powerbook g3 wallstreet photos and question (large photos warning!!)

thegeldingthegelding
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
ok, short story long....



at work we had a powerbook g3 from 1998 (i think that makes it a wallstreet model)...

it has been sitting in a cabinet draw for over a year as it was stated to be broken...i came across it the other day and thought i would check it out...at start up i got a folder with question mark...nothing i could do would fix it, so i opened it up and found that the hard drive was not pushed in....so i fixed it with a simple push on the hard drive...now it was running 9.0 so i updated to 9.2...but it kept freezing up...and i am spoiled by os x...so i thought i would try loading os x on it...

probably the lowest specs you will see running os x

...anyway, the reason the laptop was "shelved" was because of a imaging problem with the screen, which reappeared after i used it for a couple of days....so, before i spend money on getting more ram and a bigger hard drive...what is wrong with this laptop??? at start up the grey screen looks great, then the blue screen looks great, then the arrow shows up and is fine, but when the arrow changes to the spinning ball the spinning ball is "smeared"...and then the screen is messed up until i power down, at which time the background is normal again till the power goes off...looks like this:





and this:







yet the arrow is still functional (if i can guess the right one to use):





thanks





the absent gelding

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    superkarate monkeydeathcarsuperkarate monkeydeathcar Posts: 2,407member
    paging thegelding:people have been looking for you
  • Reply 2 of 18
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    That reeks of a fried video card, and seeing that the video card is lodged on the motherboard with steel bolts (or at least, soldered onto it) it'd be reasonable to call a fried motherboard. So, you could try to get your hands on a new motherboard through ebay or so. Question is: do you want that? A 250 MHz G3 these days is, frankly, a lazy dog with a bad skin condition.



    I'm not an Apple Hardware Specialist though, so you might want a second opinion, confirming (or disproving) my diagnosis.
  • Reply 3 of 18
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    I wonder if loading OS 9 on it would work? Even OS 8.6? The video board is probably fried and you probably will have to sell it for parts, but there's no harm in trying a clean installation of OS 8.6 or 9. I used a 233 MHz Wallstreet (it had about twice as much RAM as yours and it was the later version with cache) as my only machine between April and October 2002. I had OS X 10.1 on it starting sometime in the summer and I upgraded to 10.2 a week or two before selling it. It was very slow in OS X - I would often boot into OS 9 because it was so much faster.



    BTW, welcome back g! You may notice that I surpassed your post count while you were gone 8)
  • Reply 4 of 18
    baumanbauman Posts: 1,248member
    My dad had a pismo with a similar problem a while back... I think they nailed it down to the cable between the video card and the LCD... but he was able to play with the hinge and hit it until it worked.
  • Reply 5 of 18
    thegeldingthegelding Posts: 3,230member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bauman

    My dad had a pismo with a similar problem a while back... I think they nailed it down to the cable between the video card and the LCD... but he was able to play with the hinge and hit it until it worked.



    bauman, you may possibly be a genius (mostly because i was thinking the same thing...for two reasons: one, i noticed the problem started when i was messing around with the screen position and thought it might have to do with a connection in the hinge...and two, i am not willing to put any money into this laptop (so replacing motherboards and video cards and logic boards etc is not an option....adding cheap ram and fixing a faulty cable connections is)...it is really a nice little laptop and i would love to play with it for a while if i can fix it cheap...



    how did you dad resolve the problem?? can i do it myself or does it need to be seen by a "professional"?



    thanks all....yes a 250 G3 will be a dog on OS X, but i likes dogs....



    g





    ps...getting an iBook 933 G4 for X-mas....adding the bluetooth....what printer should i get so i can wireless print from the iBook??



    thanks again



    g
  • Reply 6 of 18
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    that's not a fried video chip, it's a ed up cable.





    not sure if you can fix it yourself but I would think all you need to do is replace the LCD cable.....may be a lot harder than it sounds though
  • Reply 7 of 18
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    My Pismo (what I'm using to type this) does the same thing. But unlike your problem, it only happends for a few weeks between spring and summer and summer and fall. My problem must be somehow weather related. Try searching for a program called "NightVision" on macupdate or versiontracker. It temporarly fixes my screen by lowering my contrast to 50%. That makes the screen clear up for me. It is a free program (OS 9) so you can't get a much cheaper fix than that if it works.
  • Reply 8 of 18
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    it's the cable. they go bad often on laptops as they get bent back and forth.



