PowerPC :: How To Fix IBook Power Adaptor?
Dec 22, 2007
I thought I'd write this brief how-to incase anybody else ever needed the information. I have bought 3 power cords/connectors/adaptors for my iBook in the last three years - crazy, right? I stepped on the tip of the first one by accident, and was unable to bend in back into shape. The second one (a third party version by MacAlley) spontaneously conked on me, the brick stopped worked. And more recently my third, another third party bought cheap off eBay because I was fed up of paying, developed a connection issue somewhere in the wire (it worked fine, then I had to fiddle with the wire to get it to work, then it stopped working). With all these broken connectors sitting around, I figured there must be a way to solder them together and avoid paying another 30$ on eBay and being without a laptop for 2 weeks.
STEP ONE:
Assemble all the broken adaptors you have, asses what works with what.
- I took the brick from the original which was working fine and the tip from the 2nd cord (the one where the brick stopped working)
STEP TWO:
Cut off the tip from both cords, make sure to leave plenty of wire attached to the brick and tip your using.
STEP THREE:
Strip the tips of both wires, there should be two sections; an outside section (wrapped around the inside section) and an inside section. In the original Apple adaptor, the outside section was braided around the inside (which was incased in rubber) along with a yellow insulator. In the second adaptor (MacAlley) the outside was twisted around the separate inside wire.
STEP FOUR:
Clearly seperate the two sections of wire from each, then twist them together. MAKE SURE THEY TWO SECTIONS (INSIDE VS. OUTSIDE) ARE NOT TOUCHING. You don't want to short-circuit your adaptor.
STEP FIVE (optional):
Solder the wires together
STEP SIX:
Tie a knot in the power chord before the connection, to avoid accidental stress on the joint, and cover it all with electrical tape.
So far, its been working fine. But be warned, THERE IS SOME RISK INVOLVED WITH THIS PROCEDURE. My battery is charging fine and the iBook is powered as usual. I'm just waiting for the battery to fully charge to make sure the power adaptor stops charging the battery when its full (don't want a cooked battery!)
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Mar 16, 2008
I have a 1.67 Ghz, 1gb ram 15inch powerbook. I need a new mains power adaptor as mine is pretty well had it. I've looked around on the web and am not sure if I need a 45watt or 65 watt adaptor. Does it make a difference? I'm based in the UK.
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Jan 21, 2009
I went to turn on my Powerbook G4 (Aluminum 1.67GHz Low Res) today and when I plugged it in, I noticied a kind of crackling or popping noise. I unplugged the power adapter and tried again. I knew that my battery was dying before this (could only get about 30 min on a charge). But now I cannot start my Powerbook. Whenever I plug in my power adaptor, there is no green/orange light. However, when I take the battery out, I hear the Powerbook trying to start up (hard drive spin). But then there is nothing but my fans on full blast! They will not stop and there is nothing on the screen. I left it there for a good 5 min and nothing changed!
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Mar 8, 2007
I just aquired a PowerBook G4 (500Mhz) and it is dead. It will not turn on no matter what I try and when I plug in the power adaptor it glows a bright orange (almost red)...what does that mean?
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Feb 10, 2008
I have a iBook G4 laptop and there seems to be something very wrong with it. It started a few days ago just randomly. I was reading something on the internet and the screen went black on me, but the power was still on (I clicked CAPS LOCK to see if there was power). I then proceeded to push the power button and the power went off. When I pressed the power button again to turn it on, it made that internal noise it always makes and then the fan came on, and wouldn't turn off. There was no picture on the screen at all. Completely dead. But there was power, because when I clicked on the CAPS LOCK, the light came on). I tried pressing on the power button for at least 15 seconds and even went as long as a minute, and the power didn't go off.
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Apr 5, 2007
My iBook G4 power supply failed and I'm awaiting a replacement. In the mean time, can I use the power supply from my iBook G3 with the iBook G4?
