Post your non-working/dead Macs!

[B S Magnet]

I get the feeling we all have at least one or eleven of these tucked away somewhere.

They may be future projects, donors, or even cobblestones for your own paved road to best-laid intentions.

So I’ll start.

Spoiler: There are eight on my list

1. PowerBook G4 Titanium G4/400 M5884 [status: intact and dead]
   I got this in a 2005 trade when ditching my Yikes! G4/350 (my oh my, did ”Yikes!” fit). By the time I got it, the PowerBook’s hinges had been repaired from a dead donor (since the new hinges were going for, like, $250, second-hand, at the time), but its bezels and paint were cracked and chipped from heavy use. Instead of ever using it as a portable, I gave it file server duty for about a decade. Its DVD drive never worked, but everything else did. I even got it to run Leopard Server. Throughout, it ran on a 40GB 4200rpm HDD. Sometime during a 2017 move, however, it died — either the DC-in board or the logic board. It’s still in one piece.
2. iBook G3/366 Indigo M6411 [status: in pieces as a donor]
   This was my first laptop, bought used in 2004. It got me through just over a year at uni (in all, about three years of daily use). Eventually, the blue rubberized coating separated from the polycarbonate on the bottom case. Many of its parts have lived on in the key lime clamshell.
3. PowerBook G4/1.5 12" A1104 [status: in pieces as a donor]
   This was from a Craigslist trade. What the person didn’t mention was the logic board couldn’t take on DIMMs, leaving it stuck at 256MB. Eventually, I tore it apart to use the LCD in the key lime clamshell and some of the keys across other PowerBooks. When I took it apart, I didn’t know about the long keyboard screw and basically destroyed the keyboard itself.
4. iBook G4/1.33 12" A1133 [status: gutted, in pieces, dead logic board]
   This one came in a 2-for deal locally, and I ended up rebuilding the other one and giving that one to someone. It has never POSTed.
5. MacBook (white) Core 2 Duo 2.0 (late 2006) A1181 [status: partly taken apart]
   This was from a trade a year ago. The case has been through the world and back. The backlight doesn’t work. It had dead bugs inside. It sits on a shelf. It’s ugly.
6. MacBook (white) Core 2 Duo 2.4 (2008) A1181 [status: almost working, but]
   When I got this (in a trade), it booted fine. The battery was dead. I disassembled it to get the internals cleaned up (the case wasn’t nearly as bad of shape as the previous MacBook). After I reassembled it, the backlight wasn’t working. Maybe I pinched a cable, but I haven’t been moved to take it apart a second time just yet. Once it works again, I plan to give it to someone eventually.
7. MacBook 2010 Core 2 Duo 2.4 A1342 [status: dead, just dead, partly taken apart]
   Yet-another trade, this one the victim of an old coffee spill. The board does not POST. I’m not shocked. I thought I would give it a try.
8. MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo/Penryn 2.5GHz 17" A1261 [status: intact and needs a new GPU]
   This was a trade from six months ago (from the same trade as the 2008 MacBook above). I need to to send this one out to another MR member to replace that faulty graphics card revision. It’s cosmetically and internally in excellent condition, and I can’t wait to get it running again.

 

[reukiodo]

Wow, quite a lot! Most of the Macs I've had have been successful at repairing, so the only current-dead Macs I have are:
iBook clamshell (kinda boots, but always freezes)
Power Mac G4 AGP (no bong anymore)
MacBook 2009 (tried to flash new microcode and now no longer boots)

 

[B S Magnet]

Wow, quite a lot! Most of the Macs I've had have been successful at repairing, so the only current-dead Macs I have are:
iBook clamshell (kinda boots, but always freezes)
Power Mac G4 AGP (no bong anymore)
MacBook 2009 (tried to flash new microcode and now no longer boots)

Yeah, most of those on my list are only from within the last year as I began to try my hand at cleaning and fixing old computers. A couple in my signature line below were ones which were found as broken/dead, but I brought back to semi-new life.

