PowerBook G4 17" 1.67 GHz willnot boot unless battery is inserted

I have a PowerBook G4 17" 1.67 GHz.
It will not boot unless I have a battery inserted.
It will boot just from a battery.
But it will not boot from an AC adapter unless a battery is installed.
This is a fresh OS installation so I don't believe it is software related.
If I remove the battery while booted, I can successfully restart.
But if I do a full shutdown, then I am not able to reboot.
Anyone seen this?
Is it normal?
If not any explanation?
I hope it is not indicative of a logic board problem.
Otherwise there are no other issues I am aware of.
Thanks

This could also be connected to a weak backup battery. You might try an overnight force charge on that item by leaving the unit on AC adapter while removing the main battery. You are getting about to the machine age where that Panasonic Li-Ion cell will be punking out.
How you can test its charge is relatively simple: have the machine on battery, booted but asleep, no AC power connected, then remove the main battery for a few seconds and then replace it. If the machine has not powered down, then the backup is probably OK. If it clunks off, then you should consider replacing the backup battery. One such replacement is sold by iFixit. Some disassembly/assembly and soldering required.

Similar Messages

PowerBook G4 17" 1.67 GHZ not booting up

I have a PowerBook G4 17" 1.67 GHz and it's not booting up.
I've already tried resetting the PMU but it still doesn't boots up.
Any ideas?

Of two different ifixit pages inside the link above, one covers 1.0 + 1.67GHz 17" models
while the other covers 1.67GHz Model A1139 / with 1680x1050 screen resolution. This
appears to be what you say you have. High-res display, plus dual-layer superdrive.
"Released in October 2005, the G4 Aluminum 17" 1.67 GHz High-Res came equipped with ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics standard. Features included a standard SuperDrive, a DVI port, and both FireWire 400 and Firewire 800 ports. The LCD used by the 17" PowerBook G4 Al is the same used as in the 17" iMac of that era, but with a thinner backlight..." ifixit.com - about High-Res model. (Prior to Dual Layer Superdrive?)
•High-Res 17" PowerBook G4 1.67 with D/L superdrive:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.67_17_hr .html
While it is my untechnical feeling that part of the problem may be the PRAM battery on
the logic board (these do not last, and can affect bootup) could be a contributing factor,
the computer should see an expert or someone knowledgeable and skilled to check it.
The iFixit repair page cover the possibiliity of PRAM battery replacement, as shown.
http://www.ifixit.com/Device/PowerBook_G4_Aluminum_17%22_1.67_GHz_%28High-Res%29
A more knowledgeable person in theory, may be able to determine a course of action
based in troubleshooting &/or testing results. With an older computer, however, to find
a specialist or someone professionally capable of this level may be difficult, or costly.
There is little one can do about it remotely. What other computer do you have?
If the PowerBook G4 17" 1.67GHz portable Apple computer does not boot at
all, it would be nearly impossible to use Target Disk Mode (FireWire) to access
the unit and get any of your user-created files out. But if that could work, at least
you could remove a copy before attempting any service or do-it-yourself repairs, etc.
Someone handy with computer experience, at a college or other school, may know
of a capable person with portable Apple PowerPC experience. However I would
venture to suggest you'd be very lucky to find someone qualified and not too costly;
then there is a matter of replacement parts. Could be more than a PRAM battery, as
these portable computers age, other parts often fail due to wear. The hard disk drive,
the battery, the power adapter, the DC-in board. Electrical contacts inside the case
can wiggle loose from years of handling. This alone could cause it to not start up.
According to Everymac.com, they show five different 17" PowerBook G4 models
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/index-powerbook-g4.html
to include earlier 1.0GHz,1.33GHz, 1.5GHz and two 1.67GHz models... If yours is
the Dual Layer SD with High-Res display, that limits the repair guide to one page.
So you'd need to check the one you have, before considering a repair option that
would include correct parts for a specific build version, model identifier, year, etc.
Not sure if this helps, though...
Good luck & happy computing!

