iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

I'm getting this one tomorrow, have decided against the Acer. I might be getting another partially failed DV9000 tho... (yes, again )

The ad said bad hard drive. I spoke to the guy on the phone, and that's what they said at the service center he took it to, the actual trouble with the machine is that most of the time it powers on but no display, and sometimes it works just fine. That's 100% a mainboard issue...

I did some digging around, and thankfully it isn't a BGA failure (it's got a Radeon 9200, that's definitely using leaded solder), but it's still about cracked solder joints. It's a power supply controller that comes loose. Here's some info with pics.

As for why i got it... Well, i've never had one, reason good enough. I'll likely fix and resell for profit then get something else tho. However, i really need a backup for my HP DV5, which likes to freeze sometimes. It hasn't done it in a couple weeks, but you never know. The DV5 is the only fully working computer i have left right now, and if it dies too, i'm screwed.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

It's here. The HDD was indeed bad, it was squealing like a sick puppy. Bad motor. It was a 40GB Toshiba, which indicates it's been replaced sometime during the life of the unit, as the sticker stated 30GB. It's also got an extra RAM stick installed but i don't know the capacity yet. If it's 512MB or 1GB i'm good, else i'll buy a 1GB one (maximum RAM capacity is 1.25GB, it has 256MB onboard and a single DDR slot).

It was also making some colored lines on the screen when i pressed on the left side of the case, so i touched up the soldering on the ISL6225 vreg which feeds the ATI GPU, which, like i found and linked above, is a very common failure point of this series. Working fine now. I put in a 6GB HDD i had lying around and it's installing OSX as we speak. I spotted a cheap WD 250GB on ebay uk, auction ends tomorrow. If it doesn't go past 20 pounds i'll get it.

I forgot to take "after" pics on the soldering of the ISL6225... Will do when i swap the HDD again.

[seanc]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

What speed is this unit? I remember the issue used to affect the 800mhz and 1Ghz models, but I don't think the 1.2/1.33Ghz?

What version of OS X are you installing? It should be fun, but slow by modern standards, especially for web. I've often wondered if putting PPC Ubuntu on my PowerBook would be an improvement.

[lord]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

Cool!

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

What speed is this unit? I remember the issue used to affect the 800mhz and 1Ghz models, but I don't think the 1.2/1.33Ghz?

It's the 1.2GHz.

What version of OS X are you installing? It should be fun, but slow by modern standards, especially for web. I've often wondered if putting PPC Ubuntu on my PowerBook would be an improvement.

10.4 Tiger. Unfortunately, the 6GB HDD i put in there crashed too. I knew it had some bad sectors, and it went crazy and just kept clicking. I took it out. And although this machine CAN boot from USB, OS X doesn't want to install to my 16GB flash drive, reason being "OS X cannot start up from this volume".

So i left the Debian PPC DVD for download overnight, burning it as we speak. We'll see how that works out.

Btw, i took apart the Toshiba HDD. Its failure mode is rather stupid: the platters came loose from the hub. That was the screeching noise - the platters aren't secured to the hub anymore, so when the motor spins, they "fall behind" and rub against the hub making this awful noise.

[ben7]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

Btw, i took apart the Toshiba HDD. Its failure mode is rather stupid: the platters came loose from the hub. That was the screeching noise - the platters aren't secured to the hub anymore, so when the motor spins, they "fall behind" and rub against the hub making this awful noise.

Wow, that must have been crazy sounding xD

BTW, my counselor has one of these. Still works perfectly, although a bit slow (he keeps waaay to many programs open at any given time!)

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

I also killed the battery for good. I don't have a dremel so i took it apart with a hammer and screwdriver and managed to blow a chunk out of one of the ICs.

However, that's no biggie, as it didn't work in the first place. All the cells were shot. One pair is shorted, the other two show just a few hundred millivolts. A new battery is fairly cheap from China: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2810090361...84.m1438.l2649 or from the US, about the same price: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Replac...item20cc47c803

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

It's up and running now. I eventually pulled the 20GB IBM Travelstar HDD i had in my DOS/win9x gaming laptop, as i hadn't fired up that thing in months. Backed up the games and saves just in case i want to go back.