 

[TheShortTimer]

I'll have to dig out some of the others, which includes a Mac that appears to have gone to Silicon Heaven. For now, here's the semi-dead A1181 that's listed in my signature. This is a Core 2 Duo that I purchased from Portugal and absolutely loved its keyboard layout as a nice bonus for when I needed to use Latin accents and characters. I can't remember the exact date of manufacture but it's definitely prior to 2009. This was my travel book and later, a secondary driver for academic work and it ran Snow Leopard with 2GB RAM and a 250GB HDD.

When I bought the machine it had already seen rough treatment but that was reflected in the price and it worked for several years regardless. Something related to the LCD started failing: I wasn't sure if it was the inverter or a bad cable but I really couldn't be bothered to faff around with replacing the parts because I'd already replaced the Airport Extreme Card and couldn't justify additional replacements - so I bought a 5,2. and kept this as a potential donor unit.

 

[weckart]

I have a few.

PPC

1. 2x PowerMac 6500 both have a blown PSU. Not easy to fix without technical knowhow and even then.. However, you can retrofit an ATX PSU if you hack at the casing. Both were working when acquired so I may fix when I get the time and the inclination.
2. A PowerMac 8600 arrived DOA. Powers on and the fans work but nobody's home. Probably a dead logic board. Part cannibalised for spare parts.
3. Several PowerBook 3400s. Came in a clearout. Most had suffered internal battery leakage and are unsalvageable. Kept for spares.
4. PowerBook 190 from same clearout. Same sorry state.
5. PowerBook 5300 from same clearout. Boots but screen is dead.
6. PowerBook Kanga. It has booted twice but came with a loose power connector. Have fixed that but clearly broken something else in doing that as it will not boot now.
7. PowerBook Ti 550. Came in a job lot. Screen is artefacting and lines are showing. Will boot but unstable. Kept for spares.
8. PowerBook Ti 1GHz. Arrived with a broken screen. Bottom 1/3 is black with leaking LCD juice or whatever. Works fine otherwise. Not worth repairing unless I find a free screen.
9. PowerBook Duo 230. Dead screen and the mouseball is pretty much unusable.
10. PowerBook Duo 270. Screen has vignetting disease. Power brick started smoking the last time I used it. Works fine otherwise.
11. PowerBook Pismo 400. Attempt to replace CPU with G4 didn't go well. Needs a new processor card.
12. PowerBook Pismo 400. Unstable. Needs a new DC board or something else is wrong with the logic board. Already cannibalised for spares so now a Frankenstein mess of broken/faulty parts.

Intel

1. Mac Mini 1,1 (2006). Flashed to 2,1 and processor upgraded to a C2D. Then it developed the bottom RAM slot failure sickness. Eventually stopped altogether. Not worth repairing.
2. MacBook Pro Santa Rosa (2007). GPU failure. Have the correct GPU part but not got around to having that soldered in yet.

There may be others. I really need to do an inventory sometime.

 

[1042686]

MDD single 1.42ghz - dead lobo. Pulled the lobo out of this donor MDD for my dual 867mhz to bring it back to life. This one will get cleaned out, Ill squirrel away the bits I want to keep and then I'll put some new intel or AMD guts in there and sell off the ram, CPU & heatsink real cheap n fast hopefully. All about a fast nickel vs slow dime.

17” 1.25Ghz SLSD - dead lobo & 12” 1ghz - dead GPU/lobo. The 12" is a donor box for my 867mhz pb12 but am on the hunt for dead LCD 12 & 17" powerbooks to swap LCDs and bring em back to life.

I reaaaaaaaally miss my 17" powerbook. Patience.

 

[timidpimpin]

I only have 1 dead. An iBook G3 600MHz. Dead board.

 

[Project Alice]

I have this iMac G5, I've spent hours trying to get it to work. Most likely caps although they look fine. It turns on and I don't remember which one but one of the diag lights is indicating a "display problem".
Makes for an interesting decoration though lol


Next we have a Power Mac 7500. Bought it on eBay for 5 bucks totally untested but it was 5 bucks, plus like 15-20 bucks for shipping. This one is a little odd. At the time I didn't have any way to test it until I got a VGA card of some type. Eventually I did, and it would just turn on but the screen would stay black. One time, I was able to get it to boot a Mac OS 8.6 CD but it had a "can't copy system folder" error. Couldn't get video ever since. I've screwed with this thing for hours so it pretty much just sits on that shelf.
(I haven't had the quadra very long, and I didn't want to test it too much until I get it recapped; but it does turn on at least).


