I just purchased a 2005 Powerbook G4 12" and ordered a new battery. Unfortunately, when I stick a coin into the battery release latch on the underside of the computer, it just keeps turning around without ever releasing the battery. Therefore I'm guessing it's broken, and the battery is stuck in there. What do I do now? Can I take it to a Genius bar?
View 1 RepliesI bought a Powerbook G4 17" 1ghz off of ebay, knowing it has latch issues (not catching). I was wondering if there was some way I could fix the latch myself that was not invasive (dont have to remove the bezel), or if there was a way apple would repair it for free since it wasnt from a drop(says prev. owner). IF there isnt, I was wondering if a magnetic strip applied to the case and bezel would keep it closed, or harm the internals...? Would velcro adhesives work? I would rather not use a wrap-around solution to clasp it shut
About the Powerbook G4 17" sound quality. It sounds almost the same as my Powerbook G4 15" 867mhz did, isnt it supposed to be a little louder than that? Could anyone describe their experiences with the PBg4 17" an sound volume?
picked up a unibody last Saturday night, and opened the battery cover tonight. The latch was opened with little resistance, but now won't close. The latch edge sits about 1/8" up, and I can't find anything which would seem to prevent it from closing.
Anyone else had a troublesome battery latch, and how did you resolve it?
I am leaving for a week long trip and many parts of it will not be able to run the computer off of the powercord, which is a problem because I get about 40mins of wordprocessing use out of it when I run the battery alone. Can someone explain what the significance of these levels are for my Powerbook G4 15'' (Alm) 1.25GHz, namely the cycle count and full charge/remaining capacity?
View 8 Replies View Relatedi had applecare but they wouldn't cover it so the bill is 1300 to fix just the screen and labor. any other place i can go to to fix this?
View 2 Replies View Relatedi have a friend who has a powerbook g4 (black keyboard) that was sold to him for very cheap, unfortunately the screen was torn off the base of the computer. Its in perfect running condition but he cant take it anywhere because the screen needs to be supported against a wall as it cant stand on its own. Is there any inexpensive way to fix the screen and restick back to the base of the laptop and if the only way to go is get a professional to do it, how much would it cost him to get it fix. He got the computer for 50 bucks so having the computer work perfectly even if he has to spend at most 300 dollars would be great.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI'm looking to get this titanium powerbook but it has a broken screen, possibly bad backlight? I can get it for a good price and I would love to have it to replace my ibook. I don't know the specs for sure but I am positive I think it's the DVI version since it has the keyboard that looks like the ibooks(same placement for the keyboard release latches).The guy said it worked fine on an external monitor but just recently he said it won't boot now and it now makes a high-pitched whining sound. Anyone know what that is? I'd like to use it as a headless mac until I locate a new screen for it.
View 4 Replies View RelatedInstallation was easy, I used the ifixit guide. But - and I am still slapping myself for it - I broke the battery during installation.
Following the ifixit guide I removed the battery to have more room for the installation of the SSD. The battery came off very easily, but unfortunately with the socket from the motherboard still attached.
I have tried to reinstall it, but apparently the contact is to loose. It does not stick to the motherboard and I am wondering how Apple attached it in the first place.
My Macbook Air still works on AC - and the Runcore is a breeze - but it will not recognize the battery. That means my svelte MBA is no chained to my desk.
Edit: Clumsy me, of course I managed to break the battery holder (the little metal thing connecting to the + of the battery) Any chances of fixing it without replacing the motherboard or such? Every time I disconnect the power cord from my 2008 Mac Pro the system time is reset and my key-chain starts fuzzing (I have to re-enter my e-mail password). What could be the problem and what solutions are there? I'm thinking maybe it's the battery but I would like to hear from someone who knows a bit better, that is you lot , before I try to correct the problem.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a mid2009 MacBook Pro 15" 2.8 Ghz with an 1TB in the main bay and a Verbatim 128GB SSD in my optibay. I also upgraded my RAM to 2x 4GB. It runs the latest Lion version.
Here is my problem:
When I work on my battery and there's no power left, it automatically shuts down. Right? The sleep/wake light lights until the battery is out of power. If I then try to reboot, the Apple and a loading-bar appear which shows that it is recovering the previous session so that I can continue where I left (right?).
The problem is that it fails at 1/3rd of the bar and the screen goes black. After resetting PRAM and the other resettable things, it still won't boot on that partition.
