PB190 acid attack victim

[td4dotnet]

The campus I work on is busy shutting down buildings to move to new shinier centres (me included). A sad day for some but not for me, I dug through all the various skips that housed dustry treasure and got a load of stuff including a Powerbook 190...

Much like the last unit I salvaged from the dump this one has suffered the same fate - a leaky MiMH battery has had its way with the board.

The unit does make the happy mac bong on startup but the only thing I get on screen is a vertical yellow line (the backlight does appear to start up). I can hear the HDD spin up but I have no idea how far along the boot sequence this is getting as there's nothing on-screen.

I have got another one of these babies in my workshop at home so I might be able to swap the boards? Any help on getting the copper sulphate off and ressurecting this would be warmly recieved.

Real horrowshow:

 

[bibilit]

Not that bad, my 5300 suffered of the same kind of spill and still worked afterwards, if you get the bong, the logic board is probably fine...problem with the LCD ?

 

[Elfen]

I would concur with Bibilit. The "Spill" only affects the power supply area of the 190, it looks fine from where. But you need to remove the board and check its back side and see if it spread to other areas. But usually this is a LDC or LDC connector or cable problem. Having it Bong and the hard drive rev up says that it works. It should be a relative easy clean up and fix.

While you are at it while cleaning that up, scrub some dry baking soda into the case to remove that battery spillage and dust it out. It will remove the acid from the spill and stop any further damage to the case.

 

[Ferrix97]

The black screen might be a capacitor issue on the LCD Panel assembly, the white line is a bad connection between the Driver IC and the panel itself

 

[td4dotnet]

Thanks for the replies guys, can someone suggest the best way to get the copper sulphate off the board? Should I try and scrub this stuff off or pick it off with something like a cocktail stick? 

I will check the caps visually, I didn't really dismantle the board, I know the leak has managed to get onto the bottom of it but I didn't fully remove the board to clean it yet.

 

[Elfen]

While you are at it while cleaning that up, scrub some dry baking soda into the case to remove that battery spillage and dust it out. It will remove the acid from the spill and stop any further damage to the case.

It has to be done while dry.

 

[Elfen]

Watch: 

There is also this liquid called CLR (Calcium/Lime/Rust) but there is a slight chance it could oxide the metal it contacts. Use a tiny bit to test it.

 

[td4dotnet]

Success! 

She lives again!

In the end I had to swap the screen, the battery backup, the hard disk and the trackpad with the spares I had in the workshop but I eventually hit on a combination that works.

I stripped the unit completely down and got rid of the remaining Copper Sulphate that was still encrusting the various surfaces. 

At one point the screen I was having trouble with did display the 'no bootable media found' screen (the one with the question mark floppy) but it only did it once and when I tested the screens on the bench that one was seemingly goosed. No matter what I tried I couldn't get the screen with the vertical yellow line to display anything again. One of the hard disks will bring up nothing but a blank backlit screen while the other one boots straight into the OS - even without the keyboard and trackpad attached. When I found a combination that worked I just combined the best of both units into one whole.

Here it is booted into 7.5.2, it seems to run quite happily:

You can read a more nicely formatted (with more pictures) version of this story on my blog 

 

[Elfen]

Great that you got it up and running!

 

[bibilit]

Congrats

 

[IPalindromeI]

7.5.2 is kinda buggy, so go for 7.5.5 or 7.6.1 - maybe even 8.1.

 

[IIfx]

I had no idea 7.5.2 could run on a 68k. I thought it was a specific release for the PCI PowerPC PowerMac's? 

It is indeed an unstable and glitchy OS...bought a CD for giggles and never used it since. 

I would go 7.5.1 due to the lack of memory. 7.6 is kind of fat for 8mb RAM.

 

[IPalindromeI]

8.1 will run on a 68k. 7.6.x requires an '020, and 8.x requires an '040 (or hacked up to run on '030)

edit: derp, wrong convo type. however, 7.5.3 can be downgraded to 7.5.2 on 68k/PPC if the update files are removed

 

[td4dotnet]

Hi Guys

I struggle with finding where to gain the install files from.

I have many systems that I think are capable of imaging some floppies with the media files but I don't know where one would go to achieve 7.5.5 or any other version for that matter.

Thanks for all the comments though, this morning I took apart the old battery pack and removed what was left of the cells. There was some sort of red crystals growing in there alongside all the copper sulphate on the outside so I scraped it all out and cleaned it down and then put the empty cell back into the Powerbook so it was aesthetically pleasing once again.

 

[IPalindromeI]

Right on the Apple FTP thing is 7.5.3 installer and the 7.5.5 update. You could do things like burn a CD and read it with an exrernal drive, use a Zip drive, mount the SCSI disk from Windows and use Basilisk to get it in, use the network...

 

[td4dotnet]

Apple FTP ok... I have no dongles to provide networking (although I do have a load of vintage PCMCIA nics for networking assuming I can find a suitably vintage driver..).

I do have a Zip drive I bought many years ago that I will read up on the application of, that seems most promising to me as I am unfamiliar with Basilisk.

Thanks for the pointers!

 

[Elfen]

Its easier to go for the Zip Drive option on the 190. If you have that PowerBook SCSI Cable, it should work nicely on System 7.5+.

 

[td4dotnet]

I believe it's a parallel attachment... I will check this out and get back to you all on this.

Where I live retro Apple equipment isn't that commonplace so if I need things like cables I usually have to end up searching the online auctions and paying through the nose.

 

[matax]

Hi there! I got a 190cs which doesn't boot. I think the problem is the leaky battery. I'm trying to take it apart to clean it, but the floppy drive is stuck, somebody got any advice?