iBook G4 showing no signs of life, any suggestions?

J

Joey Link

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My roommate (a Blazer dancer, so you get extra cool points if you help fix the problem :)) has an iBook G4 A1133 that's showing no signs of life. It started having problems two nights ago, at first just randomly going into sleep mode. I was usually able to press the power button then log on, but after a few times of doing that the screen would go black once I logged in and the sleep light would flash again. I removed the battery a few times and that seemed to help, but now it won't do anything at all. The AC adapter light is green, battery says 4 dots when you press the external button (though it hasn't held a charge for more than 5 mins or so in at least a few months). I've tried doing all the keystrokes to reset the PMU and NVRAM but that didn't help at all. This thing is totally dead, no lights, no sounds, nothing. Any suggestions?
 
Try booting into Safe Boot mode by starting up while holding down the Shift key until you see the rotating cursor. If the machine starts up normally, you most likely have a software problem, and we can troubleshoot from there. (In fact, just booting up into Safe Boot mode once, and then restarting normally, may fix the problem. "fsck" is run in the background when booting in Safe Boot Mode, and some caches are cleared also.)
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417

If you can't boot into Safe Boot mode, it seems very likely that, since there is no PRAM battery in an iBook G4 (which would have been my first guess as to the problem if this was a desktop Mac), the problem is that your main battery is completely dead and needs to be replaced.
 
Randy thanks a lot for the suggestion. Unfortunately this didn't work either. So these laptops can't run without a battery? I admit it, I'm an Apple noob. I believe her mom also has the same laptop, so I'll have her try swapping the battery with hers and see if it boots up.
 
These laptops have no PRAM battery, so they can't boot if the battery is 100% dead. Have you given the new battery time to charge?

Did you try booting into Safe Mode to see if the problem is a software one?
 
I just spoke with her and she said she was able to use it for 3 hours without the battery in (on AC power) before it lost power and went into the state it's in now. We don't have a new battery, just the original one that won't hold a charge. Her mom has the same laptop so she could use her battery, if you think that might help. If we try another battery and that doesn't fix it, what do you think it could be?
 
Joey Link said:
I just spoke with her and she said she was able to use it for 3 hours without the battery in (on AC power) before it lost power and went into the state it's in now. We don't have a new battery, just the original one that won't hold a charge. Her mom has the same laptop so she could use her battery, if you think that might help. If we try another battery and that doesn't fix it, what do you think it could be?
Click to expand...

If it's available, you might as well try it.

Have you tried booting into Safe Boot as I suggested?
 
Ok, we'll try to get that battery soon.

I did try booting into Safe Mode as you suggested first but the iBook still played dead, same as everything else I try.
 
I might be late for this party, but what are the chances of a totally dead unit safe booting? Net a chance in my experience.

Try resetting the PMU:

If the computer is on, turn it off.

Reset the power manager by simultaneously pressing and then releasing Shift-Control-Option-Power on the keyboard. Do not press the fn (Function) key while using this combination of keystrokes.

Wait 5 seconds.

Press the Power button to restart the iBook computer.
 
Hey, welcome, you're not too late! :)

Unfortunately, that's one of the first things I've tried. I believe my roommate is at her mom's house today, so we'll see if the other battery changes anything.
 
Other than trying that, I've seen plenty of those ibooks with that same issue. Many times if resetting the PMU doesn't bring it back, it likely will turn out to be a bad logic board. I usually verify by pulling off the bottom case and bottom shield and many times you will see the "smoked" chip on the board where something got hot and exploded. Many of those ibooks had known issues with bad boards. It wouldn't hurt to call Apple and mention that. I've heard rare cases where they might fix it for free.
 
I think there really is a PRAM battery in these, but it is soldered to the logic board. The intel macbooks have replaceable PRAM battery, but the iBooks PRAM dies and you get to purchase a new logic. Rip off in my book, so I am looking at sourcing the button batteris used in the iBook and seeing if I get my narcoleptic iBook to come back from the dead. Same issue you are having, but no matter which charger of battery I use, it just goes into sleep mode.
 
Its very common the video chip goes out on the iBook's, does the computer seem to be on while the screen is black?
 
I tore into a bad board. Turns out the thing that serves as a PRAM holder is a known failure point capacitor. Apple store advised me to offer them $500 so they could "fix" the issue. Admitted the part is known bad but too bad for you. Genius said they usually fail in four years and I should purchase a macbook instead. Get Apple Care too. Macbook has many of the same issues
 
redghost said:
Genius said they usually fail in four years and I should purchase a macbook instead. Get Apple Care too. Macbook has many of the same issues
Click to expand...

I have yet to see Macbooks go though logic boards like the ibooks did. Yes the original macbooks had thermal issues, but since then it rare to see macbooks with bad logic boards.
 
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