Rick Dangerous Posted February 5 Author Report Share Posted February 5 Thanks! I figured....messaging him now, what a let down. Oh well..at least the 24MB ram module was in there, and i needed the CD-Rom drive. Yeah i was looking at that magical key sequence on LEM and it took me a while to figure out it was wrong after googling around..thanks. Cmd makes more sense and i figured it might be that instead of Ctrl. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LaPorta Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 I also have a disk image of the original 1400 install CD. I can get you that if need be to burn a new one. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rick Dangerous Posted February 11 Author Report Share Posted February 11 So i have been mulling over what to do about the PRAM batteries in these machines....they have one each and they are clearly visible when you pull out the battery cell. Rather than taking hours to fully disassemble each machine; i was thinking of just snipping the black/red wires with a tiny pair of scissors, effectively disconnecting the batteries while leaving them in place. I think this might cause less damage than trying to pry up the old plastics; and these small cell type batteries aren't as prone to leakage as other types. Can anyone give me a thumbs up on this idea; or tell me why i shouldn't do it? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cheesestraws Posted February 12 Report Share Posted February 12 23 hours ago, Rick Dangerous said: Can anyone give me a thumbs up on this idea; or tell me why i shouldn't do it? I wouldn't, personally, leave them attached even disconnected. That said, you don't have to go as far as the guide wants you to to replace the battery. What I did was cut the wires and go down the teardown far enough to get to the screws on the battery cover, then I just undid them, threw out the battery, and put it back together. You only need to go all the way to the bottom of the laptop if you want to plug a new one back in. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rick Dangerous Posted February 12 Author Report Share Posted February 12 I will admit i just snipped them because i don't intend to ever replace these batteries or fully disassemble the laptop. Seems to be working fine so far; and if i were to be able to source a replacement i could easily re-wire. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rick Dangerous Posted February 12 Author Report Share Posted February 12 Anything that can be done about this (the red area on left side of screen) or does it just mean my LCD is on it's way out? Just shows during startup; though there is some small distortion on that side of the screen when in Finder. Happened when zapping dead PRAM battery during the first week i owned it. TY if there is a possible fix to know about short of screen replacement. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
PowerMac_G4 Posted February 12 Report Share Posted February 12 There are a bunch of electrolytic capacitors inside these PowerBooks that will go bad over time. It's possible that you're giving this machine its first proper usage in well over a decade so you may have triggered some rapid deterioration by stressing the system so suddenly. My 1400cs worked perfectly for the first week I had it and then developed capacitor-related glitches similar to this. You're going to have to partly disassemble the machine and gently fiddle with the video cable and connectors while it's powered up to see if you can trigger any change onscreen. If you can't then you have narrowed it down to either capacitor failure or LCD failure. Hopefully replacing the caps in the LCD does the trick. The fact that that portion of the screen is not permanently faulty suggests to me that it's more likely a capacitor issue but I could be wrong. Electrolytic caps are weird and temperamental and the older they get, the weirder they get. I've seen caps that work while cold and turn bad once they're warm and I've seen caps that won't cold-start but are perfectly fine once warm. When it turned bad the PSU in my Quicksilver G4 would only work if I preheated it with a hairdryer but then didn't skip a beat. I'm not sure there are any consumer-grade electronics (with "wet" caps) from that era that are immune to issues. In my experience it's only old pro audio gear and professional equipment such as oscilloscopes that have high enough quality components to resist failure for such a long time. 20+ years is a really long time for a computer. Personally I would stop using that machine immediately and completely disassemble it to inspect for capacitor failure. Be aware that it's possible for a capacitor to fail without leaking or gassing off. It's not hard for dying video circuitry to take out an LCD on its way out. The 1400c has the much more desirable active-matrix LCD and you will likely never find a replacement panel if yours dies. Use the opportunity to extract the PRAM batteries, which are liabilities that pose a threat to the whole machine if left in-situ (even disconnected). In my opinion it is unwise to come into possession of any machine this old and not strip it down for a thorough inspection unless you know it was very recently serviced. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LaPorta Posted Sunday at 06:07 PM Report Share Posted Sunday at 06:07 PM Rick, I just stripped mine down to the bones. There are a bunch of caps hiding in the display panel which could cause these issues. My contrast rocker switch stopped working correctly, and I think this is my issue as welll. Once I have the whole thing done, I will be providing photos in a thread. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rick Dangerous Posted Sunday at 06:10 PM Author Report Share Posted Sunday at 06:10 PM (edited) Thanks; this would be helpful! I have a guy locally that could help me replace the caps and does excellent work. Edited Sunday at 06:11 PM by Rick Dangerous Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LaPorta Posted Sunday at 06:23 PM Report Share Posted Sunday at 06:23 PM By the way, does anyone know the rating of the backup battery? I want to get some equivalent or close for mine. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LaPorta Posted Sunday at 06:53 PM Report Share Posted Sunday at 06:53 PM Looks like they are two Panasonic VL2330 batteries with a 3V rating. It looks like they are in parallel, so 3V and the total capacity of 50mAh. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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