Apple PowerBook 1400 series (henceforth referred to as the PB1400).

This list of Frequently Asked Questions for the PowerBook 1400 was constructed by Hewligan (on a PowerBook 1400 of course) from personal experience and also from various sources (a brief list of the main sources directly follows this paragraph). The FAQ should be used as a first stop for all PowerBook 1400 owners (and also users of other x400 PowerBooks) who suddenly come up with a question to which they do not know the answer. This is a mature machine, and at this stage in its life many people are looking for ways to upgrade it, improve its performance, fix things which seem to have gone wrong or get on board some new technology which they don't quite know if their book can support. Hopefully many of your questions will be answered below. If not then please e-mail me directly and I will do my best to find the answer and then reply (and add it to this FAQ). I do not claim to be an expert, and many of the tips below are from sources other than me. If you have an answer for one of the questions below which is better than mine then please e-mail me and let me know. Alternatively, if you think you have found an error or something missing, or have a new tip you want to share with the PB1400 community, then I would really appreciate an e-mail from you. If you are viewing the hypertext version of this FAQ then clicking on any question will take you to the answer. Also, at the end of each answer section you will find the following: "…". Clicking on this will take you back to the list of questions. This FAQ was produced out of love, and I cannot take any responsibility for any damage which occurs to you or you machine from advice you received in this document. If you want to try one of the more complex things then I advise you to only use this as your first source and to search out other, more complete, documentation on your specific course of action. I hope you enjoy, and thank you all for reading :)
Version 3 foreword:
It has been over two months since I last updated this FAQ, and since then only three or so new questions have been added. I have also become a Pismo owner and as such find myself using the 1400 less and less. I will maintain this FAQ as and when new information is sent to me, and I will be relying more upon PB1400 owners contributions from now on since I am no longer an owner myself. As always I remain available via e-mail if anyone wants to ask questions of me.
Hewligan, Version 3, Apr 2000 ([email protected])

Main Sources:
comp.sys.mac.portables
Apple's own PowerBook x400 technical support forum
macspeedzone, macfixit, lowendmac, xlr8yourmac, macopinions, pbzone, pbsource
Apple's Technical Information Library (TIL) - probably the best technical resource for our needs.
The wonderful and informed Macintosh community. Especially those who dedicate their own time to helping others - Mike Breedan of xlr8yourmac.com is the perfect example of why it is great to be a part of this community.
101 other websites, documents, manuals and hints.

Glossary - In the document below I will use the following abbreviations regularly:
TIL (Technical Information Library document from til.info.apple.com)
RAM (Random Access Memory - your computer's memory, NOT the same as your hard disk)
PB1400 (This is just shorthand for the rather laborious "PowerBook1400")
G3 (This is the codename for Motorola's 740 chipset. This is a much more powerful processor than the 603e processor that came with the PB1400)
HD (Hard Disk - the internal storage medium of your computer)
Other abbreviations will be described the first time they are used in the document.

43 Common questions answered below:

What is the PowerBook 1400?

What are the differences between models?

Where can one find resources about the PB1400?

I have the chance to purchase a secondhand PB1400, should I?

What are the best things about it?

What are the worst things about it?

Who do I open up the PB1400 to gain access to the innards?

Where can I acquire a G3 upgrade card for my PB1400?

Can I upgrade the 603e processor with a faster one?

What is piggybacked RAM?

I have installed two RAM cards, but only one is recognized. Why?

What is the maximum amount of memory I can install in my PB1400?

Can I install more memory than the maximum supported amount?

Which version of Mac OS should I install and why?

What is PCMCIA and what can I do with it?

I bought a SCSI external device but it does not plug into the port at the back. What can I do?

What is SCSI disk mode and why would I want it?

What is the difference between the C and CS models?

Why does my screen have a thin white line across the middle?

What can I do to speed up my PB1400?

Who playable are games like Quake on the PB1400?

Can I upgrade the Video RAM?

Who do I install RAM?

Who do I install a new Hard Disk and what sort of Hard Disk does the PB1400 support?

Where can I buy parts for my PB1400?

Why does my screen look lighter at the sides/top/bottom?

Are the G3 upgrade cards still available?

What sort of upgrades and accessories are available?

Eke, I spilled water on the keyboard and now it doesn't work. What can I do?

My screen died/cracked - can I get it repaired?

What is the average battery life for the PB1400?

Who can I improve the battery life on my PB1400?

Can I use batteries from other PowerBooks in this machine?

Can I run XYZ on my PowerBook 1400?

Can I use a CD/RW drive with my PB1400?

Can I install Linux on my PB1400?

Will Mac OS X be supported for this PowerBook and if not will it work?

Who do I make the system boot from CD?

What is PRAM (Parameter RAM), where does the battery live and how can I change it?

Can you swap out a "cs" screen for a "c" screen or replace a broken screen?

There have been reports on faulty power adapters on some PB1400 models and damage to batteries. What is this about?

Can I improve screen visibility when working outdoors?

What can I use the infra red port for?

Answers:

Q: What is the PowerBook 1400?

A: Only the worlds greatest computer, shah!!!!! Well, perhaps not. The PB1400 was a popular little PowerBook that Apple released late in November, 1996 and discontinued in February, 1998. It had a long life for a portable computer and built up quite a large user-base. In all, Apple released 6 versions of this PowerBook. The differences between models are discussed in the answer to the next question. The machine was always viewed as being a little bit under powered, but that can only really be said about the original 117mhz version which for some reason Apple decided to release without level two cache on the CPU. The later two speed bumps improved the performance by increasing the speed of the chip and adding some cache at the same time. The PB1400 can handle most tasks very well — from Microsoft Office and Quake all the way to Photoshop 5.5. The PB1400 came with Mac OS 7.X, but it can handle all subsequent Mac OS releases (not including OS X) and runs a lot better with Mac OS 8.6 than it ever did with 7.6. One thing in common with all releases of the machine is the excellent keyboard. The design of the computer allows access to the internals by flipping the keyboard up. This simple design made upgrading the PB1400 a breeze and did not compromise the strength of the typing surface at all. On the contrary. The keyboard is well spaced, very stable and quite simply the best typing surface on a portable computer ever (based on my extensive experience on at least, oh, one machine :) ). The screen, regardless of whether it is the dual scan (denoted by a "cs" after the 1400) or the active matrix(denoted by a "c" after the 1400) is 11.3" inches diagonally across. This seems small by todays standards, but at the time it was perfectly acceptable. The battery is a NiMH, which means you don't get the worlds best battery time (about 90 minutes or so), and no Lithium Ion battery was ever released for this machine, so sadly that is what you are stuck with. Okay, so what is the PowerBook 1400? It is a seven pound portable computer in slate gray. It has a color screen and a PowerPC 603e processor. Most importantly, it runs Macintosh Operating System and is incredibly stable. Mine has survived years of student abuse, a glass of boiling water and several system upgrades without ever dying on me. It seems fast to me, but I upgraded from a Commodore Amiga 500+, so 133mhz seems like a heck of a lot. This is a great little machine for students and home use. Rather that regurgitating all of the technical specifications here, I will instead point you towards Apple's own online spec sheet for this machine. Have a look here:

Apple's general description of 1400: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n20468

Apple's technical specification: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n20469

…

Q: What are the differences between models?

