[beavisbr]

Hi,

Well something pretty strange is happening with my powerbook (Powerbook G4 15", 1gb Ram, 1.5).

After waking it up, the LCD started to change colors, so by instinct I turned it off by pressing and holding the power button.

Than, I waited for a couple of minutes and tried to restart it, here is what happened
1. The powerbook made the start up chime, and than a moment later, after a subtle noise it turned off again;
2. I tried to start it up with the Panther DVD, done the hardware tests: everything seams to be OK;
3. Tried to start the Powerbook, taking one, than the other memory out, nothing worked;
4. Tried to start it up, by repeatedly pressing the "C" key, the Powerbook started up ok. I'm writing this post on it now.
5. Tried to reset the PRAM and the PMU, still nothing worked
6. Sometimes, during my attempts to start the computer, the "sleep light" blinked and the computer made two or three noises.

Well, I really don't know what to do next,

Any suggestions??

[ibook_steve]

What does repeatedly pressing the C key do? You hold the C key to boot from a disk, but repeatedly pressing it doesn't do anything that I know of. If you get tones and flashing sleep LED at boot, depending on the number, you have a problem with your boot ROM or your memory. I'm betting it's your RAM. Do you have any other memory you can try? Have you tested both slots? Also, is it particularly hot where you are running the machine? It could be an overheating issue if so.

Steve

[Waragainstsleep]

You could try repairing the disk with Disk Utility, but I doubt this will help. If its still under warranty, I would take it to Apple.

[beavisbr]

Thanks for your answers.

I have already tried to repair the disk using Disk Utility, both from the Utilities folder and from the installation disk.

About the repeatedly pressing the C key, I just did some tests with other keys and they seem to "work" ok, to make the powerbook start over again. I have also tried to boot from the Panther disk, holding the C key, but that didn't seem to work.

I have tried both slots, and both memories, same problem with both.

And the weather here is not particularly hot 20º C (68º F)

Any thoughts?

Gustavo

[ibook_steve]

I still don't understand what repeatedly pressing the C key has to do with your ability to successfully boot. If you can't boot off of an OS install CD (or DVD) by holding down the C key at boot, but you can boot successfully from the hard drive by repeatedly tapping the C key during boot, well that just doesn't make any sense. Tapping a key repeatedly during boot does nothing special.

You say you were able to run Disk Utility which means that you were able to boot from the Panther CD, contradicting what you say about not being able to boot from this disk since booting from the CD is the only way (other than from an external hard drive) to boot the machine and run Disk Utility repair on the internal hard drive.

So to sum up, I'm thoroughly confused.

Steve

[beavisbr]

I pretty confused myself,

I really don't understand what's going on.

As I said before, I was able to boot from the Panther DVD (one time), and run the Disk Utility.

What is puzzling me, is that I'm not always receiving the same response from my powerbook. Sometimes I'm able, sometimes I'm unable to boot from the DVD. Sometimes I get a couple of tones, and three flashes from the sleep led, sometimes I don't.

And why, why, I am only able to successfully boot when pressing repeatedly any key from the keyboard?? I know it doesn't makes sense, but what do you think it's happening?

Thanks for the replies.

Gustavo