06-01-2010, 04:48 AM

Well, I was walking home from work and saw something laptop-like poking out of a skip. I decided to have a look, and I found a 15" Powerbook G4 Aluminium complete with charger. It turns on fine, but has the following problems, I was wondering if people might know what they are:
The clock keeps resetting (new CMOS battery needed?)
When moved or jogged, the powerbook crashes and the "you need to restart your computer" screen comes up.
Seeing as it had no disks, and I don't know the admin password, I can't re-install os x (if anyone has a OS X 10.5 disk I'd love to borrow it), so it could be a software problem. I've already re-set the PRAM and VRAM, and that hasn't helped.
Finally, the DC jack is a bit loose, but once plugged in it's fine.
I'm a bit of an amateur technician, and plan on opening the laptop up to fix the faults, but in the meantime, is there anything I should do? Once I get the time to open it, is there anything in particular I should do?
Thanks

06-01-2010, 06:31 AM

Nice find if you can get it going.
I would reckon that it's the PRAM battery at fault for the clock reset issue.
As for it crashing when jogged that could be a bad HD connection or a logic board issue, or a bad HD.
You really need to get hold of an OS disc before you can do much more though.

06-01-2010, 10:34 AM

Well, I've opened it up and taken a look. The DVD drive was totally buggered, so I removed it, and put everything back together. It still exhibited the same problem, so I tried the RAM in different slots, 1 stick at a time etc, still same problem. However, I've now removed the airport extreme card and battery, and strangely it seems to be fine. I'll update you guys with what happens, I'm going to run it like this for a while and then try battery on it's own/wireless card on it's own and see what happens.
btw, found that someone had installed a brand new scorpio black HDD in it, so I doubt that's the problem.
Thanks so far
EDIT: Still running fine after an hour with battery in and wired internet connected, been watching old touring car videos on youtube, plays flawlessly. So, if it keeps on like this, I'll put the card back in tomorrow and see if the problem re-occurs, in which case I'll buy a new airport extreme card, antenna and logic board-airport cable, no doubt they'll cost stupid amounts of money, but will probably be worth it .

06-01-2010, 06:20 PM

No the Airport Extreme cards are as cheap as chips on eBay and such.

http://reviews.ebay.com/Apple-Airpor...00000000748015

What is going to cost you an arm and a leg is either Tiger OS X.4 or Leopard OS X.5 install discs. Make sure you purchase the black full retail install version and not the silver grey model specific discs that abound on auctions sites.

These will not work.

06-01-2010, 07:07 PM

Mine would crash same as yours because the airport card was loose. Once securely in its proper place and held tightly in place by the holder and cover, no more crashing.

06-02-2010, 08:25 AM

Well, thanks everyone, and I have some very good news. After re-seating the card all seems to be fine, the laptop is now in full working order.
As regards to the disks, well let's just say I'm not planning on buying them, especially as I only need to use it once, and only need leopard for iWork 09. If I really can't get it sorted, I probably will end up buying them, but I reckon my DVD burner + an ISO will do the trick.

06-05-2010, 06:51 AM

Well, it's all installed and up and running - I bought a dual layer DVD from ebay for £1.69, burnt leopard onto it on my windows laptop, booted the mac from the disk, and it worked. So, total cost of my powerbook g4 running os x leopard - £1.69

06-05-2010, 09:31 AM

You really shouldn't mention that here. It's illegal and this thread will now get closed no doubt.