Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

G4 ibook charger stopped working

Feb 2, 2010 6:20AM PST

Hi,
I have a 1.33 GHz PowerPC G4 (1.2) version 10.4.11 ibook that was purchased in May or June of 2005. Lately, out of the blue, the power chord has stopped working.
The light that indicates the computer is charging goes on for a second and then promptly turns off and stays off; the laptop is then running on battery power; it is almost dead.
When it tries to connect (before turning off) it makes a sound like a lightbulb that is flickering and trying not to die.

This could be an outlet problem, I suppose (I will have my dorm check on that), but think it might have gotten fried when I was home for christmas because our house has ancient outlets and I usually have to use the two prong adapter there.

Not sure of the reason it happened, but what can I do / who can I send it to to fix it? If it cannot be fixed, where can I buy a new one? What would be the rough cost of each?

Thanks!

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
That charger,
Feb 2, 2010 12:23PM PST

may be the least of your problems.

But, a charger for this laptop is readily available from places like www.macsales.com

Your concern is that it is not actually the charger that is the problem. It could be the DC board in the laptop that is the source of the problem.

If you are anywhere near an Apple store, take it in and borrow a charger to see if the symptoms still occur.
Or see if anyone else on campus has a mac with the same type charger.

P

- Collapse -
Or you could try this cheap charger off ebay
Mar 30, 2011 3:00AM PDT
- Collapse -
The fact that
Mar 28, 2011 11:37PM PDT

The fact that it turns on briefly then off again suggests that this is a problem with the laptop internals. I saw EXACTLY that symptom when I was replacing the logic board on a PowerBook from around the same vintage, and was going to test it and forgot to connect the DC-in board to the logic board. (That's why you ALWAYS test a system before putting it all the way back together) The LED ring turned on for about maybe a quarter second, then turned off.

The fun part here, is that given it's a PPC system, if you take it to an Apple store they're probably going to say they aren't trained on how to work on those things. I'll spare you my usual rant on how I wish I could use that excuse sometimes at work, and that everything they need to figure out how to work on the system can be downloaded from Apple's website. Getting the bottom cover off an iBook is a right PITA too, but once you do that, replacing the DC-in board isn't that difficult... But it could well be your logic board has died.

To be perfectly honest here, given that the system is about 6 years old now, it's probably not worth bothering to try and get it fixed. Even if it's just a simple DC-in board, the plastics that make up the case have dried out and become brittle. They've also had many years to bond to surfaces it's been in contact with all that time. You will almost certainly not be able to fix the DC-in board without doing some permanent damage to the plastics on the case, and quite possibly more than that. It's probably time to take this thing out back and shoot it. Put it out of its misery. You can pull the HDD out and then sell the thing for parts on ebay to help subsidize the cost of a new laptop.

- Collapse -
This post is over a year old
Mar 30, 2011 9:29AM PDT

and the OP never did reply to any suggestions.

Give it up guys


P

- Collapse -
Guess I need more sleep
Mar 30, 2011 10:31AM PDT

Guess I need more sleep, because I didn't even notice that. Was there some kind of spam in this thread that had to be removed that caused it to filter back up to the top? I don't exactly make a habit of looking for really old threads to resurrect.

- Collapse -
(NT) Probably something was changed, which caused it to surface
Mar 30, 2011 9:49PM PDT