Powerbook G4 17 won't boot

[ChrismAv]

Hi everyone,

Got my Powerbook G4 out of storage last week and I'm unable to get it to boot. No chime, nothing.

I've tried it with one ram stick, taken battery out so just A/C, disconnected the HDD and reconnected.

Just a black screen, I press the power button and I can feintly hear the HDD spin and then stop. Tried resetting the PRAM, nothing happens.

Any advice on getting my Powerbook to boot would be fantastic. I feel like I've tried everything.

Thanks

 

[B S Magnet]

Hi everyone,

Got my Powerbook G4 out of storage last week and I'm unable to get it to boot. No chime, nothing.

I've tried it with one ram stick, taken battery out so just A/C, disconnected the HDD and reconnected.

Just a black screen, I press the power button and I can feintly hear the HDD spin and then stop. Tried resetting the PRAM, nothing happens.

Any advice on getting my Powerbook to boot would be fantastic. I feel like I've tried everything.

Thanks

A couple of possibilities:

1) You’re using the 65W power adapter, correct?
2) Instead of PRAM (which doesn’t have much of an impact on the PMU, or Power Management Unit), try these steps.
3) If the above steps are not successful, the next hunch I’d follow if figuring out whether the DC-in board is still working as it should or if it’s on the way out. Unfortunately, probably the easiest way to test this is to swap in another DC-in board.

 

[ChrismAv]

A couple of possibilities:

1) You’re using the 65W power adapter, correct?
2) Instead of PRAM (which doesn’t have much of an impact on the PMU, or Power Management Unit), try these steps.
3) If the above steps are not successful, the next hunch I’d follow if figuring out whether the DC-in board is still working as it should or if it’s on the way out. Unfortunately, probably the easiest way to test this is to swap in another DC-in board.

Yeah, using the power adaptor that came with the Powerbook and the one I was using every day for years. Laptop turned on last time I checked.
Tried these steps and I still only get the sound of the HDD slightly spinning and then stopping. The A/C is green when connecting and goes orange when battery installed so it is charging the probably (at this point) dead battery.

 

[B S Magnet]

Yeah, using the power adaptor that came with the Powerbook and the one I was using every day for years. Laptop turned on last time I checked.
Tried these steps and I still only get the sound of the HDD slightly spinning and then stopping. The A/C is green when connecting and goes orange when battery installed so it is charging the probably (at this point) dead battery.

That battery, if it worked before, probably still holds charge now.

Why not, as an experiment, let the charger run until the orange light returns to green (which might be an hour or two). Then, unplug and try another power-on.

I’m still thinking DC-in board here, but also there might also be a particular capacitor somewhere which is not spooling up enough juice to handle the power draw of the HDD motor spinning up, thus causing the system to simply shut off.

 

[ChrismAv]

That battery, if it worked before, probably still holds charge now.

Why not, as an experiment, let the charger run until the orange light returns to green (which might be an hour or two). Then, unplug and try another power-on.

I’m still thinking DC-in board here, but also there might also be a particular capacitor somewhere which is not spooling up enough juice to handle the power draw of the HDD motor spinning up, thus causing the system to simply shut off.

I'll try that!

Thank you.

 

[ChrismAv]

Fully charged and green light but same symptoms. Maybe you're right about that DC-in board. I have no replacement so I'll have to give up on this old girl unfortunately. Thanks for the help.

 

[B S Magnet]

Fully charged and green light but same symptoms. Maybe you're right about that DC-in board. I have no replacement so I'll have to give up on this old girl unfortunately. Thanks for the help.

Bleh.

Don’t toss it! eBay it or donate it to someone nearby who takes care of old Macs.

p.s., Incidentally, I had the DC-in board fail outright on my 17-inch PowerBook three years ago, which left it dead for about three months before one turned up on eBay. The 15-inch PowerBook G4 I have has a problematic DC-in board which lets the adapter power it, but it won’t power the nearly-new battery or let a charged battery run from it. Unfortunately, DC-in board failure on these PowerBooks is a fairly common problem, and with time moving along, the parts are getting less easy and/or affordable to locate.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Bleh.

Don’t toss it! eBay it or donate it to someone nearby who takes care of old Macs.

Excellent idea. There might be someone on here with the skills to replace the DC-in board.

 

[B S Magnet]

Excellent idea. There might be someone on here with the skills to replace the DC-in board.

Oh heck, I know how to (thank you, iFixit!), but a) I don’t have any spare DC-in boards lying about, and b) I rule myself out as someone who already has two PowerBooks (and two is more than plenty for me!).

But we have a pretty nifty community here with a lot of folks who know how to do some tinkering, and I’m quite sure at least one of them isn’t too far from @ChrismAv and could use an aluminium PowerBook in their lives.

