Possibly Broken Pismo

[Dan 7.1]

Well i was cleaning up in the back room and noticed this lowly G3 powerbook sitting on a shelf. I asked my boss what was up with it, and he said it had a bad mobo.

Fortunately, it has a flawless keyboard and a perfect display, both of which i could use as parts for my 500MHz Pismo, so i scooped it up. I will try and get around to testing it out tomorrow, along with some pics (although there really isn't anything too exciting about it).

 

[Byrd]

Good chance it's just the PRAM battery - pop the keyboard, disconnect battery - power on - hopeful happiness

JB

 

[wood_e]

Yeah if you can get that humming I know there's some people that will pay top dollar for a nice Pismo

 

[Dan 7.1]

its lacking a hard drive and has nothing in the expansion bay, which is kind of a bummer, but it appears to be in otherwise top shape. it even has some RAM installed, but i haven't taken the cage off to see what capacity, etc.

i've got a paper to write and a few other odd chores, but later this afternoon i will see what i can do about powering it up.

 

[Dan 7.1]

OK well i know this is basically bringing a dead topic back to life, but I've finally gotten around to checking out the Pismo...sorta.

i was actually able to purchase a copy of Office 2001 from my work so i decided to dig out my known-working 500MHz Pismo and get it running again (which is actually what i'm posting this from right now). I also got out my 400MHz Lombard and got it setup with a 2GB drive i got from a broken laptop at work.

However, i do not have high hopes for teh 400mhz pismo. i spent all weekend getting the lombard, the pismo, and a snow imac setup (i sold the snow) that i haven't had a chance to really sit down and try and diagnose the problem, but from what i can tell thus far it DOES get power, and it recognizes when the power button is pressed. the keyboard gets power, as evidenced by the fact that once the power button is pressed i can hit the Caps Lock key and the light will come on, and it will go off if i hit it again. the HD does not spin up and there are no other indications of power anywhere in the system.

I will see what i can do about it tomorrow.

On another note, i am LOVING this Pismo. i'm actually going to sell my MBP in April to make ready for an amazing tax-free-day deal my boss has setup for me, so in the meantime i'm going to be using this guy alot. OS9 on 512MB RAM and a 500MHz G3 is just blazing lol. i'm having so smuch geeky fun with this

 

[Temetka]

Pismo's are great machines.

Try reseating the CPU, and heck, everything else in the machine.

I would also do a PMU and PRAM reset as well.

Try a known working HD.

 

[Dan 7.1]

yeah in the limited time i had available to mess with it i did reseat the CPU and RAM, and put in a known-good drive, the original 12GB from the working Pismo.

I'll get around to doing the other diagnostics tomorrow, as of now i'm being supremely bored by Casino Royale.

 

[Temetka]

It's a crap movie anyway....

 

[Dan 7.1]

Yes it is.

Well unfortunately i did not get a chance to have a look at the 400 Pismo, and i'm back in knoxville and the pismo is safely stored at my parent's house. i'll check up on it the next time i'm around them parts.

I did, however, manage to liberate a Toshiba Satellite T1950CT. i tried to use the power adapter that came with my T1900C, but the machine fails to turn on. I don't know if it requires more power than the power adapter puts out or if its actually bad, again i did not have time to actually diagnose anything.

check out a pic of it here: click. Forgive the relative poor quality, my powershot G6 was in knoxville and that laptop is in franklin so i had to use my dad's little SD1000.

 

[Temetka]

You have a G6?

Schweet, to say the least.

 

[Dan 7.1]

lol, Powershot G6

i'm also finding it difficult to get any specs on that little Toshiba. every google search comes up with a million websites selling batteries and nothing else...