Hey everyone -
Hopefully you can help me out. I apologize if an answer to my question already exists, but I didn't see one when I searched.
I have a Powerbook G4 (1GHz) purchased in August of 2003. During the past week I have noticed a burning smell and even what I thought was wisps of smoke coming out of the right hand fan grate next to the power supply plug-in. So far there have been no adverse affects to my computer, and I have made sure to back everything up on to an external HD, but I wanted to see if there is a way to figure out what is going on short of waiting for the computer to have a meltdown (I assume it's no longer covered under any kind of warranty).
I removed the bottom faceplate of the computer (since I assume this is a hardware issue) and did not see any obvious problems on the visible side of the circuit board. I also lifted the keyboard up and saw nothing there. I have yet to inspect the computer while on (e.g., to see if there is a busted fan) or unscrew the circuit board and look underneath it.
My questions for you all are:
1) Is there a good protocol one might suggest for checking parts that might be causing the burning smell? Are there any useful diagnostics I can run to this aim? Besides a bad fan, I actually am not sure what to look for.
2) If I can't figure out the problem, is there anything I can do short of using the computer until it dies? I could work off of my external so I wouldn't lose anything but it would kind of defeat the purpose of having a laptop.
Thank you!!
Hopefully you can help me out. I apologize if an answer to my question already exists, but I didn't see one when I searched.
I have a Powerbook G4 (1GHz) purchased in August of 2003. During the past week I have noticed a burning smell and even what I thought was wisps of smoke coming out of the right hand fan grate next to the power supply plug-in. So far there have been no adverse affects to my computer, and I have made sure to back everything up on to an external HD, but I wanted to see if there is a way to figure out what is going on short of waiting for the computer to have a meltdown (I assume it's no longer covered under any kind of warranty).
I removed the bottom faceplate of the computer (since I assume this is a hardware issue) and did not see any obvious problems on the visible side of the circuit board. I also lifted the keyboard up and saw nothing there. I have yet to inspect the computer while on (e.g., to see if there is a busted fan) or unscrew the circuit board and look underneath it.
My questions for you all are:
1) Is there a good protocol one might suggest for checking parts that might be causing the burning smell? Are there any useful diagnostics I can run to this aim? Besides a bad fan, I actually am not sure what to look for.
2) If I can't figure out the problem, is there anything I can do short of using the computer until it dies? I could work off of my external so I wouldn't lose anything but it would kind of defeat the purpose of having a laptop.
Thank you!!