 

[ChrismAv]

Bleh.

Don’t toss it! eBay it or donate it to someone nearby who takes care of old Macs.

p.s., Incidentally, I had the DC-in board fail outright on my 17-inch PowerBook three years ago, which left it dead for about three months before one turned up on eBay. The 15-inch PowerBook G4 I have has a problematic DC-in board which lets the adapter power it, but it won’t power the nearly-new battery or let a charged battery run from it. Unfortunately, DC-in board failure on these PowerBooks is a fairly common problem, and with time moving along, the parts are getting less easy and/or affordable to locate.

Oh, don't worry I would never throw it out. I meant pack it back up and put into storage again. The battery took 3 hours to charge up. Could that still happen on a failing DC-in board?

 

[ChrismAv]

I originally got it out because I was feeling nostalgic and have been repairing and fixing up iPods and thought it would be cool to restore them on my Powerbook with Tiger installed. I also needed Firewire 400 for the first few generations of iPod.

 

[crimsonRE]

Could always take a chance with a "dead"/"for parts only" PB on eBay and pull the board from it. I'm sure few of those are actually much checked out before being placed up for auction....

 

[eyoungren]

One last thing to try is resetting power management.

Disconnect the power supply and take the battery out. Open the lid and hold the power button down for five seconds.

Put the battery back in, reconnect the power supply and then try to start it again.

If that does not work, leave it on the power supply for 24 hours and try again.

I haven't used my 17" much lately, but I do know that if the PRAM battery is discharged it won't start. That can take longer than '3 hours' to accomplish.

 

[ChrismAv]

Could always take a chance with a "dead"/"for parts only" PB on eBay and pull the board from it. I'm sure few of those are actually much checked out before being placed up for auction....

Yeah good shout, I have had a look on ebay and parts only is pretty cheap.

One last thing to try is resetting power management.

Disconnect the power supply and take the battery out. Open the lid and hold the power button down for five seconds.

Put the battery back in, reconnect the power supply and then try to start it again.

If that does not work, leave it on the power supply for 24 hours and try again.

I haven't used my 17" much lately, but I do know that if the PRAM battery is discharged it won't start. That can take longer than '3 hours' to accomplish.

I'll try this, thank you.

 

[B S Magnet]

One last thing to try is resetting power management.

Disconnect the power supply and take the battery out. Open the lid and hold the power button down for five seconds.

Put the battery back in, reconnect the power supply and then try to start it again.

If that does not work, leave it on the power supply for 24 hours and try again.

I haven't used my 17" much lately, but I do know that if the PRAM battery is discharged it won't start. That can take longer than '3 hours' to accomplish.

Unfortunately, that was something I recommended above with step 2. Though the 24-hour thing might yield something, I don’t know.

 

[eyoungren]

Unfortunately, that was something I recommended above with step 2. Though the 24-hour thing might yield something, I don’t know.

Ah, I missed that. Sorry!

 

[ChrismAv]

Unfortunately, that was something I recommended above with step 2. Though the 24-hour thing might yield something, I don’t know.

Wasn't able to leave on charge overnight but I've put it on this morning and will give it 24 hours. I'm not too hopeful.

 

[ChrismAv]

Would the DC-in board be the cause of the HDD sightly spinning and then turning off when I click the power button?

I still have it on AC Power but the battery has been fully charged for hours now.

 

[B S Magnet]

Would the DC-in board be the cause of the HDD sightly spinning and then turning off when I click the power button?

I still have it on AC Power but the battery has been fully charged for hours now.

It’s where I’m inclined to guess (as opposed to the logic board). Were this an iMac G5 (from the same general time period), the culprit with the system not powering on (or staying on) would be the notorious liquid-filled capacitors which failed in these (note: many liquid-filled capacitors will work fine for a long time, but there was a quality control problem with said capacitors in the mid-aughts, and Apple weren’t the only manufacturer to deal with it).

The capacitors in the PowerBook, due to size, use solid, tantalum-based capacitors. Even so, the symptoms you’re having could either be that or, as @eyoungren hypothesized, the PRAM battery in yours is just completely dead and needs to be replaced (which is probably a good idea to do anyhow). I don’t think your logic board, which is what counts the most, is bad, but I do think something involving power delivery and/or power storage (like a capacitor or ancillary battery which functions as kind of a “super-capacitor”) is amiss.

