HOWTO: fix a G3 iBook with a “bad logic board” for 26 cents

iBook I’ve had a 12″ G3 iBook since ~2002, and I’ve really liked it. Of course me being me, I’ve run Linux on it for almost the whole time, even running a dual boot of OS X and Gentoo Linux back when I used this puppy on the job. The only thing I (and likely millions of other customers) didn’t like is the systemic “logic board” failure. Yes, the logic board, which is just Apple’s name for the motherboard, would fail, prompting a call to Apple, followed by about a one week turnaround on the repair, which was all covered under warranty. The only thing is, this only reset your iBook back to the original state, after using the iBook for so long, this issue would occur again, leaving you with a shinny door stop. Mine had come and gone 3 times, so this final failure fell far outside of even the extended program to cover the fix. Fast forward to last week, I had resigned from my gig at Mastercard, thus turning in my work laptop, leaving with no convent way (I can go downstairs to my desktop, but…) to work on a system and check my email. I got the iBook out of the drawer and started looking around for info online to solve this from a DIY angle. One interesting way was to burn a tea light directly on the video chip, eventually making it hot enough to resolder itself to the board! I was going to do this, when I found a lower tech, less risky, fix, with perhaps even more permanent results. You open the iBook, put some sort of shim just underneath the video chip forcing it to stay in contact with the logic board; that’s it! There are plenty of sites out there now talking about this, but this one seemed the most direct. So I opened the iBook, found that little square you see in the pictures, duct taped a penny topped by a quarter to the metal, and all of a sudden had a revived laptop. It’s fun when things are so easy. Oh, and Ubuntu Linux Feisty (7.04) for the PowerPC runs very, nicely on the iBook! So much more power saving features, and the promise of Gnash to cover all the flash sites makes it a great laptop.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 10:01 pm and is filed under geek, howto, linux and tagged with apple, hacker, howto. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

dan
saved my laptop from going for scrap to being useful again! - great tip ***

fak3r
Woo-hoo! This tip going on 2 1/2 years and it's still helping! That rules. I honestly haven't played with my old iBook in sometime, but I may have to to get it out again and see how it's doing.

gillian
totally did this. it totally worked.

fak3r
that rocks, so glad it's still helping! Wish those models didn't have that problem so much, it was really a great form factor - I'm always tempted by the black versions, they're slick.

lex
Ok I'm a noob to this whole mac thing and technical thing as well...I'm scared of opening the computer and not being able to put it back together is there a step by step w/pics?

fak3r
The best overview I found was here: http://www.powerbook-fr.com/ibook/bricolage/rep...

there's another to get you more familiar with the insides here: http://geektechnique.org/projectlab/726/diy-obs...

outside of that, just go slowly, lay out the screws that you take out on a piece of paper and map out where they go. Then, if it breaks, you get to keep the pieces! ;)

Bonnie Char
This evening I resurrected two dead iBooks with the duct tape and 26 cents method.
I am flabbergasted that this would work, but it did, and I am now writing on one of
the formerly dead iBooks. Thank you!

Bonnie Char
TRULY AMAZING!
I resurrected two dead iBooks tonight after reading this tonight!
Duct tape and twenty-six-cents sounded way too good to be true, but it worked!
Thank you!

Dave
THANK YOU! This worked for me as well. I think I've been through about 3 logic boards as well, putting off the inevitable new computer. This gives me new life for at least a little while, so I can save my pennies for a new comp. You're a life saver!

fak3r
Glad to hear it, I just thought of this the other day, really glad it's helped others out.

fak3r
@Tobias Coyote
Fantastic! Hope it works for a time mate, it's it good to feel like you can make a difference in such an otherwise such small thing? Good on ya!

Tobias Coyote
This worked! I used a ten and a twenty euro cent piece. And I'd been looking into buying a new computer!

Thanks.

fak3r
@Vince
Easy, start here: Gentoo PPC FAQ and learn how to do a dual boot. If you're not interested in Gentoo the guide still carries a good deal of relevant information. Here's one for running a dual boot of OS X and Debian.

Vince
"I’ve run Linux on it for almost the whole time, even running a dual boot of OS X and Gentoo Linux back when I used this puppy on the job."

PLEASE Link me to a site or anything that can explain to me how to do so. I've been wanting to do something similar forever but I'm a noob in macs. (I'm a pure PC guy)

gry planszowe
Ciekawa strona, trafilem tu przypadkowo, ale od dzis bede wpadal czesciej, pozdro

Jay
You can also re flow the solider with a hot air gun. Usually refereed to as a Re-Work Gun. This is the tool that the service referb tech will do to fix the board again after that they mark it as a referb (and sell it as such).

This is not the only product that has this exact same problem. Red Ring of death and the ps3 failure is directly related to this exact same problem.

I have a bunch of "broken" routers that I have purchased off ebay that have this problem. A quick pass with the rework gun fixes it.

What you need to do is move the heat from the chip. This will fix the problem...permanent. Rigging a heat sink fixes it every time. Pay attention to airflow in your rigging. I had to do this with a IBM T30 to prevent the bad memory slot problem.

note: I have used heat shrink guns to do the same thing.. but I had to make a tip so I wouldn't heat things I didn't want to melt. (900-2300 degrees will ruin anything)

I have heard of people using toster ovens to reflow solider but I have never attempted doing this... but if you do a search on red ring of death you will find a fix by wrapping it with a towl.... that would make it hot enough for sure. .. but what else are you going to break in that process.

Hope this helps... Of course doing this is at your own risk.

Stacey
Think I'll give this a try too.... Thanks for the idea.

fak3r
Fantastic - very glad it worked for you as well. It seems like such a waste to have all these iBook's out there with 'broken' logic boards just gathering dust, they're still fine machines. I've been trolling eBay, but I haven't seen any of them going for < $100 - would love to pick one up on the cheap and then go looking in my sofa for some spare change to shove in it!