TonyJay
Well-known member
I pulled out my stored Powerbook 145b, in what I thought was pristine condition. Hard drive was dead (did not even try to spin), unable to revive (IBM so no sticky rbubber bumpers to fix), so I installed a BlueSCSI which worked beautifully. Nice. What the heck, I am on a roll so I then replaced the batteries in the old case. Easy rebuild, all good and I thought I was finished. However checking out my piece of art, I noticed that a couple of the keys did not work (9, O, [ ) and nothing obvious to see in the keys. So I bought a used keyboard on eBay, installed it, but then other keys did not work. Hmm. Bad used keyboard? I thought the film connectors might have an issue, so I carefully and lightly wiped with some isopropyl alcohol, put everything back together, and now it is worse. A lot more keys don't work! I take apart again, re-seat the connectors, and reboot. And now, screen lights but is blank ! I know that it has booted as it chimes that it was shut down occurred with pulling the adapter plug. It did not change anything putting in my original 'faulty keyboard'. I can now disassemble this in my sleep I have done so many times LOL. A reset (2 buttons on back) did not help.
So ...
1. What do you think might have been the problem with keys not working? Bad keyboard and I replaced with another bad keyboard? The keyboard from eBay was pulled from 'working laptop' according to the description. I know I did not damage the PCB connectors as I was very very careful with them.
2. Did I damage the keyboard connector with alcohol wipe? I noticed some black stuff come off and the contacts were dark, not tinned or copper coloured. Conductive material of some sort that I should not have touched ?
3. What do you think the problem with the no image on the screen? I know bad caps in the display can give this, but it was working a few hours earlier and this would have to be a heck of a co-incidence no? Could I have fried the main board - but if so, I would not hear chimes right?
Any suggestions apart from perhaps taking up a different hobby LOL. i have had good luck restoring Atari 8 bits, but this little Apple laptop has me stumped and frustrated.
So ...
1. What do you think might have been the problem with keys not working? Bad keyboard and I replaced with another bad keyboard? The keyboard from eBay was pulled from 'working laptop' according to the description. I know I did not damage the PCB connectors as I was very very careful with them.
2. Did I damage the keyboard connector with alcohol wipe? I noticed some black stuff come off and the contacts were dark, not tinned or copper coloured. Conductive material of some sort that I should not have touched ?
3. What do you think the problem with the no image on the screen? I know bad caps in the display can give this, but it was working a few hours earlier and this would have to be a heck of a co-incidence no? Could I have fried the main board - but if so, I would not hear chimes right?
Any suggestions apart from perhaps taking up a different hobby LOL. i have had good luck restoring Atari 8 bits, but this little Apple laptop has me stumped and frustrated.