Hello everyone,
I joined this forum in the hope to find some help regarding the iBook G3 14-inch
that I am currently refurbishing. It is a 700 MHz model from the transparent/
silver series.
I successfully fixed its GPU failure with the common shimming method, but this
beast obviously bears another bug: it will only work from the power provided
by the battery, it will not power up when the DC plug is plugged in. It won't
load the battery as well. What I get when I plug in the DC plug is a red light on the
plug, not amber as when the battery is loading, it is a darker red tone.
My first attempt was to replace the DC-In-board, but that did not change the
behaviour. Yesterday in a desperate moment I placed a battery from a 12-inch iBook
in the battery bay and everything worked like normal! The battery was loading, it
would power up, but still not work off the DC power alone. This is puzzling... it
will work and load a 10.8V battery, but not its normal 14.4V battery.
A few minutes ago I tried the power supply from a 15-inch Aluminum PowerBook,
the 65W one, in the hope that somehow my charger is too weak, but it shows the
same issues with this charger.
Of course I also tried 2 different 45W-iBook chargers, which work perfectly on a
friend's iBook 12-inch, but not on my broken 14-incher.
I'm kind of lost right now... can anyone explain what might be wrong, what I could
attempt to fix the machine? I bought it in this broken state for around $75 (50 Euros),
in the hope to fix it until christmas as a present for my better half.
Thank you very much for any advice and greetings from Germany,
Maximilian.
Max,
There have been several threads running about the internal contacts for the aux power connectors on the G3 PowerBooks. Apparently the main culprit is the solder joints on the connector. Check the threads. There are several folks who have found and fixed this problem.
Best Regards,
Steven,
thanks for your reply. However, I wasn't able to find the threads you
mentioned, although I searched for nearly an hour. Can you be a
little more specific or provide me with a link to one of the threads?
Thank you very much,
Maximilian.
Max,
I'm trying to find the discussion. I know I've been reading about it for at least two weeks. If I can find the thread before you do I'll let you know.
EDIT: So I'm silly and didn't read the whole thing about multiple adapters...
Jon, thanks for your reply... but I tried already 3 different chargers.
As stated in the original post, I tried 2 different iBook chargers,
which work fine with other Books. And furthermore I tried a 65W
PowerBook charger that works flawlessly with a 15" Aluminum
G4.
EDIT: Nevermind![Wink](https://www.applefritter.com/sites/all/modules/smiley/packs/kolobok/wink.gif)
Cheers,
Max.