A: As mentioned, Apple released six versions all built around the same chassis and basic internals. More detailed information about each model can be found using the link provided at the very end of the above answer, but the basic differences are listed here:

1400c/117: This model uses a 603e processor running at 117 megahertz with no on die cache. It has an active matrix screen and came with 12MB of RAM and a 750MB hard disk. The internal CD player was 6 times speed.

1400cs/117: As above but with a cheaper dual scan screen. This was the original budget model. I think this model had 16MB of RAM.

1400c/133: As the first but with 16MB of RAM, a faster processor (133mhz, but also with built in cache allowing the machine to run about 20+% faster than the 117mhz machine) and a 1000MB hard disk.

1400cs/133: Same as the 1400c/133, but with a dual scan screen.

1400c/166: The best version of the PB1400 released. This simply upgraded the processor by a notch to 166mhz. In tests it only runs about 10% faster than the 133 model, but if you can get one then why not? Other than the chip and a slightly larger hard disk (some shipped with 1200MB, others with 2000MB) this is identical to the 1400c/133.

1400cs/166: As above but with a dual scan screen.

It should be noted that some of the systems released in 1997 came with a faster 8 times CD player. This was not advertised and simply occurred because Apple had a shortage of the slower drives and had to meet a pent up demand for the PB1400. Performance improvement is minimal, but it came free…

Q: Where can one find resources about the PB1400?

A: There are a whole variety of resources. The most obvious ones are listed below.

Webpages: There really are too many web resources to list, but here are a few very good starters.

The Apple detailed specifications for this machine are here: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n20469

Ogrady PowerPage has some interesting general PowerBook information. It can be found here: www.go2mac.com (click on the powerpage link).

The Apple discussion page for questions (and very good answers) about this machine is well worth a visit if you have problems. It lives here: http://discuss.info.apple.com/boards/powrbook.nsf/by+Category?OpenView&Start=1&Count=150&Expand=4#4

Another Apple site is their Technical Information Library (hordes of helpful documents which explain common complaints, questions and so on). You will be surprised, but many of your questions will be answered here. It lives at http://til.info.apple.com/

MacNN has some interesting archive articles worth reading at www.macnn.com/MacTips/archive.For PowerBook news and views try www.pbzone.com, www.pbsource.com and the pbsource forum at www.pbsource.com/forum which is quite PB1400-centric and a regular visiting place for me.
www.powerbookcentral.com.

MEC has some great PowerBook items for sale, and they maintain a good list of items for older PowerBooks. www.powerbook1.com. Also, www.maccpu.com, www.macsales.com, www.smalldog.com and www.powerbookguy.com as well as many others offer PowerBook items for sale.

The Ultimate Mac resource has a whole bundle of wonderful links. About a zillion. Go look. This should be your first Mac site, because from here you can find just about every other Mac site you will need. http://www.flashpaper.com/umac/

EveryMac has some great info on this machine and the upgrade cards available for it: http://www.everymac.com/ and http://www.everymac.com/upgrade_cards/by_system/powerbook_1400.html

The following site has a gallery of all Macs, including the PB1400: http://www.apple-history.com/gallery.html

Another wonderful resource is the macopinion site. The RoadWarrior writer is very knowledgeable and has several great articles on this and other machines. Well worth checking out: www.macopinion.com/roadwarrior. Also good are MacSpeedZone and XLR8your mac (at www.macspeedzone.com and www.xlr8yourmac.com) for tips on how to get the most out of your system and articles explaining technical subjects such as disk caching, etc.

Newsgroups: There are many newsgroups which you may find interesting for all sorts of Apple product information, help and advocacy. Below is just a partial list of the most general groups.

comp.sys.mac.portables (Very good newsgroup for all sorts of PowerBook discussions)

comp.sys.mac.advocacy (Worth a visit if you want to waste your time arguing about nothing)

comp.sys.mac.misc (Another very good resource for all sorts of Mac related information)

comp.sys.mac.wanted (Where people advertise things for sale and things they want to buy)

comp.sys.mac.system?(A good resource for general and software information) …

Q: I have the chance to purchase a secondhand PB1400, should I?

A: This question gets asked quite often. How can we answer such a generalized question well? The truth is, it depends upon many things. What I will do here is offer some questions you should ask yourself when considering the purchase, and also offer some help in answering them.

Is it worth the asking price? Well, this depends upon what model is being offered and at what price. This machine is getting older, and its resale value is going down. That does not mean that it is not a good purchase — at the right price. So, what is a good price? Well, different people will place a different value on this, but my basic price sketch is below:
1400/117 with 12MB and Dual Scan Screen: $425. Some people will tell you that is too low, but this is the slowest spec of all, and it will cost you another $75-100 to get enough memory to really make this useable. With an active matrix screen add about $75 to the price. The PB1400/133 is noticeably faster and is worth about $75 more than the 117 model (it also comes with 16mb and a larger hard disk). The 166 model is perhaps worth an additional $100 over the 117 model. So that would mean that the base model PB1400c/166 (active matrix, 16mb, 1GB) would be worth about $600. Of course, things are not that easy as second hand computers often come with lots of extras that the original users have added over the years and you need to make account them too when pricing it. Also, you need to subtract some value for scratches, missing software, broken parts etc.

Is it really still a useable computer (for what I want to do)? The PB1400 is an old machine (relatively speaking), but old does not necessarily mean bad. You need to ask yourself a simple question: "Will this machine be able to do (almost) everything I need it to do and in a speedy enough manner that I do not get frustrated waiting?" To help answer that question here is some useful things to remember: Memory will max out at 64MB (60 on the first 117 models), so some memory intensive applications will not run or will run slowly. USB is not supported, but you do get the very useful SCSI port. This is a PowerPC, so most modern apps will run on it. Games will not run particularly well. Quake runs at about 7 fps, Myth and Myth II run okay, but the animation's stutter. Diablo is perfect. However, forget about Quake III, or Rainbow Six. This machine cannot handle it. Word processing, spreadsheets, internet, small game use, even some PhotoShop and CD burning will all work. Usable? Definitely, but there are better (and more expensive) machines now available (of course).

