Another Wallstreet not booting.

Way common problem. The Frankenstreet I built from my spare parts donor and the parts from Flojoe (here on AF) would refuse to boot if I left it powered off and unplugged for a few weeks.

I learned a trick (thanks to AF) to resurrect it.

I also bought a 14" 266 WS from eBay. Listed as dead. Purchased it for $50. The trick also worked on it.

Here's what you do.

* Pull all the batteries out
* Plug power cord in
* Wait 30 seconds
* PMU Reset (3-key salute plus power)
* Wait 30 seconds
* Hit the power button. It might start.
* If it doesn't, leave it plugged in for 24-48H and then it will definitely start if nothing is b0rkt.

The PRAM battery is rechargeable, and if it's dead, it won't even think of booting. Sometimes, a few seconds of charging and a PMU Reset will jump start it to life. If it's been out of commission for a while, the PRAM battery may take a day or two to charge up. I've found removing the main batts speeds up charging of the PRAM battery.

Good luck, let us know how it goes!

thanks for the trick, I shall try it as soon as a rebuild it.

I tore it apart just to make sure, and the DC/sound card was loose. i'm not sure if it was caused by disassembly, but I made sure it was tight.

also, the keyboard that came with it has a problem: the right cable will not stay in the socket, even when locked. I tried my other one, and it does. this suggests that it is loose. I can use my other one, but it warped from I dont know what. the other one looks nicer, but that is the only thing that is wrong. I read about shimming the 13" LCD display cable, wonder if I could do the same here, and what should I use to keep it in place?

oh, almost forgot: like I said, I did tear it down, flipped the board over, and I do not see any burn marks, so I have nothing shorted.

i'll let you know how it goes when i get it fully reassembled.

-digital

EDIT: man, the PMU is a real PITA. I followed the iFixit guide, attempted to remove the PRAm battery, but decided to leave it. I was swapping the one that this one came with with the unbroke top case of my old one. i'll see how she goes...

this might be rude, but am i the only one with a working wallstreet on here? probably because my pram battery isn't completely gone yet, but i'll tell of when i relocate it when i get a new one.

ok, I rebuilt it, and tried the trick posted earler. nothing. so I'm gonna leave it plugged in for 2 days. no batteries or EBMs attached, just the power adapter. if that doesnt fix it, I dont know what to do.

oh, I did fix the keyboard by taking a few pieces of masking tape as a shim, stacked onto the back of the connector. it holds, and it works. So, if anyone else has a problem, use masking tape.

let's hope this works. any other ideas in case this does not work?

btw, I know the two boards are from 2 different lines (this one is a Series II, the other one is a Series I), so one has a ATI Rage Pro (Series I), and the Series II has a ATI Rage Pro LT. what is the difference between the two? they both display the same res, and both have the same amount of VRAm (4mb). just curious.

thanks. -digital

By all the batteries, do you mean the PRAM battery too?

well, the main batteries. I have 3 of them. I am going to leave the PRAm battery in so it can get a good enough 2 day charge.

for an 18v battery, you would think it would charge faster. why does it need to be be charged for so long, if you don't mind me asking?

-digital

Also, I have found some of the new slim 2.5" HDs do not seat correctly in the old Wallstreet HD cage.

Dave

Mine works great. I'm just using my new MacBook a little more now.

the 40gb I have is a slim model. it fits fine with the 4 screws in the cage, and no issues.

and very nice setup. never knew the LCD was so bright. looks like i'll have fun once I get it working.

i'm not going to fire it up until about 1 a.m. EST Tuesday, Febuary 6th, 48 hours after I first set it up for the trickle charge (or whatever this is). I did notice the backlight went on and off when I reset it, so that does work.

-digital

Cool, sounds like you will be okay.
My Wallstreet works fine BTW...
The issue I had with the slim HD is that it fit the cage fine but the pins would not seat
correctly to the MB.
Worked fine without the cage /this was a Toshiba 20 GB drive, never did get it to work correctly.
Tried shims, cage mods...
But this does not appear to be your issue.

Dave

You can try every 6 hours or so. It won't really slow the charge down. just try the power button, then wait 30 seconds or so, PMU reset, 30 seconds and power again. It should eventually come out of its coma if everything is okay.

