Is my Powerbook finally dead?

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.
It's speed has been deteriorating for awhile and has been very sluggish of late until today when it appears to have finally collapsed. I've repaired permissions within the last week or so, but that didn't help with the speed.
Any suggestions on what I can try to get it limping along again?
Thanks,
Steve

You may have multiple problems.
Ordinarily with most of those symptoms, I'd say the hard drive has gone bad. But if it won't boot from the OSX install DVD, that is something else, maybe a bad optical drive as well. Perhaps the main board or RAM slots have developed intermittant faults.
If you want to pursue it, you need to determine what's bad - the logic board, the HD, the optical drive - any or all of the above. This can be hard without replacement parts handy.
IIRC, a bad HD can also affect the optical drive by corrupting the ATA bus. If you are a gambler, I might try replacing the HD and retrying booting from the optical drive. I always have a clone of my HD (everyone should, IMO) available in a Firewire enclosure, so this costs me nothing but my time. Sorry, I cannot remember if you can just remove the HD and still operate the optical drive. Booting from the optical drive proves the main board and o-drive are viable.
Additional thought: What is your RAM configuration (how many DIMMS in the 2 slots)? If one or 2 slots go bad that could cause abnormal operation.

Similar Messages

HT4061 my ipad1 wont turn on? is my battery finally dead

I had my ipad 1 plugged in for about an hour now and I have a dead screen.It doesn't do nothing!
Is my battery finally dead?
Please help and If I do need a battery, where can I get one and how much do they cost?
Thanks,
Steve

iPad Owners
Your one-year warranty includes replacement coverage for a defective battery. You can extend your coverage to two years from the date of your iPad purchase with the AppleCare Protection Plan for iPad. During the plan’s coverage period, Apple will replace the battery if it drops below 50% of its original capacity. If it is out of warranty, Apple offers abattery replacement for $99, plus $6.95 shipping, subject to local tax. Apple disposes of your battery in an environmentally friendly manner.
Contact Apple for details.
Have you tried to reboot the iPad?
Reboot the iPad by holding down on the sleep and home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears - ignore the red slider - let go of the buttons.

My Powerbook is dead, now what?

I bought my Powerbook in June 2002. I have used this computer for so long but it started acting up and so for Christmas, "Santa" gave me an external drive and I backed everything up.
This week, my laptop died. In a really horrible, nasty way. I started up in single user mode and did "fsck" and got a "hard drive can not be repaired". Took it to the Apple store and they confirmed, definitely a dead hard drive and I would have to replace.
Now, before I do anything, I want to understand my options. I use this computer for iTunes (20GM iPod), storing Photos, email, web, Word, Excel, etc (basic stuff). I do want to use it to start working on digital scrapbooks with Adobe Photoshop Elements. This means a lot of .jpg files will be open at once and playing around with them. Probably while I go online to read how someone did something.
I upgraded to Tiger (I am not sure what version what the last I was up to because I have automatic updates). I upgraded the memory but I can't look at all my specs right now (obviously).
One thing I would like to have is wireless capability to use in places like coffee houses so I don't have to take the work junk computer I have to surf remotely.
Should I go ahead and replace the hard drive to put this computer back together as my primary computer (and if so, how big)? Should I add a wireless card too? Or should I get a desktop and then keep this laptop around and maybe replace things when I have a little more cash? OR, realize that I am going to eventually have to buy a better computer and get another laptop? If so, what to do with this one?
I am not a complete idiot when it comes to computers but I am certainly not up to speed right now on what's out there. I do need something in the next few weeks though because my iPod is the DJ for my wedding on April 1, 2006 and right now, that is not looking so good!
Powerbook Titanium DVI Mac OS X (10.4)

