A gifted TiBook

[CooperBox]

Shortly before Christmas I managed to find and purchase a piece of vintage Hi-Fi equipment that I'd been after for some considerable time. (Link to Forum post #2737).
The seller wouldn't accept the slightly reduced price I proposed to him, saying he'd already reduced the price from a previous ad. And that was ok with me. I then paid his price and we were both happy.

I noticed that he had a dozen or so pc laptops around his room that he said he was repairing as a hobby, and I just happened to mention that I was a keen AppleMac collector. What he then did took me a bit by surprise. He opened a drawer, pulled out an Apple laptop saying, "Would you like this? They don't interest me!"
I saw immediately it was a PowerBook G4 (in a sorry-looking state), and when the lid was opened I recognized it as one of the G4 Titanium models. Plus this was a freebie. Did I want it? You bet I did! Like an ugly lady, I was sure there would be some goodness somewhere beneath the surface......
When I arrived home, the little lady of the house knew immediately something was up. I guess it was the smile from ear to ear that gave the game away. She knew I'd had a good days shopping.

After lunch I got down to giving this little old dear a much needed face-lift.
There was a lot of thick paper and cardboard which was firmly attached all over the top of the computer.
I didn't think to take an 'as-received' photo, but after 10 mins or so I realized this clean-up would be far harder than imagined, especially without scratching or damaging the Titanium coating.
After a welcome pause and a cup of Java, I then shot off a few photos:

As you can see, both corner lid hinges had fractured. The front central lid lock feature was ok, but when the lid was opened there was no resistance due to the shot hinges, so when opened fully it would lie flat in the horizontal position.
Now back to cleaning off that mess. Someone had obviously been using a strong adhesive, probably cleaned brushes etc with paper & carton strips and thrown into a corner - unfortunately to land on the TiBook. Sacrilege!
After managing to clean off one layer, I met with another.

And another!

At this slow rate, I can tell you, I needed a jug of Java.
Will it all be worth it? See follow-up post........

 

[MacCubed]

The specs would determine whether or no I would repair it, my 667 Ti has a broken screen, and I haven't been needing to replace it. There was a screen on ebay for 30$ (complete with the assembly). I didnt order it since I got my 500MHz. I would test it to see if it works, then decide what you are going to do with it. Running it headless is always an option!

 

[CooperBox]

The same 'free' TiBook some time later, plus a whole lot of elbow-grease. And I'm rather pleased with the result.

The guy I received it from, knew nothing about it. He had no power adapter, so had no idea if it was functioning or not.
Using the adapter from my 2001 'Onyx' 667MHz TiBook, this one immediately booted into OS X 10.4.11.
From the menu I noted that it was the later 1GHz model, with 512Mb memory and 60GB hard drive.

Here below, seen booting to initial blue screen. It's good but not perfect, as there are several white cloudy blemishes.
No disks with it, but a real surprise packet software-wise. MS Office suite and iLife are loaded, in addition to Neo Office, Photoshop 8 and Illustrator.

And here with desktop loaded - with an unannounced appearance from 'Cooper'.

The hard drive is exceptionally quiet.
No doubt this TiBook needs some serious tender loving care beneath the surface too. The slot-loading Combo drive needs refurbishing, as it accepted several Dvd's - wouldn't play them, but they were neatly ejected.
After about 5mins with no apps running, I've noticed that the fan kicks-in and runs at what sounds like around idle speed.
At this stage I plan a total dis-assembly (less the screen), full clean of individual components, and re-application of thermal paste.
I believe that re-attachment of the hinge lugs using an epoxy resin may not be feasible, but I'll review that in due course.

I think you may agree that as a freebie I was wise not to refuse this old girl. And I'm already beginning to love her, broken limbs, wrinkles and all.

 

[eyoungren]

Nice, you got the Titanium DVI. It'll run Leopard. My son has the same Mac and with a Belkin Bluetooth adapter and a network PC card he has BT 2.0 and Airport Extreme. Both which work natively as if he had the actual hardware.

The DVI has the higher resolution screen and because of the L3 cache you pretty much have a bottle rocket when it comes to speed.

 

[CooperBox]

Nice, you got the Titanium DVI. It'll run Leopard. My son has the same Mac and with a Belkin Bluetooth adapter and a network PC card he has BT 2.0 and Airport Extreme. Both which work natively as if he had the actual hardware.

The DVI has the higher resolution screen and because of the L3 cache you pretty much have a bottle rocket when it comes to speed.

Thanks for this. I don't have a Leopard disk but am running Leopard on my 20" iMac G4. Is it worth cloning this to the Titanium? Methinks probably there's little point, unless I doubled the memory to 1Gb.

 

[eyoungren]

Thanks for this. I don't have a Leopard disk but am running Leopard on my 20" iMac G4. Is it worth cloning this to the Titanium? Methinks probably there's little point, unless I doubled the memory to 1Gb.