Keep in mind that the first power-on after the PMU zap, it takes quite a while to actually respond. about 30 seconds till the HDD starts spinning, sometimes.

just tried the procedure, it chimed, but that was all. the num lock and cap lock lights come on when activated, but that' s as far as it gets. will try again in 6 hours. I am now about 19 hours into the charge cycle. long time to go.

I will post updates every 6 hours.

-digital

This seems to be the exact same problem as mine. I know for a fact that mine had sat unused for 6 months or so, with no battery or mains power before I got it. It worked fine for a day or so and then has been doing this ever since.

funny how good they look together. your situation sounds much like mine with the wallstreet versus my albook.

just tried another cycle, still nothing. i'll try it again in another 6 hours.

one thing I did notice, is the right palmrest was warm, right where the PMU sits. is that normal?

thanks.

-digital

Well I can't say if its normal or not, but its the same as what I'm getting with mine... Still no luck on my front either.

I really like the way the black MacBook looks. Makes me wish I had gotten it instead of the silver.

attempt number three was a failure. another six hours...

-digital

I don't recall the wrist area of my Wallstreets getting warm. Also, are you 100% sure the CPU is really seated well? My WS took a fall once, and the CPU just barely shifted, causing it to not boot at all.

yes, I am quite sure. the notches line up, both connectors are in place, and I pushed it down in there pretty firmly. plus, if the CPU was not in or not in properly, when I hit the power button, the sleep LEd would come on full. I did this first just to see what would happen.

-digital

PMU heating up is definitely not normal. mine's never done that in the 3 years i've owned it. sounds like something shorted itself out.

so then what do you suggest I do? I just zapped it again, and it still didnt work

i'm running out of my 48 hours here.

-digital

When the plastic shim/stabalizer fell off my keyboard I used my large partly serrated pocket knife to cut a new shim/stabalizer out of the plastic front of AAA battery package. Then, because I did not have any good glue on hand I just taped it down with some clear tape. I will probably glue it down later but for now it works well.

ok, I tore it down again, and this time removed the PRAM battery. after a minute, the fan came on, but that is all. and the fan went up and down in intensity several times. over the course of a few PRAm resets, the fan now comes on immidatly after I hit the power key. still no HDD activity, still no video.

am I closer to getting it to work?

-digital

Have you got the green charge light? Because I don't And no warmth under the palmrest either

Here's some notes from my wallstreet tinkering.

1) The LED blinks when the wallstreet is sleeping. It comes on momentarily after a PMU reset.

2) The fan comes on after a PMU reset or the initial power-on after a PMU reset.

3) The green LED has never come on and stayed on solid on either of mine, even if the CPU is unplugged. I don't think it's normal.

4) The PMU has never heated up on me. That's really odd. Are you sure the PRAM battery is good?

5) The only thing that happens when you charge the main batteries, is the battery meter shows you how much charge it has.

It sounds like you have something fried.

nothing is charging, but I do get the sleep light after a PMU reset. The next step will be a full motherboard replacment. I have one on hand from the old Series I. The only difference between the two that I know of is the video controler. the Series I has a ATI Rage LT, and the Series II has a ATI Rage LT Pro. so, it looks like I wont be losing much speed between the two.

I'm going to swap the mobo and report back.

wish me luck.

-digital

I got it working!! It was the CPU card. I swapped the 300 for my old 233, and it booted right up. installed Mac OS 9.2.2 on it, and i'm gonna have some fun with it now.

thanks for everyone's help.

-digital

Hi all,

Can I pick your brains some more, now that digital's works?

I was just given two wallstreets and told to make a working one for their owner. He just doesn't have the time. I have one that seems to boot just fine, but has no HD. The only issue is that when you first plug in the power cord, the fan revs up like a chainsaw and the green sleep light stays solid. This lasts about 5 secs. Then I can power on with no problems.

However, the second wallstreet is killing me. It was dead at first. After disassembling, I was able to get it to progress to the green light and fan noise, however, it just stays like that. It doesn't do anything else. I can reset it with the ctrl-fn-shift and it will stop the noise and light, but it does not respond to the power key. Resetting again will give me constant fan and light.

I was able to get this unit to chime once, but I shut it off to install a CD drive, as it has no internal HD.

I let it sit attached to power overnight, so we'll see how that went.

Any ideas?
Thanks

First one sounds like the common almost-dead-PRAM-battery thing. If it sits too long, it will whirr up and the light will come on for a bit. Install a HD in it, and it sounds like you have a working wallstreet for the owner.

