dead powerbook 170 - cause?

[supernova777]

hey guys merry xmas + happy holidays

so i ahve a chance to get a dead powerbook 170

and im curious if anyone knows what the common symptom would be for one that doesnt boot up.

im guessing dead drive?

whats the maximum hard drive size u can fit into a powerbook 170?

has anyone ever accomplished using compactFlash as a SCSI hd inside one?

or perhaps SD to SCSI?

 

[beachycove]

The first thing to try is to remove the main battery and attempt to boot. A 1xx-series PB will typically not boot with a shorted battery, and this may not be known to the current owner. Second thing would be to confirm that the power supply is providing current.

A bad HD would not prevent the machine from turning on and attempting to boot.

 

[supernova777]

would be wonderful if that was all that was wrong with it.. its about a 30min drive away from my place the guy selling it wants about 25$

im just wondering if its worth my time + effort.. 

i have been looking for a 68k mac for quite some time..

i was looking moreso for a nubus capable 68k mac but

im getting anxious

 

[supernova777]

The first thing to try is to remove the main battery and attempt to boot. A 1xx-series PB will typically not boot with a shorted battery, and this may not be known to the current owner. Second thing would be to confirm that the power supply is providing current.

A bad HD would not prevent the machine from turning on and attempting to boot.

i see alot of them on ebay that say they cannot boot.. do they have some type of ticking timebomb on the caps or something?

is recapping the fix? it would be stupid if it was as easy as removing the current battery + booting without it inplace.. still plgged in electrically.

thats what your're saying ?? correct?

 

[Elfen]

i see alot of them on ebay that say they cannot boot.. do they have some type of ticking timebomb on the caps or something?

is recapping the fix? it would be stupid if it was as easy as removing the current battery + booting without it inplace.. still plgged in electrically.

thats what your're saying ?? correct?

There is a major difference between "Does not turn on " and "Does not boot." Most of these probably have dead hard drives, which until the Duo 2300 and the PB 190/5300, were all SCSI (with  couple of exceptions). Trying to find a new or working like new SCSI 2.5in hard drive for a PowerBook is like looking for Hen's Teeth. Thus they may have tried to put in an IDE Unit and find out that the IDE Laptop Hard Drive is 44 pins connector and a SCSI Laptop Hard Drive is 34 pins connector - making them think "There is no way this can be fixed. Damn Apple and their proprietary systems." That's 1.

2 - many ebay sellers use the term "does not boot" for machines that do not turn on at all! It's maybe due to language barriers or what ever the case. For that you need to PM the seller and ask if it turns on at all and if it does, what does it do. If the unit does turn on and gives a flashing "?" in the floppy icon, then the problem is the hard drive.

The board will (eventually) need a recapping, as will the LCD. But if it turns on and gives the flashing "?" Disk Icon, then its a good gamble to invest in.

As for Hard Drives "Upgrades" - I would invest in an Aztec Monster (a CF to SCSI adapter). The SD2SCSI would be my next gamble. They are expensive (around $120 to $200) but you can get a 4GB to 16GB CF or SD and slice it up to 2GB Slices (for System 6 and 4GB for System 7) for next to nothing and the Powerbook will be very happy with it.

 

[Elfen]

Also, you should get a bootable floppy copy of "Norton's Emergency Boot Disk."

Some times a "dead" hard drive in actuality is a corrupted hard drive with a scrambled boot blocks/sectors or a screwed directory. Having Norton fix such problems can bring an otherwise dead system back to life.

A bootable minimal system floppy with Apple's Disk Fix Utility can also work for most things but does not fix everything like Norton can.

To be a Mac Tech, you need the hardware AND software tools out there in your tool box and know when to use which one over the other.

 

[aplmak]

I just bought one and it was completely dead.. Was the logic board fuse.. Little white one.. I bypassed it and it booted up!! Bad hard drive of course!!! Lol

 

[Elfen]

I just bought one and it was completely dead.. Was the logic board fuse.. Little white one.. I bypassed it and it booted up!! Bad hard drive of course!!! Lol

Ooooo.... I hate those things!!!

 

[supernova777]

Elfen your comments totally get at what i was trying to figure out... these people on ebay arent very detail oriented to say the least.

 

[supernova777]

I just bought one and it was completely dead.. Was the logic board fuse.. Little white one.. I bypassed it and it booted up!! Bad hard drive of course!!! Lol

how do u go about bypassing it? is this a physical mod or did u simply press a button to reset the switch/fuse? im not familiar with the hardware

 

[aplmak]

You have to replace the 5 AMP fuse or solder a piece of wire in place of it.. I just soldered a small wire from one side to the other until I get a replacement… I have a bunch but got to rummage through some stuff to get em..

 

[aplmak]

It's white and about 1/2 an inch long.. and says "5 A" on it.. it's I think the only big white component on the board… the mother board.. you have to remove the ram card and daughterboard first to access it..

 

[supernova777]

ok sounds tricky.... 

yeesh

but yea i think theres got to be a common reason why so many "cant start/boot up" eevery single pb170 i see on ebay or local classifieds says the same hing!

 

[aplmak]

I also find that the LCD screen on them suck.. these are the ones that slowly start to darken on the edges and slowly inwards… I'd spend more time on a different model.. I am not sure if the others is the same issue but I know this was the issue with mine I bought from ebay….

 

[techknight]

the 170/180 used two different manufacturers on the LCD panels themselves. 

one of them is really bad for tunnelvision. they all do it.

2nd one has a more white backlight and matches that of the macintosh portable backlit 5126 model. they are much better. i have only seen 1 go tunnelvision. you can tell the difference when off. the good one is more gray/white. Bad is more yellow/amber.

my 180 has tunnelvision when the screen is black but it doesnt affect the image. strangely enough.

cool thing is, a 140 LCD/Cable assembly will fit in a 170 and work. you just lose active matrix. 

 

[supernova777]

when i installed FreeMidi + Performer last nite on the Performa5200CD(os7.6.1) the installer had some notes about a special driver that corrects some MIDI issues with the powerbooks...

i also read a bunch of different articles that claim that the Powerbook series are great for outputting MIDI but not so great at recording it.. and that it can black out + lose incoming serial data for up to 6ms at a time

other sources that i read said that the powerbook 100 was immune to this issue, and the duo + 500 series powerbooks were also immune + better suited for midi over the others.

im probably going to skip on the 170 because of these articles saying its no good for MIDI. which is pretty much the entire reason i was interested in one. to use it for sequencing.