How a $70 Conquest Became A Free Conquest

[Concorde1993]

Yesterday evening I went out to go, and pick up an upgraded "Wallstreet" Powerbook G3 (it had a 500MHz Sonnet Crescendo G4 board installed). The unit was being advertised by the seller on Kijiji in "fine working condition," although that did not turn out to be the case upon attempting to boot the unit.

To make a long story short, the end result was the seller decided to give the computer, in addition to its accessories, for free. In his ad, he had originally asked for $75 (which he claimed was already reduced). I was later successful in knocking down the price by $5.

I documented this "wacky" conquest in a 14 minute Youtube video (

). From 0:00 to 8:12, I discuss what came included with the unit (it was a fairly decent package), and how it was ultimately given to me for free. The other half of the video is dedicated to explaining what the issues are with the unit (basically, it refuses to boot from the hard drive, also upgraded from 8GB to 20GB. The screen hinge is loose, and it shuts itself off after a couple of minutes. Also, the green indicator light does not remain lit when starting up the unit).
Enjoy, and as always, any help would be greatly appreciated in getting this unit up, and running.

 

[bibilit]

Nice conquest, the Wallstreet is a nice powerbook.

 

[theos911]

I recently traded JDW my spare working G3 300 for his G4 500. So, I have the same upgrade. I will warn you, it runs VERY hot.

Intermittent boot issue:

Check PRAM. Mine is dead as a doornail, with no issues (except losing time) and I assume they work at full power. Yours may be in a middle state. Try removing it.

Not booting from CD:

Mine also came (back in June) with a dead DVD drive. I purchased a CD drive from Tonyzzz on eBay and it has worked excellently since.

 

[Concorde1993]

Thanks for the tips, Ted. The unit is currently disassembled, since I wanted to figure out what was wrong with the screen hinge. This pic reveals all:

Are replacement parts available for that piece? Or am I better off replacing the entire LCD screen?

I also have included a pic of the Sonnet Crescendo G4 upgrade board (w. 256MB of RAM), and of the IBM Travelstar 20GB (which I'm presuming to be dead since the computer refuses to boot from it; more testing required of course at this point).

 

[applefreak]

"Wallstreet" Powerbook G3 didn't have a jojo power adapter

 

[insaneboy]

PS on the wallstreet was recalled and apple replaced it with a yoyo.

 

[Concorde1993]

apple replaced it with a yoyo.

Confirmed, although that doesn't help me at all with getting this machine running again.

 

[insaneboy]

true. I had a wallstreet 292MHz/14" it had all sorts of power up issues. Going to OSX added backlight issues as well(it worked fine with OS9). The worst powerbook I've ever owned, finally sold it for parts when the backlight failed completely.

been long enough I forget how I worked around the problems...

 

[mcdermd]

The second-gen Wallstreet PDQ had a yoyo.

 

[Byrd]

Yoyo power adapters = worst adapters Apple ever made, every one I've come across (about six all up) has died, or arcs when you plug it in. Avoid

 

[mcdermd]

I just hate that they have this great cord winder for one end then the other end just gets left out all floppy. Who made that call?

 

[Concorde1993]

Just a small update:

I returned home after work on Friday, and I swapped the 20GB IBM drive with my 40GB Hitachi drive from my long-deceased iBook G4. Despite this change, the Powerbook (now Halfbook, since the LCD, and keyboard have been removed for the time being) still refuses to boot directly from the HD. I end up getting this:





As a result, I tried booting from one of the OS 9 discs, and the Halfbook managed to get to the main desktop.

To my surprise, the HD icon also appeared on the desktop, and I was able to browse the files that were on it for about 30 seconds, or so before the system would hang (I haven't quite figured out why it is doing this).

I'm now thinking that either the logic board, or that stupid yo-yo adapter is at fault.

Thoughts?

 

[TheIanMan85]

Hmm so that's two drives that it refused to boot from, right? And it sounds like the 40 GB was fine last time it was used. Have you tried another ATA cable? If not then I might start to suspect the ATA controller on the board. I'd test the HD in another machine to see if it can boot, read, write etc fine there.

Hope this helps...

 

[Concorde1993]

Hmm so that's two drives that it refused to boot from, right?

That's correct.

Have you tried another ATA cable?

These PBs don't use ATA cables. Instead, there is an ATA card adapter that mounts from the back of the HD, and connects directly to the board.

I'd test the HD in another machine to see if it can boot, read, write etc fine there.

Good idea. I haven't attempted that yet, but I'll give it a try.

 

[TheIanMan85]

Meh, I should have looked at the manual on that one before suggesting the cable. Ignore that one. If I had to guess that 40 GB drive will work in another machine. But that's only a guess since it's odd both didn't work. Curious to know the results. Otherwise my logic says if it isn't the drive it's what it connects to. I've been up way too late to offer anything profound...about to go to bed.

PM about to be sent for one other item that may help.

 

[jruschme]

The fact that the drive will can be seen from the OS 9 installer makes me question a problem with the drive connector.

I've never had an iBook G4... can they boot Classic? More to the point, what would be the behavior if the Mac OS ( drivers were not installed on the disk?

Personally, I'd be starting to look at borrowing or buying a CPU card, just to rule out issues with the G4 and memory.

 

[Concorde1993]

I've never had an iBook G4... can they boot Classic?

Yes, they can dual boot into Classic. When I had my G4, I was running both Panther (later upgraded to Tiger), and 9.2.2.

The 40GB drive has not been erased, or tampered with since the logic board failed on my G4 in 2008. So all of the drivers required to dual boot into the Classic environment is still very much present on that HD.

But that's only a guess since it's odd both didn't work.

The weird thing about this unit is the green indicator power lamp does not remain lit when the computer boots, and on a cold start (i.e., the computer has been powered down for a few hours), I hear the startup bong, but no activity from either the HD or the CD drive occurs until after about a minute.

I'm not convinced that the fault lies with these components, but rather, as you said, what they connect to.

In regards to the PM you sent me, I'm not sure how useful the Apple Service manual will be, but I guess there's no harm in giving it a try. I'll send you my e-mail address shortly.

 

[TheIanMan85]

I'm not convinced either, but if nothing else it's nice to have. The power adapter is a bit odd. Is the ring around the plug starting to separate at the seam? I only ask because I've had those die that way, but the ones on my 12" PowerBook G4 were worse. They'd always intermittently work before they died. Just digging into my experiences there.

Let's see what the other 68kMLA members have to say. Cause you know there's more collective Apple knowledge here then every Genius Bar in the world...

 

[Concorde1993]

Is the ring around the plug starting to separate at the seam?

Upon inspecting the power adapter, I can verify that the ring around the plug shows no indication of separating. I have attached a pic of it below:

Cause you know there's more collective Apple knowledge here then every Genius Bar in the world...

I've never doubted the knowledge of the members on this forum, and I'm sure they'll be able to provide some more insight as the days progress.

Sadly, Apple couldn't give a rats ass about the existence of this Wallstreet (and neither would any other manufacturer whose product is well passed their life cycle), so bringing it in to the Genius Bar would be an utter waste of time.

Btw, thanks for forwarding the Apple Service manual. I'll check it out, and see what good I can make from it.