raoulduke
Experienced Member
There's a longstanding issue with Powerbook 3400s in particular, but I most recently encountered it in my Kanga, in which the ATA bus stops working properly but can sometimes be "jumpstarted" by connecting a device to the SCSI bus (odd, I know).
It turns out the fix - at least in my Kanga's case - is shocking simple: the solder on each of the pins under the internal ATA port (the module connector) and the SCSI port. I'm not sure which of those actually solved the issue, but my machine more or less works fine again.
[I did the solder joints on the module connector first and that wasn't the issue; also did the solder joints on the SCSI connector and I'm pretty sure that also wasn't the issue. I'm pretty sure it's a solder/connection issue on the pins themselves. Maybe there's an unspoken community aware of this fix but I don't believe (based on my past exploits at 68kmla) that others have had much success in solving this issue. I have to go back to my shelved 3400s now that were afflicted by this issue.]
[I had this thought noticing that the SCSI bus will freeze if the cable is missing pin 1 - a test totally unrelated to this Kanga issue; and it will prevent proper booting. So I inferred there might be a similar cause when something isn't inserted in the SCSI bus; but that inserting a device corrects a signal problem on pin 1 (perhaps). That seems to be what's happening; it must think there's a device (that since there's nothing obviously cannot be detected) and so plugging in an actual device (even if it cannot boot from it) will force it to move forward in the boot process. Fixing the solder on the pins corrects the signal problem. At least that's my theory.]
It turns out the fix - at least in my Kanga's case - is shocking simple: the solder on each of the pins under the internal ATA port (the module connector) and the SCSI port. I'm not sure which of those actually solved the issue, but my machine more or less works fine again.
[I did the solder joints on the module connector first and that wasn't the issue; also did the solder joints on the SCSI connector and I'm pretty sure that also wasn't the issue. I'm pretty sure it's a solder/connection issue on the pins themselves. Maybe there's an unspoken community aware of this fix but I don't believe (based on my past exploits at 68kmla) that others have had much success in solving this issue. I have to go back to my shelved 3400s now that were afflicted by this issue.]
[I had this thought noticing that the SCSI bus will freeze if the cable is missing pin 1 - a test totally unrelated to this Kanga issue; and it will prevent proper booting. So I inferred there might be a similar cause when something isn't inserted in the SCSI bus; but that inserting a device corrects a signal problem on pin 1 (perhaps). That seems to be what's happening; it must think there's a device (that since there's nothing obviously cannot be detected) and so plugging in an actual device (even if it cannot boot from it) will force it to move forward in the boot process. Fixing the solder on the pins corrects the signal problem. At least that's my theory.]
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