System crashing or no booting when battery is inserted

Today I've experienced a problem I've never seen on my machine.
It's a MacBook Pro, early 2008.
It freezed while I was using it, something never occured. So I rebooted it, and after 10 minutes it freezed again. When I rebooted it, it didn't reach the gray screen, the screen was basically off, but the power led in front was on. It was very scary because 6 months ago I suddenly had the same screen when waking up the machine and I had to replace the logic board. I have to say that after the logic board replacement the machine has always worked as expected.
I've resetted the SMC and the PRAM, but the problem was still the same. I powered off/on the machine a couple of time, and I've reach the Apple screen once, but it crashed again while loading the system (basically the spinning wheel stopped and I had to power off the machine again).
I did the last test: removing the battery and testing it just with the AC current. And it worked. System is on and everything worked ok. Since the machine turned on I tried to repair the permission and verify the disk. The disk was not ok, I had to repair it via external drive.
So I thought it could be ok, I reinserted the battery and I powered on the machine. And it freezed again. I tried a couple of time and was always the same.
So I took off the battery, and now it's working.
My battery was in bad condition. It didn't last the 300 cycles-life "legend". Since I upgraded to snow leopard (180 cycles then), the status battery was changing from "service battery / replacing soon / replacing now". It was still providing an hour and so of power so I didn't care too much (my fault, I know).
My question is: could a bad battery be causing this behaviour?
Should I buy a new battery or the symptoms decribed could be something more? As I said, I already had to spend 600 euros for the logic board replacement (for a 3 years machine.....)
Thx a lot for your support, hope someone can help me

You clearly have a hardware problem of some sort, so take your machine in for service as soon as you can. An Apple Store or authorized service provider will have good batteries to use for testing purposes and proprietary diagnostic testing software that's not available to you or me.

PowerBook 17" 1GB 1,6 GHz G4 does not show logging window

I have a problem, and it's strange.
I can access the PB with FireWire, start another mac via FireWire from the installed MacOS X (10.4.1 after setup) without any problem.
Verbose mode and single user mode as the open Firmware is still possible.
Reset the paramter rams and the vram... no change.
Boot from CD comes with the MacOs installer mode, if a use the MacOS Tiger DVD for startup.
But booting from the internal, fresh setup harddisk will lead to a MacOS splash screen on the blue background, were in the window the blue progress bar comes from left to right.
This progress bar moves about one fifth of the lenght, get stuck and the system freezes...
Anybody a clue, what might help?
Anything, I can try in single user mode?
The PB came from a customer, and someone tried to delete it. He removed the harddisk and put that into a harddisk erease tower to delete all data... that's what he claimed.... and that's it. I am able to partitioning the harddisk and set it up, but I am unable to boot from the harddisk the PB. I can boot another mac via firewire from the harddisk, but not the PB itself...
Now I am stcuk.... any guess would be helpfull.

Steffen Reichel wrote:
Hello Greg, hello Jim,
I was a week on autumn vacations, so I had plenty of time. I was trying to do.
I reboot from the original Tiger DVD, used Disk Utility from the install DVD and overwrote the harddisk 7 Times with zero. I did no partitioning, but renamed the disk and start setup.
Setup runs, as ever, with now failure. Reboot, and the system hangs....
I tried Apples Hardware Test, but the test cannot repair the harddisk, because of a failure message poping up, that a subsystem process cannot be executed, and the repair failed.
So I do not realy think, that the harddisk has an error, it seems different, because on a harddisk error, a format with zero would not perform that well, as the installation would not run that smooth...
I have done now serveral installtions tries, but all end up with the blue progress bar in the Mac OS X screen hanging at about a quarter of lenght and doing nothing further.... even if I wait for more than 12 hours...
I never have seen such a thing before.
Hello Steffen.
I do not really see a question in your new info, but, based on the totality of both your posts, my two guesses are as follows:
(1) This disk drive is either faulty or connected improperly. Alternatively, it seems possible to me that it is an incompatible drive that has been installed in this Mac.
If I could not find a way to tell whether one of these conditions exist, I would test by replacing this drive with a known working drive that is known to be compatible with the PowerBook.
If I did not have access to a working, compatible drive, I would ask an Apple Service Technician to fix the problem.
(2) If this drive is compatible with this PowerBook, and if it really "can boot another mac via firewire from the harddisk" after OS X has been installed, there must be something wrong with the PowerBook's connections or other hardware.
I would test this by installing the problem hard drive in a different PowerBook 17" 1GB 1,6 GHz G4, to see if it works there. If so, you know the problem is with the PB rather than the drive itself.
If the problem is with the PowerBook hardware, unless I could troubleshoot and repair the problem, I would ask an Apple Service Technician for an estimate of the cost to correct the problem before undertaking repairs. It is possible that this will be a costly fix.
(3) Please let us know what happens. We will watch for your status update.
EZ Jim
Mac Pro Quad Core (Early 2009) 2.93Ghz w/Mac OS X (10.6.2) MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009) 2.26GHz (10.6.2)
LED Cinema Display G4 PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11) iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9) External iSight

