PB 180 resurrection

[virusys]

Hey everyone, FIrst time poster here. :scrambled:

I was wondering if anyone would be able to point me in the right direction as to what I should do with my PowerBook 180. Back in high school, one of my friends sold it to me for the hefty sum of $1 (CAD), and everything seemed to be in good working condition except the hard drive was not recognized when I tried to install System 7. Afterwards, the sad little mac spent a great quantity of time in my parent's cellar in storage. Not that big a deal for one dollar, I thought.

Now, 4 years and 7 semesters of university later, I'm back at my parents place visiting for Thanksgiving; and I thought I would make another attempt at reviving this beast.

That being said, I'll take you through the various "repair" states that I've gone through to hopefully make it easy to give some sort of a diagnostic:

1) Removed everything

2) Put it all back together except for the top part containing the keyboard and screen. When I start the computer I hear some weird "static" noises, the floppy drive starting, and then a thin trail of smoke started rising from underneath the daughterboard.

3) Removed everything again to find the source of the smoke – found nothing.

4) Put everything back. Started the computer – I hear the floppy drive starting to work but then the computer shuts down immediately after.

5) Took apart the floppy drive (I have no idea why I did this)

6) Floppy drive no longer makes any noise when I start up the computer (lol)

7) Started the computer lots – I got a lot of weird things happening from the start up chime sounding like a Nine-Inch-Nails-esque distorted sound to a really, angry sine tone being played from the speaker until I unplugged the power

8) Finally got the regular startup chime, soon followed by the chimes of death (we're getting somewhere!)

9) Repositioned the RAM on top of the daughterboard

So after this last step, the startup chime is heard, the screen turns on, and after a split second of seeing the cursor the screen will go to a blank screen with some lines running across it. The speaker plays a low-frequency buzzing noise, and I no longer hear any activity from the inside of the computer. Also, the floppy drive doesn't seem to do anything ever since I took it apart.

I'm not giving up on this baby yet; and this seemed like an excellent resource for some advice. Can anyone direct me to links/threads where these kinds of issues arose? Or would anyone be able to give me some pointers as to what I should do next?

Thanks,

niv

 

[virusys]

Alright, so small update:

All I've really changed is I've put the battery in as well as the power cable (I only had the PB plugged into the wall without the battery up until now). I don't know if that makes a big difference, but now it will boot up until the "Looking for disk" icon is displayed. I have my System 7 Install disks ready, but when I put them in the computer just shuts down and I hear a faint high pitched whining sound.

When I reboot the computer the disk icon will display before immediately shutting down again.

Also, I've got that burning plastic smell again.. uhh.....

Still no activity from the floppy drive. I think my problem lies here?

I'm really wishing I didn't mess with it earlier...

 

[virusys]

Okayy... I guess this will be the final update lol

Basically everything is working fine, except I've found the source of the burning. One of the black boxes on the underside of the logic board actually melted off through the plastic frame!

Guess I know where the problem is now.

 

[beachycove]

Well done.

I had thought the machine was toast.

 

[LCGuy]

Okayy... I guess this will be the final update lol
Basically everything is working fine, except I've found the source of the burning. One of the black boxes on the underside of the logic board actually melted off through the plastic frame!

Guess I know where the problem is now.

That happened on my PB165c a few years ago, stunk out my room too. :-/

 

[virusys]

I took some pictures of the mess today if anyone's interested:

The logic board underside

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l146/virusys/IMG_3513.jpg

Where the blackbox was burnt off

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l146/virusys/IMG_3520.jpg

The black box

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l146/virusys/IMG_3521.jpg

Another shot of the black box burnt onto the bottom

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l146/virusys/IMG_3523.jpg

So yeah. I really wish I could find a schematic of the logic board so I could figure out what that little black box is, and stop feeling like such a noob amongst seasoned vintage mac aficionados .

As for the rest of the machine, everything else was seeming to work fine – except for the fact that it only seemed to work off of the power on the battery and not from the power supply. At this point I'm asking myself, is it worth it to invest in an entire new logic board? Or should I just look for a new (old) machine altogether?

