Lombard - DEAD

[Cindy]

Well, thats the LAST time I ever buy anything off ebay or used!! My Lombard is dead. No power. I took it into the repair place and they tried everything til the guy said, "it looks to be more serious and I'd have to look at it more closely." I decided not to because it would cost me 60.00 just to have them look at it.
I'm so pissed off at the thing anyway - I don't want to deal with it any longer.
Too bad I poured in extra cash and put in all that extra memory!!
I would like to stick it on ebay (I never said I wouldn't sell anything, I just won't buy anything used) and sell it for parts and the memory.
The problem is... there is my information on it - my password etc. Since it has no power, how can I sell it without anyone getting that info? Take out the hard drive??
I have no clue! That's why, when I recover from this fiasco, and get enough money put together, I'll buy a new one.

 

[CanadaRAM]

You can pull out the hard drive and put it into a USB or Firewire 2.5" case ($20 - $60) and recover data / reformat it from another Mac. Use the Zero all data option if you want to be doubly sure.

 

[Bibulous]

What did you pay for it?

 

[Cindy]

I'd be better off taking it in and having them do it - if they would, for a reasonable price. I don't have another machine to put the HD into. And I"m DONE spending anymore cash on the thing!

How much did I pay for it..... 290.00. Plus another 70.00 on extra memory. I'm just sick over it! That's what I get. I should have never dinked around with ebay crap!

 

[Bibulous]

yup, ebay sucks sometimes...

 

[Cindy]

How much do you think I can recover from this without a hard drive? The only thing I can boast about is, is that it has new 384MB

Also, without the hard drive, can someone access anything at all?? What about mail?

 

[FadeToBlack]

Also, without the hard drive, can someone access anything at all?? What about mail?

Without the HD, it'd be impossible for someone to get your data. Just take the HD out before you sell it.

 

[Cindy]

got a slight heart beat....

well, just for giggles, I plugged the Lombard in once again. I first hit the reset button and then plugged it in. I now have the green light lit
But when I push the power button, still nothing.
Any ideas??
I have a friend who fixes Macs and he's going to take a look at it on Thurs.
I had it up for auction on ebay and ended the auction early as I wanted to take up my friends' offer to look at it.
I have already ordered a new updated ibook but if I get this Lombard working again, I can at least sell it as a working computer.

 

[mahashel]

PMU battery?

My Wallstreet G3 pbook displayed similar symptoms when its PMU battery died.
I'm not a super-duper Mac genius, but here's my take on the issue:
The older powerbooks had a small rechargeable battery inside (separate from the main LiON battery) so that you could swap batteries without powering down (a nifty feature). The issue is that this internal battery (also called a PMU battery in some places) had to be at least partially charged before the machine could power on.
In my case, the main LiON battery was toast, so my PMU battery was long gone. After much research, I learned that a replacement PMU battery could be bought for about 40 bucks, but would take an entire evening to install. (it's at the dead-center of a Wallstreet powerbook) TOO much effort to resurrect a 233 G3 machine, in my opinion.
I guess my recommendation would be to leave your Lombard plugged in for several hours and see if you get lucky. Mine came back to life, but I can't take it off the AC adapter for more than a minute without it dying.
If you wanted to invest in all-new batteries for the thing, I'll bet it would work, but that's probably more than you want to spend.
Sorry, not a simple solution, but maybe the insight helps.

 

[Cindy]

hmmm... Well, I'll leave it plugged in and see if I can get it to start up. It's getting warm, so power is getting to it.
Hopefully it will charge up that battery enough. I just want to know what's wrong with it so I can sell at a price that is fair to all.
I won't keep it since I'm getting a new ibook.
But I don't want to sell it for very little or give it away if it's just a matter of a battery. I've seen this PMU battery and it's not difficult to get to in a Lombard.

 

[yellow]

You know, a dead internal battery DOES sound like a likely culprit here. Good catch (especially if it works).

 

[Cindy]

Now how would I know if it's just the pram battery OR if it needs the whole charger board? The charger board is around 40.00 and the pram battery is 19.00.