cmosless
Member
So I recently acquired three Powerbooks for $20 each, a 140 and two 150s, and all of them seem to have issues. So here's what's wrong with each:
Powerbook 140: the battery is totally dead, no corrosion, cosmetically in good condition. It will power on and I can hear the startup sound, followed by the hard drive whirring up (but no activity following it). If I insert a blank disk it will spit it out as if it's the wrong disk. The display will come on, but nothing is showing on the the display, nor does any fiddling with the contrast or brightness help. Pressing the interrupt button doesn't cause a crash. I can zap the PRAM with no issue. Resetting the power manager has no effect.
Am I right in assuming what needs to be done is to re-cap the display, then replace the hard drive? Or is there something else I can try?
Powerbook 150 1: the battery is dead, there is a small, subtle buildup of blue stuff on the negative terminal of the battery, the internal contacts look okay though. The unit, initially, was totally dead. Nothing seemed to work, I reset the power manager, tried pressing things, different power adapters (even though mine were known good), nothing seemed to bring it to life. I decided to keep it plugged in while I went to work on 150 #2 (I heard that keeping them plugged in for some time might help, even without the battery connected), and totally randomly, with no interaction, with the lid closed, about 30 minutes later the Powerbook randomly powered on to the chimes of death. The screen was black (with backlight on but displaying nothing), I pressed the reset key and nothing happened. And since then I haven't been able to get any sort of reaction out of it, except now it will occasionally make a slight electrical pop noise out of its speaker if I disconnect and reconnect the AC.
Not quite sure what I should do, should I leave it plugged in for a few days?
Powerbook 150 2: the battery had about 2-3v of charge in it, compared to the other batteries which were zero. The unit did nothing but occasionally make electric pop sounds when I disconnect/connect the AC adapter. I attempted resetting the power manager several times. One attempt, I was able to make out an incredibly distorted startup sound that abruptly ended. I decided to open this one up to take a look at the internals. Big mistake. The logic board looked visually okay (I did notice a chip bodged with some small green wire soldered to it, said wire was hot glued to the board.. strange..), it had a RAM expansion card (not sure if those are standard) as well. After reassembling the unit, I noticed the right hinge on the screen was loose. When I attempted to push it back into place (bad idea on my part), the hinge mount broke and the front bezel came loose. Now I can't properly close it as the display has practically fallen off the hinges. Still getting the same response out of it even after keeping it plugged in for some time.
Will probably have to repair the hinge mount somehow, but I'm still confused as to why this and the other 150 simply won't work.
Also, is the 150 susceptible to the same display capacitor issues as the 140? Is a 150 display compatible with a 140?
Any help to get any of these powerbooks into working condition would be appreciated.
EDIT: Just checked on Powerbook 150 #1 after having left it alone for about 2 hours on the charger, after a power manager reset it seems that pressing the reset button or the power button will cause a small "pop" noise to occur (electrical, from the speakers). Holding the reset button down will cause the sound to rapidly repeat. Don't know what this means, but I'm hoping it's good, having gone from being completely dead to making reproducible noises.
Powerbook 140: the battery is totally dead, no corrosion, cosmetically in good condition. It will power on and I can hear the startup sound, followed by the hard drive whirring up (but no activity following it). If I insert a blank disk it will spit it out as if it's the wrong disk. The display will come on, but nothing is showing on the the display, nor does any fiddling with the contrast or brightness help. Pressing the interrupt button doesn't cause a crash. I can zap the PRAM with no issue. Resetting the power manager has no effect.
Am I right in assuming what needs to be done is to re-cap the display, then replace the hard drive? Or is there something else I can try?
Powerbook 150 1: the battery is dead, there is a small, subtle buildup of blue stuff on the negative terminal of the battery, the internal contacts look okay though. The unit, initially, was totally dead. Nothing seemed to work, I reset the power manager, tried pressing things, different power adapters (even though mine were known good), nothing seemed to bring it to life. I decided to keep it plugged in while I went to work on 150 #2 (I heard that keeping them plugged in for some time might help, even without the battery connected), and totally randomly, with no interaction, with the lid closed, about 30 minutes later the Powerbook randomly powered on to the chimes of death. The screen was black (with backlight on but displaying nothing), I pressed the reset key and nothing happened. And since then I haven't been able to get any sort of reaction out of it, except now it will occasionally make a slight electrical pop noise out of its speaker if I disconnect and reconnect the AC.
Not quite sure what I should do, should I leave it plugged in for a few days?
Powerbook 150 2: the battery had about 2-3v of charge in it, compared to the other batteries which were zero. The unit did nothing but occasionally make electric pop sounds when I disconnect/connect the AC adapter. I attempted resetting the power manager several times. One attempt, I was able to make out an incredibly distorted startup sound that abruptly ended. I decided to open this one up to take a look at the internals. Big mistake. The logic board looked visually okay (I did notice a chip bodged with some small green wire soldered to it, said wire was hot glued to the board.. strange..), it had a RAM expansion card (not sure if those are standard) as well. After reassembling the unit, I noticed the right hinge on the screen was loose. When I attempted to push it back into place (bad idea on my part), the hinge mount broke and the front bezel came loose. Now I can't properly close it as the display has practically fallen off the hinges. Still getting the same response out of it even after keeping it plugged in for some time.
Will probably have to repair the hinge mount somehow, but I'm still confused as to why this and the other 150 simply won't work.
Also, is the 150 susceptible to the same display capacitor issues as the 140? Is a 150 display compatible with a 140?
Any help to get any of these powerbooks into working condition would be appreciated.
EDIT: Just checked on Powerbook 150 #1 after having left it alone for about 2 hours on the charger, after a power manager reset it seems that pressing the reset button or the power button will cause a small "pop" noise to occur (electrical, from the speakers). Holding the reset button down will cause the sound to rapidly repeat. Don't know what this means, but I'm hoping it's good, having gone from being completely dead to making reproducible noises.
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