PB100 - Powers on, no boot - Halp?

[massiverobot]

This is a PB100 I got over the summer, never had one before.

Plugging it in and turning it on it chimes, I can see the screen backlight come on and the HD spin up.

Nothing is on the screen.

After about 5 seconds the HD spins down.

That is pretty much all it does at this point.

Anyone familiar with these know if this is something common? Or should I break it apart and see what is inside?

It's condition is pretty nice and clean, no major scratches or issues with the case.

 

[wilykat]

Have you tried the obvious? Check brightness and contrast, maybe it's trying to show a blinking ? icon?

 

[Ferrix97]

if the screen remains black, and adjusting contrast does nothing, than the capacitors soldered on the LCD panel are bad.

The if the hard drive spins down so quickly, it means that it cannot find its "location" sectors, I have 4 PB100, all with dead hard drivers, and two of them spin up, stay on for ten seconds and then die again

 

[Elfen]

Lets see; does the PB100 have a floppy drive on the side like most other PBs? Get a System Floppy Boot Disk for the PB100, I think System 6 will cover it; or a Norton Emergency Boot Disk (System 7) and see if it boots up at all. With Norton's E-Disk, you can check out if the drive is OK and repair any bad boot blocks and bad sectors the drive might have.

 

[uniserver]

Pb 100 has bad leaky caps on the mb. And in the screen too.

 

[massiverobot]

if the screen remains black, and adjusting contrast does nothing, than the capacitors soldered on the LCD panel are bad.

The if the hard drive spins down so quickly, it means that it cannot find its "location" sectors, I have 4 PB100, all with dead hard drivers, and two of them spin up, stay on for ten seconds and then die again

yep , this. Sigh.

Are the caps fixable on the LCD?

Caps caps caps caps... this is nuts.

Do caps go back on IIfx? I better pull mine from the attic and see what is going on with it.

 

[uniserver]

Yes,   The board and screen are re-cappable... the screen is a pain in the butt.  but i am use to it by now.

there is only a few caps with the IIfx most of them are solid chemistry.

 

[Elfen]

Do caps go back on IIfx? I better pull mine from the attic and see what is going on with it.

I'm fixing my IIfx as well. And I only found 2(!!) of those #@*&@#!! 47µf @ 16V leaky can caps; they are on the extreme right side of the board about 6 inches from the rear, the rest are solid state Tantalum Caps. Apple used Tantalum SMD/SMT caps, including those 47µf @ 16V, on the IIfx, but they are black, not yellow. Trag is sending me 2 of those black caps to fix those two leaky caps. You would need to check how many of those leaky can caps are on the board vs. how many SMD/SMT black or yellow caps Apple used on your board.

There are also 4 Axial Caps, but they seem OK on my IIfx.

I searched several of my boards, and it seems that where Apple did use solid SMD/SMT caps, they used the black ones. Out of many black caps, I only found 1 yellow cap in the entire collection and it was a tiny one in size.

Now, about that Powerbook 100...

 

[Paralel]

I think someone did a repair topic for PB1xx screens not too long ago, if my recall is correct.

 

[massiverobot]

I'm fixing my IIfx as well. And I only found 2(!!) of those #@*&@#!! 47µf @ 16V leaky can caps; they are on the extreme right side of the board about 6 inches from the rear, the rest are solid state Tantalum Caps. Apple used Tantalum SMD/SMT caps, including those 47µf @ 16V, on the IIfx, but they are black, not yellow. Trag is sending me 2 of those black caps to fix those two leaky caps. You would need to check how many of those leaky can caps are on the board vs. how many SMD/SMT black or yellow caps Apple used on your board.

Wait- I have 2 yellow side-ways mounted cap-looking things - both have a little bit of yellow power near the ends.

One is very big -- are these the caps on the IIFX? Let me find a pict:


 
 

 

[Elfen]

I have those same caps on my board, but they are OK. The little metal ones are the ones that leaked on mine.

 

[Juror22]

They are easy to replace on the IIFX, only a couple to fix and they have nice big pads - not like on the laptop LCD's at all!

I just got a PB165 that has almost the same issue as Massiverobot's - backlight, but no screen drawing (not a brightness/contrast issue).  On this one, the HD works to boot the machine (using the display adapter, shows the desktop on another monitor) so I am glad for that. I am looking forward to refurbishing it (caps, pram battery, hinges, mouse rollers - the works).