Hi again, jenninbel. There is always a chance that more than one thing is wrong with a computer, but the gradual decline and failure of a hard drive would certainly explain, all by itself, what you've experienced.
A 7200-RPM drive will be noticeably faster reading and writing large amounts of data than a 5400-RPM drive. Opening and saving ordinary small files is so fast in either case that you'd probably never notice a difference, unless you work normally with applications that routinely read and write hundreds of megabytes, or even gigabytes, of data. You currently have to pay a sizable premium for 7200-RPM drives, particularly those of 100GB and more. If you do a lot of heavy image-processing, professional audio, or digital-video work, a faster drive may be worth paying for. But if your work involves a lot of that sort of thing, your Powerbook's internal drive will never be large enough to serve as your primary drive for long, and your Powerbook's processor won't be fast enough to serve your needs for long, either.
As to brands, you'll hear different things from different people. Look at the manufacturer's warranty, above all. The chief advantage of buying and installing a drive yourself instead of having Apple install one for you is that you'll get the original manufacturer's warranty of 3-5 years on it, rather than 90 days (which is all you'd get from Apple, even if Apple were installing exactly the same drive). Given a long warranty, it may matter a lot less what brand you buy than how good your backup strategy is and how religiously you use it. Any drive can fail, and used long enough, every drive will. You don't want to lose your data, whether your drive fails after seven days or seven years. The only brand I urge you to avoid is Western Digital, which just doesn't have a very good reputation for longevity, warranty or no warranty.

G4 867MHz powerbook + Final Cut Studio won't install

My g4 867MHz powerbook should be able, on paper at least [memory, etc], to cope with Final cut studio, but the installer tells me that it can't. Why? Is there some shortfall with the video card or something? Any ideas?

how much free space do you have on the system drive?

Powerbook g4 dead?

Yesterday, while in the middle of sending an email - my computer froze. It does this from time to to time. I shut the computer down with the power button and since then I can't get it to reboot. When I try to turn it on - the fan noise comes on and is followed by three beeps - not even the turning on chime.
I have tried all of the troubleshooting stuff - including many combinations of keys to boot up safe and resetting the PRAM (I think that is what it is called) and nothing has worked. Is this thing totally dead? Any other suggestions other than taking it to an apple store?
Thank you so much for any help you can give me. I am freaking out a little here since I haven't backed up the files in a few months and I can't afford a new computer.

You may have a bad logic board which is the one that is "dead." Your hard drive should be (90% sure) safe at this point. If your hard drive was bad, it would startup okay, but then search for a startup disk and just "hang" there.
But, since yours won't turn on at all, it seems to point to the logic board or something else. Your data will remain intact. You'll be able to take your hard drive out and recover data, or, just use it as is and place it into another PowerBook.
Here's the diagnosis on the beeps:
[http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1547]

Powerbook (A1138) Dead to the World

I read the other posts on this topic and was looking for a little bit of clarification,
I'll explain my laptops recent history:
Had to wiggle the adapter around to get the green/amber light to come on and power it up and charge battery. After going through two adapters that kept bending out of shape, the last of which was causing some smoke and I am guessing sparking, I threw laptop in a draw for 3 months.
Now armed with a new adapter, surprise surprise the laptop is totally dead. Green light won't even come on. I fiddled about with the DC port and I can get the green light to come on, but it won't charge the battery. I've managed to rig up my old 17" to charge the battery, but when put back into machine still no startup.
Even if I had a faulty DC board shouldn't the laptop still start with a fully charged battery plugged in? Would the sparking and smoking have caused damage to the logic board, and if so can this be repaired? As I'm sure you will appreciate the cost of replacing this is beyond my means.
Any thoughts or comments greatly appreciated
FYI I have tried unplugging and plugging back in PRAM battery, and the power reset.

