need help with a couple G3 laptops

[bryphotoguy]

3 to be exact. I recently got overly excited and bought a (parts only) iBook clamshell SE 466, a supposedly nicely used G3 366 graphite (had a damaged screen), and a Wallstreet II w/o a AC cord.
I tried to use the YO-YO cord on the Wallstreet w/o luck. It's a 266 with 128MB of ram. It'll power up as soon as I plug it in and then die. I push the power button and it will make the Mac chime and not power up. What's up with that? Can I use the Yo-Yo on the Wallstreet btw?
So I took the HD out of the Wallstreet and shoved it in the 366 clamshell. It powers up and the HD clicks loudly over and over again and then it goes to the os9 question mark folder icon. The HD drive no good? Simply no OS?
The SE 466 works great now that it has all the good parts from the two iBooks. I just want to know how I can watch movies on it using OS9. I shoved in a movie and it shows up on the desktop. Do I need a codec or can I just download a audio/video player?
Few other random questions...
If I can get the Wallstreet powered (it's got a DVD drive) Can I install OSX on it? Possibly all three of these if I can get them working??
One of these iBooks came from a grade school or something and it's got a lot of drawings on it. Can I remove the bottom rubber part and clean it?
I guess that's it for now. Thanks so much in advance for your help!

Peace!
Bryan

 

[Makosuke]

Somebody else might have better suggestions, but here are a couple to get you started:

1) All three of those computers will run OSX, given enough RAM (256MB absolute minimum, I wouldn't bother with less than 384MB). I'm not positive which ones will take Tiger (well, they all will, but it might not be "officially" supported), but at *least* 10.3 will run on all three.

2) If the hard drive is making loud, repetitive clicking, that's usually a sound of it having failed. I suppose it could be the drive controller that's bad, but much more likely the drive is just toast. It'd be easy to check if you can get it booted from an OSX CD/DVD with the drive installed and run Disk Utility. I wouldn't expect a lack of OS to cause noise like that, though.

3) Try one of those Mr. Clean "eraser" things on the case--might clean it off without requiring dismantling. If not, yes, I don't see why you couldn't remove the bottom part to clean it.

4) On the Yo-yo, the Wallstreet did (I think) come with those originally, but if it's from an iBook it might not provide enough power to run the computer, which would explain why it's shutting down immediately. You might try it without the battery installed--if it's not also trying to charge the battery, it might run the computer.

Otherwise, go to OWC and buy a power brick for it--I got a 3rd party one for a Pismo for like $20 and it works fine, even if it's not attractive.

[Edit: On "movies" I assume you're talking about DVDs; if it has a DVD drive installed, Apple's DVD player in OS9 should play movies just fine (in fact, I don't know of any other way). Same in OSX. If you do install OSX and have trouble you could try downloading VLC, which will also play DVDs, but it won't run in OS9.]

 

[bryphotoguy]

OWC, what's that?
eh, the HD in the 466 SE iBook is from the 366 iBook which only hada cd drive, so I don't think it's got the os9 dvd player.
I just need to get my hands on a copy of panther. (that's 10.3, right?)
Thanks again!

bryan

 

[Makosuke]

I just need to get my hands on a copy of panther. (that's 10.3, right?)

Yes.

And that would explain the absence of a DVD player app, though for some reason I thought it was installed under OS9 whether you had a DVD drive or not. Guess not. If you've got an OS9 disc floating around somewhere, you should be able to get it off of that.

And OWC is OtherWorld Computing -- macsales.com -- they're a reasonably good Mac-centric upgrade and peripheral store.

Oh, and I don't know if those iBooks required hardware help to play DVDs, but if not, one or the other of these two downloads should do it:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=26201
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120022