[xargos]

Hello all,

I just received a 17 inch 1 GHz AlBook second hand. It is the first PowerBook to come into my posession, actually, and I am not sure how to solve the problem I'm having.

Upon first receiving the PowerBook, the unit would not power on. After trying removing and reseating the battery, trying to turn it on without the battert, I finally performed a PMU reset. After doing this, the unit turned on. The previous owner had formatted the hard drive and left the restore disc in the drive, so it booted to that. Unfortunately, neither the trackpad nor the keyboard would respond when the language selection screen came up. Because of this, I powered off the unit by holding down the power button.

Here's the real problem. Since I shut the unit off, it will not turn back on even after PMU resets. The screen, hard drive, etc... all stay off. What I noticed, however, is that when I reset the PMU the light on the power connector goes orange as I would expect since the battery is not fully charged, but as soon as I press the power button the light goes back to green.

I have also tried reseating the RAM, using only one SODIMM (two 512MB modules installed...), etc... to no avail. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.

[xargos]

Anyone? Please?

[Barry]

when you press the caps lock key, does the light show green?

You could have a bad/flakey power cube.

is the battery charged at all? can you borrow a battery to try?

do you hear a chime(s) at all during power up?

Press the f2 key for a few seconds. if your display is dimmed, this will set the brighness higher.

did the person who gave you the PB have any trouble with it?

[xargos]

Originally Posted by Barry

when you press the caps lock key, does the light show green?

I'll have to check this.

Originally Posted by Barry

is the battery charged at all? can you borrow a battery to try?

The battery is partially charged. When I first checked the battery, it registered at two lights. After having the unit plugged in for a little while, it was up to three.

Originally Posted by Barry

do you hear a chime(s) at all during power up?

Sorry to say I do not, but then again, it won't power up to the point of spinning up the hard drive. fans, etc... although I will have to see if the caps lock indicates something. The time that I did get it to boot from the reinstallation DVD I don't recall hearing the chime.

(BTW - do the chimes of death still exist?)

Originally Posted by Barry

did the person who gave you the PB have any trouble with it?

According to the person that I got it from, it was working fine until he reinstalled Panther. After that, he started having problems booting.

I just also remembered that he mentioned that (and it could be a coincidence for all I know...) that pressing down near the trackpad seemed to help him get it to start. I haven't seen this be the case, though, so I'm not sure how much it means.

[xargos]

Okay... the caps lock does light green, and oddly enough, pressing F5 seems to light up the num lock.

[rparke1]

Originally Posted by xargos

Okay... the caps lock does light green, and oddly enough, pressing F5 seems to light up the num lock.

Not being rude, just pointing out. He said the F2 key, not F5. good luck with this, for i can imangine this must be very annoying and dont worry, not all apple experiences are like this.

[xargos]

rparke1,

I did also press the F2 key, which didn't seem to accomplish anything. I just tried hitting a few other keys to see if there was any reaction.

Also, I am happy to say that I know not all Apple experiences are like this. Although this is my first PowerBook, it is not my first Macintosh. I have a Power Mac 6500 and a Mac mini, both of which have never had any problems. The 6500 was the first Mac that I seriously used for anything. I have some other old units around, too, but mainly as little play things as I have mostly used PCs.

Don't worry - I'm not a Windows fan. I use it by necessity at work and for some Windows only games at home. Other than that, I much prefer any Linux or UNIX varient, Mac OS X very much included. In fact, other than Windows, I have not bought any MS products.

[xargos]

Okay... something new. Last night I fully charged the battery. Then I tried starting while holding down the trackpad button, and the drives started to spin up. Nothing else happened, though. Other than the drives spinning up, it was exactly as before - caps lock turns on and off, F5 triggers num lock, F2 doesn't do anything as the display isn't on...

When I turned it off by holding the power button for a few seconds and turned it on again, back to not even the drives spinning up.

Does this point to anything?

I have also left the battery out overnight and will try seeing if this did any good tonight.

[brokenjago]

Maybe you could take it to an Apple Store and have the genius check it out. If it's out of warranty, at least you could get a proffessional opinion on what could be wrong, and maybe the repairs are not that expensive either.

[xargos]

I'm considering taking the unit to an Apple store, but I think I've pretty much narrowed the problem down to the logic board.
I could be wrong seeing as how my only diagnosis experience is on x86 PCs, but I've got a feeling I'm not in this case.

Anyone have any experience with TechRestore or NoteFix?

NoteFix sounds like a decent deal at $549 flat rate to fix logic board, power supply, cables, etc... and they are in my home state of Massachusetts. They provide a 180-day warrany on repairs.

TechRestore charges $49 for 48 hour or $79 for 24 hour turn around time for diagnosis and repair, deducted from the cost of repair if you choose to have them fix your PowerBook. They provide a one year warranty on repairs.

[brokenjago]

I think Apple only charges like $400 to fix a logic board.... I think. Check to Make Sure.