A 2011 i5 MacMini! No it isn't a PPC but its definitely dead. I bought it a couple years ago for 75 bucks from some shady dude on craigs list. He said it was untested. My thought was that they were going for more than double that at the time and that worst case scenario I've got a $75 brick. Which I do. I assumed it was the PSU, ordered a new one, installed it and it still wouldn't turn on.
Interestingly enough the two minis on top of it are both working, a 2009 C2D and a 1.5Ghz G4.

Here, we have a Power Mac G4 DA, and a QS2001. I'll start with the DA. I bought it from a recycle center (I always buy cheap macs from them when I go) I think it wouldn't POST properly or something. I have too many graphite macs that I didn't have a use for it anyways. It might be fixable.
The QS2001: I've it for about 7 or 8 years. During highschool it was main computer besides my iBook G4. After I finally got an upgrade, I loaned it to a friend who didn't have a computer but needed one for school. Anyways he had a power-surge in his house, and the mac wouldn't turn on since.
I tried fitting an ATX PSU in it with an adapter but it didn't work. It wasn't til earlier this year that the mac is actually functional. I bought an actual QS PSU and plugged it in and it worked! But, I have already used literally every other part like the drive cages, the drives, ram, and GPU for other things. So there it sits.


Finally, just one more picture. A white circa 2006/2007 Mac Book, and a MDD G4.
The MDD doesn't turn on, most likely the PSU. I'll probably test that out eventually as I have two working MDDs already.
The MacBook actually works, but the screen is cracked. Hook it up to a screen and it works great.
The other machines in this picture work, including the other two MacBooks (don't worry, the broken screen one is at the bottom).


Edit: I forgot one! This was 5$ at a recycle center. I don't have a power cord for it so I can't even try to turn it on, but the LCD looks like its probably cracked.

 

[1042686]

I have this iMac G5, I've spent hours trying to get it to work. Most likely caps although they look fine. It turns on and I don't remember which one but one of the diag lights is indicating a "display problem".
Makes for an interesting decoration though lol
View attachment 883053

Next we have a Power Mac 7500. Bought it on eBay for 5 bucks totally untested but it was 5 bucks, plus like 15-20 bucks for shipping. This one is a little odd. At the time I didn't have any way to test it until I got a VGA card of some type. Eventually I did, and it would just turn on but the screen would stay black. One time, I was able to get it to boot a Mac OS 8.6 CD but it had a "can't copy system folder" error. Couldn't get video ever since. I've screwed with this thing for hours so it pretty much just sits on that shelf.
(I haven't had the quadra very long, and I didn't want to test it too much until I get it recapped; but it does turn on at least).
View attachment 883054

A 2011 i5 MacMini! No it isn't a PPC but its definitely dead. I bought it a couple years ago for 75 bucks from some shady dude on craigs list. He said it was untested. My thought was that they were going for more than double that at the time and that worst case scenario I've got a $75 brick. Which I do. I assumed it was the PSU, ordered a new one, installed it and it still wouldn't turn on.
View attachment 883055 Interestingly enough the two minis on top of it are both working, a 2009 C2D and a 1.5Ghz G4.

Here, we have a Power Mac G4 DA, and a QS2001. I'll start with the DA. I bought it from a recycle center (I always buy cheap macs from them when I go) I think it wouldn't POST properly or something. I have too many graphite macs that I didn't have a use for it anyways. It might be fixable.
The QS2001: I've it for about 7 or 8 years. During highschool it was main computer besides my iBook G4. After I finally got an upgrade, I loaned it to a friend who didn't have a computer but needed one for school. Anyways he had a power-surge in his house, and the mac wouldn't turn on since.
I tried fitting an ATX PSU in it with an adapter but it didn't work. It wasn't til earlier this year that the mac is actually functional. I bought an actual QS PSU and plugged it in and it worked! But, I have already used literally every other part like the drive cages, the drives, ram, and GPU for other things. So there it sits.
View attachment 883061

Finally, just one more picture. A white circa 2006/2007 Mac Book, and a MDD G4.
The MDD doesn't turn on, most likely the PSU. I'll probably test that out eventually as I have two working MDDs already.
The MacBook actually works, but the screen is cracked. Hook it up to a screen and it works great.
The other machines in this picture work, including the other two MacBooks (don't worry, the broken screen one is at the bottom).
View attachment 883062

Edit: I forgot one! This was 5$ at a recycle center. I don't have a power cord for it so I can't even try to turn it on, but the LCD looks like its probably cracked.
View attachment 883063

Very cool - Your QS has the Zip drive. Love how those look.

