Dead G4 - help!

N

nippynorman

Registered
Power book G4 10 mponths old - was working fine - shut down to put away - closed lid before the process was completed and went to bed

Now it won't start up - Battery was flat but charges up just fine. Not a glimmer on start up - chimes fan comes on and goes off, cd drive spins and then nothing. Light on front of case is on but apple light on top is not.

No keyboard light. CRT monitor displays nothing when plugged in and can't see machine on network. Have tried hooking the battery out and holding down the power key and replacing the battery - no joy - is it ime to throw it away and get a pc again?

No one round here wants to even look at it - firm I bought it from new - now not trading!!!

thanks for any advice

Nippynorman
 
Was the battery flat before you shut it down, the battery may of died during saving.
Try putting the c-d in and holding down the c key as you boot.
If this does not work take your laptop to the apple store, the genius's rule.

nippynorman said:
No keyboard light. CRT monitor displays nothing when plugged in and can't see machine on network. Have tried hooking the battery out and holding down the power key and replacing the battery - no joy - is it ime to throw it away and get a pc again?
Click to expand...
NO DO NOT SWITCH BACK I KNOW WERE YOU LIVE!
 
Thanks - I already tried that - Now I can't get the cd out again.

The cost of posting it back to the states and getiing it fixed is stupid. I'd do better to buy a new pc laptop

Thanks for your help anyway

Nippynorman
 
Where did you buy this laptop from that an Apple location in your country won't fix it? If you bought it directly from Apple, then the warranty should cover any problems for free. If you bought it second hand, you might want to give us some more information on the specs of this PowerBook G4 (there have been MANY iterations of the PowerBook G4 at various speeds and sizes).

By the way, if you can turn it on at all, just hold down the mouse button after the Macintosh startup chime and the disc should pop out.

You also might want to see about resetting the Power Management Unit (PMU) on that PowerBook. This most of the time fixes weird issues similar to this. Just be sure to look for the options listed for your PowerBook model on this page:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449

No need to go back to a PC if it's not something drastic. Don't forget that you're going to have to deal with more malware on the Windows platform than you will on the Mac. Not that any platform is invulnerable, but the issues are less prevalent on the Mac. And most anything that's available on Windows is usually available on the Mac by the same software company or another company providing an equal alternative. Also remember that iLife isn't available on Windows, and while iTunes is available on Windows, it's not as elegant as it is on the Mac.
 
Thanks for the advice

The machine has woken up now - partly - the OS has started but there are no input devices active. Mouse light comes on but won't move the pointer on screen. Key cuts wount do anything either. It just came on after I tried it three hours later

CD won't eject and keyboard seems to be disabled - Shift light doesn't work. says thet the clock has been reset to 2001 and it may not work. I can see the desktop but it's not visible on my network

thanks for the link - I already found this and it didn't seem to do anything - It still blacked out and wouldn't start.

I live in UK - bought the laptop mail order from an Irish firm who have ceased trading. I've only had the laptop for 10 months because they took 4 months to deliver it and the invoice date is 14 months old.

Thanks


Nippynorman
 
Ouch!

Regardless, I would contact the UK Apple Store (look here for the appropriate links) and tell them what you're experiencing. They might be able to fix it for a nominal fee....definitely cheaper than buying a new laptop outright. It's still an Apple so they would be able to fix it.

The other thing it might be is a dead PRAM battery. I found this link but since I don't know the specifics on your PowerBook G4 I don't know if this particular battery will work with your PowerBook G4

http://www.welovemacs.com/9226007.html
 
thanks for the advice chaps. i think i need to get the cd out first. it doesn't want to play the reset pram game.

regards

nippynorman
 
go in to darwin. type the following

reset /nvram
reset /all

the mac will now reboot, now leave it for half an hour, it might boot.
 
sorry to be completely dumb but how do I access darwin?
is ther a way that I can do this without the keyboard the keyboard doesn't seem to work at all

Thanks for your help

Norman
 
That's not Darwin. That's the command to give you the Open Firmware command interface. Other than that, the commands given previously are correct.

Darwin is the Unix part of OS X without Quartz and Aqua.
 
thanks for the advice again but I'm stuck on 2 things - how do I get a keyboard to plug in? - I tried a mac usb k/b but it wouldn't recognise it

I think it is truly dead - I have now had the H/d removed and bought a 20 quid box and removed the data i need. Apple are no help and the cost of new board is almost as much as a new machine. I'm gonna scrap it - the engineer sggested that I tried to sell the screen on ebay and maybe the battery.I may get a hundred quid or so towards the cost of a new machine

You guys have been very helpful but Its back to a pc for me I think - at least my Dells have lasted more than 14 months and are usually fixabel when they go wrong - even if they are Windows.

regards

Norman
 
Well, hopefully you'll come back. I'm sorry that your experience has been less than stellar, but sometimes that happens when you buy from companies other than Apple approved resellers. There is a gray market out there and I have a feeling that the company that sold you this PowerBook was a gray market seller. I bought my iMac G5 from Apple directly and have been happy for about a year now. The only problem I had was caused by nature itself (or rather, the electric company cutting out the power). I ended up with a Mac that booted into Safe Mode only. This actually was a good thing since I had been wanting to dual boot with OS X and Ubuntu so it gave me a chance to start with a clean slate. :)

Probably sometime in the future you and a MacBook might start a beautiful friendship. :)
 
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