I plan on upgrading it with a G3 processor. Is this realistic and worthwhile? For a long time it was unwise to buy a PB1400 with the intention of upgrading it to G3 because of what one newsgroup reader aptly named "The Rape of eBay". This was the problem caused when all G3 upgrades suddenly fell out of production and vanished. The only way to secure one was second hand, and that tended to result in a mass of people trying to outbid each other. It was often cheaper to just buy a second hand G3 PowerBook than it was to buy the PB1400 and a card. Then things changed. Sonnet announced that they had started production of two new G3 cards in 2000 and suddenly the attraction of upgrading became realistic again. If you can acquire a cheap PB1400 then it can be upgraded to a G3 333MHz monster for under $400. Not bad 

Lastly, why not read some of the excellent articles on www.macopinion.com/roadwarrior about the PB1400 (and other models) and their resale value, utility, appropriateness and so on. This is well worth a visit before you buy any PowerBook…

Q: What are the best things about it?

A: The keyboard really is a wonderful typing surface. One of the best ever (although my favorite is the IBM butterfly keyboard). The excellent flip out keyboard design for easy access to the internals is also unique and appealing. The PB1400 is as sturdy as they come. It also has a reasonably small footprint and excellent trackpad. It remains one of the easiest laptops to upgrade, and one of very few models ever released that allow the CPU to be easily upgraded. It also has the unique bookcover which allows you to personalize your PowerBook (There were bookcovers released in leather, wood, aluminum, solar paneling and plastic, as well as the favorite clear panel for displaying your own things underneath.)…

Q: What are the worst things about it?

A: It has aged well, but it has still aged. The CPU is slow by today's standards and the bus speed is a pretty anemic 33mhz. Except for the later models, the internal hard disk was too small. The original 117mhz model should have come with on-die cache. Low (by today's standards) maximum RAM capacity. No cardbus or USB support (again, simply because these technologies were not prevalent at the time of its release). As with most laptops, the stereo is weak. The PB1400 only has one speaker, so you do not get stereo sound unless you plug in some earphones. Last thing is the poor battery life (about 100 minutes, but can be significantly lower than this on an old battery). A minor glitch was that the CD doors often fell off. The CD player still functioned, but it looked ugly…

Q: How do I open up the PB1400 to gain access to the innards?

A: Easily! As a general tip, take care to unplug everything and remove the battery before sticking your paws inside this or any machine. Also, it pays to either use a static discharge wrist band or at the very least make sure that you are not doing any sort of work on the inside of a computer while sitting on your shag pile rug. Static kills more computers than anything else. Slip the speaker grill firmly to the left until it disconnects (it needs to slide about half an inch across to the left before it can be removed). Remove it and then lift the keyboard up towards you(if you do not have long nails then use a thin, flat implement to rise it forward by inserting it at the top right corner and leveraging upwards) and lay it on the wrist rest. Unscrew the metal panel (5 screws in some, 4 in others) and hey presto - the innards. The CPU is on the top left, then the video expansion slot, then the memory slot on the right. The hard disk is just below and to the left of the CPU…

Q: Where can I acquire a G3 upgrade card for my PB1400?

A: There are various places where you can buy the available cards (the Sonnet 333 cards). These include www.maccpu.com, www.upgradestuff.com and www.macsales.com . The other two companies who made the G3 upgrades (Vimage and Newer) stopped production in 1999, and all remaining boards in the channels were sold. There are various places worth looking if you want to try and find a second hand card. You can post wanted ads on one of the many Mac newsgroups (probably comp.sys.mac.wanted or comp.sys.mac.portables are your best bets). Alternatively try your favorite online auction site and classified ads. Be careful not to spend more on a second hand card than you can buy a new card for…

Q: Can I upgrade the 603e processor with a faster 603e chip?

A: According to Apple you cannot upgrade any PB1400 with the 166 chip due to a ROM incompatibility (The 166 Mhz board has ROM U3 (Low, 341S0364) and ROM U4 (High, 341S0365). The 117&133 MHz logic board has ROM U3 (Low, 341S0203) and ROM U4 (High, 341S0204)). However, you can replace the 117mhz processor with a 133mhz processor. Some people have suggested that very late model PB1400cs/133 can be upgraded to the 166 chip which would imply that some late model 133's shipped with the 166 logic board, but I have yet to confirm this (I have that model, but I have yet to find someone with a 166mhz chip that will sell it for dirt cheap). All models can be upgraded with any of the G3 cards or the Newer Technology 183MHz 603e card…

Q: What is piggybacked RAM?

A: Apple built a unique RAM model for the PB1400. To keep the footprint small they squashed the internals in nice and tight. They utilized a stacked RAM format. Basically this involves the use of RAM cards that come with an extra expansion slot to allow you to attach a second RAM card on top of the first. Using this format you can fit two cards, one on top of the other, into the tiny ram space under the keyboard. Make sure when you order RAM that you get one with the pass through expansion slot on it so that later you can add another…

Q: I have installed two RAM cards, but only one is recognized. Why?

A: Apple claims that some memory manufacturers released RAM before the official specifications were made available and consequently got them wrong, but this does not fit with my experiences. I have tried to install 32 and 8MB cards together into my PB1400. Both cards work alone, both work together in another PB1400, but in my machine they cannot be stacked. Another user reported a problem with stacking two 8MB cards or two 24MB cards. Again, all cards worked alone, but could not be stacked. They worked fine in another PB1400 however. I finally found someone who mentioned that when you remove the Apple installed memory card (this is the small card to the left of the user RAM slots) the problem disappears. I tried this and can verify that for me it solved the issue and my stacked cards were recognized. However, it does mean that my Apple 8mb card is redundant. I have also been asked whether you could remove the Apple card and then install more than the normal 48MB into the user slots to have the machine recognize a full 64MB - I am afraid that I do not have an answer for that at present.
I can only surmise that some releases of the PB1400, but not all, have problems with the motherboard which prevents three RAM cards from being present at one time. I have never seen a consensus on this. Some sites claim that there may be an issue with some 32MB cards, others that it is with early cards in general, and still others that if you are going to stack cards you have to make sure that they match (same manufacturer). I know that this is inconclusive. I have asked Apple for help, but they could not offer any new information to me. My best advice is either try before you buy or buy from a place with a 30 day return policy…

Q: What is the maximum amount of memory I can install in my PB1400?