 

[TheShortTimer]

This is the iMac G5 that's listed in my signature within the "semi-dead" category. 1.8 Ghz and 1.25 GB RAM. I found this on my street and although it was able to power up, the curse of bad caps made it too unreliable for any kind of prolonged usage. On the plus side, it had a Fleetwood Mac CD in the optical drive and I recycled the 1GB RAM module to upgrade my Mini G4 to its full capacity.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

I'd have to try them all again to be sure, but probably a dozen or so.

The current "sad one" is my Cube, which recently stopped booting. I'm not sure if it's the power brick or the Cube itself though, as I don't have a spare of either.

 

[MagicBoy]

Just the one :

TiBook 867MHz. No backlight, otherwise works fine. Someone gave me a 1GHz version a few months after I got it ... so never got around to fixing it up. Works fine with an external display.

 

[Slix]

I think I only have one officially non-working Mac: my aunt and uncle's old iMac G5 17". They got it new years ago and it had the bad caps issue I believe so it stopped booting, but instead of fixing it they got a newer Mac Mini instead, so a while later they gave me the iMac in the box, which proudly sits on display in my basement, since I have a working iMac G5 out already.

I have a bunch of older tray-load iMacs, and some have been barely used since I got them (I feel bad every time I think about it!), but I believe one or two suffer from the screen pop flyback transformer issue, so it makes me scared to use them and I don't really want to invest money into a tray-load iMac G3 when I have a few more already.

 

[Eightbitgamer757]

well this is a thread i can post to luckily
I have an iBook G4 (something wrong with the motherboard i think a capacitor blew or something)

 

[ediflorianus]

Cool posts. most of the capacitor problems are fixable. I have a couple untested (like a Late 2006 MacBook 2,1 A1181 EMC2121- no adaptor , I got one but was the wrong MagSafe.. never knew they wore more than one models).

Got a B&W G3 with at least bad PSU
And a old 90s Powerbook 2400series(I think) that dose not want to use its hard drive... and I cant figure it out why. Come to think of it, its not powering porperly any drive (hdd) I tried in it.

REMEMBER that PowerBook G4s (early ones) will not boot with a bad CMOS battery and just pull the pin out and start the thing normally....

 

[Slix]

I think I only have one officially non-working Mac: my aunt and uncle's old iMac G5 17". They got it new years ago and it had the bad caps issue I believe so it stopped booting, but instead of fixing it they got a newer Mac Mini instead, so a while later they gave me the iMac in the box, which proudly sits on display in my basement, since I have a working iMac G5 out already.

I have a bunch of older tray-load iMacs, and some have been barely used since I got them (I feel bad every time I think about it!), but I believe one or two suffer from the screen pop flyback transformer issue, so it makes me scared to use them and I don't really want to invest money into a tray-load iMac G3 when I have a few more already.

I saw this again, and realized I actually have a few more that are non-working: A PowerBook G3 Pismo from my uncle that was in constant use for like 15 years before the power got fried, and an early Intel 15" MacBook Pro, with a broken logic board.

 

[repairedCheese]

I don't know much about what is wrong with this old machine, it doesn't show anything beyond a blue screen when it tries to boot, no errors, no happy or sad Mac, nothing but blue. It's maybe a little older than most of your machines, but still, it's an old non-working Mac in my possession.

 

[ediflorianus]

View attachment 913110
I don't know much about what is wrong with this old machine, it doesn't show anything beyond a blue screen when it tries to boot, no errors, no happy or sad Mac, nothing but blue. It's maybe a little older than most of your machines, but still, it's an old non-working Mac in my possession.

Did you try booting with command button? option button? cd-rom- c button?
on winworldpc.com you will find all the os disks(.iso) you-ll ever need.

