how to maximize life of powerbook?

Screen Savers were invented so that CRTs did not get the screen image burned-in. Now, CRTs are higher quality and don't suffer from that as commonly. A screen saver now is just pretty.

Don't drop it. That helps. Battery tips are good. Don't wash the trackpad. Q-tips are good for getting dirt and other junk off of it. All I can think of.

 

Keep it in the box...

What not to do with a laptop:
Do not use it as a shelter for rain, snow, or hail.
Do not use it as a paddle for ping pong.
Do not aggressively shake it.
Do not sit on it.

Just use common sense when handling it.

My powerBook is about 3 years old now. With the exception of some paint chipping off, this is one of the early painted powerBooks, it is in great condition. I would not say that I have babied it but have taken good care of it, my wife included. The only thing we have had to replace is the power cord.

 

putting the computer to sleep is much better than leaving it on. the HD spins down and there is no work on the processor. it is esentially 'off' except for a small amount of power in the RAM and other parts so they will remain ready to be 'on' when you wake it from sleep. if you leave everything on all of the time the life will certainly deteriorate. turning it off is probably little different than sleep in the long run. except it takes a lot longer to turn on after it has been asleep. to save more energy or life you can go to the energy saver pane in system prefs. there you can tell it to put the hd to sleep whenever possible (to spin down hd and save life span) to turn off monitor (same idea, a monitor turned off will last a lot longer than a monitor continusly running) you can make your settings similar for battery and power suply if you want the computer to turn off when inactive while plugged in. i dont know what the default is (its been a long time since ive chanved mine) but im sure the power adapter keeps everything on longer than the battery. overall the changes will only be noticable in the long run (longer than the three years or so supported life that apple gives) you could probably leave an apple on solid for three years and everything would be ok, but after such a lifetime the parts will begin to show wear so the difficulties will come late in life.

 

You might even consider shutting it down at night. I don't do this, because I have a desktop, but I feel that if you aren't going to be using it and don't need to see IM's from your friends in Australia at 2 a.m. who caught you when you were sleeping the next morning (too many references to my personal life - cough) you should really just turn it off. You can even set it to turn on at a certain time for you.

 

I dropped my 12" Rev A three times.. now 3 corners of it has little bumps in.. that was all happened.. a powerbook is a very powerful computer.. treat it nice, it'll treat back

 

personally i just sleep mine, and have it set to turn off harddisks whenever possible, i dont like turning it off, takes too much time to boot back up, and the cron jobs dont get done either, unless its by another program

these are just my personal preferences though, just take care of your machine, dont abuse it and it will last a long time, my powerbook is a year and a half old now and i have had no problems whatsoever, i probably could have taken better care of my battery seeing that its not in the best shape anymore, but then again, i could always buy a new one too, oh and be sure to wipe down the palm rests every now and then with a slightly wet paper towel and then use a dry one right afterwords, this helps to keep that part of your book from getting too much wear and tear seeing as its probably treated the harshest.

 

The most important thing to do to give your powerbook long life (apart from not dropping it/spilling stuff on it), is to not use a screen saver. Switch the screen off instead.

LCD only have a limited lifespan before the light tubes in them fail (turn yellow and fade). The screen is the single most expensive part in the PowerBook.