Pismo hangs as soon as a drive is inserted in the media bay

[bano]

Hi everyone,
long time lurker, first post here.

I've recently found a fairly cheap Pismo in nice working conditions: felt in love with the machine, it's really a nice piece of hardware.

When I got it, the dvd drive had no issue seemingly - I installed Panther from an original cd without any hiccup.
Some days ago it started acting weirdly: the Pismo froze a couple of times during boot, then after some hours it froze again just as I inserted a cd in the drive, then at reboot started hanging while looking for the boot drive.

After some fiddling, I removed the drive module from the media bay, and the issue was gone. As soon as I reinserted the optical drive, the computer was frozen again.
To sum up, currently:
- If there's nothing (or a battery) in the media bay, the powerbook works just fine
- As I put a drive in the media bay, the computer after a few seconds hangs, including the mouse cursor - as soon as I remove the drive the cursor moves again (but the computer is still unresponsive)
- At boot, if there's a drive in the media bay, the computer hangs while looking for the boot drive; if I boot with the option key pressed, I get to the boot selection screen, but it freezes as soon as it seeks the dvd drive
- Also if I drop in open firmware, it hangs as soon as I try to access the dvd drive

I already tried all the catch-all suggestions (clear pram, clear nvram, remove pram battery, etc.). I also tried booting without hdd (it behaves the same, no surprise since the drives are on different ata buses).
Interestingly, I did also a test removing the dvd drive unit from the media bay drive enclosure, leaving just the little (passive) interface pcb: when I insert the module it just behaves the same, even if there's no actual dvd drive connected.
Looks like the issue is triggered as soon as the media bay is enabled, so from my understanding there should be something wrong on the logic board, possibly related to the i/o controller.

Now... after the utterly long post above (sorry), is there anyone that has faced the same issue?
Is there any known fault related to the Pismo media bay? I ask that 'cause I found a couple of old posts on the Apple forums (this and this) that describe the very same behaviour, but found no other mention of it on the whole interweb (68kmla included).

Still had no time to fully disassemble it and take a look at the logic board, even if I don't really expect to find any visible issue - if you have any hint, idea or possible solution, is definitely welcome.

Thanks in advance!
Kind regards,
Gabriele

 

[MacUp72]

was the CD drive maybe changed to a different, newer one?
Because Mac is quite picky about it's boot sequence, normally the CD drives are set a master internally.
If a CD drive was replaced this has to be considered, this can cause all kinds of strange behaviour.
As a test, can you change the harddrive to a another one, do a fresh install, maybe the problems go away.

 

[kkritsilas]

As another suggestion: can you try running a hard disk test on the hard drive with the optical drive out of the system? Just trying to establish that it is not a hard drive or software related issue.

I don't know that this is a motherboard issue, or possibly the interface PCB. Again, trying to eliminate possibilities. It is too bad you don't have access to a known good CD/DVD (or even a Zip Drive) for your Pismo, as putting that into the system will prove whether it has something to do with the logic board or the optical drive itself.

 

[MacUp72]

The Pismos original DVD drives were known as problematic even when only a few years old back then.
.. also in my Pismo 400, it has some issues reading from burnt CDs.
do some testing without the DVD drive, as kkristsilas said, eliminate possibillities.

 

[kkritsilas]

Another thought occurred after I wrote up my previous post.

What amount of memory is installed in the Pismo? Is it one memory module or two? What speed are the memory modules? Under 9.2.2, you should be able to run "System Report" and get that information. You may, if the system will
will boot with the DVD in place, want to try running System Report and see what it shows for the DVD drive, if anything.

 

[bano]

Hi! Thanks for the suggestions.

Yes, it's the original DVD-ROM drive, and unfortunately it's the only drive for the media bay I have.
I already tried replacing the hard drive, but lacking the optical drive (even a firewire one) I've been unable to do a fresh reinstall; I just copied the 9.2.2 install that was on the old drive to the new one. Since the computer is freezing before loading any OS I'm a bit skeptical about it being an installation issue, but I'll surely do an hard disk test.

The Pismo has 192MB of RAM, with a 64MB and a 128MB SO-DIMM. I'm not sure if both came from the factory, but both are PC100. I tried swapping them, no difference.

I'll try an hard drive test, and hopefully a fresh network install of Panther, and will let you know.

Thanks!
Kind regards,
Gabriele

 

[Byrd]

Is there any physical damage on the media bay connector? I’d suspect the DVD drive is cactus you can find replacements easily enough using donor optical drives from x86 laptops from the same era.

 

[bano]

Is there any physical damage on the media bay connector? I’d suspect the DVD drive is cactus you can find replacements easily enough using donor optical drives from x86 laptops from the same era.

