Franklinstein
Well-known member
So, a few days ago, my PowerBook G4 started acting funny, not wanting to sleep, freezing on waking from sleep, etc. Then finally, it locked up during the boot sequence and never came back to life.
It doesn't chime when it turns on. The heat spreader eventually gets warm, occasionally the sleep light will blink once or twice and sometimes the hard drive and optical drive will power up, but more often than not almost nothing happens when power is applied, aside from a slight pop from the speakers and a light whistle/hiss from the right side of the logic board where the main power section lies.
I haven't really gone in-depth with probing anything yet, though I did let it sit for a few days, unplugged the PRAM battery, checked connectors, reset PRAM, swapped power adapters, reset PRAM again, and all the rest of the usual steps, and still no joy.
Since this thing was made around the era of the faulty capacitor fiasco, that may have something to do with it. However, there's only one electrolytic cap on here IIRC (it's a large aluminum polymer SMD), and the rest are tantalum or ceramic. The electrolytic isn't visibly bulgy or leaky or anything, either. There are, however, a fair number of inductors/transformers (they're marked as "L" on the circuit board, so I assume that's what they are). How often do those things go bad? Do they hiss/whistle?
I'm kind of peeved that the thing died. I just epoxied the hell out of the display and the rest of the case, and hole-punched some new feet for it, so it was as tough as nails and ready for action before it just up and quit. Plus, its 3:2 display was perfect for my camera. So I'd like to resurrect it if possible, preferably without buying a new logic board (since it was free).
It doesn't chime when it turns on. The heat spreader eventually gets warm, occasionally the sleep light will blink once or twice and sometimes the hard drive and optical drive will power up, but more often than not almost nothing happens when power is applied, aside from a slight pop from the speakers and a light whistle/hiss from the right side of the logic board where the main power section lies.
I haven't really gone in-depth with probing anything yet, though I did let it sit for a few days, unplugged the PRAM battery, checked connectors, reset PRAM, swapped power adapters, reset PRAM again, and all the rest of the usual steps, and still no joy.
Since this thing was made around the era of the faulty capacitor fiasco, that may have something to do with it. However, there's only one electrolytic cap on here IIRC (it's a large aluminum polymer SMD), and the rest are tantalum or ceramic. The electrolytic isn't visibly bulgy or leaky or anything, either. There are, however, a fair number of inductors/transformers (they're marked as "L" on the circuit board, so I assume that's what they are). How often do those things go bad? Do they hiss/whistle?
I'm kind of peeved that the thing died. I just epoxied the hell out of the display and the rest of the case, and hole-punched some new feet for it, so it was as tough as nails and ready for action before it just up and quit. Plus, its 3:2 display was perfect for my camera. So I'd like to resurrect it if possible, preferably without buying a new logic board (since it was free).