I would double the ram first. I am an ardent fan of Leopard (I strongly dislike Tiger) but I won't deny reality. Leopard runs best with 1GB of ram or better.

If you're interested…this would be my son's "Airport Extreme".

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/titanium-1-0ghz-dvi-with-airport-extreme.1904903/

 

[CooperBox]

I would double the ram first. I am an ardent fan of Leopard (I strongly dislike Tiger) but I won't deny reality. Leopard runs best with 1GB of ram or better.

If you're interested…this would be my son's "Airport Extreme".

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/titanium-1-0ghz-dvi-with-airport-extreme.1904903/

I'm sure you're right about doubling the ram.
Thanks for the link. One part that leaped out of the page at me was, "My son isn't ready (emotionally) to be part of an online social community (he's 11)".
Made me think immediately of my son. After much coaxing from my wife, I gave my son my absolutely pristine 'pride & joy' 3 year old G4 Titanium for him to use in Uni. Less than 2 years later it was trashed. I'm still questioning whether he was emotionally/mature or otherwise ready at the time for computers (he was 22)!
Still makes me want to cry, but there was a silver lining....... and I'm writing up a summary of those events to post here at a later date.

 

[eyoungren]

I'm sure you're right about doubling the ram.
Thanks for the link. One part that leaped out of the page at me was, "My son isn't ready (emotionally) to be part of an online social community (he's 11)".
Made me think immediately of my son. After much coaxing from my wife, I gave my son my absolutely pristine 'pride & joy' 3 year old G4 Titanium for him to use in Uni. Less than 2 years later it was trashed. I'm still questioning whether he was emotionally/mature or otherwise ready at the time for computers (he was 22)!
Still makes me want to cry, but there was a silver lining....... and I'm writing up a summary of those events to post here at a later date.

Yeah, he and his sister get read the riot act a lot when they are not treating their stuff correctly. My daughter in particular tends to be careless with jackets and such. She's lost two so far this winter and my wife and I have told her she'll have to deal with the ugly jackets now.

My son, for the most part, tends to take care of his stuff. We've yelled enough at him I guess that he finally started taking it seriously. I wish I had the kind of money that 'Afluenza' was a danger, but I don't. So, they break stuff, they either buy it or wait.

 

[Altemose]

I have always wanted one of these so I am quite jealous you got such a sharp machine that needed just a little bit of TLC to get going!

 

[MacCubed]

Go for the screen or hinge replacement! The 1GHz TiBooks are really awesome! I want one, but my 500MHz is pristine so I'm happy with it!

 

[CooperBox]

Go for the screen or hinge replacement! The 1GHz TiBooks are really awesome! I want one, but my 500MHz is pristine so I'm happy with it!

I've dis-assembled and rebuilt one completely using another screen. (It was my original 'trashed' TiBook).
Had no problems at all until I came to screen removal/refitment. I found maneuvering the screen cable out and refitting replacement an awesome task. The hinge attachments also being an integral part of the screen. Truly I think I'd shy away at doing another, even if I could find a replacement screen - which here may be possible, albeit expensive. Really not keen on doing another. But that may change........

 

[MacCubed]

I've dis-assembled and rebuilt one completely using another screen. (It was my original 'trashed' TiBook).
Had no problems at all until I came to screen removal/refitment. I found maneuvering the screen cable out and refitting replacement an awesome task. The hinge attachments also being an integral part of the screen. Truly I think I'd shy away at doing another, even if I could find a replacement screen - which here may be possible, albeit expensive. Really not keen on doing another. But that may change........

I know how you feel... Getting the screen off my 667 Ti was a pain...

 

[128keaton]

Argh. This is the final machine that I'm sure will make me proud of my collection. Glad to see you got one and it is being loved.

 

[CooperBox]

Argh. This is the final machine that I'm sure will make me proud of my collection. Glad to see you got one and it is being loved.

I've just checked out your listed collection of Macs. Very impressive!
If you were allowed just to keep one, and one only, which would it be - and why?

 

[MacCubed]

I've just checked out your listed collection of Macs. Very impressive!
If you were allowed just to keep one, and one only, which would it be - and why?

I think thats a tough question for all of us!!!

 

[CooperBox]

I would double the ram first. I am an ardent fan of Leopard (I strongly dislike Tiger) but I won't deny reality. Leopard runs best with 1GB of ram or better.

If you're interested…this would be my son's "Airport Extreme".

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/titanium-1-0ghz-dvi-with-airport-extreme.1904903/

What is it that you strongly dislike about Tiger? Is is not as stable as you would wish for?
It's an OS that I get on well with, and so far have had no real issues.

 

[eyoungren]

What is it that you strongly dislike about Tiger? Is is not as stable as you would wish for?
It's an OS that I get on well with, and so far have had no real issues.

