Pismo no longer drawing power

[Warbrain]

I've got a Powerbook G3, specifically a Pismo, sitting in my house right now since it's gone completely dead on me. I knew that the power supply was going bad - it was sparking like none other inside the cable - so I bought a new one hoping that it would solve all the problems. Unfortunately, the darn thing won't even draw a charge now. The battery doesn't charge, the computer doesn't power on without the battery in, nothing. Any idea what could've happened to this thing? I know that it's entirely possible that some of the internals got fried, but I really hope that it's not that.

 

[HiRez]

If your battery is one of the original Pismo batteries, it's probably useless now. I bought two with my Pismo originally and they both completely died after about 5 years. I would try using the reset button on the back and then zapping the PRAM (by holding down Cmd-Option-P-R when starting up, unless it doesn't even get that far). Are you absolutely sure your new power supply is OK? Is there another Pismo around you can test it with? Have you tried the battery in both battery slots?

It is possible the power card inside your Mac is damaged, in which case it's probably not even worth trying to fix it (costwise). Looking on eBay, I see you can get Pismos for well under $100. I'd try to return your new power supply and apply that money to another Pismo, where you should get a working Power Supply and will have backup parts for everything. Or just get a used Titanium machine if you can afford it (I recommend the DVI model at 667 MHz or above, they are much faster than the early non-DVI models). Pismos were great machines, I loved mine, but sadly they are now quite old.

 

[Warbrain]

If your battery is one of the original Pismo batteries, it's probably useless now. I bought two with my Pismo originally and they both completely died after about 5 years. I would try using the reset button on the back and then zapping the PRAM (by holding down Cmd-Option-P-R when starting up, unless it doesn't even get that far). Are you absolutely sure your new power supply is OK? Is there another Pismo around you can test it with? Have you tried the battery in both battery slots?

It is possible the power card inside your Mac is damaged, in which case it's probably not even worth trying to fix it (costwise). Looking on eBay, I see you can get Pismos for well under $100. I'd try to return your new power supply and apply that money to another Pismo, where you should get a working Power Supply and will have backup parts for everything. Or just get a used Titanium machine if you can afford it (I recommend the DVI model at 667 MHz or above, they are much faster than the early non-DVI models). Pismos were great machines, I loved mine, but sadly they are now quite old.

Much thanks. I'll have to run this all past by my father as this is his computer, but we both have little time to take care of such things except for the fact that I'm on winter break now. Again, thanks for the info.