⟐ Answered October 23, 2024 at 16:04 MST

I got this iBook G3 Clamshell from the local hackerspace in my city. It had the "vinegar syndrome" on the LCD and I took it apart to replace it.

However, I realized that, even with a bad LCD, I should still get a Mac chime when booting. This one doesn't do it.

A few facts:

1. Charging light turns on and gets orange when there's a battery plugged in.
2. Battery seems to be dead
3. I took the laptop apart so that I only have the logic board, DC-in, headphones plugged in so I can hear the chime (I was also testing with composite out plugged to a TV) and an HDD without its cover, so I can see whether it is spinning.

With the battery plugged in:

• Sometimes when I try to turn it on, I hear noise on the headphones but the HDD doesn't spin. I have to force it to shut down. Charging light turns orange after shut down, when HDD stops.
• Sometimes when I try to turn it on, the HDD spins just a little and I hear a noise on the headphones indicating that the laptop powered off
• Sometimes the HDD spins and keeps spinning. The mechanical head moves to the middle of the HDD as if it was trying to read something.

*

*

Without the battery plugged in, it's basically the same behavior, but the charging light never turns orange.

I also tried resetting the PRAM (cmd option P R), PMU (holding power, holding reset, holding control shift option).

Heck, I'm almost doing some kind of ritual like this to make it work lol.

I checked the super capacitor as mentioned in this video and it doesn't look leaky. There's nothing leaky or weird on the logic board btw.

Please help me.

⟐ Commented June 12, 2024 at 18:25 MST

TL;DR: My iBook G3 only displays white screen, previous owner says he turned it on for a while then screen turned white. Need help repairing it.

⟐ Commented March 15, 2024 at 10:49 MST

I can’t see if the computer powers on with the battery, because it has been dead for a very long time, and the computer won’t charge it.

Does anyone know what could be wrong with the computer?

⟐ Commented October 08, 2023 at 12:03 MST

But the thing is it came preloaded with software (OS9) and I wanted a clean install so I went to MacOS9Lives and downloaded their 9.2.2 universal iso

http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php...

It booted fine I managed to reformat the HDD and was installing OS9 and everything seemed alright… But then the screen started to flicker and the laptop died…

I restarted it but only got a blank screen… It's not black or white but a pale shade of blue and it won't show the boot selection screen neither show a blinking folder just blank…

CD still sounds like it's booting holding the C key but screen won't change - always that pale shade of blue…

Anyone has any hints on what could be wrong here…?

Mind you it was working just fine prior to trying to reinstall the system though.

I'll post a picture so what I described wont be as vague… Don't know how it can be backlight if the screen is lit up like I said but here's the picture:

Also I'm assuming a HDD failure wouldn't prevent it from showing the selection screen at boot and it would probably show the question mark folder and if it had faulty RAM it wouldn't even turn on right…?

I'm really hoping it's just something loose inside - fingers crossed!

It was a major pain to open it up even with a guide (sooo many screws and different bits!) but at least it’s clean and thermal pads replaced. And since I was ‘there’ I removed the logo cover so now the Apple in the back sort of glows :)

Sad thing is the display remains the same… at this stage I’m assuming it’s a faulty LCD so I’ll source one from a iBook snow 12” and go for the ‘high-res’ mod as well why not…

⟐ Answer accepted September 29, 2023 at 6:13 MST

⟐ Edited by author September 11, 2023 at 15:57 MST

⟐ Commented June 11, 2023 at 11:42 MST

I know that mac make sounds to inform that kind of problem is happening. But yhis i don´t know.

Thank´s!!!!

⟐ Commented February 25, 2023 at 22:25 MST

I replaced the LCD screen according to this nice instruction in https://ibookmod.livejournal.com/559.htm.... I used model number LTN121X1-L02 LCD screen from Aliexpress.

However, I got the screen attached and I guess this is normal. I should change the setting to see the proper display.

Then, I found this site but just pictures were shown with no explanation (attached).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/46722368@N...

Can you help how I can modify the setting to see the proper screen?

Thank you so much in advance.

⟐ Commented February 10, 2023 at 21:55 MST

However, as finding an image of 10.3 to reload back onto this “new to me” iBook will pretty much be a games machine (as well as for old applications), I’m torn. To quickly clean it up as best as I can within 15 minutes, I deleted the user accounts to quickly remove the student data (which I did not look at, as I believe the students who used it deserve the respect of knowing its new owner doesn’t know) for now, but I may look into auditing it for remote management. I know it has Sophos AV installed, but I doubt it has management capabilities.

While I will need to look for a 10.3 image, would I be better off wiping the HD out or trying to audit this iBook? I am already seeing signs of trouble as it has Apple Remote Desktop installed :(.

Well, the deed is done. OS9 is next.

⟐ Answer edited September 15, 2022 at 1:20 MST

⟐ Answer edited July 06, 2022 at 4:30 MST

⟐ Commented January 29, 2022 at 20:04 MST

So then the next thought process was that the corrosion was somehow causing a short on the motherboard but when I cleaned it off, other than a patch of corroded solder joints, the whole motherboard looked fine. And of course, that didn’t do anything, the screen still was white.

Item of note though, the hard drive will try to spin up twice before giving up

So right now I am really at a bit of a loss on what is wrong

⟐ Answer accepted July 25, 2021 at 11:07 MST

Am not an EE and fairly inexperienced with diagnosing power issues. I haven’t opened up the unit to inspect the DC-in board but I have tested the battery pins with the machine plugged in. Each battery pin will read between 0.3-0.6v so there’s clearly power getting through the machine but no fan spin.

I have a few different ideas from here but I’d like to know which one makes the most sense. I don’t think the DC-in board is bad if power is getting to other parts of the machine, but I think I should open the machine up to inspect for blown capacitors or other noticeable damage and check the voltage regardless. I’ve read various materials about the PRAM capacitor dying and preventing the machine from booting. I was also thinking it is possible the power button mechanism could be faulty. These machines should boot entirely off AC power, right? Please let me know if there’s anything I might be overlooking or something I can do to determine the no power fault on this board. Thanks!

⟐ Commented May 29, 2021 at 20:26 MST

⟐ Answered April 02, 2021 at 20:56 MST

Thought it may help.

Will the firewire duplicate some of the

USB functions, maybe faster.

Thank you, Leland

⟐ Answered December 04, 2020 at 10:52 MST

Thanks David

⟐ Commented October 16, 2020 at 6:24 MST