Hi, Citygirlnz, and welcome to Apple Discussions. As you probably realize, adapters don't "keep bending out of shape" — people bend them. The traditional way to wreck an adapter's plug and/or cord is to trip over the cord, jerking the plug sideways, bending its cylindrical collar, and often breaking the solder joints between the DC-in port to which the plug connects and the DC-in board to which the port is supposed to be firmly attached. There are also many other ways to accomplish the same thing. I don't know which methods you've tried, but they've worked: both your adapter and your DC-in board seem to be ruined. You must immediately stop using the adapter that's sparking: it has broken wires in its cord that are shorting out, and it's a real fire hazard. The wires are thin, and when you jerk the cord hard enough to bend the plug, you're apt to stretch the wires past the breaking point too. Third-party AC adapters can be had for as little as $25-40 USD from Mac resellers and online vendors; Google "Powerbook G4 AC adapter" for starters, then scan the hit list for vendors in the UK.
Get a new adapter, reset your Powerbook's Power Management Unit, and if the new adapter still doesn't charge the battery, the next thing to replace is the DC-in card. To see what's involved in doing it yourself, go to this page, choose your Powerbook model, and look at the instructions for changing out the card. Good luck!

10.4.7: powerbook battery dead after update

Just updated from 10.4.6 to 10.4.7 on my 12.1" PB G4 using the automatic Software Update application and my battery is dead. I tried resetting the PMU but no luck. The battery worked fine yesterday but I can't power-up today. The charging light integrated in the plug remains green but the battery strength only shows 1 rapidly blinking green led.
Coincidence? Anyone else have power/battery problems after this update?
1 GhZ powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

No problem with my 12" G4 or 17" G4 updating to 10.4.7.
Battery life remains the same as before, machines work on mains power and on battery power.
Note that before updating I logged out, to ensure that no applications were running and all other discs and devices were 'unmounted'; then I logged in again and "Repaired Permisions", using Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility; then did a Restart, and held down Apple+S to start in "Single User" mode, and ran "fsck" to check that all was OK with the hard disc; then rebooted and ran "Permissions Repair" again ..just to be prudent and to be satisfied that the machine was all in good order before applying the system software update.
I'll report back later and tell you if all went well with my Mac mini and G5 quad, but I've never had any problems with any OS update yet - all the way from 10.1 (..and System 8 and System 9 before that..)
Maybe I'm just extra careful.
P.S: Maybe you could try resetting your Power Management Unit ..but note that you'll need to reset your time and date afterwards, otherwise any files you create after that reset will have the wrong time and date, and may not appear correctly in Spotlight searches, amongst other things.

PowerBook G3 - dead as a dodo! Please help - any suggestions?

My friend hates all things computer.
She bought in 2001 a state-of the art brand new Powerbook G3 (best spec), I think, used it once and put it in the airing cupboard for 6 years!!!!!
She now needs to use it! So out it came and was dead, deader than a dead thing and brought it to me.
I plugged it into the mains - nothing.
Tried the three keys (ALT CONTRL DELETE - apple version) and nothing
Tried PRAM reset thingy
Took out battery tried all of the above
Tried reset key
Tried a different battery (one in the box)
Tried all of the above
Nothing, no light, no flicker, no alarm, nothing,.......
Now I wondered whether it needed a PRAM Battery? I saw one mentioned on Google. Could this be the problem? Where do I get another?
If we got the thing working, could she upgrade it to OSX? It is currently not running OS9.
What else can you think of that I could do to this dodo?
Thanks
Frances

Frances,
Your friend probably has the Powerbook G3 FireWire M7572, a.k.a. Pismo.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=24604
What often happens when a powerbook is stored for any length of time is the power manager becomes corrupted and a normal power manager reset will not correct the issue. There is a simple fix, however.
- Remove the main battery, optical drive module, and disconnect the power adapter. Place a support behind the display so the 'book does not tip backwards.
- Lift off the keyboard and lay it face down on the palm rest; do not disconnect the keyboard ribbon cable.
- You will see two round, brown batteries in a black case between the HD and palm rest...these are the internal rechargeable backup batteries a.k.a. PRAM batteries. You will also see a red/white/black pigtail wire running from these batteries to the logic board. With a pair of needlenose pliers, carefully disconnect this wire from the logic board (pull up on the white connector).
- Now connect just the power adapter and try starting up; if successful, press/hold the power button until it shuts down. Remove the power adapter, reconnect the wire, then plug in the power adapter and try starting again. If no start, disconnect the PRAM batteries and leave disconnected until you get a replacement; the batteries have failed and probably have an internal short which is preventing startup. You can reassemble the 'book at this point and use the powerbook until you get a replacement battery. It will run fine without this battery.
- If the 'book will start with the PRAM batteries reconnected, reassemble the 'book and you should be OK.
After you lift off the keyboard, this is what you will see (enlarge bottom picture):
http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/PowerBook-G3-Pismo/Keyboard-Page-1-Keyboard
If the main batteries have been left discharged for 6 years, they will be shot. The PRAM batteries can easily be replaced if needed; they are rechargeable but again, the discharged state may have killed them. You can test them after following these instructions:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=30580
You can find batteries at many vendors, but here is a very good company:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/batteries/
You can also run the latest version of OSX, 10.4.9, very nicely on this machine with additional memory and possibly a larger HD.