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Dec 14, 2009
My daughter has an iBook G4 which she loves and uses daily for school. When she turned it on today it would power up but no display. The CAP Lock key will light up. I have reset the PRAM and PMU but no luck.
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Oct 2, 2006
I'm currently out of the country doing field research and just the other night, there was a power outage here and now my ibook won't start up. Of course, being in a "third world" country, I wasn't able to invest in a good power surage protector.
Is my computer dead for good?
I have a lot of work that needs to be done and my computer is essential here. Anyway, I can rescue my computer? I press the power button and it does absolutely nothing.
What do you people think might be the problem and how much am I looking at to fix this?
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Aug 3, 2007
I have an 14" iBook, 1.07 GHz and it won't use battery power. As soon as I unplug it it turns off. It worked fine until I opened it up and swapped in a DVD-RW and a new hard drive (the old one was failing). In the power section of system profiler it shows 98 load cycles and about a 75% remaining capacity. It may or may not be charging - I can't tell. The battery says it's fully charged at 95% and I have no way to drain it and see if it will recharge because the computer won't drink from the battery. I had another 14" iBook battery laying around that I thought worked, but now when I put it in this computer it just sits at 0% then eventually says the battery is dead (the menu icon shows an X through it).
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May 22, 2008
I have an old 14 inch ibook i use internet/mail my girlfriend recently damaged the power cable so cant get it to charge. Any suggestions as to where I might get a new one?
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Sep 16, 2008
My iBook G4 occasionally cuts out without warning when it's being powered by the battery.The battery still seems to have charge - it will light up all 4 charge lights when the button on the battery itself is pressed.It also boots back up straight away when the power on button is pressed after having cut out.This has never happened when the iBook is plugged in to the mains supply.
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Nov 17, 2008
This is a mystery to me. Long story but the gist of it is that I found if I hold down the power-button on my iBook while it's off it goes into some weird mode. i.e. fan spins, disc spins, sleep light flashes and a tone comes from the speakers.Is this some sort of hardware test mode? Is it going to blow up? Is it resetting something?
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Jul 23, 2010
The cord on the 45w power brick for my iBook G4 has frayed and is no longer usable. I am considering removing the jack from the iBook cord and splicing it onto a 45w yo-yo-style cord (originally used with a 1400) that I have. Are there any issues associated with this of which I should be aware? I want to resolve my problem, but do not want to break my computer in the process, of course.
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Jan 27, 2007
I have a g3 dual usb ibook that has a DVD/CD drive, 640 ram and a firewire port. I just bought a G4 800 mhz tower that has a gig of ram, but it does not have DVD drive (it's a cdrw only). My Ilife install disk is a DVD, is there anyway to use the DVD drive on my ibook to install software onto the G4 tower? Both devices have firewire but if possible I would like to use an ethernet cable connection between the two. I dont have the correct firewire cable(it's expensive).
A second question is i an os 10.3 on my ibook and 10.4 on my G4 tower. Is there a easy way to transfer all my files, settings, ect... from the ibook to the G4 tower? I don have the osx 10.4 install discs either (if that matters).
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Apr 2, 2007
I have an ibook G4 (2years old, a part of the battery swap program) that charges normally... for about twenty minutes. Then the light around the charger turns from it's normal "i'm charging" orange to nothing, the light goes out and the ibook switches to battery power. I've just inspected the power chord and there are no strains or tears, the plug at both ends are in good condition and the ibook power socket is fine too.
I've turned the ibook off for a period of time (two days) and reset the power manager... still no difference. The ibook looks and acts just like it should until about twenty minutes into the charge then the light turns off and it's like it's been disconnected. The chord is in correctly, i've even tried the apple extension chord = no joy. If i reconnect the power chord at the wall it's fine, starts charging again... and yes i've tried different sockets on different circuits in the house!
