Pismo Thermal Paste Blues
From Jesse:
Hello Charles,
I had previously emailed you last Christmas regarding Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on G4-upgraded
Pismos. I guess Easter
is a good time for another letter - unfortunately this time it is a cry
for help. I am hoping you can help me with an accident I had while
upgrading my Pismo from my original 256 MB to 640 MB. It will no longer
boot, not even the start up bong! It was working perfectly dual-booting
OS X 10.4 Tiger and
Ubuntu.
A friend gave me a working 512 MB RAM stick for my Pismo. Taking it
apart was not hard (duh), as I had previously installed a new PRAM
battery. I did not have trouble changing the RAM chip on the bottom, as
I used the tutorial from
iFixit for installing RAM on a Pismo.
My problem is that the thermal pad came off the heatsink, so I
thought it would be a good time to replace it with a fresh coat of
thermal compound. (Famous last words.) I used
the thermal compound page in the iFixit website.
I used standard PC compound Arctic
Silver 3 that my brother had for his PCs. Unfortunately, I did not
notice that the bottom part of the tube was damaged. When I squeezed
the tube to put some on the CPU, it also came out the bottom end. Well,
it got smeared on the smaller little squares surrounding the center CPU
on the G3 chip (see picture). The compound pages suggests to use
rubbing alcohol on a cotton swab to remove from the CPU, but does not
say anything about my problem with it all over the chip. Part of that
was caused by me trying to remove it. The website recommends GooOff 2;
is it significantly better?
I carefully reassembled the Pismo after trying to clean it but did
not get a working computer. No start up sound, no OpenFirmware or
Yaboot prompt. I hope you or another reader has solution to my problem.
I really want to save it without having to buy another CPU. I only have
it as a convenience, not a necessity, so I can't really see spending
more money in these times. Otherwise I might have to sell it for parts,
since it would not be very cost efficient to spend money on it.
thanks
Jesse
P.S. A quick note to Dan Knight, I have white-listed LEM on Adblock
Plus.
Hi Jesse,
Sorry to hear about the accident.
I have zero experience with this sort of issue, and
indeed had never run across it before, so any opinion I can offer will
be purely deductive.
I would guess that the silver content in the thermal
paste would make it electrically conductive, and the concern would be
that with it smeared all over the CPU as it is, it might have caused a
short circuit and fried the chip, although that is speculation.
I had never heard of GooOff (perhaps it's not sold
here in Canada), but looked it up, and it looks like useful stuff.
However, unless some is conveniently at hand, my inclination would be
to try alcohol and then let the chip dry thoroughly before applying
power.
I hope you are able to revive it, but if it has
shorted, it may be a goner.
The happy aspect is that the processor daughtercard in
the Pismo is really easy to replace, and if you want to revive the old
machine, you should be able to pick one up inexpensively. Hopefully, if
there was electrical damage it did not affect the RAM or other
circuitry.
Thanks for whitelisting Low End Mac.
Charles
Missing WindowShade
From Steve:
Hi Charles,
Just a line to say how much I agree with your sentiments posted
on Low End Mac regarding the current unhappy situation of our beloved
WindowShade.
Some weeks have gone by since your fine piece was published, and
still not a word from Unsanity regarding the state of play.
Unlike you, I did go ahead with the upgrade to OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and am, in
all other respects, very happy that I did so but, dear oh dear, how I
miss WindowShade! Like you, my work as a photographer, web author, and
historian requires my having lots of windows, bits of text, and images
open at once, and working, as I must, in the cramped screen space of my
MacBook Pro, it just drives me nuts.
I've written to Unsanity on a number of occasions, and I've even
written to Steve Jobs, pleading with him either to recreate Apple's
version or buy Unsanity and incorporate theirs into the system -
needless to say, without hearing a word back from either. I seem to
spend more and more time posting increasingly vitirolic messages on
sites carrying reviews of Unsanity's products. Not healthy, I realise.
Am I becoming obsessed? Sometimes I think it's just me, so it was most
reassuring to read your article. Keep up the pressure!
We'll probably be onto 10.7 before Unsanity get their unreliable
fingers out far enough to release an upgrade for Snow Leopard! I am
frankly amazed that there aren't rivals marketing their own versions of
this indispensable feature. There would seem to be a fair bit of money
to be made by whoever manages it. I'd certainly prefer to hand over my
hard-earned to anyone but Unsanity!
