So I just put a CD in my G4 Powerbook and it was ejected immediately. Picking it up and shaking it I find it sounds a bit like a maraca, and I suspect my 2 year old has stuffed it with spare change. It is an older computer and I am not interested in sinking a lot of money into it- anyone have a suggestion as to how to get the coins out?
Apple seems to enjoy making their hardware as user-unfriendly as possible to take apart, but googling suggests that the powerbook is not too bad.
http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2005/10/21/powerbook_take_apart/1
I have no idea if this is the same model as yours or not, maybe search elsewhere if different. Looks like you’ll need small Philips and Allen drives.
Sounds like someone already did.
But seriously, folks. The tear-it-apart guides are great (Apple’s and others’). But I’ve also just started unscrewing and gotten into every P’book/iBook/MacBook I’ve owned. But I envy you – I never made money while doing it…
This is only true of certain models - mostly, the newer ones with shiny plastic on the outside. Back in the day when there were PowerBooks, they were easier to disassemble than the PCs of the day.
Most Apple laptops require a special TORX screwdriver bit that looks like a six-pointed star. It’s not an allen wrench, which is just a hexagon shape.
I’m not sure if opening the laptop is going to solve the problem, though. The optical drive can’t be opened the same way (to my knowledge), so I think it’s going to be necessary to shake the change out no matter what.
If there’s an Apple Store in the area, a Genius should be able to recommend the best course of action, and they may be able to take care of the problem free while you wait.
dracoi, the odds of s genius being able to take care of that are slim, especially on an out of warranty laptop for a few reasons (age of unit, user caused, and most of the time geniuses don’t do hardware stuff beyond replacing iPhone screens, do they?).
If you cant get the coins out of the optical drive, you van replace it with an identical one from a kaput PowerBook.
Also, you don’t actually need TORX, they just make life easier. You can use an appropriately sized philips head, and it’ll stick between opposing ends of the TORX hexagonal head (the only one this doesn’t work for is the T4Security, but those are ridiculously rare). Same goes for most of the security heads, with one already noted exception.
Nice material!
This thread wasn’t exactly a barn burner, but I thought some might want to know how it worked out. I got busy and put the problem aside, but tonight my wife put a CD in there and it got stuck, so I figured I’d just go for it. I pulled out all the obvious little phillips screws on the case and under the battery and started prying. It seemed like there must be some more screws under the keyboard, and I was going to look into that, but then just figured I probably already had enough room to shake em out. $0.22 shook out easily enough, but then one penny was wedged under the CD in there. I took some tape and a dull knife and stuck the tape to the CD, pushed up on it with the knife while pulling the tape and out she popped. Shook out the last penny, put it all together (the hardest part) and it all works perfectly. Even the drive! So digs’ advice saved the day.
The end.