Installed OSX Tiger on it, and it's looking pretty good. Flash is being an issue but i kinda expected that. Otherwise, it's running okay. Will try to get Leopard on it in the following days. Also i found out that it can be overclocked, so stay tuned.

[ben7]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

Flash is being an issue but i kinda expected that. Otherwise, it's running okay.

Flash is always an issue, on all computers that exist

[shovenose]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

Ubuntu PPC is good. I would highly recommend it.

[tom66]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

I use Ubuntu, but hate Unity with a passion (I'm using it right now, I don't have the time to reinstall), so I'd say stick with the older ones which still use gnome 2.0.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

I've burned a DVD of Debian already... I'd rather install that than waste another disc on Ubuntu. I've had my fair share of disagreements with the guys at Ubuntu and would rather not use it again.

Right now enjoying Diablo II LoD on OSX.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

Unfortunately my motherboard is different from the one in the overclocking guide, the configuration 0 ohm resistors aren't there. And i can't for the life of me find the PLL chip, so no CPU overclock (for now). The GPU can be easily overclocked using ATIcelerator II.

However i did find other areas that could be tweaked. For one, the internal speakers are pretty quiet. I have been able to trace the connector, it goes thru vias to the bottom of the board so i don't have to take the whole thing apart to mod it, but i can't really see further. All i know for now is that they are powered by a chip with bridged outputs, and i left it at that. What i did do, is boost the output of the headphone amplifier. Apple used a Maxim MAX4299 chip in this motherboard, which contains a dual headphone amp/line driver, a vreg and a microphone amp.

The recommended configuration by Maxim was 220uF output capacitors, which would give a bass cutoff of 23Hz with 32 ohm headphones, or 45Hz with 16 ohm ones. Apple used 100uF capacitors. To avoid significant loss of bass, they artificially increased the output impedance by adding 20 ohm series resistors on the outputs. This gave a 31Hz cutoff for 32 ohms, or 44Hz for 16 ohm. However, this basically means that roughly half the output power of the headphone amp is wasted on those series resistors. Half power is -3dB, not extremely significant from an audio standpoint, but it does make a difference.

I replaced the 100uF output capacitors with 2x 150uF on each side (giving 17Hz cutoff for 32 ohm headphones, or 33Hz for 16 ohm ones), removed the series resistors and replaced them with solder bridges. Now this thing goes LOUD on headphones, and with good bass too. Actually, it was too loud, so i had plenty of headroom to adjust the equalizer to suit my 'phones.

Sorry, i don't have a "before" pic, just after removal of the original parts, and then with the replacements soldered in. I actually snapped a "before" pic as well, but i didn't notice that the memory card wasn't in the camera - it got stored in the internal memory, and i've lost the USB cable for this camera long ago.

As usual, i am not responsible for any damage to your notebook (or your hearing) if you attempt this mod on your own iBook.

[ben7]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

The recommended configuration by Maxim was 220uF output capacitors, which would give a bass cutoff of 23Hz with 32 ohm headphones, or 45Hz with 16 ohm ones. Apple used 100uF capacitors. To avoid significant loss of bass, they artificially increased the output impedance by adding 20 ohm series resistors on the outputs. This gave a 31Hz cutoff for 32 ohms, or 44Hz for 16 ohm. However, this basically means that roughly half the output power of the headphone amp is wasted on those series resistors. Half power is -3dB, not extremely significant from an audio standpoint, but it does make a difference.

I replaced the 100uF output capacitors with 2x 150uF on each side (giving 17Hz cutoff for 32 ohm headphones, or 33Hz for 16 ohm ones), removed the series resistors and replaced them with solder bridges. Now this thing goes LOUD on headphones, and with good bass too. Actually, it was too loud, so i had plenty of headroom to adjust the equalizer to suit my 'phones.

LOL, wow, that is so cheap!

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: iBook G4 12" late 2004, no boot

My new battery arrived from the US today. I got it from lunatech-laptop-batteries on ebay, 2nd link i posted above.

It says "Techorbit" on it, and it looks like a good quality aftermarket battery. It's got a LED power gauge at the bottom, and got picked up by the iBook immediately, showing time until full charge. The temperature sensor also works. I briefly disconnected the AC adapter and the laptop worked fine off battery.

I'll be taking it to uni tomorrow and putting the battery thru its paces.