I tried to repair from an external Lion installation drive, my second partition (which also runs lion) and from the Recovery HD (of both partitions). I always get the same problem (see picture).
This is happening to me all the time. After several reboots i can acces my files again, but I still can't boot from my partition because it fails loading my last session. It certainly isn't the disks fault because I can boot from the other partition on that very same disk w/o any problems. Right now I'm trying to make an identical copy with Disk Utility (as described by Apple).
My question now is: Can I repair the partition by any means without reformating it (as I did the last times)?
Furthermore: Can I just disable the function that tries to backup/restore my last session so that my MBP just shuts down or does a hard shutdown when the battery dies?
PS: My Time Machine drive is at the moment not available, so I couldn't backup in a while, I need the files.
I have a G4 powerbook with an LCD that only displays the top 25% of the screen. I've been using an external monitor with it just fine. Today, I reinstalled the OS and ran into a problem. The main OSX startup menu (you know, where it asks for your location, timezone, personal info, etc) is prompting me for information, and I can't see the forms to fill them in! The external monitor defaults to "extended" as opposed to "mirrored", and the forms are embedded, meaning I can't drag them over to my external monitor. Obviously, if I can't fill out these forms and get to the desktop, the laptop is completely useless.
Does anyone know how to force the external monitor to be "mirrored" from startup? Is there a keycommand?
The little white plastic doohickey that opens the battery compartment on my laptop (powerbook g4, I thinks) has broken off and now I can't open the battery compartment.I'm trying to find out if my battery has the appropriate serial number for the recall, but I can't open the battery compartment. Plus, the battery no longer works at all, so I have to use the AC adapter if I want to use the laptop at all--NOT GOOD!Does anyone know if this dumb little piece of plastic can be replaced, and if so how? (I'm sure it costs something like .000000003 cents to manufacture......)
View 8 Replies View RelatedSo I just picked up a powerbook g4 12" 1.5 for a notetaking/work/travel computer, and it's all good, but I had a quick question about the superdrive- aside from needing to reinstall leopard, I don't think I ever need it. this may be a stupid question, but if I take out the superdrive, will that give me more battery life and make the computer lighter?
View 2 Replies View RelatedI've been having with my 500MHz Ti Powerbook. It has been acting very temperamental during startup where it will not startup at all, the fan will come on but no screen, or it will chime twice (and it's a weird sounding chime) and not startup, or it will freeze after logging in or during the log in stage. I got it to boot up once, but since then... it's dead. It will not startup. A friend tells me it's the internal lithium (PRAM?) battery that needs to be replaced
View 2 Replies View RelatedMy Powerbook G4 is only 2 1/2 years old, and yet my battery only lasts for a short time. I've read various consumer reports that laptop batteries these days (regardless of computer brand) only last 2-3 years, so this disappointingly seems to be the norm.A replacement battery from Apple costs quite a bit, so I can't help but think that if I replace the battery cells inside the battery casing myself I could save a bundle. This and this site shows how, but so far I haven't found anything specific concerning the Powerbook G4 battery. Does anyone here have more info on the subject?
By the way, what's the best way to "reset" the battery? My Mac seems to be uncertain of how much power the battery actually has (it might show 45 minutes left, then suddenly turn off) -or maybe this is just a sign of a worn out battery.
Does anyone know of a decent web camera that can can fit/latch on the top of the MBP screen that I can use inplace of the default isight? The camera is really small and not so great in low light (the iPhone4's camera would be a better fit it seems).
View 4 Replies View Relatedwhen my G4 was in my backpack it fell out (bottom down) pretty hard, a restart brought it back to normal and the latch broke... it still closes, i need to push harder, but the button doesnt have its springeness anymore, anyone know how much apple will charge to fix it?
View 2 Replies View RelatedSome days ago i finally added a Powerbook g4 to my Mac collection and since then ive been trying to fix this computer without any results. The Powerbook had the battery dead at first and i had to replace it with a new one i had. Now the problem/weird thing is that the computer detects the battery but it doesnt charge. It has about 18% of the charge and when i try to boot up all i hear is like a fan sound and nothing more, no boot up sound and no image on the screen.
If i boot up using the power cable thats when i see the 18% of the battery icon, but as soon as i take out the power cord, the image goes black although the computer still makes sounds as if it was on. Does it have any solution? PS: ive tried to reset the PMU,changed the pRam for a new one, reset the Nvram.