Well…

On my own personal Macs it was fairly stable. But I found it increasingly difficult to do tasks that I normally do every day at some point. With Leopard I have the luxury of APIs that are still used and the ability to use the final versions of PowerPC apps that can still achieve everything I need them to do.

But my main objections stem from the utter mess the system is in a mixed network at work. Tiger is not stable on a Mac bound to a network domain. Getting it there involves lots of tricks, most of which entail shutting off Windows Server security features. Leopard has a much better implementation of SMB/CIFs (even if it's only SMB1) than Tiger does.

File copying is problematic. Finder would crash with more than two file copy requests to our server. There is little SMB/CIFs compatibility, to the point where I had DAVE installed on two different Macs. Working with files on the server in QuarkXPress was a pain and last but not least, when we got the Mac Pro here at work Tiger simply does not cut it as a print server.

At least with Leopard if the Finder bombs, it asks me if I want to disconnect from a share. If I say yes because I know the connection died, Leopard moves right along. Tiger just beachballs and if you don't have the extended amount of time to wait for it to figure out that the connection is no longer there your only recourse is a restart.

Tiger is just not very good to work with in a mixed network.

 

[CooperBox]

I've finally found a few hours to tear down this gifted TiBook (1GHz model).
As I mentioned in post #3, it's running reasonably well, but got very hot underneath, and fans spun up faster after 5mins even with no apps running or other significant programs.
Both fans look reasonably clean, but exhaust on right-hand side had some moderate dust/debris blockage, so a good clean will hopefully improve the cooling efficiency.

Now thermal paste application - I have a little experience with 3 other rebuilds (iMac G4 & G5) but never on a TiBook.
The following photos show the CPU and corresponding heat-sink location.
Excuse my ignorance, but should thermal paste when applied to the CPU, overlap onto any of those 12 elongated locations around the outside? This photo shows 3 found covered with a green solution' (paste'?). Would this be detrimental to functioning?

Corresponding heat-sink location follows:

Must confess I'm confused. I would have applied a small spot of thermal paste just in the very centre of the CPU and allowed it to spread moderately during retorque-tightening the board. I also plan to remove any evidence of dust contamination from the 2 thermal pads (they look in good shape) and apply a very thin film of thermal paste.
Your comments would be welcomed on the thermal paste application 'as-found', and on correct re-application.

After all this, I still need to find a reasonable solution for both fractured hinges - broken away from the screen support structure.

 

[0248294]

The green stuff is thermal paste placed as pads in the manufacturing process. It could use a replacing after all these years, it appears to have hardened too. If you can remove and replace it, that would be the best thing to do. The little components on the PowerPC processor do not need thermal paste, it's just been spread out a bit too far in the factory.

 

[val1984]

Hi,

I did buy a 1 GHz TiBook recently, upgraded the RAM to 1 GB, installed a 120 GB mSATA SSD and repasted the CPU too.
Mine was in pristine condition both externally and internally (including the battery), except the thermal paste on the CPU.

I did remove all the green stuff with a plastic tool and then applied a little bit of ceramic thermal paste on the CPU core (but none on the twelve components).
It's been running great since then and I'm pretty sure the fan does not run when idling.

A fair warning concerning RAM : I've bought Komputerbay SODIMM SDRAM PC133 on Amazon.fr and one of the sticks I got was faulty (it was a low density stick with 16 chips on it). It's now running great with 2 x 512 MB normal density sticks with 8 chips on each.

 

[MacCubed]

That TiBook cleaned up a lot nicer than I expected! I never replied in regards to the condition of the laptop, but it looks great! As for the thermal paste, use rubbing alcohol to remove it from the CPU and in the center of that heatsink. I know @Gamer9430 reposted his 1GHz Ti just a few weeks ago, so you could ask him how he got the paste off the CPU. You might be able to get by with the hinges by using super glue. That's just a temporary solution however, on US eBay there are complete TiBook screens going for $20

 

[swamprock]

Nice work. I've got my eye on a couple of the same model on eBay right now. I had one years ago that was cherry when I sold it, and I've regretted getting rid of it ever since.

 

[weckart]

As for the thermal paste, use rubbing alcohol to remove it from the CPU and in the center of that heatsink.

There is a school of thought that rubbing alcohol is not best suited to the removal of thermal paste because the 30% of it, which is not alcohol, often contains detergents or lanolin that contaminate the surface of the die/heatsink and hamper optimum conductivity. A small bottle of 99% isopropyl won't break the bank.

 

[MacCubed]

There is a school of thought that rubbing alcohol is not best suited to the removal of thermal paste because the 30% of it, which is not alcohol, often contains detergents or lanolin that contaminate the surface of the die/heatsink and hamper optimum conductivity. A small bottle of 99% isopropyl won't break the bank.

Sorry! Whenever I say rubbing alcohol I am referring to 90% isopropyl or better. I have been buying 90% for a few years now just for the purpose of repairing/cleaning devices. I should have clarified!