Dead Powerbook G4 Logic Board

G

gematrium

Registered
Hi there,

I'm new, so go easy :D

Right, bit of background...

Powerbook G4 (Aluminium) 1.33Ghz, 60GB HD, 725MB RAM (give or take!) bought Refurbished from an Apple Reseller 2 1/2 years ago.

Just checking mail on Monday and WHAM, screen goes completely scrambled, a complete multi-colour mess and after a hard reset, mac dies. No joy with the power button, so I remove the battery, plug in the mains and try again - you can hear the HD spin for a second, then nada. Sadly, I had the volume muted before it died, so I'm unable to tell if it was chiming or not (although I doubt it could even get that far). Tried the advice from the Apple site (remove battery and power cable, hold down power button for 5 secs etc) - no joy. Also, the green light goes on by the power cord even though the battery is half full.

So, took it to a Autorised Reseller, handed over my $$'s for diagnosis and they have come back with a dead logic board as the culprit. Bad news being that in Australia these are currently being sold by Apple for $1500 - ie the cost of an identical mac on ebay.

Now, I do trust the guys that have done the diagnosis, but as it is a lot of money I would ideally like a second opinion, but just don't have the time or transport to do that, so.... is there anything that I can do myself diagnosis-wise? I'm pretty good with macs, not too clumsy and hey, it's already broken!

Also, is there any merit in buying a second-hand logic board (ie one that could be on it's last legs)?

And final question, how do I go about transfering the data from my dead PB onto a new one (ifI buy one)? I did a Retrospect back-up a week before it died, but have some files on the disk that I created more recently that I could do with getting back!

Sorry for the long post, but it could be good for bedtime reading!

Cheers for any help!

Mat
 
Sorry for your trouble. That does sound as though the logic board is dead, which is usually the case when you see a set of horrible symptoms like this. Buying and replacing a logic board is a non-trivial task. Even finding a logic board is fairly difficult, although if you do there's a good bet it'll be less than $1500.

You could try removing one or the other RAM chips that are in your machine and booting, to see if it's bad RAM.

My advice, based on years of tinkering with Macs: you bought a used Mac 2 1/2 years ago, and unfortunately this can often represent the full lifespan of a Mac. If it were me, I would not invest my time in trying to replace a logic board, and instead would invest in a new machine.

Good luck. Let us know what you do.
 
Cheers - yeah, end of it's life was what I was thinking too :(
I would normally be made up at getting a new mac, but 1) it is after Christmas so the credit card bills are-a-coming in and 2) I use (and am happy with) logic pro (6) and really don't want to have to pay $(AU)500 for an upgrade to UB
DAMMIT!
Still - it will be nice to run parallels on it!

As a postcript - I'm looking at either a MacBook or MacBook Pro - I'm just wondering if the MacBook will have the same (nay, better) performance than my G4 - that will do for me!

Right - off to trawl the various discussions on what's *better* than what! :rolleyes:
 
i talked a friend of mine who's a proffesional musician into switching to Mac, and he's a very happy man now. he's using logic and ableton live all the time on his macbook.
 
Looking through past eBay auctions, it looks like logic boards for your machine could be had for under $300 - the trouble is that it's a rare piece, and you may have to wait awhile. iFixit sells the part for $500, but they're out of stock currently. You can get the part for $600 here: http://www.powerbookmedic.com/xcart1/customer/product.php?productid=16948.

Another option you have is to sell your broken PowerBook - they actually go for a lot on eBay - then buy a new/old one. A broken 12", 1.33 GHz PB sold for $410. A replacement for your PowerBook can be had for under $700. If you do the math - that's a $290 repair.
 
hey, before you go to buy a macbook, dttservice.com offers logic board repairs from $250-495(us dollars) depending on speed. It is in the US, but i have heard good things. Good luck on your decision...
 
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