Strange Mac PB

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 3:48 pm

Hey folks:

We just suffered a city-wide power outage. I was using my laptpop at the time (PB G4 1.5), so I decided to save the battery power and shut it down pretty much right away.

So, the power comes back on, everything is plugged in. The battery is recharging up from the 5-10% battery power it used.

Well, the screen is now very dark-- I can barely see as a type this right now. The brightness controls are giving me the old N/A sign: a circle with a line through it. The display was fine even when the power went out and the battery kicked in. It was only after restarting with the power supply connected that the display went dim.

I've restarted and reparied permissions a couple of times and am literally "in the dark" here.

Oh-- the Displays feature in System Prefs is wide open (ie: the brightness slider).

Any ideas?

Thanks!
Frodo

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:46 pm

Have you tried zapping the PRAM?

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

Also the power management may be corrupted:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449

sdemott · Post by **sdemott** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:54 pm

reset the NV-RAM (non volatile RAM) because it will reset your video card as well as the PRAM.

reboot while holding cmd-opt-o-f
the system will drop into open firmware with a ">" prompt.
then type:
>reset-nvram
>set-defaults
>reset-all

the system will reboot and if this is a problem of PRAM or NVRAM all should be fine.

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 5:04 pm

The hobbit is humbled!

Genius is nothing without generosity!

Thanks cuttime and sdemott. Because of your collective genius and generoisty I'm back in stride once again--!

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 6:18 pm

Frodo wrote:The hobbit is humbled!

Genius is nothing without generosity!

Thanks cuttime and sdemott. Because of your collective genius and generoisty I'm back in stride once again--!

You may want to reset your PMU as well. Just a thought...

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:19 pm

It may be time to swap out the entire hard drive. I'd like to get a bigger one than what that came with it. That will also help to clear out a lot of cobwebs.

Thanks again, folks.

sdemott · Post by **sdemott** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 8:10 am

you are most welcome.

If you can be relatively gentle and are somewhat handy, the process of a HD swap isn't too bad. Check out ifixit.com for the take-apart docs.

I have it down to about 30 minutes for the whole shebang now.

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:23 am

sdemott wrote:you are most welcome.

If you can be relatively gentle and are somewhat handy, the process of a HD swap isn't too bad. Check out ifixit.com for the take-apart docs.

I have it down to about 30 minutes for the whole shebang now.

I haven't cracked open the PB G4 yet-- it has a great little window strictly for changing RAM, which is all I've done so far. When I upgraded my PB G3 years ago, I remember having to crawl under all sorts of things-- some parts were quite stubborn when taking them out-- other parts were stubborn getting back in. I hope the G4 is a little different-- easier to access. It's a 17"-er, so that alone might make it easier.

sdemott · Post by **sdemott** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 6:57 am

Yeah - the nice thing about the 17" is that there is a little less "stacking" internally, because of the extra room.

It's really not too bad to get inside, the hardest part is a "hidden" latch on the left side of the CD intake slot, but once you do it once or twice you "get the gist" so-to-speak and it's not too bad. You will spend a few minutes on that alone the first time around, but it's not too bad & the take-apart docs are very explicit.

A couple of hints-

Get a bunch of small cups/bowls/tupperware for separating the screws by step. Saves a lot of trial and error when putting it alll back together.

Be careful with the rubber feet/spacers on the HD - you need them for the new HD to "lock it in".

Before starting, discharge all static energy by touching something metal/conductive & try not to do the swap on a carpet or while wearing anything static producing (sweaters and the like). Wear shoes or go barefoot - no socked feet on the floor.

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Thu Oct 05, 2006 9:04 am

Darn it-- I'd just put on my cashmere sweater and my hands are dripping wet. You mean, that's not good?

Kidding, of course.

Your advice is always sound, sd, and greatly appreciated.