A: This depends upon the original base configuration. If you have one of the older 117mhz models that shipped with 12mb RAM installed, then you can add another 48mb to give a total of 60mb. In all other cases the base model shipped with 16mb RAM and could be upgraded with 48mb to a total of 64mb. Not a lot by today's standards, but certainly a workable amount…

Q: Can I install more memory than the maximum supported amount?

A: Some people reported successfully installing more than the maximum supported amount, but the computer cannot use more than the maximum supported amount. Make sense? Well, what I am trying to say is that if you really want you could install two 32mb cards and even though you would not be able to utilize 80mb it would at least allow you access to the full 64mb (or 60 if that is your limit). I must note here though that I have never tried this and I have had several problems with PB1400 memory, so I don't know whether this would work or not. Seems not to be a terribly common thing to occur (why buy more memory than you need?) …

Q: Which version of Mac OS should I install and why?

A: I cannot recommend enough that you install system 8 or later. The code is tighter and has been implemented specifically for PowerPC processors so it runs faster than older versions of the OS do on the PB1400. I run 8.6 and I love it to death. Virtual memory is a lot faster and the footprint is not large. It only takes up about 12mb of the available RAM on my system. Of course, if you are stuck with a very small amount of RAM and cannot afford to upgrade then you are best remaining with system 7.X due to the increase in RAM requirements for later revisions of the MacOS. One recommendation for those who are technically confident enough: do a custom install and make sure you only install what you need. After all, hard-disk space is at a premium and the smaller the install the less RAM it will demand. There are several excellent articles by Eric Prentice at www.macnn.com/MacTips/archive on how to go about a custom install of versions 8.1 and 8.5. These are well worth a read by anyone planning on upgrading their OS, even if it does not cover the exact version you plan on installing.
MacOs 9 also runs. The following is a direct quote from the Apple site: "How to run os9 - apple system requirements: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n60498 32 MB of physical RAM, with virtual memory set to at least 40 MB". Many people have successfully installed 9.0, but the consensus is that 8.6 is the most stable, proven and well supported system for this machine…

Q: What is PCMCIA and what can I do with it?

A: It is the incredible cheese of mobile expansion slots. I love it, sort of like a Saint Andre. Anyway, the PB1400 has two stacked slots which means that you can insert two type 1 or 2 cards or one type 3 card (since a type 3 card is twice as thick as a type 1 or 2 card). More modern PCMCIA cards often support cardbus. The PB1400 does not  Yup, this sucks, but such is life. Cardbus is just a faster interface (32 bit versus the PB1400 16 bit interface) that allows things like USB adapter cards to work. So that also means that you can never have a USB port on your PB1400. Am I depressing you yet? Fear not. PCMCIA is still very useful and there are tons and tons of non cardbus devices that can add gallons of functionality to your machine. Examples include: External hard drives with PCMCIA interfaces, modems and ethernet cards, compact flash adapters, external cd writers, etc. Go have a look on some internet shop and you will doubtless find a lot of interesting devices all screaming for your cash. Just make sure before you buy that the card supports MacOS and can be used on non cardbus machines. Also, have a read at the following: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n16167 (PCMCIA for PowerBook: Frequently Asked Questions) …

Q: I bought a SCSI external device but it does not plug into the port at the back. What can I do?

A: You need to buy an adapter. There are several types. You need the PowerBook SCSI adapter for most devices (This is a small plastic "L" shaped adapter that converts the PowerBook's 30 pins to a long line of 25 pins). This is so common that you can even buy it at CompUSA (admittedly for about 3 times the price that you can buy it on the web). Some devices also require a HD 50 connector. You can either buy an HD 30 to HD 50 cable or you can buy an HD 25 to HD 50 if you already have the adapter. Look closely at the specific devices requirements (all SCSI devices will list what sort of pin adapter it has and what cables it comes with). Almost without doubt you need the 25-30 adapter before anything will work. If you go to an Apple reseller they can point you in the correct direction. It really is simple. Most good e-commerce sites will offer these adapters with a nice explanation underneath similar to "This adapter allows you to connect standard SCSI devices to your PowerBook". Also, have a look at the following two Apple documents: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n12192 (PowerBook: SCSI Bus, Termination, and Termination Power) and http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n13611 (PowerBook: Using SCSI Devices)
There are also excellent tutorials online that explain all of the different SCSI cables, how to connect them together and also how to troubleshoot SCSI devices. Have a look at the following: http://skyscraper.fortunecity.com/seagate/536/scsi.html for detailed description on how to connect SCSI to a PB.
There are also two short tutorials on macinstruct which include pictures of the various SCSI cables and connectors. The first tutorial covers SCSI terminology, and the second details how to connect peripherals. They are here: www.macinstruct.com/tutorials/jordan/index.html and here: www.macinstruct.com/tutorials/jordan/basics2.html …

Q: What is SCSI disk mode and why would I want it?

A: This allows you to connect your PowerBook to another Mac and access the PowerBook hard disk as simply as if it were local (The other machine will need to have a SCSI interface otherwise you have no hope. This includes many old Mac machines, but more recent ones do not come with a SCSI interface and thus you would need to add a one to it if you want to utilize this feature). This is very useful when you want to install software without using the CD drive, transfer large file's, or simply use your no longer needed PowerBook as an extra storage device (but come on, you could sell it and buy a massive hard disk). There are Apple TIL documents which explain how to go about making the connection…

Q: What is the difference between the C and CS models?

A: If your PowerBook is a "c" model then it means that you have an active matrix (TFT) screen. This was one of the largest and nicest notebook screens available at the time. It is still a beautiful screen. The "cs" model is a dual scan screen. Basically this was the budget model. The dual scan screen is slower and not as crisp, but the PB1400 screen was one of the best dual scan screens at the time. So what does active matrix mean? Basically your screen is built up of thousands of little dots of active color which are lit from behind. Whenever something moves on the screen the dots it affects are changed color. Even today, several years later, the active matrix screen is the best type available. A dual scan screen is passive, meaning that individual pixels do not update themselves but instead the entire screen is updated each time something moves/changes. This obviously slows things down. To improve this dual scan screens were introduced. These contained two screens which were slotted tightly together. This improved performance by reducing by half the area that has to be updated each time something changes (unless the change affects both upper and lower halves of the screen). Another difference between active and passive is that passive screens tend to be less bright and harder to read in natural light. My screen is passive. It is still wonderful and I don't really miss the active screen (I am not running a lot of animation's. If I was I would probably be in tears). So, "c" models will sell for more but they are worth more. How much more? That depends upon your own thoughts on this issue! …

Q: Why does my screen have a thin white line across the middle?

