Thread

PowerBook 1400c Woes

· Troubleshooting · 8 posts · Jun 11, 2008 — Jun 24, 2008 View original thread ↗

#1 Wed, 11 Jun 2008 - 09:15

I have this PowerBook 1400c/166 that has been working great until recently, when I turned it on and I got the infamous "death chimes"

I went through the system, dismantled the entire system, tried everything on the Apple site and a few of my own tricks from my Wintel days.

I unplugged the internal keyboard and that got it to work for a while and now I'm getting the "death chimes" again. I already put the hard disk in an enclosure and used MacDrive on one of my Windows systems }

(actually a MacBook with Boot Camp

) to salvage my files (not much as most of my data was on floppies.)

I really need to get this old Mac working again because of the sentimental value it has to me. I hope I don't have to buy a new logic board along with the new internal keyboard.

#2 Wed, 11 Jun 2008 - 14:53

Take heart. If you looked at the code under SM you may have seen that it was once more a result of the commonest cause of Sad Mac: nnnnnn0F, indicating a software fault. Hardware faults, although having the lion's share of coded indicators, are far rarer. Hardware faults are far more likely to result in a raspberry or no post-POST chime than a Sad Mac. Complete your examination of the 1400's entrails, and then take your always-at-your-elbow software hammers: Install CD or Boot Floppy Disk or Disk Tools, DiskWarrior for hard drive directory repair, PlusOptimizer for file defragmentation, and the like. If you can get hold of the PB's HDD in Target Disk Mode from another Mac, all may become marvellously clear.

de

#3 Wed, 11 Jun 2008 - 18:10

I would have looked at the Sad Mac, but none shows on the screen. My HDD is perfectly fine, but thanks for your help anyway.

#4 Wed, 11 Jun 2008 - 23:27

Have you tried booting it up in a "barebones" configuration? By that, I mean, only the onboard RAM, no HDD, no expansion bay device, no video out/ethernet card, no PC cards, etc. I wonder if your problem may be bad RAM, since you don't get a Sad Mac.

#5 Thu, 12 Jun 2008 - 03:40

I did what you suggested LCGuy, but it still only plays the "death chimes"

Edit: I went a little further and found out the PCMCIA card bay was loose, that fixed my "death chime" issue instantly and now I get the Happy Mac and the system boots!!! Thanks for the suggestions, everyone!

I am currently using an external ADB Apple Keyboard II to use my system until I get a new internal one from eBay

#6 Thu, 12 Jun 2008 - 13:25

Are you sure the keyboard is broken? You could of just knocked the card bay into place that time.

#7 Thu, 12 Jun 2008 - 23:44

Good to hear you got it going.

I second what Ben said - before you buy anything, try reseating the keyboard cable, or failing that, cleaning the contacts.

#8 Tue, 24 Jun 2008 - 23:59

Actually, I got the keyboard working! (The contacts were a little dirty)

Thanks for your help!