 

[Osgeld]

is there any print left on "the black box" (probably a voltage regulator)

 

[virusys]

is there any print left on "the black box" (probably a voltage regulator)

unfortunately the print has been completely burnt off. However it does look exactly like the ones above it (see the 2nd picture), although there's no way to confirm that it is the same thing or not.

 

[Osgeld]

I cant find anything for those numbers (damn apple using noname china knockoffs) it appears to be a fet, but with what stats i dunno

might try abit harder when i get home from work

 

[virusys]

Thanks a lot man. Would the fix just be to solder on a new one?

That is if it is the part you think it is of course.

 

[Osgeld]

depends, you could solder a new one on, but if the original issue that fried it in the first place is still there, you will have just burned out another

first place id look is to make sure the power supply is putting out the correct voltage (and correct for the laptop)

 

[virusys]

Sounds like a solid plan. I've got everything packed up to head back to university, so I'll check it out later tonight when I get there.

 

[virusys]

Alright, so my power source is the Apple Low-Power AC Adapter; I couldn't find anything online about the requirements for the PB180 but here's the specs of the power source:

Input: AC 100-240V

50/60Hz 31-40VA

Output: DC 7.5V 2.0A

These are the same ratings for the battery charger as well. Is this the power source I'm supposed to use? Or should I just refrain from using the power source directly altogether and use battery power exclusively?

 

[JRL]

Apple Low-Power AC Adapter

Unfortunately, that's the PowerBook 150 AC adapter, which can't be used with your PowerBook 180 because that adapter can only provide enough juice for the PB 150.

The proper AC adpaters aren't that hard to find at all though.

 

[virusys]

Apple Low-Power AC Adapter

Unfortunately, that's the PowerBook 150 AC adapter, which can't be used with your PowerBook 180 because that adapter can only provide enough juice for the PB 150.

The proper AC adpaters aren't that hard to find at all though.

Alright. Would this be why that transistor melted?

Also, do you know what type of adapter I should pick up?

 

[JRL]

Maybe; I'm not too sure though.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-Powerbook-180-power-suppy_W0QQitemZ120480036416QQcmdZViewItemQQptZApple_Laptops?hash=item1c0d2b7640

http://cgi.ebay.com/car-cord-for-APPLE-PowerBook-140-180-series_W0QQitemZ110444838649QQcmdZViewItemQQptZApple_Laptops?hash=item19b7067ef9

The former is a wall adapter, the latter is a car adapter.

 

[virusys]

Thanks a lot for the links!

Out of curiosity, I decided to start up the computer off of battery power, and after a few tries I managed to get the machine to boot off of the System 7 install disk. When I tried to install, it didn't pick up a hard drive.

So basically now I'm back at square one

I removed the hard drive again and started rotating it in my hands, and I could hear the clicks made by the arm moving around; so this must not be the problem. However, upon closer inspection I noticed something that I missed before: one of the input pins has been dislodged and is hanging mid-way through the plastic casing. It also seems as if there is one input pin missing altogether. Intuitively, I'm thinking that if I solder the dislodged pin into place I'll be able to fix it that way, however the missing input pin presents a problem.

This mini-project seems to be presenting one small complication after another, but I'm not going to give up yet!

EDIT:

Haha, oh wow. It's actually a lot worse than I thought. The drive is supposed to be 40-pin, but 4 are unaccounted for and one seems to be trapped in the HDA cable. It would cost me a lot more $$$ to get the replacement parts than to find a second-hand machine altogether.

Oh well, I tried. Thanks for your help everyone! I'll be back if I need help with future projects!

 

[thinkdifferent]

Couldn't you simply buy a new Hard Disk? 80 MB can't be that expensive these days.

 

[JRL]

Couldn't you simply buy a new Hard Disk? 80 MB can't be that expensive these days.

PB SCSI hard drives are a little tricky to find.