A: There is an Apple TIL on this. Basically, you have a dual scan screen (see question immediately above). The white line is the join where the screens meet. This line should only be visible on some rare occasions, such as when the screen suddenly changes to black. I don't notice this 99.9% of the time, but every now and then I will be surprised when it becomes visible for a second, normally at startup…

Q: What can I do to speed up my PB1400?

A: Definitely read the section on upgrades for more information. Basically, there are several bottlenecks in the design of the PB1400 that you can do nothing about — namely the slow bus speed, the small memory capacity and the CPU (which can be upgraded with an expensive replacement card). However, within these restraints you can squeeze out some very good performance. Add as much memory as you can afford to. Memory is still easy to pick up and while it is not cheap, it is a lot cheaper today than it was two years ago. This should be your first purchase and really helps get things moving. If you decide not to max out the memory in one go then make sure that you buy a RAM card which can be stacked so that later you can slot another memory card on top of it. Another useful tip is to set the disk cache to 32kb for each MB of installed RAM. Install Mac OS 8.X. See the specific section on this above for the reasons why. Set virtual memory to 1 MB (this speeds things up on system 8.X and higher because it turns on file mapping and reduces the time it takes for applications to load). Set the number of displayed colors to 256 (unless you really need the higher setting). If you are a game player and want to improve performance try switching off in-game music. The best way to get performance out of an application is to set the memory in the get info panel to as high as you can allow it to be (normally RAM minus about 12 or 15 MB for the system to use) and then run only one application at a time. However, I have a mid range PB1400 and I manage to run Mac OS 8.6, Photoshop and Quark at the same time on 48MB of RAM. There are various CPU upgrades for the PB1400, from the 183MHz 603e upgrade (which only really boosts performance by about 20% on the average PB1400, less on the 166 model.) all the way to the copper G3 333MHz chip which makes your machine feel insanely fast (relatively speaking). For a short but useful article on speeding up your Mac have a read at http://www.applecentral.com/speed.shtml …

Q: How playable are games like Quake on the (non G3) PB1400?

A: They are definitely playable — I manage it more often than my girlfriend would like  As will all games like this, they will run better on the active screen models than the passive ones, but only marginally so. Also, you will need enough memory to run the game (give it as much as you can and kill all other applications). Sometimes you will need to turn off the soundtrack to help boost the speed, or reduce the resolution and colors. However, I play Quake, Myth, Diablo and other games with absolutely no problem (other than my lack of talent). If the game will run on your processor and memory configuration (according to the box) then it should be fine. Of course, this was never designed as a games machine, you should probably be using a games console for that!…

Q: Can I upgrade the Video RAM?

A: Nope, sorry. You are stuck with the video performance that you have got. Adding a G3 processor will improve the video performance as a side effect, but generally you are stuck with the way it is (which is not bad). However, you can buy the Apple 8-bit or Newer Technology 16-bit Color Video-out Upgrade Kit. These allows you to output the screen to an external monitor. Read the following Apple document for more information: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n20785 (PowerBook 1400: Video Out Questions & Answers) …

Q: How do I install RAM?

A: Easy peasy lemon squeezy, as Hugh Grant may say. Follow my instructions above on how to open the PowerBook and then locate the RAM slot on the top right of the motherboard. It is an off-white plastic slot standing vertically. The first memory card (since you can install two) should be placed in gently so that the card slips in under a tiny hidden shelf of plastic that lies against the side of the PowerBook. You may not be able to see this shelf, but the card should not slope up towards you, but instead be pretty flat to the motherboard. The second RAM card slips into the expansion slot on the first card and should rest above the shelf on the side of the PowerBook. As a general tip, take care to unplug everything and remove the battery before sticking your paws inside this or any machine…

Q: How do I install a new Hard Disk and what sort of Hard Disk does the PB1400 support?

A: Regardless of which model of PB1400 you have, by toady's standards the hard disk is pretty small. The good news is that notebook hard disks are no longer as expensive as they once were, and adding a few gigabytes of storage need not break the bank. Installing a hard disk is also relatively straight forward thanks to the ease with which you can gain access to the innards of the PB1400. Two things to be careful of though: First is to make sure that the Apple Drive Setup software supports the make of drive that you are interested in (IBM etc. are supported). To find out about a specific model then you either need to post a question on one of the technical forums or try to find an Apple TIL on the subject (So far I have failed). Second is to make sure that the drive will fit into the enclosure. You need to get a drive 12.5mm or smaller (I think 12.7mm may work, but I need someone to verify this) and of course it has to be a laptop drive (meaning 2.5 inch) with an IDE interface. Some companies sell drives which are guaranteed to work with the PB1400 (www.powerbook1.com) and come with the required brackets. However, they charge a small premium for these drives and if money is tight then you will be fine picking up a drive from elsewhere. There are an additional two words of warning though: First, most modern drives have the mounting holes in different areas from the PB1400 and thus the drives will not be able to easily screw in. If you are technically proficient then you can easily seal the drive yourself, but if not then you may want to just pay the extra for the drives which come with the brackets for the PB1400. Second thing to be aware of is that any drive larger than 4.3 GB will not work reliably in SCSI disk mode. If you do not use SCSI disk mode then this is not an issue, but if you do rely upon it then it is worth reading the various articles on the newsgroups and forums about this issue (do a search on www.deja.com powersearch for "powerbook", "scsi" and "mode").
Installing the drive itself is not too much of a nightmare as far as computer work goes. It is wise to use an antistatic wrist strap (I used to use this all the time, but lately I have become lazy and I guarantee you that I will be punished eventually!). Many people have mentioned that modern hard drives have their bracket mounting screws in a different location from the drives that the PB1400 originally used. This is because drive manufacturers moved the screws as part of their work to increase the capacity of drives. The problem with this is that the drive can no longer be easily attached to the old PB1400 hard drive bracket. I should note here though that my drive bracket actually contained two sets of holes on the bottom - one in the location of the old drive screw holes and one in the location of the new style drive holes. Several other owners have confirmed the same. I can only guess that some older PB1400 models came with drive brackets which do not have the newer style holes in the bottom. If you are about to install a new drive you should check whether your bracket has holes in the correct place. This is easy to do - just remove the two holding screws and lift the drive up a little to take a quick peek. If you only have the old holes in your bracket than you may want to either drill your own or just buy your drive from a place that can supply you with a bracket at the same time. When you are ready to proceed, all you will need is a small phillips screwdriver. Just unplug the power cord, pull the battery out of the machine. Next lift up the keyboard (be sure to back everything up to another drive, obviously). Ground yourself to the frame inside, or ideally have a ground strap on attached to the frame. The hard drive sits to the bottom left of the keyboard area. If you look at the right hand side of the drive you will see that there are two small screws which hold the drive bracket to the computer casing. You need to remove these two screws. Next pull up the old drive by gently picking up the right hand side and swinging it up and towards the left hand side of the powerbook. You have to be gentle here, because the hard disk cable is attached to the logic board and you don't want it to come loose (if it does, you have to take the whole thing apart to reattach it). The drive bracket is attached to the left side by a small lip of metal. This should pop out if you pull hard enough. Just take care with the cable all the time that you are doing this. Next you want to remove the HD screws that actualy hold the hard disk to the bracket. These are on the bottom of the bracket. Then gently pull the connector from the end of the HD (It is a plastic connector which will deconnect if you give it a tug - but do not bend any of the pins if you can avoid it). Remove the old drive and keep somewhere safe incase the new drive ever dies. Now feed this connector and cable through the bracket into the new drive, and attach the new drive with the original screws. In my case I could not get the cable to unwind at all, so rather than forcing it (and trust me, I tried pulling at it for long enough) I decided to skip the feeding of the plastic connector and cable into the bracket and instead just attached my new drive to the bracket and then went about the connection of the drive pins to the connector. However, if you can get the cable to feed into the bracket then you really will have an easier time of this. Carefully tuck the drive cable back down as it was before and reseat the drive in it's little space and put the screws and keyboard back in place. There you have it. You now want to restart from a CD containing your drive setup software. If you are going to format your drive then you are probably best doing a low level format and zeroing all data. This can take a long time to complete, but it helps ensure a well prepared and error free drive. All that is left is for you to install your OS and applications. Thanks to Cotty for help with the above. Using his advice I recently undertook this operation myself. …

