PowerBook G4 12" Maintenance/Servicing

[Certificate of Excellence]

I use specifically (a WD-40 company) 3-1 PTFE oil blend drip, commonly available at all major retailers, ie: True Value, Samons, Lowes, Home Depot, etc. It is a PTFE & oil blend designed for use on both metals and plastics, reducing friction & extending operational life. Works very well on the fans in my powermac G4s. As stated above, for hard to reach fans, an appropriate viscosity oil may be a better choice for longevity between servicing, but if 3-1 PTFE is all I had, I'd not hesitate to use it.

3-IN-ONE Multi-Purpose PTFE Lubricant

Perform under pressure with this PTFE lubricant designed for all your heavy-load tools and equipment.

www.3inone.com

Here's the products MSDS.

https://files.wd40.com/pdf/sds/3inone/3-in-one-multi-purpose-ptfe-lubricant-drip-oil-us-ghs-sds.pdf

I have not used a dry PTFE lube on cpu fans - I use it all day long on my road bike chains but that's a different animal. I can speak to the PTFE oil Blend working and playing well with the electronic fan PET plastics. FYI, this blend can damage polycarbonate & styrene plastics so be aware of that.

 

[ervus]

I recently repaired another one of these, so I did a before/after test with Temperature Monitor and using TenFourFox. This one was not even all that bad, but you can clearly see that the CPU gets hot quickly compared to the GPU:

 

[ervus]

I did some maintenance/upgrades on one of these for a friend and this is the "copper cross" for the GPU I mentioned before:

 

[PowerPCFan]

As someone who's kept his old college 12" PowerBook chugging for years now, there's a few kind things you can do for it.

1. Repaste/repad. The 12" PowerBooks use three pads, two soft ones on the GPU and Bridge, then a hard one on the CPU. The soft ones need to be replaced with similar pads (they're cheap online in large sheets that you cut to fit), but I've found that the CPU one can be replaced with paste. The GPU and Bridge are designed to have space for a pad, while the CPU nestles snugly against the heatsink. Double-check on yours before committing to it by putting a little dab of paste on the CPU, screwing down the heatsink, and seeing how well it spreads.

2. Cleaning. A teardown and thorough cleaning with a bunch of paper towels, Q-tips, and alcohol can make your PowerBook look and feel like new! Great chance to bang out any dents or warps that may be in the aluminum too.

3. As for your keyboard lifting in the middle, pop off the RAM door on the bottom and check the long black screw that goes up into the bottom of the keyboard. I've seen that work its way loose over time. Tightening it may drag the middle of your keyboard back down. If not, your keyboard may be bent somehow. Pop it off (take out the long black screw and two others on the top between F1/F2 and F11/F12 and see if you can straighten it out on a table.

If you have any specific questions, I'm happy to help. I love the little 12" and love helping people keep them running!

Arctic MX-5 worked great in my G5 and my G4 tower.

 

[mcmotton]

Hi there,
my PowerBook 12" hat the same problem with the heatsink "screws". More bolts than screws actually and I do not understand how it should hold to the PCB. Any suggestions?

Best regards
mcmotton

This seemed like a good thread to collect some info on the known heat sink issue with this model:

 

[AphoticD]

Hi there,
my PowerBook 12" hat the same problem with the heatsink "screws". More bolts than screws actually and I do not understand how it should hold to the PCB. Any suggestions?

Best regards
mcmotton

They were originally glued into place. I've also used an epoxy glue to repair some units, but I found it easy and long-term effective to just use a blob of solder on the rear of the board to lock those standoffs back into place so they never come loose again.

 

[mcmotton]

Thanks for your reply. How did you do it? The problem, that I have with that method is, that I have to install the inner frame after installing the logic board and then as 3rd part the heat-sink.
Right now I try to glue two nuts on the backside of the logic board and then use screws with washers to push on the springs. One nut got loose two times now. So the third attempt it is today.

 

[AphoticD]

It's a long process, but you do need to dismantle it again to get the logic board out completely to get to the underside, then you'll want to solder the standoffs on from the rear. A small soldering iron and generous blob of solder should hold it in place.

In those photos you shared from @ervus, you'll see there are two male threaded standoffs shown in the first photo, which are only for the CPU, and the two taller standoffs are for the GPU.