Zen Micro Is Finally Dead...I th

Well I've had it for a year and a few months (april of 2005 i believe). Never had any problems at all until now. It stopped working yesterday. I had it plugged into my computer charging and it was docked and find and everything. Then I looked over at the screen about an hour later and all it said was Please Wait... just like it says when it has the Reloading Library screen or whatever, except there was no image or anything...just Please Wait... centered at the bottom of the screen and the rest of the UI. So I noticed it froze so I pulled out the battery and put it back in. It gets to the first Creative screen with all the copyrights. Then it gets to the second CREATIVE screen and sto
ps.
Doesnt get past that screen.
So i went into recovery mode. Tried clean up, reload firmware, and format all. They all just freeze while they are doing their jobs. It either says Reloading firmware... for 3 hours, Formatting for 3 hours, or Cleaning Up... for 3 hours and gets know where. I'm guessing my mini HDD had a serious crash or something.
I think it might have been because it fell out of my pocket as i was walking to my dorm. This happened about 30 minutes before I plugged it into my computer (and then an hour later it froze). I was listening to it after i picked it up and kept walking to my room. It was working just like normal. It just crashed and a half hours later.
So you guys think the HDD is dead, or is there another method I would be able to use to save my little guy?

ok this has happened to me a couple of times. the only thing i've noticed that is consistent is it happens when the battery gets very low...say after 2 hours of running time (ha! when I think back to the 9- hours running time they told it would have when they sold me on this over the ipod)
anyway...when it happened before i have had some luck by taking the battery out holding the power button to the on position and reinserting the battery. it's very important to get the charge strong on the battery..
we'll see if it works this time. i'm here today for the same reason as everyone else... I think I'm at 4 months..

Powerbook's dead after Hard DRIVE is replaced.

Please help. I was about to sell my 17 in since I bought the mac book pro and I wanted to keep my 100 gig and put the original 80 back. I opened it (following mac fixit guidelines) but after closing everything. I have NO power. I re did every connection including putting the 100 gig drive back, still no luck When I hit the power button I dont' hear anything. Machine doesn't make any noise and is totally dead.
The trackpad connection (I think that's what it is) the one under the ram which you have to remove before you open it seems loose.
Could that be doing it ? The plastic connector there came off and its now just resting in the groove.
What can I do? Is the machine a total loss now but for parts?
It was working totally fine till an hour ago.
Please Please help.

Download/install the trial versions, then activate them with your Adobe ID.

Powerbook G4 dead or dying.

It froze up..very rare. Shut down with the power key. Has not booted since.
Sometimes I get a whirring noise. Sometimes I get the grey apple screen. Sometimes I get a tone and three beeps (and the little light flashing at the bottom of the display). One time I got to the log in and it froze when I typed password and hit log in button.
I did the PRAM and PSU proceedures. Tried with battery in and out.
Your thoughts, please.

jc wrote:
It froze up..very rare. Shut down with the power key. Has not booted since.
Sometimes I get a whirring noise. Sometimes I get the grey apple screen. Sometimes I get a tone and three beeps (and the little light flashing at the bottom of the display).
3 beeps should mean all RAM is bad:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1547
Can you try each stick by itself in each slot?
And do you have a titanium or aluminum Powerbook G4? The titanium has the sleep light at the base of the display and the aluminum does not.

