3 broken G4 iBooks

[quantumii]

I recently got 3 G4 14" iBooks, but all of them have issues.

- One is a 1.33 Mhz, Wasted screen, missing parts and the motherboard powers on but displays no video.

- One is a 933Mhz one. It had the ATI graphics chip issue. I heatgunned it, and now it no longer displays any video at all.

- The last one is a 800 mhz something, which has charred components on the motherboard thanks to an idiot destroying the flex cable to the DVDrom and shorting out the mainboard. It also has the ATI chip issue, but can display video if I press the chip. It does not detect its HDD or DVD rom.

All is missing screws all over the place. Looks like some fool tried to fix them somewhere along the line, but ended up destroying them.

I guess this is just a pile of crap basically, but I did get 2 good screens, 2 different kinds of Airport extreme cards (One type fits my Mac Mini, the other fits the G4 tower), and a 40 GB apple branded HDD.

I only paid $60 for it, but I still feel that it was a little waste of money. Oh well, maybe the airports was worth it.

 

[Byrd]

remember that in G4 iBooks, it's not necessarily related to a faulty GPU, but rather delamination of a vreg chip on the underside of the motherboard:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/iBookG4_vreg_repair/ibookG4_vreg_repair.html

... I'd try resoldering the legs of the chip pictures on the 933 and 1333 models and see how you go!

JB

 

[tmtomh]

Sorry to hear about the problems with all these machines. As far as money goes, you should be able to recoup your outlay, plus a bit more, by selling the AP cards and the hard drives and optical drives.

 

[quantumii]

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/iBookG4_vreg_repair/ibookG4_vreg_repair.html

This issue also causes the machine to power on with no video? I'll give it a try anyway, thanks. I remember reading about this somewhere before, but I forgot where to look for the right info.

If I manage to fix one motherboard with this, I should be able to assemble at least one working 'book. Let's hope I didn't nuke anything with the heatgun. I have done that fix many times before (mainly nVidia) and never killed a mb yet.

Maybe this is the issue on my "only-booted-2-times" Powerbook G4 aluminum,too (vreg chip)?

 

[Byrd]

From what I can gather, the well-known faulty GPU is more an iBook G3 issue (700/800/900Mhz models); with the faulty vreg chip being more a problem with iBook G4s. However, GPU issues also occur in later G4 models, but not as frequently as their G3 counterparts. Either way, both issues are caused by a poorly-designed, flexing motherboard causing delamination of components. The quick fix for both is to place firm pressure on the faulty chips in question to get the iBook to power on for a little while. However, this usually doesn't last long until more aggressive repair is required.

My most recent, and unsuccessful, repair on an iBook G4 1.07Ghz involved scraping back the traces and resoldering the vreg chip in question. The previous owned used rubber stoppers and pieces of a credit card to place pressure on the vreg chip - obviously it didn't "take" after a while, so he/she kept adding more spacers - about eight all up! When I received it, I was able to get it to fire up and work well with the vreg resolder, but it would then fail after about 30 minutes of use. Several resoldering attempts later, I gave up - clearly the previous user had flexed the board so much, it put stress on the rest of the board, making it become more and more unreliable over time. But let's hope you have luck - the other two iBook G4s before this one I was able to fix successfully.

Regarding your 12" Powerbook, I doubt a similar issue is occuring here, but you could always gently flex the board and/or place pressure on various components in an attempt to get it to boot. Might do very little, but you're little to lose!

JB

 

[quantumii]

Thanks, I will give this a shot this afternoon and see if I can get the G4 boards running.

As for the 12", I will try the flex method and see if it works. Too bad it is a _real_ hassle getting the mainboard out of this thing.

 

[quantumii]

Hmmm, The 3 G4's is now officially given up on.

Resoldered the mentioned chips, No go. Left them on a little while to observe what happened. Burned smell came after a while.

I will rather keep them as parts (That's basically what they are now. All in parts in a box which I call my "Mac Graveyard")

On the good side, regarding the 12" alu book. All of a sudden it turned on, chimed, and booted into leopard. I don't get it. I am posting from it right now, and it runs very stable.

I am using a ghetto charger on it though, a 24V with a home soldered 2,5mm plug, with no shielding. Maybe that is what keeps messing up the PMU? I remember the last thing that happened before it died on me the first time. The plug was pulled loose and the machine powered off (even if the battery had power)

 

[Bunsen]

iBook G3 and G4 technical problems - the definitive thread on Applefritter.

 

[quantumii]

Thanks, I'll read through it The G4's, as I said, is now written off because of the below reasons:

#1: Charred components in the IDE power section. (Black PCB and missing traces etc)

#2: While powered on, it started to make a chirp/hiss noise, two legs on the VREG went black, and smell of ozone

#3: Powered on to full blast fan, started to smell burnt after a while.

If I had gotten my hands on them before some inexperienced guy touched them, I am sure I could have gotten them back up and running, especially #1, as the initial problem was BGA soldering cracks on the graphics chip. A reflow would have fixed it.

Almost all the "how to fix it" documents and threads I have read is about adding shims. This is, at least in my opinion, a ghetto fix which does not solve the root cause. A heatgun reflow works and is more permanent (for the BGA) or just plain solder and flux (on the VREG). Applying too much pressure on the PCB can easily damage other solder connections due to the added stress it puts on the PCB. Just my 2 cents.

Now, the 12" mystery, I still don't get it. I tried to make it crash by pulling and inserting the power plug on it, and it stayed alive. The battery also works fine. The sys uptime is now over 14 hours and still counting.

 

[quantumii]

About my above post: No offense to the people figuring out the shim fix or to the people doing it. I was just pointing out that it is by no means a permanent fix. The heatgun fix may also be a little risky, but if you are careful and monitor the temperature with an IR thermometer, it should not be too difficult. An adjustable heatgun will make it even safer. Besides, with a broken logic board there is really not that much to loose

 

[quantumii]

Sorry for the triple post, but now I have a little breakthhrough regarding the 12" PB.

The thing died on me just now, so I decided to take off the palm rest and poke a little more around the motherboard, and I found this:

If I apply pressure to the left side of the DC board connector, the machine boots.. AHA, bad connections to the motherboard from the DC board. I'll see what I can do to remedy this.

 

[quantumii]

No fix. Applying pressure worked at first, then more tries between the successes, now nothing at all. Resoldered many components near the power connector and power section, only got the chime once and it stopped playing it midway.

I start to suspect broken traces inside the multi-layer PCB, or microcracks under some BGA chip...

I think it is a good time to start a spare parts hunt

Does anybody here need 3 "For parts only" G4 iBooks? All disassembled.