I have and old, but powerful, powerbook g4 667 (gigabit ethernet) with leopard 10.5.2 and runs well, but the battery is crazy:
Capacidad de plena carga (mAh):26564 (full capacity charge)
It's possible to fix? I read that reseting power management, but doesn't seems to work. It's is possible that leopard is causing this? the battery problems begin when install leopard.
I am hoping someone can give me some advice. I have a G4 Powerbook that I've had since 2003 (yes I know in computing terms that's ancient-but we were getting along fine...!) 15 inch, 1.25GHz/512/80/SD. Replacement battery about 18mths ago, no other problems.
On Wednesday evening it completely froze and I had to press and hold the power button to turn it off. And that was it, nothing more, no whirring, no noise-It just won't do anything. Have tried resetting the PMU-several times, ac cable and battery are fine.
My Powerbook G4 only turns on if the battery charger is plugged in, and if I unplug it, the computer shuts off. On the menu bar, it says charging. I know the battery has to be full. This just started happening last night. Also, I just had the hard drive replaced and I've only had it back for a couple weeks.
View 10 Replies View RelatedMy Powerbook will not power on. I have followed some instructions on disconnecting the PRAM battery and that did not work, any ideas? I just stopped coming on without any explination.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a Powerbook G4 1.67GB with 2GB ram.
I am constantly having problems with the laptop shutting down when it is just on battery. It doesn't do this if I am plugged into power.
It does this on a random basis whatever program I am running but generally at 80%. I currently have Leopard as the operating system.
I have a 1.33ghz 12inch Powerbook with 768mb of RAM, my battery lasts for about 20 minutes, I am on my 4th ac adapter (and it is already broken again, I so get why they made them magnetic in future laptops). I am running Tiger... everything works just fine except the embarrassing battery life and unpredictable charging (b/c of the semi-broken power adapter).
View 6 Replies View RelatedWell as the title says, my latch button on my 12" powerbook g4 1.33 is stuck in, and i have no idea how to get this thing fixed. It all started with a trip to the apple store to get my optical drive replaced because it was "eating" DVDs. When they sent it back to me, the report said they had replaced the bottom case, and within a week the button would get stuck in a crooked position so that the latch does not catch. I couldnt afford to give it to apple for another week because spring break was now over, so i just dealt with it until yesterday when i hauled it back to the apple store.
The genius there was like "ha! thats strange" and filled out the paperwork, and then can't get it to show up as a free fix because they won't replace lowercases without it being user repair. The head genius then came over, i explained my problem, and he said there was nothing he could do to help me, and then they walked over to the next customer.
I just upgraded from a 12" iBook to a new MacBook Pro. My iBook is still working nicely and I'd like to give it to my bf's parents. The only issue with it is that the little magnetic latch that swings out from the screen bezel came unattached several months ago. I was rather annoyed when it happened, but I discovered what a big to-do it would be to take apart the LCD housing to try to fix it, so I just left it as is. But before I give it away, I'd like to now permanently afix the latch in the "out" position with some strong epoxy glue or something, so that the screen can be properly latched shut. I was wondering if some kindly iBook user out there could do a couple quick measurements of the latch in the out position, so I know where to put it. Knowing how far it's supposed to stick out and how far it is from the side of the little hide-away in the bezel would be excellent.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a 1.67 GHz Powerbook G4. This morning it was fine. When I got home from work, it decided that it suddenly no longer wants to stay on when not plugged in. The battery is showing a full charge. The light on the plug is green. But the second I unplug the cord from the laptop, the entire thing shuts down.
View 6 Replies View RelatedMy girlfriend has a 12 inch Powerbook G4. She noticed that the battery life was starting to dwindle. Tonight, she tried using it. It wouldn't power up. The battery indicator showed one flickering power circle. The adaptor has the green circle on it, indicating the battery has a full charge. However, the computer won't charge up.I've read the 12 inchers don't have separate PMUs. Could that prevent the machine from starting? She was using it earlier this evening, as she e-mailed me pictures from our vacation.
View 10 Replies View RelatedHow can I transfer files to powerbook 540c
View 7 Replies View RelatedMy 12 inch powerbook does not start up. Instead it loads to Darwin. I have an install disk from a 15 inch powerbook G4 and I would like to know if using this would work on my 12 inch powerbook G4?
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