2nd hand ibook g4

i picked up a used ibook g4 the other the day for $100. the specs were about as nice as possible for a ibook: bought in 2006, perfectly working lcd, 1.33mhz and 1.5gb of ram with a 30gb hard drive. of course, there were a few things wrong with it. it was listed with an unknown boot problem and missing backspace key. there was also a bit of wear on the top case.

the boot problem sounded pretty funny because it would boot from the disc drive and run perfectly but it would not boot from the HD. after wiping the HD and reinstalling the OS i discovered that it actually could boot up from the hd. i ran it for awhile and BAM, os x's babel box: the gray box of death. otherwise known as a kernel error. i only discovered it was a kernel error after i tried to boot into verbose mode where it shows you what steps it is taking. it displayed a message very, very similar to this "Darwin Kernel Version 8.8.5: Mon Dec 11 19:42:29 PST 2006; root:xnu-792/16.5.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC
panic: We are hanging here. . ." and hung. after booting into safe mode there were no problems whatsoever. eventually, through some more research i discovered the "french fix" by warren lejeune associated with the same kernel panic error on a forum and decided to give it a shot. so that meant i had to take apart the ibook case... a daunting task according to many netizens. and i concur.

i went through the ifixit guide and at about step 25 where it says to unplug the speaker connector and the power connector i really fucked it up. apparently on some ibooks the power connector is not soldered on very well and countless DIYers have made the same mistake i did. as i was unplugging the connector it came out with a bit of a struggle... along with its female adaptor piece. it broke clean off the board. apparently when i was gently jostling the connector from left to right, the solders joints on the casing broke. i immediately googled "ibook g4 power connector logic board" and realized how fragile that piece is. hopes shattered at this point i went to bed and thought about what to do.

a. sell it for parts
b. do a home solder
c. take it to a pro solderer
d. other

after seriously considering b, i smartly decided against that considering i have no prior soldering experience. i chose d while a and c will forever be options. after cruising the forums i found stories of people jump-starting their ibooks. apparently when you press the button it just completes the power circuit and it turns it on. so people have been sticking screwdrivers into their ibooks to start them. so it got me thinking, the break was pretty clean, maybe i can just reseat the female piece. after some more google research i discovered that it is not uncommon to use superglue to affix things to a circuit board. so, i took my all-purpose cement from my shoe making project and tried to glue the female piece back onto the board several times. it never stayed. the cement did not hold well enough. then i thought, maybe i better test to see if it actually works before i waste three more days doing this. so i connected the male and female pieces and i lined up the adapter on its old place and pressed down while i hit the power button a few times. after realigning it a few times i found the sweet spot and it powered on with the button. i tried to glue it down to the sweet spot but the glue just wouldnt hold it tight enough. so, i decided to put something on top of it so the top case would press down on it.

in my closet i have an old model house we made in mr baker's 8th grade trades class. we made these models out of 1/8" foam board. i took a piece of that fourteen year old foam board which had been sitting untouched ever since eighth grade and cut out a smaller piece to put on top of the connector. i pressed down on the foam board and voila. money. so i used the all purpose cement to hold the adaptor in the sweet spot and taped the wire down. next i placed the foam board on top and taped that down tightly. its okay if it protruded above the case because the middle is foam and it has some give. in fact, its good if it rises up above a little because it'll give a firm press.

at this point i actually did NOT know if the kernel problem would be fixed by the french fix and i almost forgot about fixing it because i was so pumped i got the power button working again. but, i took some more of that foam board and cut out a piece roughly the size of the airport card and just put it on top of it. i reassembled everything and gave her a whirl. everything worked and is working as i type this entry. no kernel errors after 4hrs of continuous usage. i'm still down a backspace key though.