My Pismo (G3/500) has died. When I press the power button, nothing happens. The capslock and numlock keys light up and it starts to charge my battery. The machine gets really hot.

The power adapter is fine. I have tried to reset the PRAM, and reseat the daughter logic board. I have just removed the PRAM battery, as I read that it worked for someone in another post.

Any guidance or techniques to determine what is faulty will be greatly appreciated.

I have been having the same problem with my pismo 500. At first the machine would die when I picked it up, but usually only if I used just one hand near the battery/dvd part of the laptop, causing the entire laptop to flex at the middle point. I had also noticed that it would boot if I pressed hard on the keyboard when trying to boot.

After taking the computer apart a couple of times (fun fun, thanks go to http://homepage.mac.com/sysop/PhotoAlbum7.html), it hit upon me that the connection between the power supply card and the motherboard must be the problem.

It seems that the power supply card was designed to have a screw near its connection point to hold it in place, but apple did not attach a screw there, since the motherboard below has circuits running in that location.

I managed to fix the problem by cutting a paper clip apart and attaching short metal pieces to the some of the screw points to form a lever which would keep the power supply card pushing against the motherboard to ensure a good connection. (screw 1 of image 2 and screws 1 & 2 in image 13 of the slideshow).

i have posted a picture of the modification:


It seems to be working for the time being. let me know if it works for you.

jasperv at mitdotedu

jasperv,

Thanks for the tip. I tried out your suggestion with the mighty paperclip & it worked!

Odd how the common paperclip seems to be the most useful troublleshooting utility in the arsenal of computer hardware tools -- reset buttons, jammed CD/DVDs -- and now holding Pismo boards together!

Thanks again,
MediaMgl