Powerbook 1.5/1.67 GHz - any major or minor problems/defects ? need advice

hello
I am thinking about buying a used Powerbook 1.5/1.67 GHz
Either the 1.5 Ghz of this model: http://www.apple-history.com/?page=gallery&model=pg4_family&performa=off&sort=da te&order=ASC
or this http://www.apple-history.com/?page=gallery&model=pg4_15167&performa=off&sort=dat e&order=ASC
any known problems/issues with those machines ?
what kind of battery life can one expect from a battery in good condition and light use of cpu ?
are those powerbooks affected by the battery recalls ?

When buying used, be sure the seller follows these tips of mine
http://www.macmaps.com/selling.html
They will help both you and the seller.
The battery exchange is covered here and you can use this page as a guide to determine which model has it
https://support.apple.com/ibook_powerbook/batteryexchange/
These machines are known for the heat they generate, so don´t use them as laptops. Apple´s article here covers this with more detail
http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n30612
A very few of these machines have been known to have fan problems, which is detectable with the hardware test volume which comes on the restore disks. Hopefully the machine you get is still under AppleCare (Under 1 year old or purchased) so that the test on this page if it finds the fans are defective can be passed on to AppleCare
http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n86287
(Applies to all 1.25 Ghz and higher Powerbook G4s)

PB does not boot UNLESS I remove Airport Extreme Card

My 15" PowerBook G4 will not boot unless I remove the Airport Extreme Card. I doubt there is a problem with the card itself. Could it be an issue related to the internal components that the card plugs in to? I read on another forum that my issue could be a faulty connection between the card and the logic board (part no.821-0352-A).

Thanks for your reply, i totally agree and i have never had a issue with toshiba warranties before usually they are very good and i reccomend toshiba aftersales service to all our clients.
My only concern is that they didnt check it properly last time and if they dont find a fault this time they will be charging me 80 plus vat to get my laptop back according to the toshiba rep. This is not a fault that happens during normal operation and takes hours to replicate if they dont then they wont find the fault.
Fingers crossed they find it this time otherwise i may have a battle on my hands.

Powerbook pismo with OS 10.4.9 not display battery time

I was very curious why my newly upgraded powerbook pismo (400 MHz, 1 MB, 55 GB drive, firewire, etc) would no longer display "time remaining" when on battery or external voltage.
I was getting very close to ordering another battery (6600 mAH) for $150 but decided to do some research first. Lo & behold on the archives there were 30 entries about the same problem on OS 10.4. So in a nutshell, a powerbook pismo with OS 10.4 will not display battery time remaining no matter how many brand new batteries you mail order.
I'll learn how to use system profiler more often (remaining capacity mAh/amperage = time remaining).

There's nothing at all wrong with preferring APpleWorks and wanting to continue using it. It's a bit unfashionable these days, but there are many people who have discovered how powerful, flexible and easy it is to use and continue to use it despite the development of alternatives!
Of course, it does have the drawback of not being intel native, so performance on intel-based Macs will be relatively poor in comparison to iWork, but if that doesn't cause you any problems in use, then it's purely a matter of what you want to use not what anyone else thinks is appropriate!
That said, what exactly is the problem? Can you scroll by clicking the scroll arrows and dragging the scroll bar, but not by using the mouse wheel?

