On Apr 8, 2005, at 11:28 pm, Bruce Ryan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I seem to have been a bit unlucky when buying a Pismo on eBay. I hope you don't mind the following shaggy dog story.
Firstly the DVD drive died within hours of receipt of the wee beauty. I bought a replacement mechanism but I can't put it in the dead drive's housing because I can't undo two of the screws. However, I was given an intact 24X CD-R drive and so I can put the DVD drive into its housing. This seems a waste. DOes anyone think I can drill the stuck screw out without damaging the housing beyond use?
I guess that would depend on your skill with a drill. :) You might also consider the old-screwdriver-and-a-bit-of-epoxy trick. Otherwise, I you might be looking at a new drive caddy.
Next the power cable died. Replacement was easy and cheap, so I got as far as installing and configuring OSX, classic and other software.
During a visit to England the power cables stopped delivering power to the Pismo. I was able to keep it charged using my mum's clamshell iBook cables. However, I then used it quite a lot, such that there was maybe 15 minutes left on the battery. Thinking that if the power cable was new then the fault must be in the yo-yo (the old one had had issues) I bought a brand-new one.
By the time it arrived, I'd also received a bigger HD and so had installed that, following the Apple Service Manual's take-apart methods. I did have some trouble taking out the processor card because the wee plastic tag you have to pull on to extract this had torn before I received the Pismo. In the end, I used a pair of needle-nosed pliers to grasp the remnant of the tag and pull it up.
I also put a 512MB RAM card that had been in the upper slot in the lower slot and put the 128MB card that had been in the lower slot into the upper slot (to make it easier to replace this when I can afford more RAM).
I'm pretty sure that I reassembled everything properly. (It's possible that I didn't seat the processor card properly when I first reassembled it.) However, I can't start the Pismo using either the old nor the new yo-yo. The battery is completely flat but so long as the power cables are delivering power, should this matter?
I can think of the following possible reasons for it not starting up * I've damaged the processor card * I've damaged the I/O logic board it connects to * when taking out or replacing the hard drive assembly, I've damaged the inverter board or soundcard (which also appears to be where the power switch is connected. I can't see any damaged cables and I'm loath to try to take it apart further to investigate.) * the power port has been damaged by dodgy power cables. * I've damaged the hard drive cable
I know both of the old hard disk and the new hard disk are OK - when put into a USB enclosure, they mount on my G4/400 desktop.
Any thoughts on how I can diagnose the fault(s) or should I go to my nearest Apple Service provider?
If you're not getting a startup chime, then the first thing I'd look at would be the processor card.
A common problem with the Pismo is failure to reseat the processor card properly. It always seems to take more force than I think it should. I put a finger on the four corners of the card and press down firmly; and I still fail to seat it properly about half the time. :)
I'd also inspect the processor card carefully for bent pins.
The battery being dead should not, in itself, be an issue. The Pismo can start and run without a battery so long as it's getting power from the power adapter. Your ongoing problems with power cables seems a bit odd, however, and I wonder if it could be due to an intermittent problem with the AC-power board or maybe the PMU.
Hope this helps,
-Jeff [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- "You can't brew a premium lager with a Kool-aid mentality." --Harold Green in _The_Red_Green_Show_
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