iBook Clamshell Lime Power Issue

[Ajaxermd]

Lime Clamshell G3 is having power issues. I could only get it to boot intermittently and then it would shut off after a few minutes.

So I replaced the DC jack, which I understand is a common issue. Wow is this thing hard to take apart! Also put in a SSD while it was open.

However! Still having the same power issue.
Maybe 1 in 20 times it boots, but shuts off after a few minutes.
When I hit the power button the power light turns from green to orange.
Could it be the Yo-Yo power brick?

 

[MacUp72]

I would check again if diode 1 is shorted, I posted this in macrumors forum, a member had a short on the DC board because this aluminium foil slipped a bit and made contact with the diode.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I would check again if diode 1 is shorted, I posted this in macrumors forum, a member had a short on the DC board because this aluminium foil slipped a bit and made contact with the diode.

I've done this before. Let out visible smoke once too. On mine that killed the LED that indicates whether it's plugged in but the jack itself still works. It's all too easy to do on one of these. All the metal shielding can be trouble on these.

 

[davidg5678]

In the picture you posted, it doesn't look like the DC-in board is fully seated in its connector on the logic board. Did you eventually plug it in the rest of the way?

The issue could very well be the power brick as well. I once had a power brick with a mangled connector, and this was nearly impossible to plug in and get a reliable connection. (too loose) You should try testing with a known good power brick if you can. Several people on this forum have also reported that the electronics inside their Yo-Yo power bricks are starting to go bad, so it's possible that this is the source of your troubles.

If you are handy with a soldering iron, I would also try reflowing the solder joints on the DC-in board's barrel jack connector.

 

[imactheknife]

I have recapped my 8 ibook clamshells. The supercap leaks on these, so might want to take a look if its apart

 

[lazd]

I have recapped my 8 ibook clamshells. The supercap leaks on these, so might want to take a look if its apart

Howdy! I've done the super capacitor on a few iBook clamshells to ensure NVRAM is saved and avoid PMU issues, but I didn't realize those other 2 caps needed to be replaced. Have you seen leakage from them? What issues have you seen as a result?

I've got one SE here that just makes a faint "tick" sound from the speaker and sometimes the HD when you press power, but no chime no boot, despite whether it's powered from a power adapter or a battery.

Then, another SE that wakes up immediately after being put to sleep (but will sleep ONCE after a PMU reset before exhibiting the same behavior), doesn't recognize its internal RAM module, and when it comes back from sleep, brightness doesn't work as expected. I wonder if it's related to those caps?

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Then, another SE that wakes up immediately after being put to sleep (but will sleep ONCE after a PMU reset before exhibiting the same behavior), doesn't recognize its internal RAM module, and when it comes back from sleep, brightness doesn't work as expected. I wonder if it's related to those caps?

Weird - my blueberry non-SE 300MHz board does a lot of this too. It's had the supercap violently ripped out by a past owner, so I wondered if that might be related.
My blueberry board has the following problems:
- Will not stay in sleep, as you describe
- Does not see the soldered RAM, only the SDRAM slot RAM.
- Will chime but only display a black screen, and not boot on WARM boots. So, if I shut it down then try to start it again. If I unplug power for a minute then try again, it starts up.

And more recently, it's developed a weird issue with the hard drive where it will sound like power for the drive is cutting out intermittently, and it will of course not boot from it. Eventually if I try enough, it will act normally then boot from it. I don't know yet if it's a bad drive or the logic board but I have a bad feeling that it's the logic board given the nature of the problem.

I do think it's not just caps - these Clamshell boards seem to have some common problems with no known case. Another I've run into on two boards is that they'll not spin up any hard drive, power pins must just be dead. One came to me that way and the other developed the problem after a hard drive upgrade, I believe caused by a short somewhere (probably to the metal shielding) as I smelled magic smoke when it happened.

The problem is that we don't know yet what components are at fault for these sort of problems so we can't fix them. None of them seem to be very difficult fixes, probably just a chip that fails, or something else that can be repaired. Just takes someone with the troubleshooting skill, which I don't yet have.

 

[imactheknife]

Howdy! I've done the super capacitor on a few iBook clamshells to ensure NVRAM is saved and avoid PMU issues, but I didn't realize those other 2 caps needed to be replaced. Have you seen leakage from them? What issues have you seen as a result?

I've got one SE here that just makes a faint "tick" sound from the speaker and sometimes the HD when you press power, but no chime no boot, despite whether it's powered from a power adapter or a battery.

Then, another SE that wakes up immediately after being put to sleep (but will sleep ONCE after a PMU reset before exhibiting the same behavior), doesn't recognize its internal RAM module, and when it comes back from sleep, brightness doesn't work as expected. I wonder if it's related to those caps?

Other caps didn’t show signs of leaking but changed everything while in there. Used organic polymer