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Powerbook 100 Restoration

Woo hoo!

That is great news! I love these little laptops.

Your screen looks pretty good too! I need to find a replacement screen for mine :(.
 
68k said:
Woo hoo!

That is great news! I love these little laptops.

Your screen looks pretty good too! I need to find a replacement screen for mine :(.
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The photo is deceptive there is a 1/4 inch circular spot on the screen where the backlight diffuser has delaminated so I'm in the market for a screen too.
 
I would happily purchase your screen. Mine is nearly unusable with it's artistic pink swirl that resembles Mike Tyson's face tattoo.
 
68k said:
I would happily purchase your screen. Mine is nearly unusable with it's artistic pink swirl that resembles Mike Tyson's face tattoo.
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LOL, yeah, for now my screen will do, its far less distracting than that pink blotch, but really we both need new ones ;-)

I still haven't found which storage tote I stuck the floppy drive in, the search continues!
 
Still haven't found my floppy drive, but I did find my HD30>DB25 SCSI adapter, so I have it booted up off a 2GB Jaz Drive with 7.5.5 (a backup of my SE/30).
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Looks like the memory upgrade in mine is also an 8MB, SCORE!!
 
OK, I feel like I have hit a wall.

Powermonster II arrived today, along with a 512 MB Type I Transcend CF card.

Plugged into the Powerbook, I get all of the same errors listed above.

So I pulled the card, and formatted using transmac, copied the system 7.5 files to the drive, and plugged back into the PB 100.

No boot, and no disk utility sees it.

Is there something wrong with the motherboard?
 
68k said:
OK, I feel like I have hit a wall.

Powermonster II arrived today, along with a 512 MB Type I Transcend CF card.

Plugged into the Powerbook, I get all of the same errors listed above.

So I pulled the card, and formatted using transmac, copied the system 7.5 files to the drive, and plugged back into the PB 100.

No boot, and no disk utility sees it.

Is there something wrong with the motherboard?
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I never had good luck with Trancend CF cards working in IDE/UDMA mode, they will seem to work at first, but fail. This has been in IDE converters, no experience with SCSI/IDE bridge like the PowerMonster, but I am pretty certain that's how its working from looking into it, it converts SCSI to IDE, and uses CF interface in place of an IDE interface (since many CF cards will do IDE/UDMA modes) but it may behave slightly differently than on a REAL IDE bus like I am used to, so the Trancend card might just be failing outright for you.

I have successfully used Sandisk Extreme & Industrial series cards, IBM/Hitachi Microdrive series cards, Delkin (not Belkin!) cards, and MIXED results with Lexar cards (some work, some don't, YMMV). There are probably others out here who have used other brands too that could chime in, these are the only ones I PERSONALLY have used in place of hard drives. The main thing is that is has to be able to do IDE/UDMA modes, which not all will support.

EDIT: If you want a shot at this today, I should point out that the Sandisk Extreme cards are pretty common, any store that sells DSLR cameras will likely sell the Sandisk Extreme series CF cards, will cost you more than online, but you can give it a shot today, and return it easier if it doesn't work for you and it ends up being a motherboard problem. IF in the unlikely event its your motherboard, I would offer to buy you out of your PowerMonster, I could use it in my resurrected PB100 or one of my other Macs.
 
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Thanks for the advice. I'll run down to the store and pick up a Sandisk card. That is what I have in my PB 3400C and it works well.

I'd likely sell the Powerbook parts before selling the Powermonster. If this doesn't work, i'll track down a PB170 or 180 and try again :)
 
68k said:
Thanks for the advice. I'll run down to the store and pick up a Sandisk card. That is what I have in my PB 3400C and it works well.

