Well my 3400 is working once again! ::does a happy
dance:: I can't tell you how odd it felt not to have
it for a couple weeks. Of course I've got 2 other
computers at the house and 4 at work but the 3400 is
mine... only mine... and darnit I missed it.
A timeline of what I went through follows to hopefully
help some of you save a few steps should this happen
to you or at least give ya something to read.
Problems that appeared:
1. Control key kept staying stuck down....
I picked up another keyboard on ebay with
really great keys, nice and springy like brand new but
of course the 9, O, L, and . wouldn't work when I
plugged it into my 3400. So I just transplanted the
key and the little rubber "springy" thing to my old
keyboard and it was fine.
2. I know its "My laptop" but the wife wanted to
IM one of her friends in bed for a while so she used
it with the power cord plugged in. Once turned into
50 times and it kept cycling between showing that it
was plugged in, using the battery and charging the
battery. Normally she would unplug the power
connector and plug it back in and hold her face just
the right way and it would go back to normal. Well
that got progressively worse until it wouldn't charge
at all or stay on for that matter.
So I took it all apart and found that she had
busted the little copper connections from the AC
adapter input to the logic board. I soldered the
three that you see without taking the whole logic
board out....not pretty but apparently effective. It
charged up to two bars, then kept the lightning bolt
there forever but never charged anymore. So I picked
up another PMU/Charge Board and popped it in there...
to no avail. So next I took the whole logic board out
and saw that on the left and right of where the AC
Adapter plugs into the logic board there were
electrical contacts as well.... so I soldered them in
better and the random cycling ceased, when it was
plugged it it showed plugged in.
Of course I'd taken it apart a few times during
all this troubleshooting with assorted cursing
involved, and getting that little ribbon cable for the
keyboard back in there is always a pain. So by the
time I had the thing properly soldered now my "good"
keyboard no longer would work. The little contacts
were very worn. I figured either I could take my
chances on yet another keyboard and hope I got one
that was less worn or attempt to solder those teeny
tiny little contacts with my 37 year old eyes. Then
I found a 200 Mhz board for $39.00 so I crossed my
fingers and hoped that its little ribbon receptacles
were less worn than on my 180 Mhz board. It finally
came in yesterday and Voila I'm back in business.
One thing that is still somewhat irritating.
Even after two different logic board and two different
PMU boards my original LiOn 3400 battery still stops
charging at 2 bars and keeps the lightning bolt
indefinately. I've picked up 2 NiMH batteries and a
VST charger so it doesn't really bother me if that I
can't charge the original battery in the computer
(can't in the VST charger either since it was for a
5300 originally and only does NiMH). Do you guys
thing that the constant cycling of charge when the
contacts were breaking damaged the battery or do you
think I just have two bum charge boards?
Well enough rambling... have to go pick up my tax
forms and mail them.
Matt aka HamletUSMC
http://www.geocities.com/hamletusmc/
PB 3400, Bondi iMac/333, Blueberry iMac/350
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