If you ultimately try to pick up a replacement PRAM battery for it, this may be easier to find online (though don’t expect finding a new-old-stock one). In the longer run, pulling out that HDD and replacing it with an SSD might also be advised. This is because the PATA/IDE HDD has two sets of power rails — one, for the internal logic, and the other for supplying power to the moving parts; pulling a lot of power from especially the latter (not surprising, really) might be too much for the other power components to handle, especially if their power draw exceeds what the capacitors can hold “in the tank”, so to speak. An older HDD may, especially if one not used for a long time, have moving parts which are resisting movement relative to what they once allowed when still newl; resistance to movement requires more power to overcome that resistance, which here might be too big an ask for your PowerBook.

That’s my working hypothesis. You’ll need to set up a short shopping list to find out: replace the PRAM battery; replace HDD with an SSD (like an IDE-to-m.2-SATA adapter, plus SSD blade); and, if necessary, look out for a used, working DC-in board.

 

[eyoungren]

There was a time where I was using one of my 17" PowerBooks infrequently. There was enough time between uses that the battery (which was always bad) was discharged and in order to maintain the clock and other settings the Mac would shift to a deeper sleep state (probably what PC users would call hibernate).

In that state, the Mac would draw power from the PRAM battery solely to maintain the clock and settings. I always knew I had taken too long to get back to the Mac whenever I opened the lid and nothing happened. At that point, pressing on the power button caused a small progress bar to appear on the bottom of the display. That was the Mac 'climbing back' from it's deep sleep and setting the clock and restoring settings. Once the bar finished the screen would turn on.

But sometimes I got back to it too long after and nothing at all would happen. That forced a hard restart and I had to reset the clock.

And lastly, if it had been a very long time, I had to leave the PowerBook on charger for 24 hours and then it would start.

All of this is why I just started leaving the Mac on charger, even though it's bad for the battery. I use it on charger anyway and I don't care about the battery. I do care about it turning on when I want to use it.

 

[AphoticD]

Just skimmed through the thread, so apologies if this has already been suggested; try removing the optical drive and disconnect the PRAM / USB Board, then power on. It should boot with this disconnected - and will determine if the PRAM board is indeed at fault.

 

[ChrismAv]

It’s where I’m inclined to guess (as opposed to the logic board). Were this an iMac G5 (from the same general time period), the culprit with the system not powering on (or staying on) would be the notorious liquid-filled capacitors which failed in these (note: many liquid-filled capacitors will work fine for a long time, but there was a quality control problem with said capacitors in the mid-aughts, and Apple weren’t the only manufacturer to deal with it).

The capacitors in the PowerBook, due to size, use solid, tantalum-based capacitors. Even so, the symptoms you’re having could either be that or, as @eyoungren hypothesized, the PRAM battery in yours is just completely dead and needs to be replaced (which is probably a good idea to do anyhow). I don’t think your logic board, which is what counts the most, is bad, but I do think something involving power delivery and/or power storage (like a capacitor or ancillary battery which functions as kind of a “super-capacitor”) is amiss.

If you ultimately try to pick up a replacement PRAM battery for it, this may be easier to find online (though don’t expect finding a new-old-stock one). In the longer run, pulling out that HDD and replacing it with an SSD might also be advised. This is because the PATA/IDE HDD has two sets of power rails — one, for the internal logic, and the other for supplying power to the moving parts; pulling a lot of power from especially the latter (not surprising, really) might be too much for the other power components to handle, especially if their power draw exceeds what the capacitors can hold “in the tank”, so to speak. An older HDD may, especially if one not used for a long time, have moving parts which are resisting movement relative to what they once allowed when still newl; resistance to movement requires more power to overcome that resistance, which here might be too big an ask for your PowerBook.

That’s my working hypothesis. You’ll need to set up a short shopping list to find out: replace the PRAM battery; replace HDD with an SSD (like an IDE-to-m.2-SATA adapter, plus SSD blade); and, if necessary, look out for a used, working DC-in board.

This is really interesting so thank you so much for the write up.

I have replaced the HDD with an IDE to SD card adapter just to see if that was the issue but same symptoms persisted but without the HDD spinning noise (obviously).

I'll look at replacing the PRAM battery and a DC-in board. Thanks again!

Just skimmed through the thread, so apologies if this has already been suggested; try removing the optical drive and disconnect the PRAM / USB Board, then power on. It should boot with this disconnected - and will determine if the PRAM board is indeed at fault.

Good shout, I'll try this out tonight. Would be good to know if the DC-in board was the culprit. Thank you.

 

[ChrismAv]

Just skimmed through the thread, so apologies if this has already been suggested; try removing the optical drive and disconnect the PRAM / USB Board, then power on. It should boot with this disconnected - and will determine if the PRAM board is indeed at fault.

Sorry for the delay.

With the pram/usb board disconnected it still does not boot. Same symptoms as before.