Q: Where can I buy parts for my PB1400?

A: Check the internet and the back of Mac magazines for specialist retailers. Please refer to the answer above ("Where can one find resources about the PB1400?") for some specific pointers. Also, many people sell their broken PB1400's for parts. This is often the best way to get hold of a single component, such as a replacement trackpad. Other companies such as www.macparts.com will sell you drive doors for your CD player, speaker grills and keyboards…

Q: Why does my screen look lighter at the sides/top/bottom?

A: Another short answer for this one. This is caused by the joining of the screen to the casing. Basically the casing grips the screen and causes it to become tight and slightly convex. What you see as the result of this is some lighter patches. Also, in some serious circumstances over enthusiastic handling of the casing can damage the screen. If you or someone else has pressed too firmly on the screen or the casing around the screen you may see some damage. This is generally visibly by extra light coming through and less definition on colors on the affected area…

Q: Are the G3 upgrade cards still available?

A: The PB1400 was one of the very few PowerBooks that Apple made with a CPU that was not soldered on to the motherboard. This allows the CPU to be upgraded with third party cards. Several companies saw the opportunity and began to market G3 cards for this machine. There was, for a long time, only two companies involved in producing cards: Newer Technology and Vimage (a child of Interware of Japan). Between them they made a whole host of different cards. Newer came out with a 233MHz card with 512k of backside cache and also a very popular 250MHz card with a full megabyte of cache. They also produced an earlier 216MHz card that was discontinued when the 233 card was released. Vimage managed only to produce a 233MHz card in volume before exiting the market. This card was on a par with the Newer 233 card and also came with 512k of cache. Vimage also produced a 266MHz card, but this is as rare as hen's teeth, probably due to Vimage going out of business. All of the above cards went out of production long before the demand had dried up and the result was an incredible secondary market. On eBay and the likes, people would bid up to and beyond $600 for a second hand card. For a long time it looked like all PB1400 owners who had not been fortunate enough to buy the cards when they were first available were going to just have to accept their lowly 603e chip forever. Then at MacWorld in January of 2000, Sonnet made a surprise announcement that they were going to enter the market with a 333MHz copper G3 chip with 512k of cache. They also later announced a similar card but with a full megabyte of cache. The resale market collapsed and many owners breathed a massive sigh of relief. Also of interest is that Interware (parent of Vimage) released their own 333MHz G3 card at the same time as Sonnet, although this card was only ever available in Japan. For a very complete history of the G3 upgrade capability of the PB1400 read the article on www.maccpu.com about it. Only the Sonnet cards are readily available, but they are also the fastest and the cheapest, so it is not such a limiting factor. They are available from a whole host of online stores. MacCPU, OWC, UpgradeStuff and others all offer the Sonnet cards…

Q: What sort of upgrades and accessories are available?

A: See the answer to the question above for information on the G3 card upgrades which were released for the PB1400. Most owners absolutely love them to death! Any G3 card at all will massively improve the performance of your PowerBook. The early ones did kill the battery time however and also marginally increased the heat of the 'Book. The Sonnet cards were produced with copper chips which require less energy to run and thus actually improved the battery life of the PB1400. You can expect to see an increase of between 4 and 8+ times over the original speed of your PB1400, depending upon the card you install.

Installing the cards was meant to be a simple operation, made even easier by the beauty of the PB1400's easy access to the internals. There were also very few conflicts reported by users of the various G3 cards. All in all they are an excellent choice of upgrade if you cannot afford a brand new machine and want to extend the power of your existing PB1400.

There is a whole host of information on these cards on the web. You can find reviews at www.macworld.com, benchmarks at www.macspeedzone.com and www.ivsoftware.com/1400.html (NUpowr 250 card), user comments on comp.sys.mac.portables and a whole host of other information by searching on the various excellent Macintosh websites.

Perhaps it is worth noting here that while these cards will turbo charge your machine, they will not help break the bottlenecks caused by a lack of memory, a slow hard drive, the rather poor Video RAM, or the 33MHz system bus. They do however add a rather large jolt of adrenaline.

Also available second hand is the Newer Technology 603e card which offered 183 MHz and was better than the CPU that the PB1400’s came with, but not by much (people claimed about 20% faster than the 133 card, but when you consider that the 233 G3 card is commonly accepted as being between 4 and 6 times faster than the 133 PB1400 the 20% increase just seems, well, inadequate). All are installed in the processor slot, replacing the original processor card.

You can also add a video out card. Both Apple and Newer released a version - The Apple one is 8-bit, whereas the Newer card was 16-bit with the concomitant increase in quality and density. These cards allow you to send your output to an external monitor. This is a useful addition to your machine if you want to do work on a larger display. One cautionary note is that the Newer card overlaps the top RAM slot of the user RAM slots and thus removes the ability to use two RAM cards stacked together. If you want to use both the Newer video out card and also reach your maximum RAM allowance you will have to purchase the single 48MB RAM card that Newer released (other companies may have released single 48MB cards too). This is a non stacked card that leaves the top slot free for the overlapping video card. If you buy the Apple card then you can still stack two RAM cards without any problems.

