Yay!

I managed to re-install mac os 8.6 (and wiped the x partition because screw that) and while it still wouldn't boot with my laptop unplugged, it did charge while it was powered off, and after charging both batteries to 100% I can finally boot the laptop unplugged!

I also had to remove a 256mb stick that was defective but really, the remaining 256mb of ram will be largely enough for mac os 8.

 

[everett1911]

As an aside note, if any of you with a Wallstreet II PDQ Powerbook G3 have trouble installing the usb mass storage drivers in 8.6, install version 1.4.1 instead of 1.3.5.