    if you want i can probably get the tech. documents for the laptop, should show you how you can fix it.







    looks like it's a well known problem.
  • Reply 9 of 18
    thegeldingthegelding Posts: 3,230member
    coolio...if you can find, please send to me and i will tinker...the worst i could do if break a laptop that was not being used anyways...



    g
  • Reply 10 of 18
    thegeldingthegelding Posts: 3,230member
    hey mighty genitals...clean out your mailbox



    g
  • Reply 11 of 18
    709709 Posts: 2,016member
    Hey g, if you get the v-cable issue resolved, you might want to look into one of these G4 upgrade cards. Not an ungodly price for an upgrade (and that's the fastest she's ever gonna get) and you might even find yourself hanging out with her more if she's a bit more 'zippy'. FWIW anyways.



    Good to see your face....um...screen name again.
  • Reply 12 of 18
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    oops, try now.
  • Reply 13 of 18
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    Here's another note from the tech documents.



    Quote:

    Carefully squeeze the upper left side of the display bezel. If the problem disappears, dispatch unit for display cable replacement. (13.3 displays only) Do not replace I/O logic board or display.



  • Reply 14 of 18
    thegeldingthegelding Posts: 3,230member
    damn skippy...squeezing the powerbook worked...so i am ordering some ram and will see about the g4 upgrade...might have to send it to apple for a complete fix of the cable...or i can just squeeze it anytime it acts up until that fix doesn't work anymore...thanks for all the info...i now have any almost free laptop...still getting an iBook G4 for the kids, but now i can be a mobile mac man too





    g
  • Reply 15 of 18
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Damn... I just noticed in your pictures that the screen bezel was slightly wider than on my old Wallstreet (a 14.1"). Hah. Well, yes, the 13.3" screens are known to be pretty unreliable. At least the problem is well documented and there's a known fix, but it might be worth it to replace the screen with a 14.1".
  • Reply 16 of 18
    thegeldingthegelding Posts: 3,230member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Luca Rescigno

    Damn... I just noticed in your pictures that the screen bezel was slightly wider than on my old Wallstreet (a 14.1"). Hah. Well, yes, the 13.3" screens are known to be pretty unreliable. At least the problem is well documented and there's a known fix, but it might be worth it to replace the screen with a 14.1".



    heyzeus christ...now you want me to get a new screen too!!



    ok, this is just a found toy i am playing with..got it running os 10.2.8 just to see if i could...and it is a very nice computer that i am sure was quite expensive 5 years ago...but...i really only plan to use it for iTunes and solitaire and probably do some powerpoint talks if it will let me...i will upgrade the ram (60 bucks for 256 of ram from OWC) and will maybe get the screen wire fixed if that is cheap to do...after that i will likely do little else as:



    ram 60 bucks, add a G4? 379 bucks, if i add a G4 i will need a larger HD for 100 to 200 bucks, now lets add panther--69 bucks (i'm an education kinda guy) AND a new 14.1 screen???? without a screen i am at about 600 bucks to update this....



    now this computer comes with a floppy, a case, a cd player, two batteries and is very nice...but it has no dvd, no cd burner, a small HD and not much ram....so i can update it for 600 to 1000 bucks or i could buy a new iBook G4 for just a bit more...or i can keep this powerbook with minimal upgrades for 100 bucks...



    for now i choose the last path...perhaps that will change in time...thanks all



    g
  • Reply 17 of 18
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by thegelding

    heyzeus christ...now you want me to get a new screen too!!



    Okay, I talked to a friend of mine who works for Apple and he told me about the 13.3" screen issues. Basically he said that the problems are recurring but they can be fixed. He just said you'll need to fix it again every six months or so.
  • Reply 18 of 18
    1337_5l4xx0r1337_5l4xx0r Posts: 1,558member
    Try 'smushing' the left side of the bezel. Failing that, buy a new video cable (pbparts.com) and install it.
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