Another very popular upgrade is a larger hard disk. Please see the specific question for more information.

You can also add RAM, and VST released an internal modular ZIP drive for the CD/Floppy bay. Other than this you are really dependent upon PCMCIA card expansions (such as modems, PC Card hard drives and external drives, etc.) and external peripherals. With SCSI on board you have access to a lot of external devices. You need to be careful that they support MacOS, but many do. Some printers also allow you to connect to the Mac serial connection. Apple also released some proprietary devices for their ADB (Apple Device Bus) such as printers.

As an aside: No PB1400 can be upgraded to cardbus, and you cannot add USB functionality to it. That is a basic limitation that you are going to have to learn to live with…

Q: Eek, I spilled water on the keyboard and now it doesn't work. What can I do?

A: This depends upon how bad the spill was. If no keys are working but all other functions seem fine (the computer starts and the trackpad etc. are working) then you should be able to just buy a replacement keyboard (check with an Apple specialist retailer such as www.powerbook1.com or www.smalldog.com). If you are technically savvy then you can always try to fix the keyboard yourself. Unfortunately the bottom of the keyboard is soldered on to a metal tray (but this is not soldered onto the body of the PowerBook), so if you want to gain access to the internals of the keyboard then you have to basically rip the thing off. Now, this sounds bad, and it is, but I have done it before and managed to salvage a keyboard. A less severe, and with retrospect a wiser method is to remove all of the keys which are not working (you can just press them off gently with your fingers or a flat bladed implement), then clean the key contacts underneath with a cotton stick. You really need to clean the connector beneath the rubber sheet, but you should be able to reach that with the cotton stick. If you need to you can use a mild cleaning alcohol. If this does not fix anything then you really need to replace the keyboard. On the bright side, you can buy a new replacement for about $50…

Q: My screen died/cracked - can I get it repaired?

A: Yes, several specialized Apple repair shops will offer to replace a broken screen on a PB1400. However they will charge $400 and up. This is simply way too much to pay since you can sell your broken PB1400 for parts and use the money from that to buy another one with a working screen for less additional money than the $400 it would take to fix the screen. It is just not economically viable anymore since the resale value is less than twice the cost of the repair, and you could sell off the parts for a tidy sum (relatively speaking). Look upon it as an excuse to finally trade in for a better model. You will not be worse of, I promise (well, okay my fingers are crossed!) …

Q: What is the average battery life for the PB1400?

A: Not much is the sad answer. The batteries are NiMH, which is shorthand for "Not incredibly Many Hours". You will get about 2 hours or slightly more on a new battery (as long as you use a small amount of power conservation. You can get 20 minutes or less on an old battery. Initial tests of the new Sonnet G3 card show that it may increase battery life close to 2.5 hours on a new battery. Also, some of the third party batteries produced for the PB1400 are a little more powerful than the Apple one and I would expect that you could gain about 20 or more minutes with one of these over the Apple one…

Q: How can I improve the battery life on my PB1400?

A: You can recondition batteries using the Apple utility that comes on the original CD. This should eke out a few more minutes of life for you. The terrible battery life is one of the annoying features of this PowerBook I am afraid. Learn to live with it. Fine for short trips, but infuriating on transatlantic flights (but at least your universal power supply will work at the destination). You can buy replacement batteries for the PB1400. Several third parties created and marketed batteries for this machine, all NiMH though. For information have a look at: http://www.pbsource.com/battery/1400.shtml.

One great way of extending battery life does exist though. This is not a trivial thing to set up, but it can result in massively extended battery life. There is a full article on this at www.macspeedzone.com in "TheSecretMac" section. Search for the following article "Have a PowerBook? Trash Your Hard Disk Often? Maybe You Should - Battery Saving Secrets". This article, by David Pogue and Joseph Schorr, explains how to set up a minimal system on a RAM disk and then boot from that disk. It also describes how to go about hiding the hard disk so that you can run a silent machine that never access the hard disk. The result is an incredibly fast and silent PowerBook with the battery life increased by an hour or so. The article (and others on that site) are well worth a read
. Lastly is another simple reader-supplied tip (backed up by an article in MacAddict no. 6). He states that if you are traveling with the CD drive in the modular bay always make sure that you have a CD already inserted into the drive to prevent the machine from frequently polling the drive unit to see if it is empty or not. This little tip can save you a few vital minutes of battery life when on the road.…

Q: Can I use batteries from other PowerBooks in this machine?

A: No. Only PB1400 batteries will fit in the PB1400. However, you can still buy new batteries quite easily from Apple resellers. As mentioned above, you can find a list of third party batteries for the PB1400 at: http://www.pbsource.com/battery/1400.shtml …

Q: Can I run XYZ on my PowerBook 1400?

A: If it says it will run on a PowerPC and your processor matches or exceeds the minimum required speed that it states on the box and you have sufficient RAM and hard disk space, then yes it will probably work. Most things work. Photoshop, Illustrator, Office, SoftWindows, Quake, Doom, etc.…. There are no anomalies with the PB1400 that stop things running on it that would otherwise run on similarly spec’ed desktops…

Q: Can I use a CD/RW drive with my PB1400?

A: Absolutely, as long as it comes with Mac drivers and you have the relevant cables to attach it (see the questions on SCSI). Remember, most of these drives come with mastering software that are required to utilize the drive. You need to ensure that the drive you are about to invest in comes with a Mac version of that software. Also, the bus speed on the PB1400 is pretty poor, so do not expect to write at 4 times speed. In fact, most people report great success at one times speed. Many have managed two times, but basically it will not be super fast. One person reported burning well at 4 times speed by using an external SCSI cd drive as the source, rather than the internal cd drive. For some great information on CD burning have a read at the following FAQ. This information is not Mac specific, but it is still very useful: www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/ …

Q: Can I install Linux on my PB1400?

A: No! However, you can install some hacked version of mk/unix. If you really want to try this then go and search among the archive of comp.sys.mac.portables for some gory details on how it is done. Good luck to you. It is a worthwhile exercise and you may just learn a lot on the way. Not something I am too keen to try though. An alternative to Linux is to try Tenon's MachTen. This is fully supported on a PB1400. MachTen uses the same BSD 4.4 UNIX and Mach 2.5 kernel as MacOS X Server. PB1400 users have been running it successfully, and have been using it on various other Macs since the early 90's.…

Q: Will Mac OS X be supported for this PowerBook and if not will it work?