I was greatly cheered, however, to discover another great favourite
from the past I never thought I'd see on my Mac again - the wonderful
FinderPop - has just been
re-released for SL as 'pint-ware' ("buy Turly a beer"). So it is
possible.
Kind regards,
Steve
Hi Steve,
I agree. I simply can't comprehend why there is not
irresistible demand for windowshading support on all platforms - not
just the Mac.
However, in fairness to Unsanity, at least they've
sustained windowshading support into the OS X era, which is more
than Apple has done, and as I understand it they are a small operation
with presumably limited development resources dealing with not only
non-support but opposition from Apple, at least as fas a Application
Enhancer is concerned.
I did order a copy of Snow Leopard last week, as I
finally encountered a software application I need to review that
requires it, but my provisional plan is to install it on my hard
drive's second partition for executing such testing while continuing to
use Leopard as my production OS until such time as windowshading is
once again supported.
And yes, it's great to see Turly's FinderPop available
again.
Charles
Flash Heats Up Macs
From David:
Hello Charles,
My brother just me hooked on a Flash-based game (Bloons Tower
Defense 4 at ninjakiwi.com) that
really heats up my Macs. I have a Late 2006 MacBook Pro that quickly
hits 98°C even when the game is idle. Activity Monitor shows Safari
using about 37% CPU and the Flash plugin using 76%.
I tried loading the same game on a dual 2.0 GHz G5, and Activity
Monitor showed processor usage north of 180%. The introductory graphics
were noticeably lagging, so I didn't even bother starting a game.
I do permit Flash on the shared family computer, because most
children's content is Flash-based. I do a lot of my browsing and
article reading there, so I see my fair share of ads, even though I've
got Flash blockers on my work machine.
I don't really mind advertising and have even purchased products
from web ads, but complex audiovisual productions annoy me. If I'm
reading, I don't want something just off centre of my vision that's
constantly changing. Ads with sound have me either hitting mute or my
browser's back button.
Message to advertisers: If the ad is intrusive, I'm likely to
remember you - on my personal black list.
Message to ad-supported sites: If you display intrusive ads, I'll
think twice about ever coming back.
David
Hi David,
Wow, 98°! The hottest I've ever seen on my
1.33 GHz PowerBook
G4 is around 70° and on the MacBook 81° although the PB
typically runs in the low-mid 50s and the MacBook in the mid-upper
60s.
I agree with you about complex AV ads and ones with
music. Both are a turnoff. Are you listening, advertisers?
Charles
Tiger vs. Leopard on a G4 PowerBook
From John:
Hey Charles,
I've gotten quite adept at managing my PowerBook's temperature, as I
vaguely remembered discussing with you a couple of years ago. Google to
the rescue, and here's the Miscellaneous Ramblings link: Is Leopard the Best OS for a 12"
PowerBook?.
The advantages to Leopard I spoke of at the time have reduced since
Snow Leopard came out, so I went back to Tiger a little while ago. My
G4's not getting any faster. Or any more Intel. But I suspect I've
grown so used to this handy little Mac that I'll keep coming back to
it, much like you do your Pismo PowerBook G3s. It was my first one,
after all.
John
Hi John,
As long as it does what you need it to do, keep
hanging in. The things I miss most running Tiger on the Pismos are
Spaces and QuickLook, but I still love using those old machines.
Charles
Benefits of Old Technology
From Dean:
Hello Charles,
I recently read your
articles about the value of older technology and loved it. We have
a standard land line telephone and three cell phones. Most of my
neighbors, who laugh at my "quaint" land line have given up their land
lines.
Well, it turned out during a recent power outage everyone's cell
phones didn't work, because the cell towers had no power. Guess which
phone was still working. It seems that my "quaint" land line wasn't so
old fashioned anymore.
On another note, I have been reading about people having trouble
with their Mac laptop built-in batteries failing. It appears that Apple
considers batteries consumables and doesn't cover replacement of them.
This is the reason I bought two MacBooks with removable batteries
(another old technology) just before their production was discontinued.
As I recall, my now officially 10-year-old and still working Pismo has
removable batteries too.
Keep up the good work.
Dean
Hi Dean,
We seem to have similar taste in laptops. My current
fleet consists of two ancient Pismos and a removable battery Unibody MacBook.
I much prefer having a swappable battery.