 

[repairedCheese]

Did you try booting with command button? option button? cd-rom- c button?
on winworldpc.com you will find all the os disks(.iso) you-ll ever need.

Problem is, it only takes floppies and I've been fresh out for 20 years. There are no isos for this thing, I promise.

 

[Macbookprodude]

I'll have to dig out some of the others, which includes a Mac that appears to have gone to Silicon Heaven. For now, here's the semi-dead A1181 that's listed in my signature. This is a Core 2 Duo that I purchased from Portugal and absolutely loved its keyboard layout as a nice bonus for when I needed to use Latin accents and characters. I can't remember the exact date of manufacture but it's definitely prior to 2009. This was my travel book and later, a secondary driver for academic work and it ran Snow Leopard with 2GB RAM and a 250GB HDD.

When I bought the machine it had already seen rough treatment but that was reflected in the price and it worked for several years regardless. Something related to the LCD started failing: I wasn't sure if it was the inverter or a bad cable but I really couldn't be bothered to faff around with replacing the parts because I'd already replaced the Airport Extreme Card and couldn't justify additional replacements - so I bought a 5,2. and kept this as a potential donor unit.

On line rights also include the removal of TLS apocalypse and the totalitarian tyranny of Mozilla which needs to be taken out and Google also needs to be taken out, so the web can be free to everyone regardless of browser age ????? I hope so, because I want this to happen.

 

[Amethyst1]

On line rights also include the removal of TLS apocalypse and the totalitarian tyranny of Mozilla which needs to be taken out and Google also needs to be taken out, so the web can be free to everyone regardless of browser age ????? I hope so, because I want this to happen.

Do you really have to bring this up almost every time you post, even in threads that have nothing to do with this particular subject?

 

[weckart]

Problem is, it only takes floppies and I've been fresh out for 20 years. There are no isos for this thing, I promise.

If my MacSE can start up from an external zip drive, Jaz drive or SCSI cdrom, there are alternatives, depending upon what you have to hand.

However, what you have looks to be a caps issue with the power supply.

 

[repairedCheese]

If my MacSE can start up from an external zip drive, Jaz drive or SCSI cdrom, there are alternatives, depending upon what you have to hand.

However, what you have looks to be a caps issue with the power supply.

Unfortunately, all my computer hardware of that vintage is designed for x86, and while I have a parallel port Zip drive, I don't have anything SCSI. I simply have nothing to install. But hey, that just means it's a project. working on the caps in the PSU, a problem I feel my Performa 6205CD also suffers from, though a lesser degree, in that I sort of have to let it warm up before booting, it's not as bad as it could be, and I know someone who would love the challenge of fixing those caps. And while I'm doing that, there's got to be something cheap I could get my hands on, if only it means using my 6205 to make boot media.

Or, at the very least, getting a usb floppy drive for my PMG5, I may need to look up just what the Performa 405 supports as far as floppies are concerned.

 

[MultiFinder17]

I’ve got a couple around, some at home, some stashed in my classroom.

17” iMac G5 - I used this machine as my classroom announcement computer when I started teaching until it pooped out. No power, no signs of life. Probably a bad power supply; I’ve since been harvesting it for parts. Lives in the closet of my classroom.

15” 1GHz PowerBook - Bad GPU. Boots partway with tons of artifacting on the screen, then freezes. Lives in my office in my classroom.

12” 1.5GHz PowerBook - Works fine, but ugly as sin due to poor shipping. It’s a parts machine for my main 12” 1.5, the laptop that got me through college. Lives on top of a bookshelf in my living room.

PowerBook 540c -Bum power jack, LCD split itself apart a couple years back. Looks nice on a shelf in my office in my classroom though. Has the apparently rare factory SCSI-IDE adapter in it.

2006 Core Duo MacBook - No clue. Powers on, no chime, no video, no nothing. Lives in a closet in my home.

2007 15” MacBook Pro - bad GPU. I swear to my wife that it’s on the list to actually fix eventually Lives in a closet in my home

 

[Macbookprodude]

Do you really have to bring this up almost every time you post, even in threads that have nothing to do with this particular subject?

I am sorry, just too angry and can’t think.
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Maybe you can help me - show me a free easy to use web proxy that I can use old browsers and stick it to those monsters ? Thank you.