Failure to boot on battery power

My MacBook Pro (5,5) is failing to boot unless connected with the AC cable (mag-safe) turned on.
from battery power (with fully charged battery) the machine beeps in the following sequence:
3 fast beeps
3 slow beeps
3 fast beeps
(that's NINE beeps in total)
the screen stays black the entire time.
the light on the front of the laptop is turned on, but the screen never activates.
if I hold down the power button for a few seconds the LED indicator (sleep light?)
turns off. then I can connect the mag safe and boot successfully.
I have run the hardware diagnostic delivered on the installation CD and this
discovers ZERO problems.
does anybody have experience with this error or know what is wrong?
thanks in advance!
|K<

@capt fred: those EFI restore images are extremely poorly documented and horribly indexed, aren't they? 8(
not a single one mentions a macbookpro5,5 ...
anyway, I think I have figured out what has happened, now all I have to do is figure out how to remedy it...
(( achtung: this would seem to be the user-story-from-**** ))
the macbookpro5,5 ( 13" ) was shut down and NOT connected to AC power.
a very distracted (and somewhat in a hurry) user (ie ME) picked up the laptop and
pushed the power button-- WHILE in that very instant being distracted by his daughter
wanting to know some piece of very important information (for a 10-year-old). ALL THE WHILE
the distracted user (ME) kept holding down the power button while explaining to the
10-year-old-girl why the mice run away when you turn on the lights (which took some minutes).
Still holding the power button down the distracted user (ME) noticed that the macbookpro had
begun to emit a series of beeps. It was at this point that the distracted user (ME) released
the power button and himself emitted a series of vocalizations that his 10-year-old-daughter is not
supposed to ever hear (EVAR). from this point forward the macbookpro will NO LONGER BOOT
FROM BATTERY POWER, instead opting to only emit a series of beeps (3 short, 3 long, 3 short).
now... I understand that I have unwittingly (and un-willingly) informed my macbookpro that she is
to expect a firmware update via cd-rom. however: she does not accept any firmware update CD's
AND she will not boot if not connected to AC power. so how do I get out of this catch-22 ?
please, apple gurus! please please please make my expensive little toy work properly again!!
thanks in advance,
|K<

My Pavillion dv9700 notebook won't boot unless I first...

My Pavillion notebook won't boot unless I first boot to a cd. Here's the problem:
I have a dv9700 notebook. It wouldn't power up. A local shop said I needed a new motherboard. I ordered one and installed it. Now when I try to boot it gets to the part where the hard drive starts to spin and suddenly shuts down only to power up again and endlessly continue this loop. I have found that if I first boot to a bootable cd and then at the cd menu choose "Start Windows" instead of "Boot to cd" the computer will start Widows Vista and run normally.
I have reseated the RAM and tried only one card at a time and switched slots. The BIOS is up to date. I have booted on ac adapter only. Battery only. Tried another ac adapter.
The BIOS hard drive diagnostic fails, showing no hard drive installed. I have tried the hard drive in a USB enclosure. It read fine. I have tried another hard drive in this computer, still reboots over and over.
I can't figure out why I need to boot to a CD first then switch to Windows Vista on the hard drive.
Any ideas? Thanks

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Display-and-video/HP-Pavilion-dv9700-should-also-be-on-the-list-but-it-...

Head scratcher--new HD, macbook won't boot on battery power

I needed a larger hard drive because the orig 60gb was getting full. replaced with a seagate 250gb. now, macbook will no longer boot on battery power. works fine if plugged in. if unplugged while running, macbook goes dead. battery is fully charged.
a puzzlement. any ideas, brain trust?
...joe

What is the model number of the HDD you bought?
Next, make sure you have the battery in all the way and that the HDD is securely installed. Then try a PRAM and SMC reset by shutting down, unplugging the magsafe, taking out the battery, and holding down the power button for at least five seconds. Next, put everything back and hold down commmand-option-p-r at startup until it chimes twice then let go.
If none of that works put in the old HDD and see what happens.

