Resurrecting My Wallstreet

[iamdigitalman]

Hi guys. I have my pride and joy, 300mhz 14" wallstreet PDQ, and I figure it's time to resurrect it to see if I can. IIRC, it has a problem with the fan staying on, from the time I hit the power button, to the time I shut it down.

From what I remember, I even tried taking the PRAM battery out, and no use. So, it is either a bad PMU or a bad Power Card. I was wondering if anyone knows which one it is. I also can not get any of my 3 good batteries to charge, despite the fact they did charge when I first go it. I just so happen to have a complete donor unit (with 13" LCD), so now is the right time to fix it. I also think this donor unit has a good PRAM battery, so I will swap that in as well (as well as the Sonnet 500mhz accelerator card, and as much RAM as I can.)

I want to make sure which part is responsible, before I start operating. Though, I could just replace them both, to eliminate any problems...

thanks!!

 

[Strimkind]

I'm no expert but it sounds like something on the logic board is screwy. If it was just the fan, I'd say it was a sensor but its the charging too that does it. Switch it all and you'll have a great running machine with a nice LCD.

Also, does that 13" screen have the flickering issue.

 

[iamdigitalman]

yeah, the case on the other one is really beat up, so I might as well swap in the mobo. But the power board on the other one is loose, so I have to hold in the power plug.

One new problem, is the sonnet card is not working on either machine. I plug it in with a small amount of RAM (the RAM works on the other 2 proc cards). On my 14", it chimes, the fan comes on, and it sits there for about 5 minutes, then shuts off (the fan stops). Nothing on the display, not even an external one. On the other one, it comes on, and shuts off after 5 minutes. It does not chime, because I don't have the speakers plugged in.

I tried the shift-fn-ctrl-power combo, for about 10 seconds to try and reset the PRAM, but nothing changes. Unless I should hold it for longer...

I am truly stumped here. I hope the card is not fired. It originally cost $1000, so I don't really want to see it go to waste.

 

[Unknown_K]

I have some Wallstreet 2 motherboards if need want to buy one.

Which sonnet card are you using that does not work? Any chance it needs PC100 RAM and you have PC66?

If the machine works but the plug is loose maybe you just need to resolder it to the board.

 

[iamdigitalman]

No, I have 2 working motherboard (one in the main machine, and one in the parts donor), so I am set.

The other sound/power board in the main machine works perfectly, so I am keeping it in there. It is the one in the parts donor that is bad.

As for RAM, I don't know. I thought most of my RAM is PC100, and like 90% of it does not have any details on the little sticker, just the brand and model number, but google is my friend for that one, so I might spend some time marking all my RAM soon (I have a few buckets of it laying around.). The ones that I did try were a 256mb PC100, and a 128mb PC100, and it chimed both times, so I assume it passed the RAM check (otherwise, according to the service manual, I would get a death chime).

 

[Unknown_K]

Yes, incompatible RAM will give you death chimes (same if you forget to put any RAM in like I did once). Generally PC100 and 133 is labled as such, PC66 generally isn't unless it is a major brand (Micron etc).

I have a 300 processor that is dead, you turn it on and the machine just sits there with the fan running full blast for a long time, no chimes.

The 300 should work with any RAM speed since it is a 66mhz bus (I have a 292 that needs pc100 since it runs at 83mhz and only works on the original modem Wallstreet).

 

[Strimkind]

On side note, is it worth taking apart a 233 no L2 fully working and installing a 266 in unknown shape? I was given a wallstreet 14" that has bad hinges and has been stripped of all but the keyboard, motherboard, cpu and LCD. An attempted boot before opening got the broken glass sound. After opening I found no heatsink, along with other things missing.

Can the hinges be repaired? Would I notice a speed difference in installing the 266 with L2 in the 233?

 

[Unknown_K]

On side note, is it worth taking apart a 233 no L2 fully working and installing a 266 in unknown shape? I was given a wallstreet 14" that has bad hinges and has been stripped of all but the keyboard, motherboard, cpu and LCD. An attempted boot before opening got the broken glass sound. After opening I found no heatsink, along with other things missing.
Can the hinges be repaired? Would I notice a speed difference in installing the 266 with L2 in the 233?

You will notice a major difference between a 266 (1MB cache on all of those) compared to a 233 with no cache. I have 233's with and without cache and you do notice a difference between them.

Hinges need replaced, if they are shattered then the video cable might get cut. Mostly thye just fail internally and the screen will not stand up.

You will need the heatsink or the chip will burn up. You can get HD cariers and heatsinks cheap on ebay or lemswap.