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Sep 25, 2007
well it does charge just not how it should. when i plug the ibook into the power adapter usually nothing happens. i have to jiggle the plug in just the right way to get it to charge and this involves putting pressure on it in some direction. it has gotten worse so now i have to have constant pressure on it for it to charge. i have tried 2 different chargers so i know its not that. i was thinking maybe the DC board but i was not sure.
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Jan 4, 2008
This is quite an interesting situation I'm in.
Today during High School, my first period, I noticed a Mac iBook G4 in the recycle pile used by my schools Tech department. I decided to swoop it up and give it a whirl, and see for myself what the problem with it was.
When I first powered it on, I was receiving a scrambled signal on my display. It was merely a white screen with lines in it, after a while of tinkering, even grabbing a few mac knowledgeable buddies of mine to see if they could do anything. It seemed like this would drag on, and I would not fix it.
In the end, we ended up tapping the screen and seeing a faint hope of light, that light was the appearance of the desktop! Unfortunately, the screen soon vanished back into it's scrambled state. Upon further tapping, we could only figure it was a problem with the connection of the display to the logic board.
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Jul 15, 2008
My sister has just broken off the central pin to her iBook G4 which is now wedged inside the connector. Obviously the ac adapter is screwed and needs replacing but short of pulling out the offending pin from the inside of the connector, would I have to replace the power supply? How complicated is this? Cost? Any guides etc?
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Jan 21, 2009
My old 1.33 12" iBook needs a new drive. I need some advice regarding the power switch cord. This says the power cord is soldered to the board: [URL] I can leave the top case connected by the power switch cord if required. Perhaps I could tape the case down during work on the back side and rotate the connected case left during work on the front side. This is slightly beyond my skill level. Great advice found here during searches. I plan to be very slow, methodical, and conscious of screws/step.
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Dec 16, 2008
I've been lurking for the last 12 months but haven't posted until now. Does anyone know if it's possible to purchase a new PCB and lead for the power input. My youngest kid pulled my mac off the sofa and it landed right on the input which knackered up the lead forcing me to buy a cheap chinese job. I've taken the cover off and pulled out the small PCB to inspect it and it did have a cracked solder. I fixed that but the connection is still very fussy, I can't move the mac much or it will switch off (dead battery too). While I'd love to go out and buy a brand new macbook I simply can't afford it right now so patching up this one is my only choice. It needs ram, new battery, proper lead and power supply PCB. All easy to find except the PCB.
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Jun 8, 2009
I have a 12' iBook G4 (1.33 ghz) that took a tumble and the power connector snapped off inside of it. I took it apart, popped out the broken bit from the dc-in board, and used it until the battery drained. It worked fine until then.I bought a new power cord, but it failed to charge the battery, and after searching through countless forums, I figured the problem was the dc-in board. I bought a replacement, and just installed it. Now, the battery indicator lights (the four green ones) are showing that it's charging up. It's on three right now. But the computer still won't power on. No fan noise, no other lights. I tried the PMU reset, but nothing. It's weird.
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Jan 11, 2010
My iBook G4 crashed on me one night, and the only way I could turn it on again was to unplug the power cord from my computer, turn it over, remove the battery, put the battery back in, plug the cord back into the computer, hold down the start button, and it would restart. Although, when it restarted, the fan would go on first, and then the computer would make the normal start sound. Some times the finder would be on the screen after I restarted it displaying a quick link icon of the hard drive. So after a few weeks, it did it again, then a few days, and then it got to the point where I had to keep my computer in the same position otherwise it might shut down.
Now, if the power cord is green everything is fine, but if I move my computer and bump the cord into the wrong place it turns from green to bright red, makes an evil buzzing sound, and in three seconds the computer shuts off and I have to restart by using the method above. If or when the power cord goes bright red I do have 3 seconds to pull out the cord before it shuts down. I then sleep the computer, put the cord back into the computer, and move the cord around until it is green again.
I took my computer to a mac genius, and when he looked at the crash report he said it was frequent, but not caused by the battery and couldn't tell me what was the exact problem. I bought a brand new power cord, but I still couldn't move the computer around to much or it would shut down.
