[Macka]

Hi,

After the excitement of waiting for the new powerbook, I have a rather negative excitement this morning, in that when I try to start my powerbook (Wallstreet G3) nothing happens.

I press the reset/power button and just get no response.

I've tried it:
a) with the power plugged in
b) with just the battery

The screen seems to flash slightly, but then nothing further happens.

I pulled the battery out, the power out and disconnected everything. I left it for a while and came back, put the battery back in, plugged the power back in, tried everything and it still won't even give any sign of starting up.

Could anyone here suggest:
a) What the problem might be
b) Any methods of fixing it

It was working fine last night, not a problem at all.

Thanks.

[Karim]

Try pulling out the battery and unplugging wait 1 minute then plug it back in but DO NOT put the battery in.

Try to start.

If it works, a new battery (or leaving the bad one out) may fix it or you may have blown a microfuse on the motherboard.

[Macka]

Thanks for the reply,

I have tried this.

I have also tried it the other way around (ie. with the battery and not the power adapter)

I have tried reseting the PMU and that doesn't seem to make a difference either.

What happens is that the sceen refreshes, as it usually does when you press the power button, but then nothing else happens after this. No startup tone etc.

The other factor is that this only happens once. In other words, once I have pressed the power button and the screen refreshes and their is a slight "crack of the speakers" as if it is about to start up, pressing the power button won't do anything again, unless I remove the power and then replace it again. Repeating the process after returning the power does the same thing.

Any other suggestions?

Any suggestions of anything visible to look for if I take a look inside?

All my works on that hard drive, and sure I have a back up from a couple of weeks ago, but that's no good if I have nothing to restore it onto.

Any help would be much appreciated. I'm going crazy here.

Thanks

[Macka]

By the way,

When I press fn cntrl shift power

the fan seems to start up

Is this meant to happen?

[Karim]

Your symptoms don't sound good. One other simple thing you can try is to pull the ram out and reinstall. Of course, your files are safe on your Hard Drive which you could pull and install in another laptop if one is available to you to get them transferred out to an external drive.

Did the laptop experience a shock.... or moisture.... anything... between the last time it worked and now?

[Macka]

I don't know what caused this to happen, but I have the diagnosis now, so I thought I'd post it up here for interest's sake.

The processor is dead, which isn't great, but now it makes sense as to why nothing I was trying was breathing life back into the thing.

It's a 10-day turn around on the repair, because I'm in Australia and they're getting the part from the States.

But, on the bright side, I figured it was worthwhile to throw in the extra few dollars and upgrade to a 500Mhz instead of the current 233Mhz. Not that much difference in price when it's gotta be replaced anyway.

Besides, I'm selling it to help fund my new 1Ghz TiBook.

Anyway, I contacted the person I'm selling it to and gave them the option of what they wanted to do (ie. Whether they wanted to pay the difference between the processors, which of course they did!)

Still, I'm out of pocket about $500(AUD) to get a computer fixed that I'm only going to be using for a few more weeks. But better that way than the day after I sold it or something.

Thanks to those who offered help.