Is my old PowerBook G4 dead?

I'm on a trip in the U.S. now and left my older PowerBook G4 with a friend so we could iChat while I am away. He said it wouldn't start up and I got him to startup with the original MacBook G4 install disk by using OPTION+start and he is seeing the message shown in the screenshot here:
http://lerner.net/doug/PowerBookG4Error.jpg
Is there anything that can be done?
Thanks,
doug

Yes, I agree I am confused.
Sorry - I get mixed up with the names.
Here are the computers and discs in question.
(1) My 17" MacBook Pro from late 2006 that I am using even as we speak while on travel in the U.S. It's also my main work computer. The original install discs are there in my house in Tokyo and I have the retail version of the 10.5 discs with me in case of an emergency. This is an Intel MBP.
(2) My older 17" PowerBook G4 that my friend is using while I am gone to contact me by iChat. That's the one that seems to have broken. We don't know where that computer's install discs are. That is a PPC model.
(3) An even older 13" Mac of some kind. I don't think it's a G3, but maybe it is. I think it is a G4. It was more or less contemporary with the 17" PowerBook G4. That computer is on loan to another person so it is not available. But the install discs for that computer are what my friend found.
So both (2) and (3) are PPC. But I'm not sure of what OS X version is on the install discs for (3) or whether it will install on computer (2).
doug

Help! powerbook went dead for no reasons

Hi there,
Yesterday i was just doing my regular maintance routine for my powerbook. Repair permission, run system janitor. After that i just use my powerbook to play music, and i fall asleep. after i woke up, the music no longer running, and the spinning wheel displayed. I notice there was a very loud spinning noice comming from inside of the powerbook. Before the hard crash my powerbook didn't make such noice. I tried to get in the (forgot the name, but it's the place where you can see how many application your system are running and kill the application at will), but i can't even get into that application. so i restarted.
Now my powerbook just got to the grey apple logo with the spinning wheel. it no longer doing anything. I tried to use the installation disk but the screen kind of flahes two or three times, and end up at the grey apple logo as well.
I back my my system regularly with a Lacie External drive, but i forgot how to switch to boot with the lacie drive instead. i am afraid it was the hard drive that failed. I had the powerbook for around 3.5 years. If my powerbook's hd does failed, can i use my Lacie to boot and work? I need my powerbook to do most of my work. Please help, kinda freaking out here... thanks alot!!!

More than likely it does. Can you verify the S.M.A.R.T. status of your drive?
It is good that you have a bootable clone with a relatively recent backup. You can try replacing the drive yourself, if you feel comfortable with the tools, but only you know your capabilities.
Joe

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

Is it finally dead?

My old ms 6309 v2.0 might have given up.
Yesterday I was test playing an old game on it, worked fine, and while I was playing the PC just shotdown.
The screen went dark, nothing responded, but the PSU was still running.
It didnt respond to reset button, only to the 4 sec power off thing.
When I tried to boot nothing happens at all with the system. Only thing powering up is the PSU.
There is some power though, because the graphics card fan is running.
The CPU fan is not moving.
The hard disk doesnt spin up.
There is no beep sounds
All the four LEDs on mobo are constant lit red.
I have tried a diff graph card, same thing.
Removed, cmos battery, same thing
disconected the HD and CD, same thing
The psu fan has made a really bad noice on boot, (for a minute or so, then quiets down) a for a long time now, is it possible thu psu is broke? But why is the graph card getting power then?
I bought a new HD for it the other week, but I mean it was running fine with it so...
PSU 230W
P3 800

pmlee,
I sent you a private message but in short my system did the same thing as you describe just the other day.
If I disconnect and reconnect power and then try to turn the system on, the fans start and then the whole thing just dies.
Did you try a new motherboard? Did it fix the problem? Tonight I am going to try to re-seat all the devices on the board as a last gasp effort.
I put in a new PSA last night and it didn't fix the system so I think the motherboard is TOAST
I will let you know what happens, please keep me posted as well.
Good Luck
Rob

Is my Powerbook finally dead?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for