I tool my old computer, a 2005 PowerBook G4, on vacation with me, only to find out it would not start. Here’s what happened:
At Seattle airport, I tried to connect to the Internet. The computer did turn on. You can’t just jump on the Internet; you have to start at their page and look at all of the ads and whatnot. Safari crashed. I tried a restart, and the computer did not restart. I heard the fan and the chime. Normally I’d get a white screen with a grey Apple logo in the middle, and then it would start up. This time, it looked like the screen was off, but you could in fact discern there was an apple in the middle. Nothing after that. I tried restarting several times during the trip, with the same results: A screen that looked like the computer was off (i.e., extremely dim) with a barely-discernable Apple in the middle, no login screen or anything else after that no matter how long I gave it to do its thing.
Any idea how to get my old computer working again?
(FWIW, after I recover financially from the trip, I think I’ll get an iPad.)
Does the apple you see happen to correspond with the apple cutout in the back of the lid? You are probably seeing light shining through the case, the reverse of what usually happens. I suspect a loose connection in the display ribbon cable has finally popped out of place and the screen is not working because of that. Test by connecting the laptop to an external monitor, or if that is not possible because you don’t have the adapter, restart the computer and listen for the hard drive. You should hear it make the usual seeking noises as it boots up.
I tried using Cmd+Shift+P+R. First I held the keys down and pressed the power button. Then I tried pushing the power button first and pressing the combination before the chime. No joy.
Let me make sure I’m explaining what is on the screen. In a normal situation, the screen would be white with a grey Apple logo in the middle of it, and this would appear after the chime. After an interval, the screen would switch to blue with the login box in the middle of it. After entering the password, the desktop appears.
This is what happens with the PowerBook: The chime sounds. We all know what a screen looks like on a computer that is not turned on. It’s just black. That’s how the screen appears at first glance. However if you look very carefully, there is a barely discernible Apple logo in the middle. That Apple logo, which is supposed to be grey on a white background is screen-off black on a barely less-black background. When I turn the power off, the screen gets blacker. It’s sort of like when you have a black screen on a television, and then you turn the TV off. At first it looks like the power is off, but when you actually turn the power off the black screen dims to ‘blacker’.
As to the question of whether I can see a desktop: No. Before I see the desktop, I need to log in. The login screen does not appear until after the grey-on-white Apple logo screen. In this case, the grey-on-white Apple logo screen is black-on-black, and even leaving the machine powered up for an extended period (like, an hour) the start-up process does not progress past the Apple logo screen.
I doubt this is going to help, but you can also try an SMC reset to continue ticking off possible solutions that probably won’t work. Also, what happens if you try to start in Single User mode (Command-S)? I’m going to assume the same dim light, but just throwing some ideas out there. Hardware problem seems to be the most likely culprit, to me.
So, if it’s hanging at the boot screen with the Apple logo, it sounds like there may actually be two problems: the dead backlight, and whatever is preventing the system from booting. Try resetting the PRAM as beowulff indicated. Hopefully it is just a corrupted brightness setting in the PRAM and clearing it will reenable the backlight.
For the inability to boot, if you have your Mac OS X install disc, boot from that and use Disk Utility to verify and repair the hard drive, or if that is not available, boot into single-user mode and run “fsck -fy” from the command line.
The SMC link is for Intel-based Macs. The PowerBook G4 isn’t one. I tried Cmd-S, but could not see anything. It’s getting harder to see the black-on-black Apple logo.
I come across the discs from time to time, but it seems I can never find them when I want them. (I only ‘want’ them to put them someplace I’ll be able to find them.) Assuming I can find them, what is the procedure to boot from the OS disc?
How long have you let it go?
I would guess it’s stuck on the “gear” screen, which is just grey with the tiny gear, and it’s busy trying to repair the disk, which it never finishes, since you eventually power it off.
Resetting PRAM and the PMU won’t hurt (ignore the RAM disk warning - nobody uses them anymore), but I don’t think it’s going to fix your problem.