PowerBook Joblot

[max1zzz]

Just won a auction on ebay for 6 68K powerbooks, which breaks down as

1 x 140

1 x 145

1 x 145b

3 x 165

Allong with some parts (Ram, a pds network card, 7 2.5 scsi hdd's (one clearly has "bad" written on, hopeing a couple will be working) an unidentified board (anyone got any ideas what it is? )

The will all be parts machines, but hopefully i'll get a couple of working units

And all for the grand sum of £30 shipped

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251351766790

Btw, can anyone tell me which charger i need to get for these? i rember seeing a apple doc around which listed which charger went with which powerbook, but i can't rember where....

 

[markyb86]

Which board is unidentified, From what you didn't list I can see a 3.5"-> 2.5" SCSI adapter, and what looks to be a PowerBook logic board, but I can't tell which.

 

[max1zzz]

The big one to the left of the PDS nic, the two above that are RAM if i'm not mistaken, and of course that little one is a 2.5 scsi to 3.5 scsi adapter

So it's proabley a powebook motherboard, interesting, wonder which powerbook it is from....

 

[markyb86]

That's strange, because all of the ones you got in that list, have a logic board shaped like a cleaver (or butchers knife) that may be a newer PB board. also the 140/145/145b/170 boards are the same. That might be a powerbook 180 daughter card now that I had time to look.

 

[finkmac]

Yeah, it's a 180 or 165 (possibly 160) daughterboard.

 

[IIfx]

Some tips for you with these 1xx series powerbooks:

- Look out for brittle plastics: The LCD display cover is known to fail where the hinges meet the display. Its not the strongest structure ever made.

- If they refuse to boot, pull the battery out first. A few of mine refuse to even show a sign of life with a dead NiCAD battery in them.

- If the battery does not come out easy, take a small flathead screwdriver, and pry the battery release latch to the free position. Place the driver between the chasis of the Mac and the battery's right hand side, where the arrow points like this: -->

- Hope that you got at least 1 good 2.5 inch SCSI hdd, these are super rare. (Almost Radius Rocket rare)

I had picked up a massive lot of PB1xx/5xx 3 years ago and got a lot of laptop repair experience cobbling together working examples. To me, repairing a dead laptop is more rewarding than repairing a dead desktop.

When I get home, I will post the P/N for the AC Adapter for the 170/180 and Compatibles. If you want the Apple Service Manuals, I have those archived away someplace too.

The 1xx powerbooks are really fun machines, and represent what I think was one of the peaks of Apple original design. They set the trend for the entire laptop industry. :beige:

Have fun! Its always funny to take one of these to a public space and see the reactions )

 

[max1zzz]

Ahh, that would make sense if it is a 160 / 165 / 180 daughterboard

Thanks for the tips diffinatley looking forward to having a look at these

I do hope at least one of those scsi drives works or it'll be expensive to repair any of them....

Maybe i should take one into collage to type my notes on and see what people think :beige:

 

[NJRoadfan]

Grayscale Powerbook 100s use 7.5v 2amp power supplies. The "Apple Low Power AC Adapter" (ADP-17) worked fine on mine. The 7.5v 3amp "25 watt" supply from the 180c and 165c will work too as long as it isn't a PB150.

 

[max1zzz]

Got the lot today, the powerbooks look good (haven't tried powering any up yet though)

A few of them are labeled as powering up but not booting, one is labeled as having contrast issues (caps i'm guessing) and one is labeled as not powering up

unfortunately all the scsi drives are labeled as faulty, although i live in hope that some may be recoverable

Looks like i'm going to be busy this weekend

Edit: can anyone confirm if the powerbooks use a center positive connector? just i had a look through my box of cables and it seems the PSone adapter is the exact right spec (7.5v 2A), just needs the plug changed

 

[max1zzz]

well, i have been through all the drives and 2 of them mounted just fine going to format and test them tomorrow

a further 3 spin up but don't mount, or appear under system profiler on the g4

the other 2 don't spin up at all

 

[IIfx]

If you could please post the manufacturers of the drives, that would be great.

From my batch of PowerBooks, I found IBM to be the most reliable, with only 2 out of 6 failed. Quantum was the worst, both drives from PB150 were dead. Conner was 2nd worst, 1 out of 3 working.

Sorry about never getting to posting about the AC adapter, looks like you got that sorted. Lots of exams last week.

 

[max1zzz]

out of the lot i got:

2 ibm, 1 x 80mb and 1x 120mb both do not spin up atall

3 connor, 1x20mb and 2x 40mb, one of the 40mb's works but sometimes gets the head stuck, but giving the powerbook a good tap on the side gets it going, the other 40mb and the 20mb spin up but don't work.

2 quantum, one 80mb and one 160mb, the 80mb spins up and is seen, but just fails formatting every time. The 160mb seems to work ok, haven't tried formatting yet though

i did once get the second 40mb connor to work, but i can't for the life of me figure out what i did... and i haven't been able to reproduce the result since.

don't worry about the adapter, a bit of googling found what i was looking for, got them up and running with the PSone's adapter

which revealed 4 out of the 6 power up and booted from the 7.5 network access disk

However out of those 4, 3 have screen issues (2 with wandering contrast / flickering issues (damn caps...), and one which the screen stays blank)

 

[sadmanonatrain]

Hello all,

From my batch of PowerBooks, I found IBM to be the most reliable, with only 2 out of 6 failed. Quantum was the worst, both drives from PB150 were dead. Conner was 2nd worst, 1 out of 3 working.

Hear Hear IIfx!

The only 2.5'' SCSI hard drive I had that actually worked was an IBM 120Mb drive from a PowerBook 180c.

The Conner and Quantum drives only lasted a few minutes, if they worked at all!

Sometime the 'freezer trick' worked but it never seemed to last.

I've read some promising topics about getting these drives working on the Army Forums.

Dealing with the structural problems of PowerBooks (plastic posts in the base and hinges) can be a nightmare!

You need to offer them 'blood, toil, tears and sweat' plus lots of super glue to sort them out!

They're definitely a nice Mac to use when all working.

Congratulations on the conquest!

 

[max1zzz]

Yeah, i have a 120mb ibm drive in my duo 230 and that's perfect, was a little suprised that both ibm drives from this lot seem utterly dead...

i think i might have ruined the two faulty connor drives, i found on the 40mb one if i took the top of and gave the arm a tap it would get it working, i tried this on the 20mb one and i think i might have caused a head crash , and although i don't think i did that to the 40mb one it now acts really weird (the arm moves really slowley and stutters, but if i power cycle it goes straight back to the parked position and refuses to come back out of it)

The plastics are the worse bit... seems like every other screw removes the post from the case rather than the screw from the post, good job i have lots of superglue

 

[max1zzz]

Looks like i have got 3 good drives out of the lot,

the 160mb quantum (which ironically is the one in the photo which clearly has "BAD" written on it, it is the only one from the lot that has never given me trouble)

and the 2 40mb connors, got the second one of them working by jamming a little bit of foam in the head assembly to stop it going all the way back tho the rest position (where it just gets jammed) proably not good for the drive but hey, it didn't work atall before i did it and now it reads and writes perfectly

just gotta figure out what i'm going to do for the others now, since these drives are really hard to find...