Ages ago a friend of mine sent me an Apple iBook that needed seeing too. According to my friend he had been having hard drive trouble (nothing more specific than that) and asked his mate to replace the HDD. Regrettably, he pulled the top plate off the unit without reading the service guide and pulled the power cable socket clean off the motherboard leaving two very tiny points of metal to solder onto. I eventually got around to doing it some time ago and the replacement HDD was sent to me and it turned out to be SATA and not the required ATA. I said I would locate one, yet for various reasons the job was set to one side and completely forgotten about. The irritating thing is that I am totally stuck with it. I did a pretty 3rd rate soldering job mainly because I could barely see where I was soldering too, then had to modify the casing slightly in order that all the cables tucked in. Nothing too excessive but it wasn't the prettiest of jobs under the hood. Voila, I had power! So, next I tackled the HDD, but only had an old 30Gb drive lying around. Fitted it, formatted it to zero, checked for errors and duly loaded OSX using 2 supplied discs. After an hour or two of using the unit it locked up whilst displaying a "You must restart..." message. Upon restarting you get an message about "mac-boot" and it goes back to the old Mac file with a question mark. I bought another set of OSX discs after noticing the supplied ones related to 2 different versions of OSX. So, I stuck OSX Tiger onto the unit. Same thing. Every few hours it cuts out and you have to use one of the installation discs to get you up and running again. Initially I thought it must be the HDD, so I stuck another one in (newer) and the same thing happened. The unit looks like it has seen better days and the guy who "repaired it" previously left screws missing, bits lying around inside the unit and even a screw behind the LCD which rattled when you picked the computer up. Anyone got any ideas as I have gone through the tips offered by Mac. I'm back home on Tuesday and need to sort this out. Initially I was going to buy it, but I think it's borked beyond repair. Thanks! Images of the issue(s) It doesn't just happen when I am doing updates. Sadly, it's not as simple as that. This is just an image of when it last occurred. Sometimes I don't even get as far as updates. I have tried a number of different install discs. You can see the message that pops up. Switch the unit off as requested and try to boot again and you get this screen, where you have to type "mac-boot" And finally here, where you have to repeat the installation process over again. It might be a motherboard fault as I have tried 2 different HDD and I suspect this might have been the HDD problem my friend had in the first place. Advice welcome!
"Invalid memory access" makes me want to say it's as simple as bad ram, or as pseudo-simple as the ram slots being crummy/damaged. How many sticks does it have? Reseat? If two, remove one and swap them around?
Discovered a whole pile of information on something called "Kernel Panic" relating to this very fault. Seems it is a common complaint with specific Apple iBook motherboards. Ugh! Might be trash fodder then. Reading reams of stuff though. If anyone has direct experience of this, please let me know. Thanks! ** Edit ** Could the CMOS backup battery going completely flat have an effect upon this btw?
For kicks, you could try and run a memory test... like memtest! http://www.command-tab.com/2008/01/11/how-to-test-ram-under-mac-os-x/ With this one you'll have to at least get into OSX to install it (which will place it appropriately as noted) and then reboot with Command+S and run it from the command line. I would hope the CMOS battery (I was about to say something since your date/time were wrong) wouldn't make that big of a difference. At least, the one in my G4 MDD was certainly dead forever, and I didn't replace it because I just kept it plugged-in.
PowerPC macs use PRAM, not CMOS, but the idea is the same. on the iBook g3/g4, there's not battery, just a capacitor. This could be burst or flat- you might wanna look on the board for bulged or damaged can caps. Another tip to try and fix the constant drops into Open Firmware, http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1812
Ah ha! Thanks, I am not familiar with Open Firmware at all. Infact I have never had to check anything on a Mac before mainly because I have never had a faulty one until now. Says something about their reliability considering I've owned a fair few. Okay, so that drop into OF is due to the possibility that the cap is borked? I'll keep that in mind next time it does it. I am also considering an over-heat issue as once it does run for a while it actually gets pretty hot (hotter than I would expect at least). Could lead to something on the logic board not liking it. Plus I discovered that these logic boards have a bit of a problem regarding cracked solder on the airport chip. It's internal rather than an add on. Lots to investigate, no time to do it! :033:
the drop into OF can be manually caused by holding command+option+o+f at boot, a bad boot configuration, etc I'd first start off by performing a PRAM reset- boot the system and immediately hold command (apple) +option+p+r, it should reboot- keep holding it through 3-4 chimes and it will clear out more and more of the settings each pass. this SHOULD get rid of the open firmware showing up... another thing to check- when IN os x, open system preferences, and make sure the main hard drive is selected as your boot device- a pram reset (and nvram) will clear this setting and will delay startup about 30-60 seconds every boot, or cause issues with actually getting booted, instead showing a flashing folder.
Thanks - will check that when I can get to it. I have found a mile long string of similar stories all with differing solutions online lol :-0
This sounds like the infamous logic board problem to me. I had the same issue on a G4 once, the only way to fix it without replacing the board was to open the case, find the defective chip and wedge something in their to force pressure against it. Surprisingly enough it worked and still does today 2 years on.
