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12" PowerBook G4 Logic Board Diagram?

LOLZpersonok

LOLZpersonok

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 10, 2012
724
18
Calgary, Canada
I'm very curious to know what those three chips are under the heatsink on the logic board. I know one of them is the 867MHz G4 processor, but there are two others. Does anyone know of a diagram anywhere or can you tell me what those two large chips are for?
 
The middle one is the north/south bridge chip. The bottom one is the GPU. If they have a pad, do not replace it with paste. It'll cause it to overheat if you do.
 
Always use a good quality pad. The only time I ever replaced the pad with paste was in a 15" G4 on the system controller due to the thinness. That is not appropriate for a 12".
 
Thanks lots. If I hadn't known I would've replaced the pad with thermal paste.

I plan on taking the top cover off sometime to make sure that the heatsink is making a full and proper contact with the GPU, CPU and northbridge.
 
LOLZpersonok said:
Thanks lots. If I hadn't known I would've replaced the pad with thermal paste.

I plan on taking the top cover off sometime to make sure that the heatsink is making a full and proper contact with the GPU, CPU and northbridge.
Click to expand...

Using the wrong type of thermal material is a good way to cook your G4 till it's golden brown :eek:
 
LOLZpersonok said:
This thing runs warm as it is, so I don't think I'd cook it until it's brown, I think I'd cook it until it's black and burnt and too crispy. :confused:
Click to expand...

Even with me swapping the pad for paste on my 15" it does 130 and no more now which is fantastic. The 12" has a bit of a different heat system so pad for pad, paste for paste.
 
Intell said:
The middle one is the north/south bridge chip. The bottom one is the GPU. If they have a pad, do not replace it with paste. It'll cause it to overheat if you do.
Click to expand...

I replaced my north/south bridge chip with paste, and it is actually maintaining lower temps than it used to.
 
jrsx said:
I replaced my north/south bridge chip with paste, and it is actually maintaining lower temps than it used to.
Click to expand...

That isn't a very good idea. The reduced height is putting too much pressure on the CPU die and GPU. The heatsink's smaller surface area also makes for a poor conductor when used with just paste.
 
jrsx said:
I replaced my north/south bridge chip with paste, and it is actually maintaining lower temps than it used to.
Click to expand...

The 12" has a much higher clearance from the heat sink to the north/south bridge. Just looking at pictures made the point...

On my 1.67 GHz 15" the pad was destroyed and due to the way the heatsink is on late model 15" it is fine to replace it with paste. However, it is not appropriate to do so on a 12" model.
 
jrsx said:
Alright, I'll keep that in mind. Computers are always a learning experience for me - I learn something new every day!
Click to expand...

This is a totally random and off-topic question, but how well does Leopard run on your PowerBook, and how well do you think that it would run on my 867MHz PowerBook? 867MHz is the minimum when it comes to Leopard, right?
 
LOLZpersonok said:
This is a totally random and off-topic question, but how well does Leopard run on your PowerBook, and how well do you think that it would run on my 867MHz PowerBook? 867MHz is the minimum when it comes to Leopard, right?
Click to expand...

Given max RAM it will run decently. I have used Leopard on a 500 MHz PowerMac G4 without issues, and as long as you have a lot of RAM and a supported graphics card it will run great.
 
Altemose said:
Given max RAM it will run decently. I have used Leopard on a 500 MHz PowerMac G4 without issues, and as long as you have a lot of RAM and a supported graphics card it will run great.
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks. I already have the RAM upgraded in this PowerBook to its limit, so I think it should be fine.
 
Altemose said:
How much is in it?
Click to expand...

It's at the actual limit of 1.12GB of RAM, not Apple's officially stated limit of 640MB. I stole the 1GB stick out of my Dell Latitude because their memory types are compatible with each other, as is my Toshiba Satellite.

I upgraded the RAM as soon as I got the PowerBook. It had 256MB total when I got it, and I removed the second 128MB module and used the 1GB module. It works quite well with the RAM when it wants to work. You already know what I'm talking about.

Now it's my Dell Latitude with the 640MB of RAM.
 
It runs fairly smoothly, and is maxed out at 1.25 GB of RAM. The video card helps with the smoothness, but honestly I still get better Leopard performance from my 1.33 GHz iBook.
 
LOLZpersonok said:
It's at the actual limit of 1.12GB of RAM, not Apple's officially stated limit of 640MB. I stole the 1GB stick out of my Dell Latitude because their memory types are compatible with each other, as is my Toshiba Satellite.

I upgraded the RAM as soon as I got the PowerBook. It had 256MB total when I got it, and I removed the second 128MB module and used the 1GB module. It works quite well with the RAM when it wants to work. You already know what I'm talking about.

Now it's my Dell Latitude with the 640MB of RAM.
Click to expand...

Then it should run just fine. Be sure to disable BeamSync.
 
LOLZpersonok said:
I'm not sure what BeamSync is or how to disable it. Now that I think of it, should I be disabling it on my Power Mac which is running OS X 10.5.8?
Click to expand...

There is a great guide Intell, eyoungren, and I made here. It discusses disabling BeamSync, enabling QuartzGL on supported cards, speeding up the sheets roll out, etc. For me at least, disabling BeamSync was the key to silky smooth Dock animations. I recommend using the Secrets preference pane.
 
Altemose said:
There is a great guide Intell, eyoungren, and I made here. It discusses disabling BeamSync, enabling QuartzGL on supported cards, speeding up the sheets roll out, etc. For me at least, disabling BeamSync was the key to silky smooth Dock animations. I recommend using the Secrets preference pane.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll look into it. Not tonight, my Power Mac is not hooked up to anything and I have the 1080p monitor I use with this Power Mac hooked up to my HP as a second display, so I'm a bit lazy to do it now.
 
LOLZpersonok said:
Thanks, I'll look into it. Not tonight, my Power Mac is not hooked up to anything and I have the 1080p monitor I use with this Power Mac hooked up to my HP as a second display, so I'm a bit lazy to do it now.
Click to expand...

Try it on the PowerBook! I do not recommend enabling QuartzGL as I don't believe it is supported on the PB. What GPU is in your PowerMac?
 
Altemose said:
Try it on the PowerBook! I do not recommend enabling QuartzGL as I don't believe it is supported on the PB. What GPU is in your PowerMac?
Click to expand...

My PowerBook isn't running OS X 10.5 yet, I don't think I'll bother with the new operating system tonight. I'd have to copy 10GB of music back to it.

As for the GPU in my Power Mac, I think it's an ATI Rage 9000 Pro or something like that. I haven't looked at it for a while. It's the one with 64MB of video memory.
 
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