I would recommend to follow along with ifixit guides (if you're not already):

PowerBook G4 Aluminum 12" Repair Help: Learn How to Fix It Yourself.

PowerBook G4 Aluminum laptops with 12-inch displays. Released in 2003 from Apple.

www.ifixit.com

And take a look through the Apple Service Manual for your specific model:

Future proof » Tim’s laptop service manuals

tim.id.au

Share some photos of your progress if you like.

Edit: I had an old thread from 2017 which might have some useful information: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ll-tear-down-ssd-upgrade-and-cpu-fan.2059980/

 

[ervus]

They were originally glued into place.

I have never seen this. All of the boards that I've personally repaired, and all of the pictures I've seen were broken solder joints. Lead/tin solder has a few weird properties, like tin whiskers and creep/cold flow. A solder joint under enough stress will move over time, even at low temperature.

As mentioned before, just re-solder the joint. I do it from the top with the board still in the frame, though the soldering task itself may be easier from the back side. It will probably be fine for another 10 years, when you may want to open it again anyway to clean out and oil the fan again, check the thermal paste, etc.

Or you could re-engineer the mechanism however you want. The main idea is to have the finned metal heatpipe assembly in good contact with the silicon, to extract the heat it generates.

 

[mcmotton]

That required quite some patience. It took me around five attempts until the heat-sink got screwed in. Every time before I broke one nut loose. It's really easy to push the nut out of the glued connections, because of a lack of control. You have to push against the spring, but not that hard that you push out the nut. That's why I used 12mm screws in the end, while 10mm is the more fitting length. I also sanded the nut on the last try, so it has more surface area for the glue. As glue I tried first the loctite 4850, but it took long for hardening and did not stick that well. The PascoFix on the other hand has a better grip. But be fast. It takes only a few seconds to dry. I dipped the nut into the glue, which I put first on a piece of paper, like shown on one picture. After putting the nut on the PCB you have to blow some air through the hole/thread, so the glue does not cover the hole.
Everything together and the system starts..

Maybe this will be of any help for somebody else. Thanks to you for helping me with that.

 

[AphoticD]

That required quite some patience. It took me around five attempts until the heat-sink got screwed in. Every time before I broke one nut loose. It's really easy to push the nut out of the glued connections, because of a lack of control. You have to push against the spring, but not that hard that you push out the nut. That's why I used 12mm screws in the end, while 10mm is the more fitting length. I also sanded the nut on the last try, so it has more surface area for the glue. As glue I tried first the loctite 4850, but it took long for hardening and did not stick that well. The PascoFix on the other hand has a better grip. But be fast. It takes only a few seconds to dry. I dipped the nut into the glue, which I put first on a piece of paper, like shown on one picture. After putting the nut on the PCB you have to blow some air through the hole/thread, so the glue does not cover the hole.
Everything together and the system starts..

Maybe this will be of any help for somebody else. Thanks to you for helping me with that.

Great fix! And patience! Well done maintaining this good old Mac. Thanks for sharing photos and contributing toward keeping these Macs alive.

I still have a PowerBook G4 12-inch happily running on my desk. It's one of my all time favorites.

 

[mcmotton]

These are great machines. Perfect size, perfect looks. My goal is to make it a multiboot system with 9.22, OSX 10.4.11 and NetBSD for more modern usage. So it got a 128GB SSD inside now. Pretty much like in that post (https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ll-tear-down-ssd-upgrade-and-cpu-fan.2059980/).

The next time I have to get the heat-sink out again, I will only fixate the nuts with super glue and then enforce it with epoxy. I think, that way the screwing in will be more easy.

 

[mcmotton]

I also refurbished the Batterypack with new cells. It runs quite well on the new cells. The only problem is, that the system got the percentages wrong. It runs some hours on 1% and never charges over 8%. So I ordered a programmer for the BMS a user on reddit recommended. As soon it arrives, I will try to reprogram the BMS.

If anybody is interested in that topic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageApple/comments/1oyyq5c/powerbook_g4_12_battery_refurbishment

 

[mcmotton]

Small update. One nut fell off again. So finally I glued them on and reinforced them with 3D print resign and cured it with UV-light.