• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

Search results

  1. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    Unit continues to power up intermittently and for a few seconds. I've done some poking around with the multimeter on the battery (7.5V) and on the board when connected to the PSU. There's 7.8V on the charging terminals for the battery. The top side terminals on the barrel connector show 7.8V to...
  2. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    So I am not convinced it’s legit but it’s apparently a re-celled PB battery: https://www.power-supplier.co.uk/mobile-ie-laptop-battery/205/APPLE/Apple%20Powerbook%20150.htm Oddly it shows £31 on my laptop and €39 on my phone!
  3. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    Yeah I'm hoping it'll come back to life somehow but not holding my breath. £30 for a new battery is worth a punt...
  4. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    So this gets curiouser and curiouser! New PSU arrived today. The PB refuses to power up with any of the PSUs now. I left it unplugged with the battery out all day since I was out. I managed to get the PRAM battery removed very easily w/ some snips. No leakage, just some corrosion around the...
  5. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    Yeah I’ll give it a try (gently!) later on.
  6. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    No soldering iron 😱
  7. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    No I was holding off as I thought it needed desoldering. I’ll do that this evening.
  8. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    It doesn’t seem to like starting up without the battery - I will let it sit and charge for a bit and see how it goes later.
  9. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    Now this is just getting WEIRD... it's sort of alive again: I got a peak reading from the aftermarket PSU of 1.8A - so below the 2A the stock PSU provides and way below the alleged 3A @ 7.5V the PSU is rated for. I checked the stock PSU and, surprise, 2.1A. On a whim I plugged it in and guess...
  10. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    Thx for the info - oddly the 150 is now dead again after leaving it powered up overnight by accident. I've tried leaving it unplugged w/out battery, plugged in with battery, everything. Not so much as a peep. I'll see if my multimeter can measure current - or just get a new aftermarket PSU again.
  11. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    So someone on Reddit recommended an aftermarket PSU - BOOM! Working! I suspect the drive seizing may have done some damage to the OG PSU (given it was trying to pull a ton of current). Also, for anyone interested, a standard IDE to CF adapter from Amazon with a 2GB card works great.
  12. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    Yep I think I dodged a bullet so far.
  13. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    No, just with the multimeter hooked up. The odd thing is, the PB worked great with no issues at all right up to when the HD siezed. Could that have damaged the PSU at all by the amount of current it was trying to draw to spin up? (It's been 25+ years since I studied anything related to...
  14. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    Oops I got numbers jumbled. 7.8V.
  15. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    OK so I'm parking the HDD issue at the moment since really it's not the critical thing here! Seems lots of folk have this issue w/ the 150 (the chimes but no boot thing). I took a multimeter to the PSU, battery and PRAM battery after the unit sat on charge overnight. PSU: 7.2 or whatever it's...
  16. G

    PB150 hard drive dead; options and weird issue

    Hi all! I got a mint-condition PB150 some weeks ago and have been duly playing around with it since. I've had the fear in the back of my mind that the HD would give up the magic smoke and sure enough, that happened. Clicks on startup one morning and flickering screen (suggesting it was pulling...
  17. G

    WPA2 for PowerBooks/iBooks?

    My workaround would be to find an old airport base station of the same vintage or an equivalent non Apple AP. Lock it down as much as you can, MAC address filtering etc, and ideally put it on it’s own subnet and firewall the hell out of it. This is a bit overkill, you could also find a Mac...
  18. G

    PB145B serial connection woes!

    Aaaand it’s a moot point as now this is happening: Video time for a recap.
  19. G

    PB145B serial connection woes!

    Hello all! I'm having some weird and irritating issues with connecting my PowerBook 145B to my Raspberry Pi 400 (or indeed any other machine) using a serial link. I'm following the instructions here, but after MacPPP didn't work, I fell back to Zterm for troubleshooting. Basically, I can get a...
  20. G

    SE/30 to modern Mac via serial cable

    (Just realized today that I'm not using a null modem-wired cable, as far as I know. A null modem adapter arrives tomorrow so I will see if it makes a difference!)
Top