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Powerbook G4 VGA Logic Board Compatibility
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Aug 2006
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Offline
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HI,
I have a powerbook 550Mhz with broken hinges and bad body work and would like to fix it up. I have a good line on a 400Mhz powerbook G4 and was wondering if I could just put my 550Mhz's Logic Board and parts in the 400Mhz casing and use it like that. Or do I have to find a Onyx powerbook case and screen.
Thanks.
Although I would like to use the 400Mhz as it would be cheaper. 
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Powerbook G4 1Ghz (TiBook), Powerbook G4 550Mhz, Powerbook G3 500Mhz Pismo, iBook G3 300Mhz Clamshell, iBook G3 800Mhz, Powermac G4 450Mhz Sawtooth, PowerMac G3 B&W Rev 2 400Mhz, iMac G3 DV Tangerine, ipod Nano 8GB 3rd Gen, various PC's, Some vintage macs.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
Status:
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Someone should start compiling a database with answers to these kinds of questions.
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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
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Forum Regular
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Brushton, New York (middle of nowhere)
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Originally Posted by Big Mac 
Someone should start compiling a database with answers to these kinds of questions.
Agreed!
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The Mac Collection:
Power Mac G4 Sawtooth at 450MHz, Power Mac G4 Gigabit Ethernet at 400MHz, three Power Mac FW800's at 1.0GHz, MacBook Pro at 2.0GHz, my late father's G3 iMac at 350MHz, an iMac at 500MHz, a PowerBook G4 (12-inch VGA) and a PowerBook 170
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
Status:
Offline
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I really don't know the answer to your question, but someone around here should. . . .
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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
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Administrator  Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: California
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You might try sending a PM to shifuimam, asking her nicely to visit this thread. She was once host of the world-famous Clamshell iBook mod thread. If anyone outside Apple knows your answer, then shifuimam is a good bet.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: The deep backwoods of the PNW
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Wow, I'm Internet Famous!
To the OP: my experience thus far has been with G3 iBooks (12" white models and, of course, clamshells)...
I'm trying to figure out here exactly what PowerBooks you have. Are these both titanium G4 models?
If that's the case, you may or may not be able to swap out the motherboards. If the cases are identical, getting the ports to line up and such shouldn't be a problem. The issue will lie in the internal connectors - if Apple redesigned the LCD inverter, keyboard, or trackpad cables between model revisions, you may have a harder time doing the swap.
A quick look at the iFixIt guides for the two, along with the parts they sell, I can tell you this much:
You'll probably need to swap out the cable that connects the optical drive. It looks like it's different between the Onyx and Mercury models. This is easy to do; it's probably attached to the drive with adhesive. Just be careful when you remove it.
All tiBooks use the same LCD and inverter cables, so that shouldn't be an issue.
iFixIt has two different parts between the Onyx and Mercury for the trackpad assembly, so it's hard to know if the cable is different (it's unlikely). I also can't tell you if the ports will line up, having never seen a tiBook up close myself.
It does look like the keyboards may be different. If the cable connectors are different, you're SOL. If they're the same and the keyboard itself is just shaped slightly differently between the two models, you should be okay (since I assume you'll be using all the components from the 400MHz and just the motherboard from the 550MHz.
It's important to make sure that you have a properly-fitting heatsink when you do the swap. An overheating processor (or GPU) is a bad, bad thing and can permanently damage your logic board (or just cause a lot of frustration due to frequent kernel panics and total freezes).
Honestly, the only way to find out is to try it. I found a short thread from December 06 on the Apple.com forums that suggests the motherboards aren't swappable, but there's no telling if that's accurate or not.
Use the guides on iFixIt.com to disassemble both laptops, take your time, take lots of pictures, and post back with your findings!
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Sell or send me your vintage Mac things if you don't want them.
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