A: It will not be supported as this is technically a NuBus computer and no NuBus machine is supported for OSX. Basically it will never run on a PB1400, but saying that, there is normally always a way to get software to work if you are willing to hack enough. Someone has already reported running the OS X development version on a PB1400. Another major issue is that OSX is expected to demand about 64 MB of RAM for the system alone, and since this is the absolute maximum on the PB1400 it seems unlikely that you would ever be able to get OSX to work well(and if you did you would never be able to launch Word). Watch as I get proven wrong. Here's hoping! …

Q: How do I make the system boot from CD?

A: One of the first things PB1400 owners will notice when trying to install a new Operating System is that the machine does not support the standard Apple keyboard command to boot from CD. On other systems you could simply hold down the "C" key at boot up to make the computer choose the CD as the boot disk. With the PB1400 however, you can achieve the same result by holding down the command (The key with the small Apple logo on it), option, shift and delete keys until the "Happy Mac" icon appears on the screen. Do not continue to hold the keys down for too long after this unless you want to prevent the hard disk from mounting after the CD (you normally only want to stop the hard disk from mounting when you want to run Disk First Aid from your CD to try and recover a damaged disk) …

Q: What is PRAM (Parameter RAM), where does the battery live and how can I change it?

A: Whenever something goes wrong with your PowerBook, you will often find people tell you to try resetting your PRAM. PRAM is shorthand for "Parameter RAM", meaning the small section of memory where all of the user and system preferences are stored. This memory has to be maintained when the system is switched off, so it is powered by a small battery. This makes sure that between uses your system maintains all of the useful information that it needs to keep it set up to your exact specifications (virtual memory status, startup disk, amount of memory installed, date and time etc.). PRAM can become corrupt, or perhaps jumbled is a better description. This can cause problems - such as not allowing new memory or peripherals to be recognized. You can normally fix this by wiping the PRAM memory and thus starting with a clean slate. The result is that you have to reset all of your user preferences, the date and time, and so on. To reset PRAM you can press the small button that nestles between the serial and ADB port at the back of the PB1400. Hold this in for a few seconds until you hear the music sound. An alternative is to reset by holding down the Control-Option-P-R key combination at startup. You need to hold them until you hear a second startup chime. There is a description of PRAM at www.macinstruct.com/tutorials/news/pram.html. Wander over and have a read if you need more information. Apple also have two TIL documents of interest: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n14449 for info on resetting PRAM, and http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n11751 for information on battery part numbers.
Sometimes, after a few years of extensive use, your PRAM battery may fade. This causes your settings to be lost each time you switch off. It can also cause problems in starting your system, and other random occurrences. When this occurs you need to replace the battery. This is not a simple job though. Even though the battery can be bought at Radio Shack, getting to it is not so simple. It lives under the trackpad/arm-rest area and is thus not easily accessible like the RAM slots and hard disk are. If you are not the sort of person who likes ripping apart computers then I would recommend contacting your local Mac technician for help. It is probably better to pay for someone to find, remove and replace the battery than it is trying to do it yourself and destroying the entire machine. If you do want to do it yourself then b prepared to take apart the entire lower half of the machine. I believe the PRAM battery is the small black disk you can see at the top right of the battery enclosure when you slip the main battery out. A new battery will cost you about $10 at Radio Shack (take the old one along so that they can hook you up with the right type), or about $25 from an Apple retailer (don't know why they charge so much, probably they sell some official Apple replacement version whereas Radio Shack are just hooking you up with some generic battery. Either will perform the task though). …

Q: Can you swap out a "cs" screen for a "c" screen or replace a broken screen?

A: Someone has reported that you can indeed swap out the screen on a "cs" model for the screen on a "c" model. I have never tried this, but it seems reasonable. The only problem is getting a replacement screen. If you are just trying to salvage two broken PB1400's to make one good one then the screens should be interchangeable.
Some Mac outfits will be able to replace a broken or damaged screen on your PB1400, but they tend to charge an extortionate amount. In fact, they often charge more that the price of picking up an entire second hand machine. I personally would probably use a broken screen as an excuse to buy a new machine, selling the PB1400 for parts, but if you absolutely have to fix it then I would recommend picking up a broken second hand PB1400 (as long as the screen is not the broken part) and using the screen from this …

Q: There have been reports on faulty power adapters on some PB1400 models and damage to batteries. What is this about?

A: There is some great information on the PBSource.com website about this problem dating back to August 1999. Here is the url: http://www.pbsource.com/contributions/readers/M4896acadapter.shtml
In brief the problem is basically concerned with several versions of the power adapter (Models no: M4895/M4896, Rev: 3A/3A are mentioned in the article) having decreased voltage output. This in turn was damaging the NiMH batteries and resulting in basically a non-chargeable battery. If you are experiencing similar problems then please read the posts at the above site and follow their guidelines which are basically: Buy a new adapter, run the Apple battery recondition utility, reset PRAM and if this doesn't work then get a new battery. One thing is be careful not to mistake the PB1400's short battery life with this problem - they are distinct. Even a perfectly good PB1400 will only last an hour or two on battery power at the best of times. This problem is when a fault in the power adapter basically kills the battery completely and may even prevent boot up from AC power on some occasions. …

Q: Can I improve screen visibility when working outdoors?

A: As many PB1400 owners are aware, the dual scan screen is not exactly good for outdoor use. In fact, it tends to become almost impossible to see what one is working on due to the effect of the glare on the screen. One reader has recommended a very simple and effective tip for overcoming this problem. If you want to work in sunlight simply change the screen to 4 grays or black and white. Almost all applications are very useable in this format, especially if you are simply word processing or internet browsing. This may make your 'Book look less poser-cool, but it works and for most of us that is all that matters …

Q: What can I use the infra red port for?

A: There has been several discussions on this topic on the PowerList and on comp.sys.mac.portables. Users have been trying to get their PB1400 to talk to their new Pismo laptops, or other new gadgets. Some people have even been trying to change their television channels with the infra red port (this may sound crazy, but on more modern IRDA ports it is possible). The answer rather discouragingly is that you cannot do very much on with your PB1400 IR port. It only supports AppleTalk and is not IRDA complaint. This means that you cannot connect to the internet via your funky new Nokia or send documents to non-AppleTalk printers. You cannot even play IR networked Quake3 with your Pismo owning friends. What you can do is connect to an AppleTalk network with any other AppleTalk supporting IR port. That includes the PowerBook 3400, Kanga, 2400 and some of the earlier Duos. That sadly is about it. If you know of any cool things that you can do with your IR port then please drop me an e-mail as it would be fun to try them out and add them to the FAQ…