Power outages are the bane of the wireless
infrastructures. My broadband Internet service is likewise afflicted
during power blackouts, as the tower has no backup power supply. But I
still have access to dialup, which keeps right on working as long as
the laptop batteries hold up (another point in favor of swappable
batteries).
Being in somewhat agreement with Ambrose Bierce's
definition of the telephone "an invention of the devil which abrogates
some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his
distance," I would be fascinated to know what he would have said of
cellphones and texting, etc. (He disappeared in 1913, so we'll never
know), but I suspect it would have been choice. Having only land line
phone service myself, I take some satisfaction in becoming relatively
unreachable by simply leaving the house. ;-)
Charles
Apple's New Ad Technology
From Larry:
At least until they implement this stuff: Apple Wouldn't
Risk Its Cool Over a Gimmick, Would It?
"But the application shows, at the least, that Apple
has invested in research to develop what it calls an 'enforcement
routine' that makes people watch ads they may not want to watch."
Once that happens, you will see a lot more problems with website
losing customers....
Have a good one
Hi Larry,
Thanks for the link.
Charles
Broken G5
From Lee:
Hi Charles
As I am rapidly getting older and creakier, I had hoped that my
Blue and White and my
Pismo would see me through to the end.
When I began pricing parts to keep both up to date, it seems that it
is time to retire at least the Blue and White.
The Pismo, while long in the tooth, is still worth repairing
possibly maybe. But it is starting to be unreliable too. May have to
start going to the library for my email?
G5 Power Macs are now going in the range of $300 US. It
appears they were designed to be more user-serviceable. I bid on a 1.8
GHz single processor one. Billed as "the fastest single Apple has ever
built", but it turned out that I was dealing with Mortimer Snerd, not
Edgar
Bergan?
Why people take on the representation of selling other's goods
without the ability to make decisions I shall never understand.
Anyway, I bid on a DP 1.8 GHz PowerPC. I requested that it be
shipped by Courier. They shipped USPS, and it was damaged in transit.
The SE number on this is XB3462T0QES M9393LL/A
- Does anyone have an 800 number for eBay customer service. I am
using Safari 1.3.2. I cannot get through by email. Have no idea what
gecko is. It stalls, and I get timed out before ever getting an
answer.
- On Tiger 10.4.x. If this is a 64-bit OS, how is it that it seems to
work fine on G3s, which are at best 32-bit hardware. I am not a
programer, not even close. All I know is that every thing somehow gets
converted into 0's and 1's, these are either on or off? and magically
it all somehow works.
- Most importantly: The hard drive in the lower bay broke loose in
transit, taking out (breaking) the the wider of the two connectors -
power supply end of the cabling. I swapped the drives, and the drive
seems okay using Target Disk Mode, as I don't have a DMI to VGA
adapter. Don't know if this is what I need to connect an older CRT to
the monitor outlets on the G5. Have to wait till I pay this off. My
local authorized Apple service technician says that this part is no
longer available, to get one I have to buy a whole case! (planned
obsolescence)
So does anyone know what the part number and/or description of this
cable is. I need one.
Thanks, Charles.
Lee
OBTW Old Age Pension permitting, I like the looks of the iPad. I do not own an i-anything. No iPhone.
No iPod. Somewhat of a Luddite.
But this has me curious. Decent organizer? Game machine? Able to do
budget? Play music? Neat!
Hi Lee,
I wish I could be of more help with this, but being a
primarily laptop guy, my ignorance of parts availability and repair
processes for G5s is pretty encyclopedic.
My bro-in-law has a G5 iMac that he likes and that has
been a reliable performer for a log time (in the context of computers)
now.
This
page may be of some help with the eBay phone numbers.
I'm too much of a programming dunce to answer your
question about Tiger and 64-bit support.
The iPad is still a bit of an unknown quantity, but I
think many folks will find it to their liking. You may as well, and if
you do, that's great. Personally, in that price range I would be
inclined to opt for either a used Mac laptop or a PC netbook and run
Ubuntu on the latter. The lack of a real keyboard, limited
connectivity, and the fact that it doesn't run the Mac OS would be the
main iPad deal breakers for me. If I can't run my Mac applications,
Linux is a lot more capable OS than the iPhone OS, isn't locked down,
and seems a more attractive alternative, IMHO.
Charles
Editor's note: Ars Technica has a good
explanation of 64-bit support in Tiger. The G5 was the only CPU
with 64-bit support, and there wasn't much use for it. dk
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