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PowerBook G4 no longer booting up

D

dbowlin17

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 28, 2009
61
0
I have a PowerBook G4.
It is 12 inches.
1.5Ghz PowerPC G4 processor
512MB DDR SDRAM
60GB 5400-rpm hard drive

I know very very little about computer parts and things like that, but I hope to have provided enough information. When I boot up, both plugged into the power cord, and on battery, the powerbook will reach a white screen with an apple logo in the center. There also is a rotating disk below the apple logo. It will then shortly power down. I made a visit to the genius bar, and they told me something was wrong. I was like DUH!!! They said for $320 it would all be fixed, but I was hoping to be able to find out what was going wrong with it. Sadly I don't have the start-up disk that came with the laptop :(. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
You could try hooking a firewire external disk up to it and booting off of it, then maybe try some diagnostics on the internal drive.

It doesn't sound like a dead hard drive (which would be a far better fix than a logic board) since there's no sad mac during start up.

Maybe you could borrow someone else's restore disks or a tiger/leopard disk and boot off of that. Disk utilities could tell you if the disk or the file structure was damaged. Or borrow someone else's apple care disk and see if tech tool will boot.

I just got one like yours for an additional machine at home, and a couple of people on the forums suggested to replace my hard drive, since the original 80 gig is almost four years old. Glad I did, since I noticed after I swapped it out that the old one was making noises.

Good luck.
 
Jurwin said:
That's just the powerbooks own way of telling you that it is worthless and refuses to be turned on again. Just get an intel mac. Not worth the repair cost for that dinosaur.
Click to expand...

Man, are you ignorant.

Sorry for the harsh words, but really, what leads you to think it's worthless? I'm genuinely interested in knowing. $320 could very well be a worthwhile repair for the OP.
 
Jurwin said:
That's just the powerbooks own way of telling you that it is worthless and refuses to be turned on again. Just get an intel mac. Not worth the repair cost for that dinosaur.
Click to expand...

There are a lot of people who would disagree with you. The PB 12 is an awesome little computer.

And your also incredibly rude.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies, sadly I do not have money for a new laptop. I am wondering if there is a place to find start-up disks or something that could help me diagnose the problem... unfortuanetly, i do not know anyone who would have any of these disks...
 
Jurwin said:
It's not only my opinion that powerbook is worthless and ancient but it's also a fact. The fast powerbook only gets a score of @ 800 using geekbench. Now the oldest macbook pro using intel gets a score of @ 2200. Numbers don't lie baby! I'm happy I threw my crappy G4 a long time ago away.
http://www.primatelabs.ca/blog/2009/01/mac-performance-january-2009/
Have a nice day. :apple:
Click to expand...

A computer with a score of 800 is useless? News to me. My iBook and eMac both get scores of around 650, and yet they both work as my daily machines flawlessly. I don't need anything more, and a lot of people don't either. You're right, numbers don't lie, but it's all relative to a user's needs.

You can have any opinion you want about older machines, but there's no need for insults.
 
Jurwin has a good point, except that he made it in a rude and insulting, almost juvenile way: it may be time to consider on whether to 'fish or cut bait' on the repair if it costs $320.00.

I love my rig for daily consumer stuff, and its identical to you. But the estimated repair cost is half of what you can buy an intel macbook for on ebay or craigslist.

Below is a link to download the apple hardware test. Have someone burn it onto a cd, and follow the instructions, hopefully it can diagnose what your problem is. Good luck.
http://www.info.apple.com/support/aht.html
 
clyde2801 said:
Jurwin has a good point, except that he made it in a rude and insulting, almost juvenile way: it may be time to consider on whether to 'fish or cut bait' on the repair if it costs $320.00.

I love my rig for daily consumer stuff, and its identical to you. But the estimated repair cost is half of what you can buy an intel macbook for on ebay or craigslist.

Below is a link to download the apple hardware test. Have someone burn it onto a cd, and follow the instructions, hopefully it can diagnose what your problem is. Good luck.
http://www.info.apple.com/support/aht.html
Click to expand...

Thank you for the information. I am curious as to if I can burn the file onto a CD using a windows computer. I only have one computer in my home, other than my non-functioning powerbook, and it is windows. don't rip on me for not having a mac please. I just am wondering if I can burn the hardware test file onto a cd using a PC
 
dbowlin17 said:
Thank you for the information. I am curious as to if I can burn the file onto a CD using a windows computer. I only have one computer in my home, other than my non-functioning powerbook, and it is windows. don't rip on me for not having a mac please. I just am wondering if I can burn the hardware test file onto a cd using a PC
Click to expand...

http://******.com/?q=Can+I+burn+a+mac+disk+on+a+windows+machine?
 
Try Booting a PPC version of Ubuntu

I would try this: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/intrepid/release/

Download the Ubuntu PPC install ISO onto a PC. Burn the image, then boot your PowerBook off the CD by holding the "C" key when you power on your Mac. If you can get it to boot, then you might not have a hardware problem and it may just be a software issue. If it won't boot then you are probably looking at hardware problems.

If Ubuntu does boot, then contact Apple and see if they will ship you restore CD's, or go and buy a copy of Leopard.

The Apple Hardware Tests that someone suggested might not work because your PowerBook is not listed as supported.
 
thanks for the suggestions. I will try the Ubuntu first, then if it doesn't work, I will have my brother who has another mac burn me the cd of the apple tech support or what ever tells you what is wrong.
 
well, this sucks. the file won't even burn to a cd. i feel like giving up right now... there is no warranty so apple doesn't give a dam, and i don't exactly have easy access to an apple store to have them try to tell me what is wrong. again.
 
Has your brother tried it yet? Don't give up hope. Maybe you could put an ad on craigslist or contact a local mac user's group for assistance.

I feel for you. I've only had mine (again) for a week, and I love it so much it almost hurts.:eek:
 
I think I will try to get a new CD-R. Also, if the Ubuntu doesn't work, he will get me the CD, but he was stuck in an airport yesterday, and lives 45 minutes away, so eventually I hope to have it solved... Thanks for the support. If it does end up just being the OS, where could I get a restore disk, or a OS disk for tiger or an older OS? I have a feeling it could be the OS, because it stopped working after my brother transferred his files over to his new macbook. Anyone else have thoughts?
 
Craigslist or local Mac User's Group to see if anyone will copy their restore disks. If that doesn't work, try the same with a install version of osx 10.4. Torrent it if you have to (after all, you ARE using it on apple hardware). Get with an apple authorized reseller and see if their tech department has a copy lying around.
 
I tried the Apple Hardware disk... nothing happened, and yes I held down D and tried it not holding down D. My bro also gave me his macbook disks, but i didn't think they would work cause they r for intel macs and as i predicted, it didn't work. What else should I try? Should I try ubuntu? or what? Genius bar? any suggestions other than toss and buy a new one?
 
I felt the urgent need to update this, i tried using my brothers macbook restore disk and got the computer to boot, sadly the computer wouldn't install it. when i tried booting off tiger from the hard drive it failed. where could i find a tiger disk?
 
where would i go to look for a tiger disk? if i get tiger running im all good.
 
dbowlin17 said:
where would i go to look for a tiger disk? if i get tiger running im all good.
Click to expand...

If you have an Apple Store nearby, they can diagnose for free. They would have the necessary discs to get your computer started and run tests. After they find out what the problem is, it's up to you whether you want to proceed with the repair. If you need discs, call up AppleCare. They have discs for your computer and other retail discs. It will run you about $17 with tax.
 
is it 17 plus tax to call them? or to get the disks? and would they have the older disks?
 
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