1.) Has anyone ever heard of this happening? And if so, what causes it to be so touchy?
2.) What can I do to fix it myself?
3.) If I send it in, will they be able to fix it so that it is perfect again without having to spend more than the money assessed?
I would like to try to have it fixed. At this juncture, my only option is to send it in for $280 and hope they can fix the problem that no one seems to know what is the exact problem, or even where the problem stems from. I should add here that the battery is fully charged, and the report says it can hold about 1 hour of life, although it's more like 30 minutes, and then without warning to plug in or risk shutting down (like it used to give me) it will shut down.
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Sep 5, 2010
Am I safe using a power adaptor from a Macbook Pro 13" purchased in Australia on my 15" Macbook Pro purchased in America?
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Dec 9, 2010
What does a red light on the power adaptor mean?
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Mar 29, 2010
My friend just spilled some water on her new mb. The water was spilled on the side with the power adaptor. It immediately shut off and we took the bottom off to expose the inside of the computer and put a fan on it to dry out. We plan on leaving it like that for 24 hours so it is completely dry. Is that normal for it to immediately shut off like that?
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Jun 29, 2014
My macbook pro will not power on the AC adaptor when the battery is connected, I have to disconnect the battery to get it to power up on the AC Adaptor, tried another battery still don't work just has a X on the battery icon at the top. Running Mavericks at the Moment.
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Jun 18, 2012
I am looking to connect my macbook pro to an Acer G24 monitor, but am not sure what best way to do it.The resolution of the monitor is 1920x1200, and it is a 24" screen, with VGA, DVI, and HDMI ports.My macbook pro is the late 2011 entry model.
Will there be a difference in the quality of the picture on my external monitor, depending on whether I connect using a HDMI cable or a DVI cable? I will have to buy an adapter for each of these, to plug into the mini DVI port on my mac, will this alter the quality of the picture at all? If I were to buy an Apple Tv, would I be able to plug it straight into my monitor using a HDMI cable? If so, how would I manage the audio, as my monitor does not have speakers. Would using a thunderbolt cable (with HDMI adaptor) increase the quality of the picture of my monitor?
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4), Apple TV, Thunderbolt, Monitor
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Sep 7, 2009
I just bought myself an entry-level MBP 13". Coming from PB 12" 1.5 ghz, this is a major upgrade for me, and I am happy about it. However, there is one thing that I cannot figure out.
I have been a happy user of Dell 2209WA, which works perfectly with my PB. Today, I connected the monitor to my brand-new MBP via Mini DisplayPort to VGA adaptor. After connecting it, I closed the machine and woke up using my mouse. Immediately after that, the monitor said "Entering Power Saving Mode." I clicked the mouse, then the picture was sort of blurry. Then the monitor kept on entering power saving mode... As for the picture quality, even after I opened system pref. and detected the monitor, it was still not good. I'm totally bummed, because I really like the monitor.
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Aug 13, 2010
I have a G3 iBook and just the other day the display stopped working. There were no signs of the display going bad, it's just went. Am I able to boot the iBook via Target Disk Mode on my PowerBook and run the iBook Hardware Test CD on it? Also, can I reboot my PowerBook and choose the iBook as the startup volume?
I know how to do Target Disk Mode but the latter I'm not sure about.
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Oct 20, 2006
My brother's iBook G4 (800Mhz, First Rev) has completely splattered itself and we're getting a new Macbook for him under insurance. My iBook G3 (White, 900Mhz G3..the last G3 Rev of the iBook) has a failing hard drive.
Now, could I swap out those two drives, at least to recover stuff? And is there a specific method of opening up the iBook G4 so that I don't break stuff (I've already messed with my G3..and ended up with a dozen extra screws ^_^
Mainly the aim is to salvage the hard drive and swap them out; replacing my faulty iBook G3 one with the iBook G4 one which is perfectly fine.
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