[William Timberman]

Last evening I left my iBook running with the power adapter plugged in. when I went to use it after an hour or so, it appeared to be crashed -- dark screen, no response to keys or trackpad. When I did a command-control-power button restart, I heard the drive start up and access, but there was no startup sound, and the screen stayed dark. After about 30 seconds, three soft beeps came from the speaker

I shut it off with a paperclip, then removed the power adapter and battery, waited a few minutes, then re-installed the battery and attempted to start it up. Same symptoms -- hard drive spinup, three soft beeps, and nothing else. It also won't start from a CD, although the CD drive does spin up.

I'm thinking a dead motherboard or screen, and that it has to go off to Apple. Has anyone else experienced this?

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William Timberman

Dear William:
I've never heard of a case like this, but you might want to check out the Tech Exchange over at Apple.com to see what you can find.

I'm sure Apple will take care of it, though.

[Damien]

Three beeps on startup (with iBook) means that your RAM isn't passing Apple's built-in RAM tests.

It sounds like your RAM module(s) have gone bad, which would explain several things:

1) Originally, when your machine blacked out, it's because your RAM module(s) went bad and the OS couldn't access the module successfully when you tried to wake up your machine.

2) Upon restart with power manager reset, your CD powers up and the drives spins up, the the OS won't load into RAM because the RAM isn't passing the test.

3) A bad RAM module also won't allow you to power up from a CD; same symptoms would exist.

The way to test this theory is to replace your existing RAM with known-good RAM. If your machine powers up with known-good RAM then it's confirmed that the original problem was a bad RAM module.

You can have an authorized Apple Service Provider do this for you if you wish, although swapping out RAM isn't very difficult; you might be able to do it yourself.

It's possible that the problem is something else (i.e. logic board) but the three beeps is a telling symptom: it almost always means that the RAM isn't passing the test.

Hope this helps. Feel free to email me if you seek further assistance.

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Damien Barrett
http://www.mrbarrett.com

[William Timberman]

Thanks very much for the info -- I suspected as much. I have an AirPort card and a 128 Mb aftermarket RAM module. Removing the aftermarket RAM module had no effect, so I'm guessing now that the Apple installed RAM or the motherboard is at fault, as I should at least get a startup chime with the originally installed 32Mb. (The aftermarket RAM has worked fine for 6 months.)

Originally posted by Damien:
Three beeps on startup (with iBook) means that your RAM isn't passing Apple's built-in RAM tests.

It sounds like your RAM module(s) have gone bad, which would explain several things:

1) Originally, when your machine blacked out, it's because your RAM module(s) went bad and the OS couldn't access the module successfully when you tried to wake up your machine.

2) Upon restart with power manager reset, your CD powers up and the drives spins up, the the OS won't load into RAM because the RAM isn't passing the test.

3) A bad RAM module also won't allow you to power up from a CD; same symptoms would exist.

The way to test this theory is to replace your existing RAM with known-good RAM. If your machine powers up with known-good RAM then it's confirmed that the original problem was a bad RAM module.

You can have an authorized Apple Service Provider do this for you if you wish, although swapping out RAM isn't very difficult; you might be able to do it yourself.

It's possible that the problem is something else (i.e. logic board) but the three beeps is a telling symptom: it almost always means that the RAM isn't passing the test.

Hope this helps. Feel free to email me if you seek further assistance.

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William Timberman

[William Timberman]

Just a followup note:

Apple identified my problem as a hardware issue. I shipped my iBook off to Apple's repair depot in Houston TX on Wednesday, 4/26 at 2:40 p.m. PDT, and it was back on my desk in California, fully functional, at 9:45 a.m. Friday morning.

Based on my past experiences with customer service at various computer companies, including Apple, this is nothing short of a miracle.

I hope this is a sign of things to come at Apple. If so, it's going to be a great time to be a Mac enthusiast.

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William Timberman