PowerBook 1400 - not booting

AlpineRaven · 2026-03-09T00:07:22+0000

A few years ago (about 7-8 years ago) I was given a box with about 7 Powerbook 1400s half of it was either damaged or in pieces. I managed to get 7 into 5 working units. I believe I sold 2 off - I can't quite remember - among to the ones I sold I know I sold 133mhz and 117mhz as well.

Anyway I had "left over ones" and I am trying to get them working again, 2 of them are unknown CPU types.

I have tried using 117mhz and 166mhz on those logicboards - it will not power on, It will power on with G3 upgrade card in those.

I am trying to understand why it won't boot 117mhz or 166mhz - is it because its 133mhz model? The 117mhz & 166mhz is confirmed working in other one no problems.

I was hoped to sell those 2 PowerBook 1400s off but its going nowhere at this stage.

Cheers
AP

croissantking · 2026-03-09T07:33:56+0000

The 166MHz card will only work on logic boards with the newer ROM version, but the 117MHz should work in any. I’d suspect bad contact - try Deoxit

Snial · 2026-03-09T09:54:24+0000

AlpineRaven said:
<snip> 7 Powerbook 1400s half of which were either damaged or in pieces. I managed to get 7 into 5 working units. I believe I sold 2 off <snip>

This is much like my PB1400 story. I bought a PB1400cs/117/16 in late 2022.

Thread 'PowerBook 1400cs Serial port.'

Nov 23, 2022

I've recently acquired a Powerbook 1400CS via eBay. It's running system 7.5.3 and I've converted it to use an 8GB SD card instead of the 750MB HD (I have 5 x 750MB partitions). I've tried to run Steinberg, Cubase Lite on it, which is a 68K application that talks to a Midiman MacMan 3x OUT MIDI interface through the modem port (the 8-pin port).

It can receive data from a keyboard, but the Midi interface doesn't seem to output data. Cubase is set up to use the Modem port at 1MHz. The question really is this: did the specs of the serial port hardware change in the early PowerPC era enough...

It was originally in a fairly sad state: no FD nor CD-ROM, original & cranky HD 750 running System 7.5. I cloned the HD to an 8GB µSD card (+adapter), then gradually brought it back from decrepitness via my ZIP Drive (which had a disk with a boot driver); which enabled me to find the ZIP disk with the proper driver; which enabled me to find the PowerCD driver; which enabled me to install my proper Mac OS 8 CD & upgrade to Mac OS 8.1.

After a while I bought another broken PB1400, which turned out not to be so broken

Thread 'PowerBook 1400 case screws!!!'

Aug 2, 2023

Late last year I bought a PowerBook 1400cs/117 on Ebay which was mostly working. That is, it had just enough RAM (16MB); a 750MB HD that seemed to still work; a display that is a bit dodgy, but can work. I then bought an IDE to SD adapter; then bought another spares and repairs PowerBook 1400 because it looked like it might flesh mine out a bit and from that I got an 1400c display and another 16MB of RAM (but the 133MHz CPU doesn't work reliably). However, this then left me tantalisingly with not quite enough of a PB1400. So, in the meantime I kept scanning ebay.co.uk for a keyboard; CPU...

AlpineRaven said:
<snip> it won't boot 117mhz or 166mhz - is it because its 133mhz model? <snip>

Later I bought a 16MB upgrade, but it came with a free 166MHz CPU!

Thread 'Free PowerBook 1400c 166MHz upgrade...'

Dec 29, 2023

I bought a PowerBook 1400c, 16MB RAM upgrade just before Christmas and it's arrived! The RAM expansion works - I now have 48MB of RAM! Wow, I could run Mac OS 9.1 super slowly!

Unexpectedly it also came with a free CPU upgrade, a 166MHz unit. Looks very neat (LHS in images). Of course it doesn't work on my PowerBook 1400c/117 and a few links on Reddit and LowEndMac confirmed this. Does anyone know why the 166MHz module doesn't work on the 117MHz board and whether it's fixable, or is it because it uses a 603ev or something?

Note the set of resistors...

It turned out that my original PB1400cs/117 Motherboard had the later ROM which could take the 166MHz CPU and the PB1400c Motherboard which came with a 133MHz CPU had the earlier motherboard that could only take a 117 or 133MHz CPU. So, I had to dismantle both to upgrade to 166MHz.

bibilit · 2026-03-09T11:46:12+0000

IIRC some Logic boards can only work with the appropriate CPU

PowerBook 1400 - not booting

AlpineRaven

croissantking

Snial

Thread 'PowerBook 1400cs Serial port.'

Thread 'PowerBook 1400 case screws!!!'

Thread 'Free PowerBook 1400c 166MHz upgrade...'

bibilit

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