Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Mydogti · May 8, 2005, 09:19 AM

Hello,
I have a iBook G3 dual USB (12.1, 700 MHz, 640MB, Airport).

I up greade my ram last night from 384MB to 640MB by installing a 512 MB stick of ram. After I got my ibook all back togther it wouldnt boot.

I tryed ctrl+com+power (hold for 3 chims), batter out & power cord in, both batter and power cord out for 24 hours. I was going to pull the ram and airport card. I tryed powering it with just the airport card out and the ibook takes off like a bat outta hell. I plug the airport card in and the ibook dies and will not boot.

Im not sure whats going on here and help would be great.

seanc · May 8, 2005, 09:35 AM

Make sure the Airport card is connected/ plugged in all the way. Even if you think it is in all the way, it may just be able to go in a tiny bit more and complete the connection.

There's a thread about this somewhere but I can't find it now. Have a look around you might find it.

Sean

Mydogti · May 8, 2005, 09:51 AM

I tryed pushing the card in all the way, but nothing It will only power up with the airport pulled out all the way. I tryed pushing the card in when it was running and the ibook dies.

I allso tryed swaping the ram cards back and still same thing

Hi I'm Ben · May 8, 2005, 09:56 AM

Make sure that the ram is properly seated in the iBook, it takes a little bit of pressure to get the ram ALL the way in, if it's halfin half out that would give you some problems (However the iBook would power on)

Am I Hearing your correctly when you are saying that you were trying to push the Airport card in while the computer was powered and the computer shut off? If that's the case it sounds like you very well may have fried something.

seanc · May 8, 2005, 06:34 PM

I agree. NO internal components are hot pluggable. It sounds like you have either:

Physically broken the connector on the logic board
Fried the airport card
Fried somethong on the logic board.

Are you putting it in the right way up?? I'd assume the airport logo should be facing upwards like my airport extreme.
If all else fails try getting a new airport card off ebay, otherwise you probably need a new logic board, get one off ebay cheap, but be prepared for the long task of installing it.

It would probably be most economical to buy a new Ibook.
What country are you in? I can have a look on ebay when i've got some time.

Sean

MrEUser · May 18, 2005, 03:58 AM

Do not place the airport logo up, it faces down. If you have done this you have run power through a data connection on the card. The sticker with the MAC address should be facing up (this is the way it is on my iBook 500 dual USB). My system is fully functional this way. Best of luck...

seanc · May 18, 2005, 10:13 AM

OOPS. I guess g3 ibooks are different. My g4 has the airport logo facing upwards and it's fully functional. It must have the label stuck on the other side instead.

Sean

tooki · May 18, 2005, 11:06 AM

You can't fry a non-extreme AirPort slot by hot-plugging (it is a PC card, despite what Apple says), but the drivers won't load on the fly so it won't work till you restart.

I don't suppose you have a second AirPort card available for testing? That would enable you to isolate whether the problem is the Mac or the card.

tooki

seanc · May 18, 2005, 12:17 PM

Oh, I didn't realise it was just a pcmcia slot. I thought it must have been some funny Apple design. Ok so you haven't fried the computer or the card. What about putting it in the right way up? It should only go in one way shouldn't it!?
It could be a faulty card, but it still seems like it's just not going in far enough. It sounds like half of it's going in and the other half isn't and the computer turns off for some reason.

Sean

tooki · May 18, 2005, 03:29 PM

Yeah, you can actually plug a Lucent WaveLAN Silver or Gold card into an AirPort slot and it'll work (but still won't hot-plug). It will, surprisingly, detect a hot-unplug.

I think the AirPort connector in the laptops is keyed differently than PC Card, but electrically they're the same. (Power Mac G4 AirPort connectors are actually not keyed at all.)

tooki

seanc · May 18, 2005, 04:08 PM

I can understand it un hot plugging if it is in use by the OS. The os will detect that it's gone.
OS X obviously isn't set up to detect or do anything when a new card is added. Apple probably programmed it so that on startup it will scan for a card and their logic is that it will always be there or it won't.

Sean