iBook Clamshell - Bongs, but no Happy/Sad Mac?

[rjkucia]

Hi all, I have an iBook G3 Clamshell Tangerine that I just took apart and put back together with an SE (366MHz) logic board and an SSD. When I put it all back together, I get the boot chime just fine, but instead of seeing a Happy Mac (or, the ? Folder, since the drive is empty), I just see the blank screen that it usually appears with. I've tried holding Option to get a boot menu, or booting in to Open Firmware. but nothing seems to work. When I put a bootable CD into the drive, it spins up as if it's trying to boot from it, but nothing appears on the screen. All parts were working separately before I rebuilt it.

Any ideas what it could be? It seems unusual that I get the boot chime but nothing works after that, I'm not sure what that usually means. Thanks!

 

[Byrd]

Is the SSD new, what did you go with? Have you pulled the third-party RAM and Airport card as a quick test?

 

[davidg5678]

Is the display's video connector fully seated? If only the backlight were plugged in, you'd see a blank white screen, but nothing more.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

is the CD you're trying to boot a burned disc or official install media? iBook CD drives can be hit or miss on booting burned CD-ROMs.

 

[rjkucia]

Is the SSD new, what did you go with? Have you pulled the third-party RAM and Airport card as a quick test?

It's actually an old SSD, but it (and the adapter) seemed to work & format fine with my Intel Mac. I just formatted it as Apple Partition Map + an empty HFS+ partition. I'll try the RAM and Airport next.

Is the display's video connector fully seated? If only the backlight were plugged in, you'd see a blank white screen, but nothing more.

I can try checking that, but I wouldn't say it's a blank white screen - it's more like the standard Mac boot background, like what you'd see right before the Happy Mac displays.

On that note though - I know there's a whole thing about different manufacturers of iBook displays, but I don't think that should be an issue here because I believe the non-FW models all used the same manufacturer? I also believe the issue is on the other side of the cable, where they use different pinouts to actually connect to the LCD, but the same connector to the logic board. If any of that is incorrect though, that might be the issue.

is the CD you're trying to boot a burned disc or official install media? iBook CD drives can be hit or miss on booting burned CD-ROMs.

It's a burned disc, but I used the same disc to install OS 9 on the Mac prior to the surgery. I would also expect to at least see the ? Folder, and would expect would be able to boot in to Open Firmware even if the CD was the issue, though.

 

[davidg5678]

If you unplug both the SSD and the CD-ROM drive, you should still expect to see a blinking system folder with a question mark. If this doesn't show up, something else must be wrong with the iBook.

If Open Firmware isn't loading, this seems like it may be a more significant issue than just the wrong boot device.

 

[rjkucia]

Okay well I tried taking out the RAM and Airport card, and no change. Except… I left it alone for longer and eventually the disc stopped spinning and I got a “squeak” sound from the speaker. Clicking the volume up/down buttons also made this noise. So, it seems it actually booted from the CD, the monitor just isn’t showing anything! I’m guessing I just seated the display cable incorrectly.

 

[rjkucia]

…yep, that was it! Thanks everyone! It feels silly but ya’ll definitely saved me a ton of time here.

 

[Byrd]

Yay! What was the issue?

 

[rjkucia]

Whoops, sorry, meant to quote - it was the display cable!