PowerBook g4 15" 1.67 ghz won't start

[cufford]

Hello, my trusty laptop decided to not work after having been shut down normally the night before. There is a DVD in the drive; when I first pushed the 'power on' button it chimed, but the screen stated black. I thought I could hear the whine of the spinning hard drive but only a rare click. The DVD drive will click a little, stop and then start a few seconds later and does this over and over.
I tried resetting the pram and pmu a bunch of times. One help spot I found online said for one particular reset you hold hold buttons and hear three chimes; I would only ever hear the one. I also tried out removing the memory and put each individually into the two slots, with no change
I took the top off because I thought I could remove the DVD and that would help something, and I looked for a logic board reset button but couldn't find it or any loose connectors
The power cord is attached and glows green. The battery is installed and is fully charged. I tried different resets with only battery, with battery removed etc, no change
The only result of all of this is now it doesn't chime upon startup. Also the white led sleep indicator is lit while its trying to start up
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Charles

 

[louishen]

It maybe trying to start from the DVD for some reason?

You can, for a start, eject the DVD by attaching a mouse and holding down the mouse button on restart - holding down the trapped button should also eject the disk

see how that goes

 

[cufford]

Thanks for the reply. I forgot that I'd also tried holding down the trackpad button at startup; didn't do anything. I tried as you suggested again and hooked up an optical mouse and tried starting holding each of the buttons down; still no change.
While holding the infrared mouse, I could see the light rhythmically turn off and on at the same time as the sound from the DVD bay. The bus power is cycling on and off repeatedly and the white LED button light in front (sleep indicator) stays on the whole time

 

[pigoo3]

My first thought is…an aweful lot of problems to have all of a sudden appeared after shutting down the computer normally the night before. I wonder if poking around inside added to the issues.

- Nick

 

[cufford]

Actually all of the symptoms were there before opening the top. I did remove and reinstall the memory before opening the top, but basically the same symptoms were there before moving memory and removing the top

 

[pigoo3]

Actually all of the symptoms were there before opening the top.

That's not the way I read post #1. According to post #1…the computer chimed properly before removing the top & poking around inside…and now it doesn't chime properly.

Also. What about the DVD/optical drive problem? Was this a preexisting problem…or did this problem crop up suddenly as well?

We need to separate pre-existing conditions from "new" problems. Since if they happened at different times…the cause of each problem most likely won't be related.

- Nick

 

[johnodd4]

Ok i can help you and it's really stupid.

Disconnect your laptops battery and unplug the power supply and wait 15 min then plug in the power and try to start up the computer again if it starts up it's the battery if it doesn't start up it's the internal clock battery has died or glitched and you need to unplug the internal clock battery and wait 15 min then plug it back in and try again if it starts it was the internal clock battery of which i recommend replacing.

This issue was common on the powerbook g4 and the lombard edition g3 mac laptops

 

[cufford]

I worked on the computer for several hours, and left out every single detail, condensed the story. I'm sure people here don't want endless blow by blow details.
When I first tried the computer last night, it chimed but would not start, screen stayed black. It did immediately start the new behavior, not done before, the DVD drive cycling briefly over and over. I would have to turn it off by pressing the power button until it shut off. When pressing the power button again and/or using different key combinations, it would sometimes chime and other times not. Always, the DVD drive would cycle briefly and stop, indicating that the bus power was turning on and off. During this time I tried removing memory cards etc; again with chimes, no chimes. Eventually there have been no chimes. I then took off top to try and remove DVD from drive. Decided not possible and continued trying restarting and still no chimes. Included with initial tests was removing battery removing power cord, no change. All symptoms were not present until the computer would not start
Anyone have an idea about what may be the problem?
Thank you,
Charles

 

[johnodd4]

most likely if you tried everything it could be a bad power supply or your powerbook g4's logic board has failed and on that old of a machine its honestly not worth fixing