Monitor & graph the temp sensors in your Mac

[Hack5190]

Having recently joined the PowerBook club I have been researching options to avoid burning my lap .

During the search I came across a program called ThermographX (http://www.kezer.net/shareware/thermographx/). It displays and tracks the heat of your unit and can also graph it for you.

An interesting feature of the program is that other users have submitted their results. That allows you to view them for comparison with your laptop. It is shareware but you can download and try before you buy.

 

[bobesch]

Having recently joined the PowerBook club I have been researching options to avoid burning my lap .

During the search I came across a program called ThermographX (http://www.kezer.net/shareware/thermographx/). It displays and tracks the heat of your unit and can also graph it for you.

An interesting feature of the program is that other users have submitted their results. That allows you to view them for comparison with your laptop. It is shareware but you can download and try before you buy.

As far as I understand, the program only monitors, when your lap is boiled...
You may use G4FanControll to change the temperature threshold of the fans

 

[Hack5190]

As far as I understand, the program only monitors, when your lap is boiled...
You may use G4FanControll to change the temperature threshold of the fans

Your correct, similar to iStat Menu and others its role is to monitor not modify temperatures.

 

[eyoungren]

As far as I understand, the program only monitors, when your lap is boiled...
You may use G4FanControll to change the temperature threshold of the fans

Just a word on G4FanControl…

I have never ONCE been able to get this app to work on my two 17" PowerBooks. Either it won't run, it runs but all I get is blank boxes on screen, or the controls automatically reset once I set them, or the command line version completely ignores my settings.

The dev has long ago checked out and asking him about any issues is a no go as he won't respond.

I'm not putting it down, I just want to warn others that the possibility it won't work is there.

 

[bobesch]

Just a word on G4FanControl…

I have never ONCE been able to get this app to work on my two 17" PowerBooks. Either it won't run, it runs but all I get is blank boxes on screen, or the controls automatically reset once I set them, or the command line version completely ignores my settings.

The dev has long ago checked out and asking him about any issues is a no go as he won't respond.

I'm not putting it down, I just want to warn others that the possibility it won't work is there.

I purchased/downloaded the latest version "G4FanControl 0.6.1" and it worked without any problems on my 12" PB G4 1.5GH with Leopard. Even the threshold-settings were re-enabled after rebooting the system.
Then I installed the utility on my second partition of that same PowerBook which held a FireWire image-/clone of my Clamshell G3 and encountered the same problems that you've describe above.
Somewhere here in the forums i've read that plainly cloning a system being installed on a previous generation of CPUs would exclude the OS X from certain enhancements of the new hardware.
So I decided to set up a fresh Tiger-installation (I wanted Tiger-Server anyway) and "G4FanControl"the was working fine again!
Maybe you also have this kind of problem coming from an OSX-clone originally set up on an older or different hardware.
Another strange thing with "G4FanControl" is: it's payware now in an App-Store manner and there's no way to test it before. The developer offers you a single-use download key after Papal-payment, so you can only find out, if it will work for you after payment and the download key expires after the first download.
Finally "FanControl" did sort out my problems with the constantly running fan on the PowerBook after I hassled around with "regoofing" CPU/GPU without any effect (nice lesson anyway including a broken screw - one of the pair, that fixes the heatsink with pressure against the CPU. I was lucky, that a friend of mine could solder it onto the board again.) So the high price of this tiny App stands against time and cost for materials.

 

[Hack5190]

bobesch glad g4FanControl is working for you. I fooled with the previous (free) version and the GUI is useless - it keeps scrolling to the right not to mention the 'remember and set at boot' option didn't work for me. However the command line program from the free version has been working well on my 15" PB. I created a script in Users.Daemons that loads at boot time setting the thresholds to 50 (the Apple default is 60). That seems to be a nice balance between catching my lap on fire and running the fans at 3000 rpms. In short if your willing to do some coding the free version is a good solution.

 

[eyoungren]

I purchased/downloaded the latest version "G4FanControl 0.6.1" and it worked without any problems on my 12" PB G4 1.5GH with Leopard. Even the threshold-settings were re-enabled after rebooting the system.
Then I installed the utility on my second partition of that same PowerBook which held a FireWire image-/clone of my Clamshell G3 and encountered the same problems that you've describe above.
Somewhere here in the forums i've read that plainly cloning a system being installed on a previous generation of CPUs would exclude the OS X from certain enhancements of the new hardware.
So I decided to set up a fresh Tiger-installation (I wanted Tiger-Server anyway) and "G4FanControl"the was working fine again!
Maybe you also have this kind of problem coming from an OSX-clone originally set up on an older or different hardware.
Another strange thing with "G4FanControl" is: it's payware now in an App-Store manner and there's no way to test it before. The developer offers you a single-use download key after Papal-payment, so you can only find out, if it will work for you after payment and the download key expires after the first download.
Finally "FanControl" did sort out my problems with the constantly running fan on the PowerBook after I hassled around with "regoofing" CPU/GPU without any effect (nice lesson anyway including a broken screw - one of the pair, that fixes the heatsink with pressure against the CPU. I was lucky, that a friend of mine could solder it onto the board again.) So the high price of this tiny App stands against time and cost for materials.

Yeah, I suspect it has to do with system cloning. I've had that issue before, but mainly with certain features of the OS and not a particular app.

If I were to trace it back, the user account on all my systems (including the MP at work) would go back to December 2001 and OS X 10.1.5. That was the month/year I was gifted my TiBook/400.

I have done reinstalls and upgrades and updates over the years and even rebuilt the user account by creating a new account and copying my data to it, but it's been the same since that time.

No doubt this is the reason.

 

[bobesch]

However the command line program from the free version has been working well on my 15" PB. I created a script in Users.Daemons that loads at boot time setting the thresholds to 50 (the Apple default is 60). That seems to be a nice balance between catching my lap on fire and running the fans at 3000 rpms.
In short if your willing to do some coding the free version is a good solution.

I wish I was able to use the terminal - sorry, but coding software is something I won't be able to learn in this life...
[doublepost=1456263761][/doublepost]

Yeah, I suspect it has to do with system cloning. I've had that issue before, but mainly with certain features of the OS and not a particular app.

If I were to trace it back, the user account on all my systems (including the MP at work) would go back to December 2001 and OS X 10.1.5. That was the month/year I was gifted my TiBook/400.

I have done reinstalls and upgrades and updates over the years and even rebuilt the user account by creating a new account and copying my data to it, but it's been the same since that time.

No doubt this is the reason.

Ha, same with me. My main system is based on my first MacBookPro Leopard-installation in late 2009 (only one new start, when screen-sharing was corrupt with Leapard, as far as I remember).
Maybe I ought to make a fresh intallation of "El Capitan" some day, but I'm afraid to touch that running system.
When it comes to the ever running fan on my PB it was worth the effort to reinstall Tiger (since this is the matrix for other G4s)
Since the higher temperature coming from the mSATA-mod is the main reason for that constantly running fan, there's not other way than changing the threshold to higher temperatures of the mSATA up to 60°C.

 

[Hack5190]

For you folks who migrated through multiple version of OS X, bought a used machine, deleted software it might be worth taking a look at your systems preference files. After removing a lot of the previous owners 'things' from my PowerBook I ran Pref Setter (http://www.nightproductions.net/prefsetter.html) and was surprised at the number of remaining preference files. With caution I clean them up and have been very happy with the results, faster boot time!