PowerBook G3 Pismo will power, but won't boot to any OS from any drive?

[DistantStar001]

So I have a Pismo that has an odd issue. It refuses to recognize any drive including the optical. I know the DVD Drive is good since it works in my Lombard and I can boot from a CD. I'm pretty sure that the Hard Drive and ribbon connector are good since I was able to boot into targeted FireWire mode and connect it to my G3 Desktop. From there I was able to format the drive and even install OS 9.1 from CD. However, the Pismo still won't recognize either drive and just sits there flashing its folder-question mark icon. The drives do spin up, and the DVD drive will open if I press the button on the drive. I've tried multiple drives (both optical and Hard) and two different ribbon connectors, but get the same issues. FireWire works, Hard Drives can be formatted and OS installed, but the Pismo still won't boot an OS.

Both PowerBooks are junk machines I got from my local recycler and have been trying to piece together, but the Pismo has been the real stumper.

Side note: sadly, I cannot test the Hard Drive in the Lombard as I do not have a working ribbon connector for that machine. It's the one thing keeping me from a working laptop and so far, all the parts machines I've come across either had the same issue or were missing their drives and ribbons altogether. If anyone knows of someone who makes a replacement, I'd appreciate it (but then, I'm probably not the only one).

Additional Question: The screen on my Pismo isn't that great, but i do have at least four spare LCDs in relatively good condition (two from Lombards and two from Wallstreet 2s). Is it possible to use one of these LCDs in a Pismo? They are still in their respective bezels (bad plastics and faulty hinges), but can be extracted.

 

[DistantStar001]

To answer my own questions:
1) My boot issue was due to an updated Firmware (thanks to the good folks over at the VCF Forum for the help). It hadn't occurred to me to try booting from OS X since the computer shipped with 9.0.2. I guess 9.1 was too old. I did, however, manage to get it to boot from OS 9.2.1 (Universal Binary).

2) NO! The LCDs from the Lombard and Pismo are not interchangeable. This was a bit of a disappointment to me, since a post on this forum seemed to suggest that they were:

M

Thread 'Pismo LCD swap'

Jan 11, 2020

Hi,

Question for any of those who have done an LCD swap on a Pismo. 

Cracked mine open, and it has an "LG LP141XA (D1AP)". I assume I probably have to replace it with the same thing.. but searching FleaBay, I find a few LP141XA's, but they're not "D1AP" models.. does that matter? Will any "LP141XA" work?

Current screen "works" fine, but I find it a bit dim.. so I was hoping a "new" unused LCD would be brighter..

• Mikeyy00
• Replies: 8
• Forum: PPC PowerBook & iBook

Unfortunately, this seems to be in error. The issue appears to be the inverter board. The Lombard part uses a 6 pin connector to the motherboard, where the Pismo uses a 5 pin connector. Long story short, I tried swapping an LCD from a Lombard lid into one from a Pismo (I wanted to keep the AirPort antenna), then installing my contraption into my Pismo. As I could not use the a Lombard inverter I connected the Pismo one instead. The connector from the screen fit, so I figured there'd be no problems. The result did give me a flicker of hope as the LCD did light up a couple of times during boot, but the backlight soon went dark and wouldn't respond to the brightness controls. Using a flashlight, I was able to see that the LCD was displaying a good image, but that's not very useful without the backlight.
Complicating matters was that, while the physical connectors on the LCD panel were the same on both units, the location of those connectors were different. As such, the ribbon connector for the Pismo doesn't stretch far enough to accommodate the Lombard LCD.