Hi Twimfy, I've done a pile of reading and think I may have found a slightly different solution, which I will test on Tuesday. The owner was certain that the problem related to Airport. This was either through having read about something online about it or direct experience of Kernel Panic kicking in once he had set up Wifi. The laptop has inbuilt Airport rather than the card, so I started looking around and discovered the same problem you mentioned. I.e. pressing down on the casing just to the left of the mouse pad. I also thought that it might be simpler in that case to simply test the theory by replacing one of the files associated with the Airport card itself. Looking online I discovered that someone had cured their laptop problems by creating a fake .kext file and replacing it with the genuine one. The theory being that removing this .kext meant that the computer would stop looking for the airport card. He reported that the file in question (in OSX Tiger) was AppleAirport2.kext So, come Tuesday I am going to try that out. We shall see. If it's the logic board then I think it is bin fodder tbh. It's not mine, it belongs to a friend and I said I would have a look at it for free. That was back when it sounded like the HDD needed replacing and the power button needed a spot of solder. Funny how these things go from "simple" repair to having to learn everything about how Airport cards work, Open Firmware and logic board issues in particular models lol.
Good luck. If you can get this working with a software patch then you're lucky. I had to take my G4 to pieces over and over again and their are hundreds of screws and delicate procedures to go through.
I have been through that already when fixing the power on/off switch. This being the version of iBook where the previous repairman ripped the casing apart and tore the tiny socket off the logic board. I had to solder two wires directly onto the logic board and then cover the whole thing with heat gun glue to ensure they simply didn't lift off again. So far, so good! I'll let you know how it goes. It appears to have worked for several other people, so fingers crossed! :thumbsup:
I hope you do fix it. I love the iBook range, the designs are so much nicer than the Macbooks but sadly they're all doomed to fail eventually.
Yeah, I like the feel and design too. The aluminium MacBooks look terrible imho, but I wouldn't say no to a MacAir! Here's the rather Heath Robinson repair I did. The soldering work wasn't too pretty, but did the job. Having exposed these two cable ends I soldered them onto the power lead. It should have been an easy 10 min job, but it was a nightmare and I had to adjust, readjust, solder and mess around for well over an hour before it was happy and accepted 10/10 power up or down. Now it is fine. and the offending Kernel Panic screen
I've had the kernel panic screen on my Macbook (2008 white model) a few times over the past couple of months. I've also had Quicktime and VLC lock up while playing videos recently. The crash reports indicate a problem with the video chip, I pray to god I'm not heading towards a board failure, although this Macbook has to die sooner or later, it's taken some serious abuse over the years. I do love it dearly but travelling the world with it makes it difficult to protect it. That's some serious work you've put in already. There's something about old Apple hardware that makes it worth the effort, if it was an old dell or an Acer it'd be in the bin by now I reckon. What specs has that G4 got. The one I have is a 1.25ghz with a gig of ram and a 120gb hardrive, the highest spec model they released. It runs OSX with no issues or slow down at all.
It's 4am and I got back from London earlier than expected to give my wife a break as my son has been ill for a few days and she's tuckered out. So, anyway everyone else is asleep and I decided to try the method I described to see whether it would work. Guess what? Yes, and no! It's stopped the Kernel panic screen coming up, it's clearly made the OS more stable as it's not crashing and as it's been sat on the desk running for a few hours now without a glitch, so the removal / renaming of .kext file(s) works. However, I have a further problem possibly related to the PRAM battery on the logic board or the fact the unit's battery is dead as a doornail. So long as I keep the unit powered up or plugged in I can shut it down, boot it up, run it and what not 'til my heart is content. The second you pull the plug and let the system drain it can't boot without having to seriously coax it. I sat trying to get it running, pressing the ON buttons about a dozen times, it would start to boot, spin the fan and chime then nothing. Eventually, just when you thought it must already have cut out the power supply light would go from green to orange indicating it was now switched off and charging (ha ha!) the battery. This leads me to wonder what the hell it is doing during this period. The only solution being to either boot using Safe Mode (Power and Shift) or using the clear command (Command, Option, P & R). Even then you are not guaranteed. I feel like I am chasing a series of faults around this unit. It is however remarkable how taking out AppleAirport2.kext has had such a profound effect upon the unit. So long as you are happy to use a 3rd party USB dongle or hook up via LAN then who cares right? Now I have to go to bed as I am done in! Just thought I'd let you know. :thumbsup:
I have an older G3 Blue And White Desktop that does the same thing. The PRAM battery is dead but as long as I keep it plugged in it works great. But the moment I pull the plug from the wall and plug it back in, it pretends to be dead. It will power on, chime, and then nothing. Sometimes it doesn't even do that. I have to zap the PRAM at least twice to get it to at least boot to the missing system folder icon and and then once more to get it to boot into OS 9 or OS X (its random on which OS it boots, I guess its just picking it based on its mood ). I've seen other PPC Macs exhibit the same if not similar behavior when the PRAM battery is dead, so I'd say what you seeing is par for the course. Just replace that PRAM battery and you should be set (at least for that issue).
Excellent - thanks to everyone who posted. I'm too shattered to go delving inside the unit today, but I will have a look towards the end of the week. There should be a list on the Apple website detailing the precise value of cap I am needing to replace, so I may start looking and get the replacement shipped ahead of my next tinkering session. Thanks! Good luck with counter-strike. I would love to help out, but I am snowed under with work. You are the Apple iPhone app king
