PowerBook owners redo your thermal paste!

Sounds like a good post-thesis project for me. I have the 15" and 17" 1.67ghz DLSDs, another 15" DLSD on the way, two 12" 1.5ghz, and four TiBooks.

The '08 Macbook Pro I'm typing this from probably could stand it also, as it gets toasty. I did both of my Macbooks(they are easy), but the Macbook Pro is a bit more involved.

bunnspecial said:

… another 15" DLSD on the way….

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I think it's news when you DON'T have something on the way.

Yeah. When I was trying to put an IDE/ATA SSD into my Pismo last month, the drive got wicked hot and failed, which made me think there was a heat problem on my part. I redid the paste, cleaning up the old stuff and putting a new layer of AS5 between the CPU and heat sink. Well, that didn't help the SSD (which was returned), but it definitely helped the temperature of the CPU. The difference is pretty obvious.

eyoungren said:

I think it's news when you DON'T have something on the way.

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Sadly, that's probably true

I'm super excited about the Sonnet Duet-also on the way. I just don't know how long it will take to get from Germany. Surprisingly enough, it only cost me 15€(~$20) to have it shipped. The bottom line on it was less than $200. I just need to decide where it put it

I might actually take the Giga out of the Quicksilver it's currently in and replace it with the Sonnet, and then experiment with the Giga in my rack-mount DA G4.

BTW, I bought my first PowerPC Mac almost exactly a year ago-a single 1.8 G5. Not counting the incoming DLSD, I have 52 PPC Macs. That's an average of 1 per week.

I also have a C2D Intel iMac that's due to be delivered tomorrow

bunnspecial said:

Sadly, that's probably true

I'm super excited about the Sonnet Duet-also on the way. I just don't know how long it will take to get from Germany. Surprisingly enough, it only cost me 15€(~$20) to have it shipped. The bottom line on it was less than $200. I just need to decide where it put it

I might actually take the Giga out of the Quicksilver it's currently in and replace it with the Sonnet, and then experiment with the Giga in my rack-mount DA G4.

BTW, I bought my first PowerPC Mac almost exactly a year ago-a single 1.8 G5. Not counting the incoming DLSD, I have 52 PPC Macs. That's an average of 1 per week.

I also have a C2D Intel iMac that's due to be delivered tomorrow

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You've only been doing this for a year and you already have 52x... Now that's what I call dedication, and also a little bit of an addiction

My first PPC was in February 2014, my iBook Clamshell. It was my third Mac overall after my 2 rMBPs. Now I've got 30, 6 of which are Intel and the rest are G5 or earlier.

Lately I've been hunting on eBay for a 17" PowerBook G4 1.6 (DL-SD) and 15" Titanium PowerBook G4 1.0, both machines I do not have and each the best example of its form factor. Hopefully I'll find one in good condition for a good price.

redheeler said:

Lately I've been hunting on eBay for a 17" PowerBook G4 1.6 (DL-SD) and 15" Titanium PowerBook G4 1.0, both machines I do not have and each the best example of its form factor. Hopefully I'll find one in good condition for a good price.

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I bought a 1ghz TiBook from the marketplace here. The guy had two of them, and I only bought one-he might still have the other. I did negotiate the price a little bit.

Funnily enough, before that one had even arrived I found one without a hard drive for $40 w/free shipping on an Ebay buy it now. I bought that one too.

The bottom cover of the TiBooks has a plastic "skeleton" that has is glued to the metal cover. The plastic part is what actually "locks" the bottom onto the frame. Many folks unfamiliar with the design will just remove the screws and attempt to lift the cover straight off, which almost always results in the skelton separating(the proper method is to SLOWLY tilt the bottom foward and up). Even someone who knows what they're doing could rip one off if cover hasn't been off in a while(or ever) and goes too fast.

In any case, the bottom will hold with the screws in place, but it leaves a gap at the front as there are no screws there. My second 1ghz TiBook(as well as my first ever, an 867mhz) had this problem.

It can pretty easily be fixed by carefully using epoxy to attach the skeleton to the bottom-there's really only one way to go, so it's not even a big deal to have to do it.

As for the A1139, mine was about $140 including shipping from a seller in Canada. I think I upgraded the RAM, as I believe it only had 1gb or maybe 1.5gb when I received it. I also stuck in an SSD, although that wasn't strictly necessary. I tend to prefer the A1138(same thing in 15") but both are great computers.

The '08 MBP I'm typing this message from looks a whole lot like an A1138

My 12" PowerBook had a really nasty looking thermal pad that was well past its prime. I replaced it with some paste and temps dropped by about 10 C. Since the newest PPC machines are a decade old, it's a good idea to check this IMO.

I have seen this degree of change in one of my PowerBooks too. It really does make the difference especially on machines with higher clock speeds.

I wouldn't know where to begin.

556fmjoe said:

My 12" PowerBook had a really nasty looking thermal pad that was well past its prime. I replaced it with some paste and temps dropped by about 10 C. Since the newest PPC machines are a decade old, it's a good idea to check this IMO.

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But be careful about ripping off pads to replace with paste. Some units are designed to work only with pads as the clearance is too large for paste to bridge effectively.

Were your PowerBooks actually toasty on the bottom when they reached the 55-60°C mark? Mine is, but I may replace the thermal paste with MX-4 anyway.

At the moment, I have G4FanControl set to ramp up the fans at 50°C, so when the fans start the temperature levels at about 49-50°C and stays there with the fans on.

weckart said:

But be careful about ripping off pads to replace with paste. Some units are designed to work only with pads as the clearance is too large for paste to bridge effectively.

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The later model 15" work fine with replacement thermal paste instead of the pad provided you use a thicker coat of thicker paste like Ceramique 2. I heard a story where a 12" burned up from using paste instead of a pad so I think it varies by model as to how much space is between the heatsink and the CPU/GPU.