17" DLSD PowerBook unusual failure mode

[FBSD_Mac]

My PowerBook may have bitten the dust. I haven't seen this failure mode before but perhaps more experience PPC owning Mac users have and can offer advice?

I was testing out the new version of Arctic Fox under 10.5.8 (completely unrelated to the issue at hand) when the screen froze. Initially I was still able to move the mouse but eventually that froze as well.

I had an active ssh login from my ThinkPad (running FreeBSD) and was surprised to see the machine idling (looking in top) even though the webpage I had been loading when the freeze occurred had the CPU pegged. I killed Arctic Fox from the command line but that didn't change anything so I initiated a shutdown from there.

At that point the computer did not restart but was in a partially disk demounted state where it couldn't decipher my UID anymore in response to "whoami". The system still showed the frozen image on the screen and I couldn't run anything from the command line any longer in that state so I did a force shutdown.

Now booting does not turn on the screen, I get a chime once every 6 or so boot attempts, and the optical drive does a seek approximately every 5s or so.

I've tried reseating the top case cable (under the lower RAM slot) a few times (always finicky due to a previous owner ripping out the bale lock) with no change.

I tried feeding it an old FreeBSD PPC disk I had on hand and that spins up for a bit but doesn't seem to boot either (no screen turn on). I can't reset the PRAM or drop to OpenFirmware and I can't eject the disk (so no keyboard or mouse input). Only the power button is recognized.

I tried pulling both sticks of RAM and it gives me a long beep on power-up with a flash sequence on the sleep light (expected) but nothing else.

This seems rather more severe than anything else I've encountered so far.

Is my PowerBook toast or do have other options I can check before I decide if I should try to see if perhaps someone like DOSDude1 or NorthridgeFix (YouTube) could repair it? It might be cheaper to look for another PowerBook but this one is in nice condition with no dents or bad scratches and a good screen.

 

[eyoungren]

A couple things to try, although based on your symptoms, I don't really have much hope here.

Try resetting the PMU (or whatever term it is for PowerPC). I haven't done that in a long time, but it's something like pulling the battery and power cable and then holding down the power button for a few seconds. Then reconnect the cable and battery and try restarting. You may have to Google that.

The other thing to try is to see if you can get TDM (Target Disk Mode). You start with the Mac off, then hold down the T key and press the power button to turn the Mac on (continue holding the T key). If you get a Firewire logo moving across the screen then you're in TDM.

Success with either of these would be proof that your logicboard hasn't died.

 

[FBSD_Mac]

Thank you for the advice -- no dice.

 

[eyoungren]

Thank you for the advice -- no dice.

Yeah. Your LB is probably toast.

 

[Smithwick’s]

Any luck booting to Open Firmware if you disconnect the HDD? Assuming you have an HDD it could either diagnose a failed disk (likely at this age) or a problem with the bus - and at that point you're better off doing a logic board transplant unless you really want the challenge of trying to fix it.

EDIT: I present this idea because a similar technique helped me diagnose a KL failure on my Pismo. Had to do a brain transplant to get the poor thing fixed.