[americanmcgee]

17" Powerbook G4 purchased a little over 1 year ago.
Was recently experiencing intermittent power up/down issues and issues waking/sleeping.

Then I left the machine sleeping with lid closed overnight. In the morning it was dead. Battery completely drained and not taking charge. Unable to start system while plugged into charger or while unplugged from charger.

Here's what I've tried so far:
Two different chargers (one brand new). Two different batteries (one brand new).
Reset PMU.

Some indications:
When plugged into laptop the charger LED goes from Green to Amber.
When power button is pressed LED goes from Amber to Green (then back to Amber after about 1 minute.)
System does not properly start but seems to be in 'zombie' mode (CAPS Lock key lights up, pressing F5 inexplicably lights NUM Lock LED.) No fan noise, no hard drive noise, and no other signs of life. Zombie mode can only be exited by holding power button 10 seconds or disconnecting power supply. (Alternately, I hear a single shotgun blast to the head could kill it, but I'm not that frustrated yet! )

When I purchased the new battery the laptop actually booted as long as the battery had some charge. But once the charge was gone the laptop would no longer start and the battery would not take charge from the old or new charger.

Pressing the charge indicator button on the batteries results in single flashing green LED.


That's the problem. I'm hoping someone here can help.
BTW, I've already taken the laptop into the local (Hong Kong) Care Center for diagnosis. They told me it was a bum battery, which I suspected was incorrect. Purchase and testing with new battery proved my hunch right. While there I was told that if it was a logic board issue the repair would take 3+ weeks. At this point I'd prefer attempting to resolve the issue on my own to waiting that long for a repair. My trust in their diagnostic abilities is also somewhat lessened now. If there's a way I can resolve this issue on my own I'd prefer that to taking in it for service (even though I still have Apple Care coverage).

At this point I am suspecting logic board, but I've also read hints here and there of motherboard batteries and motherboard fuses(?) causing similar issues.

One more thing: If it is the logic board, what is the average time that it takes for Apple to replace it?

Thanks so much for any assistance!

-American McGee
Creative Director
The Mauretania Import Export Company
www.tmiec.com
www.americanmcgee.com

[seanc]

I'm not an expert but from reading other posts about similar problems, it sounds like it may be the DC board. I think that is responsible for the power and other things.

Try removing the battery and then powering up to see what happens.

Good luck,

Sean

[americanmcgee]

Sean,
Thanks for the note. Unfortunately, removing the battery doesn't help the situation. The laptop refuses to run off the power supply alone. The only time I've seen it run since this ordeal began was when I inserted the newly purchased battery. The charge on that was enough to run the system for a while, but as previously mentioned, the charger is no longer charging... so once the battery ran out, that was that.

I'm suspecting that DC board or logic board must be the source of this problem.
I've sent the laptop to be repaired... We'll see what diagnosis they come back with.

-a