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Or at least it's comatose. After never missing a beat -- not even a hiccup -- in more than three in a half years of daily use, my faithful WallStreet PowerBook suddenly croaked on Wednesday afternoon with no warning. The only unusual circumstance was that Wednesday was our hottest day of the summer here so far, and near the end of my morning session the PowerBook’s cooling fan cut in for the first time since last August. Whether that was coincidental, I don’t know. I checked the internal temperature with Newer Technology’s Gauge Pro, in it was a relatively, modest 150 degrees -- up from the usual 135 degrees -- but hardly alarming I put the machine to sleep, and when I returned several hours later, it woke normally. However, a few minutes later, the Desktop cursor stopped responding to either of the ADB mice I had connected, although, curiously, the USB trackpad still worked. I restarted, The ADB function returned, I did some work, and put the WallStreet to sleep again. Back a couple of hours later, I woke PowerBook up and began downloading some email. It froze up. Macs Bug wouldn’t respond, so I gave it the threefinger salute (Command + Control + Power Key -- force restart). The screen went black, but there was no startup chime, and strangely, the hard drive kept spinning. I had to pop the battery and unplug the AC adapter in order to stop the drive. I tried the reset key combination (Control + fn + Shift + Power Key) and pressed the power key again. The chime sounded, and the startup sequence commenced, but it locked up began just before the system exctensions started to load. I had to kill it once more by popping the battery and unplugging. I stuck in the original System CD, repeated the reset routine, and restarted with the C key held down. The CD-ROM drive spun up, and the PowerBook started to boot from the CD, but locked up again just before the extensions began loading. I killed it again, and that was the last screen activity I’ve seen. Presumably, the problem was not a corrupted system, and I began to expect suspect the Power Manager Unit I was really beginning to sweat at this point, as I hadn’t done a full backup of my files for over two weeks; deadlines were looming, and I couldn’t get at a lot of work in progress or my email files. How I worked around that is a story in itself, which I will relate in The Road Warrior on MacOpinion next week. For now, suffice to say that I was eventually able to retrieve my files from the WallStreet's hard drive, (which appears to be fine, and the original 2 GB drive, which I swapped in and tried, didn't cure the problem) and transfer them to my Pismo PowerBook, which has been reinstated as my production machine. As for the poor old WallStreet, I have experimented with a number of suggestions I found on the Internet for reviving dead WallStreets, but to no avail. The reset key combo starts up the cooling fan, and ends with an audible click from inside the ‘Book and a flash of the sleep light, but the machine will not power up. Interestingly, the same sort of thing happened to the late Rodney Lain’s WallStreet, which was purchased around the same time as mine, although his was a lot newer when it died. I’m not sure whether Rodney ever got his PowerBook up and running again. After all the bragging I’ve done about the WallStreet’s dependability, it’s ironic that it would suffer the only major hardware failure I’ve ever experienced with any of my Macs in 10 years. I haven’t given up on WallStreet. However, a new PMU board apparently costs $400 or more (UPDATE: I am now informed that PMU boards are available for a LOT less than that, like $55, which is encouraging, if that is indeed the problem), plus labor to put it in, so that is out as an option. I can buy a whole used PowerBook WallStreet with a faster processor, a bigger screen, and a warranty for less than $500. I’m more inclined to the idea of picking up another WallStreet -- or partial Wall Street - -preferably on the cheap, and swapping in the hard drive, RAM, etc., from mine. We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m grateful that I have the Pismo to pick up the slack, and I’ll keep you posted. Note: Letters to Moore's Mailbag may or may not be published at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context. Opinions expressed in postings to Moore's MailBag are those of the respective correspondents and not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Editor and/or Applelinks management. If you would prefer that your message not appear in Moore's Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published. CM
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