[Aranamac]

A friend's TiBook (first generation) is having boot problems. When I turn it on, sometimes I will hear loud static that interrupts the first half of the boot chime/chord. When this happens, the display will not turn on and the computer will not boot. I have to hold down the power button for a couple of seconds before trying again.

Sometimes it will boot but freeze on login at the desktop.

My friend took it to the Apple store for diagnosis. They said he needed a new hard drive. So I just installed the new drive with a clean install of 10.4 (now updated to 10.4.8). But I still get the boot problem now and then.

Obviously the hard drive itself wasn't the cause. Anyone have any ideas? Is this a much deeper problem? Is it just RAM? Do I have a bad logic board?

Many thanks in advance for whatever help can be given!

[olePigeon]

Do an Apple Hardware Test. I've had an iBook with a bad ATA cable, but the HDD was fine. It needed the motherboard replaced (this is at work.)

But make sure you do an extended test. It could be the RAM, but it could be a lot of things.

[Aranamac]

Thanks for the suggestion to use Apple Hardware Test. Unfortunately, the only copy of the Test I have is from my iBook and isn't compatible. This Powerbook as a second-hand machine my friend bought. I don't have any restore CDs available. Would the Apple Store keep something like this around?

(Though I'm wasn't terribly impressed by their previous attempts to trouble-shoot. In suggesting a new hard drive, the Genius gave incredibly low prices for a new hard drive in the realm of fantasy... $60 for a 250 GB drive, for a machine that probably only supports up to 128 GB? Suuurrre, you're a MacGenius.)

[brassplayersrock²]

actually if i'm remembering correctly, all tipbs can support more then 128 gig hard drives. my memory is a little fuzzy on that though, could have been the earlier models couldn't and then it was integrated

-a

[JonoMarshall]

Hi, I hate to pessimistic, but I used to buy and repair Tibooks for a while and the static sound you're describing that interupts the processor chime was always a sign of an ill logic board.
Sometimes this only resulted in a loss of speakers (simple solder/replacement). But more often than not, the logic board had to be replaced.

Here's hoping it's the former. I'm no pro with hardware and mainly fiddled for fun/exp/bit of profit. But I'm confused as to why the Hard disk would be considered at fault? All the best!

As a long shot, you could try trashing your sound prefs within your main library:
com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist