Macintology

[helen99]

Last Friday we visited my mom and brother Jason, who bestowed his old defunct G4 Mac on rialian in hopes that he could get it running. rialian had been able to use some parts from his fried IBook to upgrade an IMac to do things it was never intended to do, so we had high hopes for the G4. No power was getting to the system, so we'd initially thought that it may be the CMOS battery. We bought a new battery (found the exact one at Radio Shack), but the computer still didn't work after it was installed, so it wasn't that. The other (relatively) cheap thing it could have been was the power supply, so that was the next thing we tried to find. Mac power supplies are apparently not meant to be replaced, because nobody had the one we were looking for. We even found a used G4 and looked inside - and the power supply had a different connector configuration. That G4 was selling for $350.00, so it would not have been worth it to buy that one for parts. The only other place that may have the power supply doesn't open until Tuesday. We shall see if they have one, if it works, and if it's under $50 (not worth it otherwise). We found one on eBay for $65, but that was too expensive plus there was no way of testing it.

We looked online and found out that a new one costs $200, so that was Right Out. We don't even know if the power supply is actually the problem - it could be the motherboard. But even if we were certain, $200 is still way too much for a @#$@$ power supply! Lower end PC power supplies are $30 brand new.

So far the Quest has not been successful. Tuesday maybe we can go to PC Retro Computer Warehouse and they might have one for a reasonable price.

Comments

[leufinil.livejournal.com]

When Doug's computer was acting up, (thought motherboard was fried) we took mine and attached my powersupply to his board and vice versa, his worked with my supply, mine didnt with his, so we knew it was his supply that was bad. Dont know if you can do this with macs, but worth a shot if you guys can. very least it would tell you if its working or not.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately we don't have another G4-like computer that we can test it in. We took it to Computer Warehouse over on Rte 7, but although they had some G4s, they were unwilling to test our power supply in them, since those machines had already been repaired and tested and were ready for sale. We have a couple of places yet to explore though. There's a Computer Warehouse outlet in Beltsville, and also a place that rhiannasilel mentioned. Also, our friend elwing2000 has offered to give us an old one that she happens to have lying around the house! (How fortunate is *that*?). Turns out that the G4 power supplies were really loud, and she replaced it with a quieter one, but the loud one works fine! So Yay! I think the problem is solved.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

You could try the State Surplus Warehouse in Jessup. I've seen MAC's in there from time to time and most of their PC's go for around $60.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'd like to check that out anyway - never know what we might find there.

[rialian.livejournal.com]

===At this rate, I would definitely be interested...(grins in a slightly demented way)...

===The power supply I am searching for is : acbel ap1-9841-291 22 connector rev b 126w. It is for a year 2000 gigabit ethernet grey powerpc tower (I believe it has 2 processors, and is a 500 MHZ machine.

===The power supply Elwing had was not the one we needed...it was from a similar machine, but slightly later model with a completely different design.

===Elwing is dropping a line to a friend that may have sources, but it certainly would not hurt to have someone keeping an eye out for parts as well...thank you very much! (smiles) (where in Jessup is this place, I have yet to get out there?)