Powerbook 190 problems

[spaceinvader12]

Hi everyone, I'm new to these forums and have pretty recently gotten into vintage computing this past year. I've got gotten a Powerbook 190 for free but it's rather quickly developed some issues that I could use some help diagnosing.

When I first got it, it booted and was functionally working. It has 52MB ram (thought that seemed oddly high) and the original hard drive. The charger was aftermarket but the correct voltage and amperage. the physical shape was similarly odd. It is missing two bottom screws for the case and all in all it's in pretty bad shape. I played around with it a bit but the trackpad was acting up (mouse flickering and whenever I moved it it'd move back to the center of the screen whenever I let go) so I put it up for the night.

Now, today, it won't boot up at all. Charge light is on, but the power button does nothing at all. Ive tried pressing it, holding it, and various methods of powering it on with/without the battery/ac adapter. Nothing's worked and I'd love to put some more time into this machine. I've got access to quite a lot of electronics repair equipment at a friends house and I'm not afraid to pull it apart. What can I do to get it booting again? If pictures of anything would help I can take and attach them.

 

[MJ313]

Have you looked into the battery bay to make sure it hasn't had a battery leak it's guts all over?  Just your comment about the trackpad acting funky gave me a feeling maybe something sinister happened in that general vicinity. Well, that and the fact it doesn't boot and the power board is right around there as well.

 

[spaceinvader12]

Have you looked into the battery bay to make sure it hasn't had a battery leak it's guts all over?  Just your comment about the trackpad acting funky gave me a feeling maybe something sinister happened in that general vicinity. Well, that and the fact it doesn't boot and the power board is right around there as well.

Just had a peek in there. There was a large splotch of green crystallized looking stuff on the metal right around the trackpad and the battery contacts themselvse were pretty nasty. It cleaned off ok (stupid me forgot to photograph it) but I'm pretty sure the battery did leak a fair bit. Is the computer toast or is it possibly fixable? It's only my second vintage mac (have a fully working SE) and I'd hate to have to toss this machine. Collecting things is slow for me because I'm a lot younger than most and am on a very small budget for this kind of thing.

I also noticed there's a very slight "pop" sort of noise a few seconds after you connect the charger. Is this a bad sign? Thanks for all your help

 

[MJ313]

Well, if it just clicks and nothing else happens, I haven't had any *good* luck with that. Hopefully someone else has. In my experience it was a short or something in the PS caused by the battery goo that fried that PS board and also the motherboard, all at once with a pretty impressive kapow. After that... just the click was all I could get out of it. This was a 5300, but pretty much the same idea. Maybe someone else will chime in with a better outlook.

 

[spaceinvader12]

Well, I'm planning on taking it over to my friend's house (he has much much more equipment related to computer repairs than I do) and we'll pull it apart and see if anything comes of it. If it turns out to be truly dead and we've exhausted all leads, I'll save the ram/hard drive along with whatever else can be salvaged from it. Maybe I'll make a raspberry pi build with the case. That'd be sorta cool. Hopefully we can get it going again though. Thanks for your input!

 

[spaceinvader12]

I hate to double-post on my own topic but I removed the palmrest to snap some fairly high resolution photos of the problem area. I'm definitely going to try to clean this up tomorrow, I'm not sure how effective it'll be though. I'm gonna link the photos as opposed to inserting them because they're actually pretty gigantic once I embedded them. This was post-quick cleaning.

http://i.imgur.com/xFEZzGl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/tuQXnTt.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/gnjzqA2.jpg

If anyone has any other advice based on my previous post or these photos, I'd love to hear it.

 

[bibilit]

Not bad, i have seen worse.

Already had the trackpad acting that way, not big issue, cleaning the trackpad solved the issue.

Concerning your problem, the 190 and the 5300 had a similar issue with the charging board.

Both have a small board dedicated to charge the battery, IIRC in the 5300 is a daugther board while in the 190 is included to the logic baord.

Without that board, the 5300 won't be able to boot, and the led will stay on.

The board is covered with capacitors, you can clean the board first, or replace those capacitors anyway.

i saved one that way.

BTW the led is not a charging one, IIRC is there to advise that the laptop is in sleep mode.

 

[MJ313]

Yeah, mine was wayyyyy worse than that. It got all in the powerboard. Anyway maybe you've got a fighting chance. 

 

[bibilit]

The 5300 has a tiny reset switch on the port side, probably the 190 has the same, have you tried it ?

 

[spaceinvader12]

The 5300 has a tiny reset switch on the port side, probably the 190 has the same, have you tried it ?

Yes, I both pressed it and held it with the computer plugged in and unplugged. There was no change. I didn't know about the light though, that's good to know! I'll pull it apart and clean it this evening and update more then.

 

[spaceinvader12]

Alright, so I looked inside the PowerBook and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. A few bad to can caps in the cluster near the battery and one bad box-looking cap that got some goo on the board and on the legs of an IC. However, there was also corrosion on the legs of the CPU itself and two of the legs are actually bent and look to be near detaching from the board. I cleaned it but didn't push my luck for fear of breaking it.

So, that's what I've discovered. I'll attach pictures of what I can. What's the best course of action to take on this? It obviously needs new caps but is the CPU-issue a problem? Hard to photograph but it looks like it had some corrosion underneath it too. Some of these pictures are pre cleanup (rubbing alcohol 91% and qtips) and some are post, sorry. Thanks for your help

 

[bibilit]

Those caps are leaking badly.

I will remove the board and wash it for a start, then try to separate those two bent pins with a needle.

 

[Elfen]

Replace those caps as soon as possible. And clean up the crud off the board.

I also noticed that there are a couple of bend pins on cpu. Straighten them out slowly and carefully so that they are not touching.

 

[spaceinvader12]

I'm back in town after a few days away and I cleaned the whole board. I can get the caps replaced after I find their specs, but I currently don't know them. It tries to boot every now and then (very sporadic and rare) with the correct boot noise but am extremely messed up contrast screen (adjustments do nothing) and a barely visible message saying the disk isn't readable.

I've now got a working 5300 and a sort of working 190cs so I have two more similar computer for diagnosis and parts if that is useful.

Thanks for your advice and help.

 

[just.in.time]

I wouldn't pull apart the 5300 or 190cs to save a base 190.

 

[spaceinvader12]

I wasn't thinking about doing that either. Also, A friend expressed interest in taking on this PowerBook as a running project so I may be passing it onto him with all the information about repairing it that I can, since he also has the tools to get work done on it.

Thanks much for your help.