 

[iamdigitalman]

Actually, macdan has a solution that does not involve finding the same hinges (all three displays use different hinges, but the same clutch). All you need to do is pop off the clutch from the 2 and swap. here's the page:

http://home.comcast.net/~macdan/ws_hinge.html

Also, I had a 233mhz card with cache, and it had no heatsink on it. Actually, it had the little ceramic square, but the round piece was missing. I thought it was normal, until I got another wallstreet with a proper sink!!

getting back to my topic, I am totally stumped here. No signs of life, but it does chime. Oddest thing in the world.

 

[Unknown_K]

Try running an external monitor, internal video might be dead.

 

[iamdigitalman]

Try running an external monitor, internal video might be dead.

I did that/ That was actually the first thing I tried, before a PMU and PRAM reset. I hooked it up to my VGA Apple Studio Display 15" LCD. I also tried the parts donor, same thing. They both do get video if I put in the stock processor cards.

This does not make any sense. If it were a bad card, I would not get anything, not even a chime.

I don't even know if this thing is still under support. Fortunately, I still have the box for it.

 

[Unknown_K]

Wallstreets cannot get firmware updates do they? I would email their tech support and ask them what is wrong, and if they cannot get it working send the thing back (if there is a warranty).

 

[iamdigitalman]

Well, there is a firmware update for the processor card it's self, as well as a driver for it. I think I need to install the driver first, and I wonder if the firmware can be installed before a reboot?

There is no actual update for the wallstreet.

I will try these, as soon as I swap in a larger hard drive (there is a 3gb in there now, but I have a couple 10 gigs to put in it). I'll let you all know how it goes.

 

[iamdigitalman]

IT'S ALIVE!!!

I did some tweaking, and it turns out the motherboard in my main WS is shot somehow. I put the sonnet in the donor, and it boots!! So, my next goal is to swap ALL the parts (except, maybe the modem) from the donor, into the main WS. About the only thing I am not changing out is the power/speaker assembly, and the DC/sound card. Even the cables on the PMU are getting replaced. It appears to be working, the fan does not stay on like the other bits. I dunno which one it is, nor am I going to fuss around with it. These parts are going to the recycler.

The case on the donor was hell too. Some jackass decided to strip a screw where the metal framework is (the one by the PMU connector on the mobo), so I spent 20 minutes fighting the top case off, and I still have to get the screw out of there to get the mobo out.

It's gonna be a long day...

 

[iamdigitalman]

Alright, I got it all assembled. It's booted to my OS 9 disc, writing zeros on the 10gb drive, should take a while. I might burn OS X Jag again, since my copy is messed up.

Only thing that sucks is OS X does not support the serial port, the SCSI, the DVD decoder, and if I had one, the floppy disk module. I think I am gonna dual boot it, so I can have all that and OS X for the newer stuff.

 

[Strimkind]

OS X does support SCSI. I am unsure about the serial port and I know the DVD decoder does not work (I tried).

Good job at stripping all those parts in 2 hours I must say. Would take me a lot longer to do that.

 

[iamdigitalman]

Well, I did not really care about the casing on the donor book. I was gonna scrap it anyways, since the thing is held together with scotch tape in places 8-o Part of the trackpad on my uppercase is busted (the little tab is gone), so I smacked on some (real) duct tape.

The hardest part was getting that damn stripped screw out of the case. I fought with it for a good 30 minutes. Turns out, it was the long one usually used on the heatsink plate, at least I think so.

The wallstreet is a lot easier to take apart than most laptops, but I surprise myself sometimes. I tore apart and reassembled my icebook to replace the hard drive in less than 2 hours. I must be good with my hands

Oh, my Jaguar images are trash, as is my 9.0.4 CD, but I have a 9.2.1 CD with the 9.2.2 update on it that works, except some bits won't install. I will just put OS 9 on it for now. I really don't feel like hunting down another set of images and using a couple more CD-Rs.

So it's OS 9.2.2 all the way. Now I just need to hunt down my PCMCIA to CF adapter so I can transfer over the wifi card driver, and the sonnet updater. I found the CD for the accelerator, but it has v 1.0, and I found 1.2.1 with a 1.2.2 update online.

 

[Unknown_K]

I have been in and out of my wallstreets (5 of them) so much I can probably do it in 30 minutes or less.

Easier to get into then other laptops that is for sure, then again they are not the smallest or lightest ones made either.

 

[iamdigitalman]

Ok, I found my images, burned them, and now I remember why I stopped using it on the WS.

Even with the 10.2.8 update, every time it reboots, the backlight is off. I have to press the brightness button to bring it back.

I also could not get the lucent wavelan gold working (tried both known drivers, apparently, it does not show up as an airport card, like in OS 9), so I am going to put 9.2.2 on it exclusively, as this machine was built for OS 8/9, and not X.