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Newton MessagePad 120 no power repair

Forums > Vintage Apple > iPad, iPod, Newton/eMate & Handhelds

Elemenoh
Active Tinkerer
Bay Area
--------
Joined: Oct 18, 2021
Posts: 428
Likes: 415
Dec 11, 2025 - #1
I have a MessagePad 120 that doesn't power up with a known good AC adapter. I followed this guide for the 130 at PDA-soft.de which advised reflowing U43 (mine was fine) and replacing 4x 4.64k resistors that are known to fail. A few of them were in slightly different locations compared to the 130, but I was able to find and replace them all with 4.7k resistors. The two 220uF / 10V electrolytic caps tested well within spec.

Are there any other common failure points I should check?

BTW in case it's helpful to others here are some specs I didn't see elsewhere online:

The 4.64k resistors are ~1.8mm [multiplication-x] .8mm (I replaced with 4.7k which is much more common)

The 220uF/10V caps are about 10mm diameter and 11mm tall.

Elemenoh
Active Tinkerer
Bay Area
--------
Joined: Oct 18, 2021
Posts: 428
Likes: 415
Dec 12, 2025 - #2
For reference here are the locations of R73/R79, R61, and R52 on the MessagePad 120 MLB.

I realized I had replaced them with 4.7Ohm resistors so swapped them again with 4.7kOhm resistors but the device is still no power.
Attachments:
R73 R79.jpeg (1.7 MB)
R61.jpeg (1.5 MB)
R52.jpeg (1.7 MB)

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