Nope, at least none I can see: both the connector on the motherboard and the connector on the module looks fine.
I checked my parts bin and found only a couple of SATA slimline DVD drives, so I'm unable to test a replacement atm: anyway as I wrote it behaves the same also if I remove the DVD drive altogether from the enclosure, so looks like the drive is not the culprit.

I'll try an hard drive test, and hopefully a fresh network install of Panther, and will let you know.

Finally, after a bit of hassle, I've been able to do a fresh install of Panther via network. Also ran an HDD test (no issue found).

Now, from OS X the behaviour is a bit different: when I insert the drive in the bay, the computer hangs (again, mouse pointer included), but as soon as I remove it the computer is still alive.
Not only the OS doesn't crash (unlike OS 9), but doesn't seem to record any event in any of the system logs. Looks like the CPU is simply not executing any code while the drive is in the bay... and comes back to normal operation as soon as the drive is out.
Not sure how that's possible, though (maybe the CPU is receiving a constant stream of NMIs for.. reasons?) - if someone happens to have any idea of some other test I can do in OS X, please let me know.

Thanks!
Kind regards,
Gabriele

 

[bano]

Just a quick update: I've been able to get my hands on another Pismo, unfortunately swapping the drives makes no difference.
The sick Pismo hangs also with the other drive, and the working Pismo accepts both without any issue.
I'll try to take apart the laptop and check the logic board for any visible sign of damage.

Kind regards,
Gabriele

 

[MacUp72]

when swapping the DVD drives makes no difference, try swapping the hdds..if the first pismo then has no problems with the hdd and the dvd it is a IDE conflict. do you have second Mac ? you could install the original install CD via Firewire mode .

 

[bano]

Hi MacUp72,
thanks for your reply. Swapped the HDDs - no joy, the sick Pismo behaves the same also with the HDD from the working one.
If I understand correctly, the HDD and the media bay are on two different, separated ATA buses - the former is on the ATA100 bus from a dedicated controller chip, while the media bay is on the ATA66 bus derived from the I/O controller (I think it's named KeyLargo).

I've some other machines I can use to install the original CDs, I'll give it a try - as I wrote, I've already installed Panther from scratch via netboot/netinstall, but another test with the original set of CDs won't hurt.

Kind regards,
Gabriele

 

[Romko23]

Hello MacUP72, So when you stated you got another Pismo was that too giving the same issues ? Sounds like there is a conflict somewhere with the CD drive.. Make sure the ribbon cable is not jarred or showing signs of ripping, as this can cause issues too. From what you are describing it does not sound like a logic board issue, but probably a connection issue with the drive and cable. Regarding hard drives, did you try an SSD to see if that would resolve the issue? Sounds to me its a bad cd drive or the connector is bad from the logic board - try to replace that and see if it works.

Regards,
Roman

 

[bano]

Cheers,

Hello MacUP72, So when you stated you got another Pismo was that too giving the same issues ? Sounds like there is a conflict somewhere with the CD drive.. Make sure the ribbon cable is not jarred or showing signs of ripping, as this can cause issues too. From what you are describing it does not sound like a logic board issue, but probably a connection issue with the drive and cable. Regarding hard drives, did you try an SSD to see if that would resolve the issue? Sounds to me its a bad cd drive or the connector is bad from the logic board - try to replace that and see if it works.

The second Pismo is not giving me the same issues, with neither drive, thus the drive is not the culprit. Tried with an SSD too, no difference.
And well no, there's no ribbon cable, the media bay module connects directly to the logic board - both the connector on the logic board and the media bay looks fine, but I shall probably take apart the laptop in order to better inspect the connector and the surrounding area on the logic board.

I've some other machines I can use to install the original CDs, I'll give it a try - as I wrote, I've already installed Panther from scratch via netboot/netinstall, but another test with the original set of CDs won't hurt.

Aaaaaand... nope even after reinstalling everything from scratch from the original CDs (in target mode) it still behaves the same.

Kind regards,
Gabriele

 

[Romko23]

Hi, sorry I was away for awhile. Just getting back to reading your response - sounds like a logic board issue then if you tried SSD and that did not work. Could also be a broken connector somewhere.

 

[bano]

Hi, sorry I was away for awhile. Just getting back to reading your response - sounds like a logic board issue then if you tried SSD and that did not work. Could also be a broken connector somewhere.

Yes, that was my fear - I was hoping being it somewhat a known issue, but apparently that's not the case. I'll try to take apart the Pismo and take a look at the motherboard and the connector.

Thanks.
Kind regards,
Gabriele