Powerbook step-by-step troubleshooting

Hey, braintrust!

Walk me through things like a complete noob, although my PFY days were 40+ years ago: I'm receiving a cosmetically excellent but condition unknown Powerbook 180 soon. According to the seller (60 bucks, I couldn't say no), it doesn't power on. Power supply and battery included bu everythin needs to be checked out.

What would you do in what order, and what tools will I need for each stage?

1 Check the power supply and make sure it's putting out the right voltage/amp
2 Check battery
3 open case and check MB for ... Cables, capacitors, any known wear points/failure-prone components...?
4 hard drive

I understand hardware pretty well, I'm no electrical engineer but I'm not afraid to mess with things, so point me in the right direction!

Grazie,
madsox

you need a digital multimeter and a set of torx screwdrivers.

first thing would be to remove the battery, they're known to leak.
also you'd want to verify the voltage the psu is putting out... they're known to have leaky capacitors.

Powerbook arrived yesterday, and one reason it's in "condition unknown" is probably that it has no battery. Should have asked explicitly, but the seller (not a vintage Mac person) made it good on price, so that's okay. The PSU plug also got bent badly during shipping, so it looks like I'm in the market for both a power supply and a battery. I needed a new multimeter anyway, so I ordered a decent Klein and can start checking circuitry while I look for the parts. Off to find the knowledgebase now!

100% the charger is the most likely suspect. Almost all the 2A chargers have gone bad by now. If it doesn’t power on after that, I believe there’s a diode on the logic board that sometimes craps out.

Once you get a good charger, have often found it takes a moment with charger plugged in for 30 - 60 mins then press power to see if it comes to life. Fingers crossed you get a chime and off you go. On further inspection replace the caps in the LCD which will improve image quality when done, carefully.