iBook G3 SE 466 MHz restoration

[mitchW]

I got myself an unknown condition iBook G3 Clamshell. It came without the power supply, but it powered on flawlessly with my PSU. It booted to 10.2.8 in a matter of minutes.

However, the keyboard was almost completely dead, only few keys were functioning. Removing it revealed that the laptop had some water spilled on sometime ago.

As these keyboards became much rarer than a few years ago, I decided to clean it with some household cleaners, instead of going straight for a new one. I had great luck before with limescale removers so I gave it a try.

I mixed a 10:1 mixture of water and limescale removal cleaner and left the keyboard in for 2-3 hours. Then I cleaned it again with some soap and left it to dry for a few days.

This revived the keyboard, and now all keys work!

Next, I upgraded the RAM, from the 128 MB to 576 MB. Battery is also dead, but I will replace the cells in the future.

So, now the laptop is almost done.

But I am missing a DVD-ROM bezel, and the peduncle of the apple logo on the top is missing.

If anyone has these two parts to spare, I would be happy to buy them.

 

[belgaonkar]

Those are the two most common missing parts

Have you tested the CD ROM? That plastic white part usually breaks off with the CD ROM cover which leads me to wonder if the drive actually works.

 

[mitchW]

Thanks.

I realise that the missing peduncle would be common on these iBooks. 2/5 iBooks that I owned in the past had this thing missing! About time for someone to start 3D printing them!

The DVD-ROM drive works perfectly, about as good as it was new. It passed my scratched CD and DVD read tests. Too bad that the bezel is missing, though. Perhaps another idea to 3D print?