The second one? leave it plugged in and see if that helps. Make sure the connections are all good, too. If it chimed on you, it should boot, but like I said, the initial boot could take 30 seconds or longer before the HDD spins up or the backlight comes on.

Doh - double post

Congratulations! Now I've just got to find a new CPU card for mine... Any idea where the best place to find one would be?

ebay is about the best place. I just dont know why it would fail suddenly like that, but it did.

Now, if only the batterys would charge. I tried zapping the PRAM, running battery Reset 2.0, nothing works. perhaps the charge card? I have an extra one of those too.

-digital

UPDATE: I inspected the 300mhz card, and I did notice one thing: there was a hair embedded in one of the connectors. So, I removed it, it still didnt boot, but I decided to wash it. here's how:

1. remove any ram
2. take a flat blade screwdriver, and carefully pry up the black piece covering the CPU. you need to do this by prying the frame that surrounds the CPU, NOT the round disc.
3. wipe off any thermal compound. in my case, it was white, so it was easy to spot.
4. wash the card thuroughly, in cold water, as you would any dish.
5. let the card dry on some paper towel for AT LEAST 24 hours, or until the card is COMPLEATLY dry. Remember: water is an electronics part's worst enemy, when electricity is applied.
6. place the card back in the computer and power it up again.

I will let you know how it goes in a day or so. wish me luck.

BTW, i'm typing this on the PDQ under iCab. quite a nice browser. and I love the keyboard on this thing.

-digital

UPDATE: Ok, I washed the CPU card like I said, and it still isnt working. i guess I'll use the 233mhz card for now, but i would really like to get the 300mhz card working. if not, i'll just find a faster card on ebay or wherever.

as for the batterys not charging, this is an issue I really want to get working, because even my 1400 gets an hour and a half out of his battery. So, I need to know, should i or should i not replace the charge card? because that requires tearing it down again, and i'm really loving this thing, and would hate to put it out of commission for another 2 hours or so.

thanks.

-digital

The way I convinced my battery to work when my Wallstreet was going was to go into Open Firmware (Cmd-Opt-O-F at boot), typing reset-nvram at the OF prompt and rebooting. (I think). I got AGES out of mine

I did that, but I got :

0> reset-nvram reset-nvram, unknown word

it's running OF 2.0.1.

I know this command is supported on my B&W G3 running OF 3. I just type reset-nvram, hit enter, and then type reset-all, and that makes it reboot.

any help here? anyone have a complete list of OF 2.0.1 commands?

thanks.

-digital

EDIT: OK, this is the process of resetting OF on most old world macs, like this one (type these commands in order):

init-nvram
set-defaults
reset-all

it will then reboot, and boot as normal. now to see if the batteries charge...

-digital

EDIT 2: ok, I ran battery reset 2.0 twice on all three batteries, none of which responded, one of which I KNOW is a good battery. this suggests a hardware issue.

anyone want to back that up?

-digital

Ebay seller ginothings has a bunch of wallstreet stuff, including 300MHz CPUs, and he offers free shipping if you sign up for his newsletter and pay within 24 hours of the auction close.

really? i fitted the 20gb slim drive from my dead ibook with no issue whatsoever. it was a bight of a nightmare copying over all my files through my network though.

Ebay seller Gino's things intenionally sent me the wrong SoDimm for my Wallstreet.
I paid top price for a low profile 256 module and he sent a high profile stick I'll NEVER deal with the guy again!
I do have an extra Wallstreet processor available.
I know it works, but I don't rember if it is a 233 or 266, but I can test it if you are interested.

Dave

I worked a yr in a small mom and pop computer shop that bought surplus hardware from AOL [mostly pee cee's] but occasionally we got lucky and got a lot load of apple stuff - 50 + pismo's several never issued with the plastic protective cover still on the LCD [ this was 2002 ] and 30 some lombards / wallstreets

FYI - my experiance when one will not boot - remove reset PRAM - used reset on back depending on model - remove all batteries / power, take off keyboard ie remove from mobo set aside, remove hard drive, and of course remove PRAM battery

I had differet units that a keyboard was shorting out something and would cause a no boot, same with dead PRAM bat, and defective Hard Drive

yes the unit will boot with out the keyboard .......

my personal experience,your mileage may very .... blah blah blah ...