Boot Rom/Hard Drive Problem on Pismo. Any thoughts? CPU?

Hello. Here are the details of my problem, and the chronology of events leading up to it. Any thoughts or information that might lead to a solution would be appreciated.
G3/500 Pismo running 10.4.8 on a recently installed (used) 80GB hard drive. Everything working fine, but weak signal on Airport network (MDD (FW) 2x1.25ghz w/Airport Extreme Card, dialup)
Removed Airport card, installed PCMCIA Belkin F5D7011 125 plus. Worked fine, signal still not great. OS kept creating new ports every time Internet Connect was opened. Weird. I decided to restart to see if that would clear up the problem. Also upgraded Airport software to latest (extreme) version. Later wondered if this might have been a bad idea since the Pismo wasn't originally designed to support 802.11(g) cards, but...
Restarted-- or tried to. Got four beeps and 1 long, 3 short flashes on the sleep LED. Reset and repeated this several times. Switched hard drives experimentally. No more beeps, but hard drive spun up.
Eventually nothing even after reset-- no beeps, no spin-up.
Apple says four beeps is a boot-rom problem. A diagram of the logic board shows the boot rom on the CPU board. (Important note: it has been dry here of late, and I changed the Airport card. Static electricity problem? I didn't notice a discharge but...)
I've ordered a G3/400 CPU from eBay to see if that is the problem. I figure I can resell it if it is not the culprit.
Do you have any thoughts on what else it might be? I'll report back here on whether the CPU replacement fixes the problem. Similar symptoms on a Lombard, minus the four beeps, were corrected by replacing the CPU.
Anybody have a G3/500, G4/550, or G3/900 CPU for sale?
Again, any responses to my inquiry would be sincerely appreciated.
From Northern California,
reidjam7

James,
Your Pismo can run an "extreme" 802.11g wifi PC card in the PCMCIA/CardBus slot with no problem; however, you are limited to the original AirPort card under the keyboard...no extreme.
A few procedures you might try in your diagnosis:
1. Remove all peripherals, including PC cards and the optical drive.
2. Lift off the microprocessor card. Apple recommends you remove the heat sink and CPU card as one unit so as not to disturb the thermal transfer pad between the heat sink and CPU; be very careful as you can mistakenly pop the heat sink off including the plastic bracket around the CPU. If you have removed the heat sink in the past, then this would be the safest procedure.
3. Remove/reseat the lower memory module, then firmly seat the microprocessor card; push down very hard on the right side of the card next to the HD and closest to the palm rest where the multi-pin connector resides on the underside. Press down very hard...you may even hear a snap as it fully seats. At this stage you can just plug in the power adapter and see if it will start. I suggest this procedure only because another user stated he solved his bootROM failure which was apparently due to a poor or oxidized connection. There is a very low probability this will be the solution.
4. If no boot, disconnect the HD ribbon cable from the logic board, then try starting; a working powerbook in this configuration should produce the gray screen with a flashing '?'.
5. If still no boot, disconnect the internal rechargeable backup batteries (the red/black/white pigtail from the two round batteries that plugs into the logic board), then try starting. A dead/internally shorted backup battery can prevent startup.
6. Lastly, disconnect the keyboard ribbon cable, then try starting.

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Quote from: roller on 27-March-06, 08:33:35
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