Qosmio G40-11D not booting on battery

Hi,
I buyed recently a Qosmio G40-11D. Everything looks ok but today when I tried to boot the PC without main power connected ... surprise ... NO BOOT. Anybody has an ideea on how to fix this please. Thank you for any hint.
Andrei

Hi again,
I finally made up my mind and called the Toshiba support technicians and the problem has been solved.
Switch the laptop on and press ESC and then F1 to get into the BIOS.
On the right hand side of the screen go to AUTO POWER ON = ENABLED.
An OPTIONS box will appear.
On the 3rd line see WAKE-UP ON BATTERY = DISABLED, you should set this to ENABLE.
As i understood it is disabled as a default factory setting.
My thanks to the support people in UK. They have been very helpful.
If anyone still has problems booting on battery please contact your country support team.
Take Care,
CR

HP Compaq 6715s laptop won't boot on battery after BIOS update

Hello!
I got this laptop on Ebay. The power controller was not working. Then I got it replaced with another, from a deffective motherboard. The laptop performed very well afterward.
And then I downloaded the latest BIOS version from the HP support page. Flashing went OK, but now it wont boot on battery anymore. The initial boot screen shows, the power light flashes in amber color a few times and the machine shuts down.
With the charger connected to the laptop everything is well. If I boot on with charger connected and later disconnect it is OK too.
Please, advice me what should I do.

what type of your laptop?
BIOS recovery way that has been updated failed
1. download bios start, then extract with winrar or winzip.
2. initials instead of one file (depending on the type of your laptop)
3. save the file by using the flash disc (which has been in the FAT format)
4. dis boot with a flash in the following manner:
      a. off laptop batteries
      b. jack flash disc
      c. Do not plug the power cable
      c. press tobol (window + B) hold, while plug the power cord and turn on the laptop
5. akn laptop turns on and lights will flash 2x flash disc, the laptop will be read and will die, and came back on, and die back, and terkhir restarts with BIOS recovery.
hopefully can help

IMac won't boot unless snow leopard disc is in the drive

I am running 10.6.4 and have a boot camp partition running windows 7. The windows side is working fine, however snow leopard will not boot unless I put the disc in the drive. I don't need to do anything else at all, just put the disc in. If I do not put the disc in, I get the apple logo appear, a time bar appears at the bottom of the screen which fills up a small amount and then disappears and then I get the grey spinning circle and the apple logo for ever more!
Can anyone please offer me some advice?

Something you could try would be booting to the Snow Leopard install disk. Once at the welcome screen, choose your language and click next. At the top of the screen you will notice the menu bar appear, choose Utilities > Disk Utility. In Disk Utility choose your Mac partition, from there go to the First Aid tab and Verify the Disk and also your Disk Permissions. If any errors show up click Repair on the respective option. After that try booting to OS X again, without the Snow Leopard disk inserted.

HP Compaq 6715s won't boot on battery after BIOS update

Hello!
I updated the bios of my HP Compaq 6715s with the latest version F.0E I downloaded from HP support site.
Everything went fine, but now it won't boot on battery alone anymore. It just flashes amber light on power indicator and shuts down. If the charger is connected and later disconnected when it starts loading Windows, everything is fine.
Please help, what should I do?

Hi:
You can try performing a hard reset of the notebook in hopes that it will solve the problem.
Here is the link to the instructions for this procedure.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&objectID=c01684768&prodT...
If that doesn't work, I'm afraid something went kerflooey with your BIOS udpate.
Paul

MSI G31M3 V2 Motherboard - System won't boot unless Vid Card Reseated

Strange issue
MSI G31M3 V2 Motherboard Nvidia 8400gs graphics card
PC won't boot unless you reseat the video card. The box is not moving so this constant need to reseat is wierd. Is there an issue with this motherboard and Nvidia Cards?

Quote
Bios is loaded default - I haven't made any changes yet
The BIOS Version depends on the date the board left the factory. There is no default version. Please check your current Version for comparison.
Quote
480w PS Sunbeam I believe
Please check the sticker on it and write down the current limits (A) on all main voltage rails (12V, 5 V and 3.3V).
Have you tested a different video card at any point?

PowerBook G4 17" 1.67 GHz willnot boot unless battery is inserted

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