PowerBook has no power

S

ScarletA

Registered
My husband has a black powerbook (500Mhz ... I dont know anything else) that has been inactive for a while since he upgraded to a new G4 laptop. Now we are interested in getting files off the old powerbook, but there seems to be a problem with either the battery or the power supply and I was hoping someone could shed some light on the issue.

The laptop is plugged in with the power adaptor and the power adaptor light is green which Im assuming means the adapot is working properly. It is plugged into the back of the powerbook, but there is no life in the powerbook at all. No lights show up (not that there are any that I can see anyways.) When the power button is pressed, there is no sound at all or flicker of the monitor or any activity. It is completly lifeless.

My husband believes it is a problem with the battery, however my computer savvy son believes that even with a dead battery (which happens to be the case with his own really old iBook) when connected to an outlet the computer should still turn on but cant be removed from the outlet. It is his belief that it is an issue with the 'power supply' within the laptop, although apples are not his forté.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you :) :D :p
 
My husband believes it is a problem with the battery, however my computer savvy son believes that even with a dead battery (which happens to be the case with his own really old iBook) when connected to an outlet the computer should still turn on but cant be removed from the outlet. It is his belief that it is an issue with the 'power supply' within the laptop, although apples are not his forté.
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I agree with your son regarding the minor point: computer should work from adapter. The most important issue here seems to be the transfering of files from the older laptop to the newer one. From what you've told us, I'd say you own a Pismo (black, 500mhz). You can use a firewire cable to transfer files between the two computers in target-disk mode (does the Pismo support target disk mode?). Sorry, I wish I could say more, but I'm on my way out. I bet someone will shine-in more light. (Bobw?)
 
I found this on the web. It appears the computer should work with a dead battery. They try and have your remove the hard disk and then boot up on a bootable CD (should have come with the computer a Restore CD or the #1 Install CD). This would mean the hard disk is bad. But there are some other components to try. Do you have an Apple store nearby - go to genius bar.

A powerbook will run just fine with a dead internal, rechargeable backup battery. However, without a charged main battery installed, you will possibly have problems when the power adapter is disconnected or you lose electric power. A working internal backup battery will run flat after 3-5 hours and you will lose your time/date and other custom settings stored in PRAM, plus the PRAM and/or power manager may be corrupted.

If you have disconnected the internal backup battery and it still will not start to the HD or CD, you have some other hardware problem.

- Disconnect the internal backup battery and leave it disconnected for this troubleshooting.

- Remove the HD and then see if it will start up to the flashing '?'. If so, it should also boot to a CD.

- If no success, carefully disconnect the keyboard ribbon cable from the logic board, then try starting. A bad keyboard can cause a no-start (nothing happens) but I would try this test to cover all bases.

- If still no success, remove one RAM module, then try starting; do the same with the other.

- Make sure the microprocessor card is fully seated.

One item on the Lombard that has a higher-than-normal failure rate is the backside L2 cache on the microprocessor card. However, if you never got a warning when performing a cold start, it is probably not the issue.
 
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