Hooper Parts Source?

[J English Smith]

I'm getting a Hooper (PB 3400c) in a couple of days - decided to try my hand at restoring one, since I've done a lot of work on 5300's. The one I bought (for $2 plus shipping) has a screen issue - black screen - may just be that the PRAM battery has died and the screen brightness button needs to be toggled. That's my guess/hope, as the seller said the screen cable had been replaced just a few years ago. Or, could be the backlight, or the screen could just be toast.

So...other than the 'usual (pricey) suspects'...anyone know of any caches of Hooper parts that are out there rotting away? Are 3400s notorious for screen issues? I had some lousy 5300c/cs screens but some are still going happily along...seems like the "c" screens were the more finicky ones.

If I can't get this to work with a little TLC and modest investment, I'll keep the carry bag and offer the unit up here for shipping only. So if anyone needs 3400 parts, drop me a note so I can contact you if this little restoration project fails miserably!

J

 

[Strimkind]

I have a PB 3400c with the same issue. The screen generally will not light up but when it does, the screen is all messed, then the unit crashes. The cable and everything in the unit is perfect. I suspect it is bad VRAM and it seems to be a common issue with this particular model.

I am thinking of trying to mash together a 190/5300 board with the case, screen and CDROM of the 3400...maybe it will work. Need a crap 5300 case with a good board to attempt this though.

 

[J English Smith]

Interesting...pooh, I hope it's not the VRAM but we shall see.

If it's a dead duck, I'll repost...get the parts somewhere useful. I expect this is a 180mhz. because it's only coming with a floppy drive, no CD.

Shoot, I had a 3rd 5300cs where the screen had gone dead (for the last time i was willing to jigger with) but I purged that in an office move about a year ago. I would have been happy to donate it to your efforts...

 

[J English Smith]

We've got similar mac collecting tastes, I see...I have 6 PB 1400s, 2 5300s, one Pismo 400/40/512k, 2 old PB 150s, a Classic II, the on life support 3400...and several PCs too, alas (though the new house Toshiba A505 laptop is pretty nice, I have to say)...

 

[Strimkind]

We've got similar mac collecting tastes, I see...I have 6 PB 1400s, 2 5300s, one Pismo 400/40/512k, 2 old PB 150s, a Classic II, the on life support 3400...and several PCs too, alas (though the new house Toshiba A505 laptop is pretty nice, I have to say)...

Seems like you stick to laptops like myself. I used to have more 100 series but I gave them away. I do have a busted Clamshell and the bottom of a 1400cs with an unknown condition MB in addition to what is above. Eventually I would like to have a working Clamshell and a G4 of some kind (cube or laptop). We also have a 3 year old Toshiba laptop around and, for a PC, it is a good machine.

Good luck with that 3400. Hope it works better for you than mine has for me. If not, maybe use a 5300 and have some fun. Apparently they have the on board support for a CD ROM.

 

[J English Smith]

Got the 3400c unit last night - it is in quite nice condition for its age and did have a CD drive as well as floppy drive. I think it is a 180mhz early machine. 64 mb ram card in place. I would like to try and get this running again.

Popped the keyboard and reset the ribbon cable in the connector for the video. No change, still a black screen. Appears not to be the backlight, I see nothing on the screen when I look closely and use a LED flash to check.

This afternoon, I am going to hook it up to a Mac monitor at work and see if I get anything from the monitor port.

I get chime, pause, hard drive normal sounds (sounds a bit tired but oh well, it should be tired) and do get sounds when I try some keyboard commands.

What I need to ultimately figure out is whether it's just the need for a new screen and cable, or if it's a motherboard issue. Any advice from PB experts?

I'd like to get her going. If not, I will sell for parts. Everything is in quite nice shape. It's got a broken ports door as is normal, given that piece of lousy design.

 

[J English Smith]

Also - Are there any good repair services people can recommend for a 3400, other than Wegener Media?

 

[MattB]

I ordered a new keyboard for my Kanga from powerbookguy.com. They seem to have a pretty good inventory of Kanga/3400 parts.