Did my powerbook finally die? :(

I've had my powerbook for about 4 years now. It's been great, got me through college, etc, but recently has had a few problems. The computer was running slow about 6 months ago so I took it to my friends over at the Genius Bar only to have them tell me my hard drive is having problems, but it shouldn't cause any major problems other than a slow down. I continued to use it despite not getting the hard drive replaced (they wanted $500 to replace the hard drive despite the computer not being worth much more than that). Everything worked fine until last night when I came home from work to find a "Please restart your machine. Hold the power button for 3 seconds to do this" or something like that. The screen was a little weird looking with large pixelation and weird vertical lines. I restarted only to have it start to boot up with the apple logo and the spinning circle thingy. The screen was still messed up and it never made it to my home screen. I tried restarting again and again to no avail.
Does anyone know what's wrong with my powerbook? I don't want to have to buy a new one with the next generation powerbooks coming out in 6-8 weeks...
Thanks, any help will be appreciated.

Dave:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
What you experienced last night sounds like a kernel panic. These can be either hardware or software based. In your case, since you have previously experienced hardware issues, that would be the first place I would look.
Boot from the Apple Hardware Test that came with your computer and run all tests in a loop by holding down Command + L during the tests. Sometimes it takes several hours to detect intermittent problems, so be patient. Then please post back with what you find out.
Good luck.
cornelius

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My 13 month old IMAC finally died. Is it worth repairing?

Hi all,
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I know exactly what you are going thru Joe. I had a first generation iMac G5 and had it break down 5 times in the first 11 months of its life. I had mine replaced after some very long discussions with AppleCare. I must say, at first they just wanted to send me yet another replacement part. BUT< I begged, pleaded and begged some more. ( Always remaining calm and not getting mad.) And finally they conceeded. I got my new iMac G5 iSight, rev. C after 13 months of nothing but trouble with the Rev. A.
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My Powerbook G4 died of logic board failure can you help or advise me ?

On Christmas eve I was working on my 2 year old 12" Powerbook G4, I got a notification that the battery was low so I thought lets save my work and drain the battery. It was a good idea at the time because I've heard its sometimes good practice to completely drain the battery and give it a fresh charge ? so the machine finally quit and before going to bed I plugged it into the mains to charge, immediately I noticed the power cord connection to my mac turned green and not the amber I expected. This powerbook has travelled the world with me over the past 2 years so its been a little buddy and I was alarmed to see this happen ? I waited 20 minutes guessing that there would be sufficient charge to wake the machine. After hitting the power button there was nothing !!! no click, chime or indication that he machine was in any way operational.
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Ireland

Hi Brian.
In the UK we have some degree of consumer protection (Sale of Goods Act) for situations not too far from yours. Basically we, as consumers, have a right to expect goods that we purchase to be of a certain standard of quality/reliability. The SOGA provides up to six years of protection, unlike the standard one year warranty many manufacturers offer - which, to some degree, renders extended warranties unecessary.
However each case is different, and consumers will get different mileage depending on their individual circumstances but it is not uncommon for consumers to have successfully obtained repairs, replacements, or refunds using the SOGA - although they will have had to be prepared to argue their case.
Perhaps you might want to check out what kind of consumer protection the Republic of Ireland offers. At the very least, there is probably an EU equivalent of the SOGA which will cover the ROI as well.
NB: I've just re-read your post and realised that you bought the PowerBook in Australia - which probably disqualifies you from any EU or ROI consumer protection. That said, it may still be worth your while to find out what kind of consumer protection is available to you for future reference.
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Did my PowerBook really update to 10.5.2?

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I have a Powerbook G4 that is many years old and I think it has died. It boots okay, then all I get is a spinning beachball. It slowly opens a few items like "about this mac" and "system profiler", then just spins. The screen saver does come on but that is about it. I can't open the harddrive, I can't open it as a target disk for my macpro, I can't boot from a install and restore disk.
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You may have multiple problems.
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PowerBook has died

I hope you can help
My powerbook has suddenly stopped working. When I try to start up the PB it seems to try to boot from the cd (which is blank). I have managed to remove the cd, but when I then try to boot it seems to try for a couple of seconds or so then stops, nothing ever comes up on the screen. I have tried to insert the cd that came with the PB and hold c whilst starting up but to no avail. Any ideas on how i can get it to boot up.
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You should have an Apple Hardware Test disk. Did you try booting from it?
Is there an internal HDD installed? Does it have System software installed?
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Good luck.
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Message was edited by: cornelius

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Did my powerbook finally die? :(

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