Tips for sending Wallstreet PB in for repair?

[Zarembo]

Glad you found the information useful. To add a caution. When I make an eBay purchase and I rate the seller I always add, based upon this experience with this seller....

Things can go bad with businesses, just look at all the messes in the corporate world. I don't know about the address changes for pbParts, I just know in my two experiences they've been a wonderful company with which to do business.

I'd recommend having them replace the hinges, its cheaper and you have a warranty. The same with the other problems.

If you can, to save on shipping take out the motherboard and hard drive, definately the battery and cd drive. Don't wait to have the hinges replaced, having them broken as I recall can fatally damage the video connector. I know there are pages on the web showing how one can remove these parts safely. Check previous postings in this string.

Also, I just remembered macresq.com also repairs powerbooks. At least check them out. I've gotten some great deals from them. As I recall they have a good deal on shipping too.

Finally, these hinges appear to be a design defect. Don't count on a permanent solution, but they should last for a reasonable period.

Best of luck!

[MDLarson]

Well, I did what I never thought I'd do. I ordered my tool with a Torx T8 on it and my PowerBook is currently in 10 or so pieces. I am lucky enough to work at a manufacturing place where a lady is really good at soldering work, so I'm going to bring in my sound card (where the power port is located), and she'll probably strengthen the weakened connections and I'll be back in business.

The screen and battery issues remain, but with the laptop apart, I was able to diagnose those problems better. According to one of those website mentioned before, the hinges most often broke NOT on the actual clutch part, but on the "finger" extension parts that went into the base and the screen part. This is NOT the case for me. Some of the encasing metal on the left clutch was worn off. I will try and post some pictures of all of this.

The battery connections seem to be OK (they LOOK like they have a good connection), but I think I will need to just clean the contacts with some rubbing alcohol or something. I'll keep posting my discoveries.

[Snowball]

Good luck with your repairs!
I haven't had a chance to figure out what's wrong with my power card, and think it will have to be replaced...... next week I am taking it into work because we have an Official Apple Authorized Hardware Magician with all kinds of fun diagnostic boxes. Hopefully he can plug in to my WS and figure out what is wrong... I think I will get the new hinges soon too.

If all else goes wrong, at least the one advantage of cracking open the case was being able to clean everything (the IR ports on the left were REALLY dusty, probably unusably so but I don't use them anyway so it doesn't matter in my case).

By the way, it may be too late but when you are opening the hinge bezel thing (it covers the sleep light, has the power button in it, etc) or taking the screen apart be careful not to break off the snap tab things (kinda hard to explain what I mean) that keep both pieces of plastic bound together. YOu can use a nonscratching prying tool like a plastic knife (I used a pen cap) and see which way to pry it apart.
And to remember which screws go where, I used a tackle box and labeled each screw with a post-it note. VERY helpful when you put things down for a week and come back.

By the way, can I ask where you got your Torx-8 from? I have been looking for a good magnetic one (the screw sticks to the tip of the screwdriver) to replace my chunky old one.

[MDLarson]

I actually did Google search for T8, torx and found This website. The tool I ordered was the smaller 36396. It came pretty quickly. I don't think its magnetized though. Another website I came across was this one.

Yeah, I know what you're talking about with the plastic jobs and all. The trickiest thing for me was plugging and unplugging the screen cables.

[Snowball]

This will be very much of interest to you, MDLarson:
I just happened (heh heh) to be cruising the MacAddict Forums the other day... and to my wonderful surprise found this handy pdf file...
http://homepage.mac.com/dfxdesign/.c...pdf-binhex.hqx

Of course, I think you are only supposed to download it if you are an official Apple Authorized Money Sucking don't-give-a-d*mn-about-repairs-cause-Baywatch-is-on-TV-soon Repair Layabout.

Which of course we all are, right?

Seriously, it's really useful because it shows exactly where each screw goes, how to take it out, etc.
AND, thanks to it, I managed to fix everything again! When I resoldered my power/sound card earlier and reassembled everything, I hadn't pushed the processor card all the way into the I/O board (the board underneath everything), because I somhow find it uncomfortable pushing really hard on electronics. But it turns out (as they say in the document) you really have to push to get it in all the way. Poor laptop, didn't get too far without a processor...

Anyway I'm really happy that my WallStreet works now because I saved not 100, not 200, but $300 dollars!
Now, onto the hinges...

[MDLarson]

Wow, thanks! That really is a HUGE help! Man, to tell you the truth, those images on the websites were OK, but compared to the real deal…

Yeah, I'm in the same boat as you I think. Most everything back to normal, with the exception of the hinges. My batteries seem to be working better now that I scraped at the contacts a little.

Thanks again for the link! I'm thinking about printing out all 236 pages!

[MDLarson]

I finally got around to taking my PB apart again to get pictures of the hinges.

Here's my left hing, the one that is obviously damaged…

[MDLarson]

And here's the right hinge.