I'd likely sell the Powerbook parts before selling the Powermonster. If this doesn't work, i'll track down a PB170 or 180 and try again :)
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Fair enough, figured you probably had other devices to use it in too, worth a shot though, one of these days soon I will probably end up ordering one myself though ;-)


Played with ramdrive a bit on my 100, copied a stripped down 7.0.1 to the ramdrive from my Jaz drive and powered down, removed Jaz drive, and booted up 7.0.1 off of RAMDISK. Pretty slick, but cant do a whole lot in only 1.8MB of ramdisk, and I cant unplug from power, with main battery gone (and no PRAM battery) it looses ramdisk contents if power is removed.
 
Unfortunately, the PRAM batteries won't keep the RAM disk settings. It would be nice if they did...
 
68k said:
Unfortunately, the PRAM batteries won't keep the RAM disk settings. It would be nice if they did...
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I have been toying with the idea of building a LiFePo main-battery pack replacement, I understand they can be charged with a Pb-Acid charger like whats built into the 100, they are not cheap for one with protection in it, but would be a lot lighter and smaller than the stock pack, and I could possibly build a "super pack" with ridiculous long run-times that would fit in stock bay.

EDIT: I suppose in the mean time I could build like a AA or AAA pack with a charge-blocking diode to keep power to the ram, and provide some portability, and still fit the battery bay. It would just have to be non-rechargeable or charged out-of-system. Does anyone know off hand was the stock battery 6volt, same as the portable, or is it a 7.5v cell matching the wall-wart?
 
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For troubleshooting purposes, I formatted the card in the 3400C and copied the OS 9 system folder. It booted from the CF card via PCMCIA adapter without a hitch.
 
SUCCESS! Got the Transcend to work!

The internal SCSI cable was bad... replaced cable on a hunch and BAM! :)

Glad I had a spare.....
 
68k said:
SUCCESS! Got the Transcend to work!

The internal SCSI cable was bad... replaced cable on a hunch and BAM! :)

Glad I had a spare.....
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That would not have been my guess. Does this mean that hard drive you had might actually be good then?
 
I have a feeling that the 2.5" 500 MB Toshiba drive I have is still good, but I think i'll shuffle it on to another project (Sharp X68000 XVI Compact!).

Well, it took almost a month, and many hours of frustration, but aside from the screen this Powerbook is finished!

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I'll write up a summary of the work that was performed before letting this thread sink into internet oblivion. I'll exclude the work that was required after the laptop was initially smashed in transit.

Work Performed:
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Disassembled unit, and replaced all capacitors using Nichicon 105C electrolytic. Cleaned motherboard. Tested. Resolved blank screen issue.
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Removed original 20 MB Conner HDD and installed Powermonster II SCSI to CF converter + Transcend 512 MB 80x CF card. After many hours of troubleshooting, the SCSI ribbon cable was determined to be bad. Tested all connections on old SCSI cable with multimeter and 2 leads were not bridged. Replaced cable and drive was recognized and formatted by Lido 7. Original System 7.0.1 disks used to re-install OS.
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Replaced PRAM batteries and removed internal switch (in battery compartment) that diverts power to PRAM to the main battery (which is dead).

Work to be performed
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Replace screen + replace screen capacitors! Current screen has a nasty delamination scar!
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Remove battery from outer plastic battery case, essentially creating a blank that fills the battery compartment. Other ideas include removing the cosmetic end-cap on the battery itself and permanently gluing it to the shell.
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Play around with the spare processor card I have, including clocking the CPU to 20 MHz and beyond!?

Helpful Info
Link to seller that sells the Powermonster II SCSI to CF converter.
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I wish I could post this on the 68k Mac forums, but I signed up over a month ago and still awaiting account activation.

Not worthy, I suppose.
 
Running into another issue: It seems as though this machine will not keep PRAM settings, even though I have new batteries installed.

Any ideas?
 
68k said:
Running into another issue: It seems as though this machine will not keep PRAM settings, even though I have new batteries installed.

Any ideas?
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Pretty sure the "storage switch" on the back near power connector determines if PRAM/Clock is kept by main battery/AC power OR the PRAM battery stack. So is that switch in the right position?
 
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