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Powerbook G4 Titanium Heat Problems

ppcfanforever1

ppcfanforever1

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 31, 2012
227
1
Pennsylvania
I understand that the powerbook had heat issues, ppc macs in general. Besides this fact my macs keyboard should not burn me when I have any game open or when im exporting 480p videos. I just purchased some artic silver and wanted to know where or if I should apply the thermal paste. I heard rumors of people doing this and losing 10 degrees of heat.

What should I do? Could I be missing a part making it overheat? Im not the original owner so should I post pictures of under the keyboard for you to check for signs of missing parts?

Thanks
 
It burns and hurts for a day or two?WOW I think I know what kinda burn you mean though ,I have two powerbooks and they both work great and the fact is one gets hot and one dont.Instead of tearing mine apart which with it bein that old you coud possibly break something thats not broke I just bought some folding dual fans I have two of them on an old sonic tray that way they have a platform that I can still sit on my lap and it doesnt get my ***ls cooking and I also have g4fan control for extra measure set at a temp to stop it from getting real hot.Sounds a little crazy but it saved mine.
 
g4manimac said:
It burns and hurts for a day or two?WOW I think I know what kinda burn you mean though ,I have two powerbooks and they both work great and the fact is one gets hot and one dont.Instead of tearing mine apart which with it bein that old you coud possibly break something thats not broke I just bought some folding dual fans I have two of them on an old sonic tray that way they have a platform that I can still sit on my lap and it doesnt get my ***ls cooking and I also have g4fan control for extra measure set at a temp to stop it from getting real hot.Sounds a little crazy but it saved mine.
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Sounds like to much bulk for me, I think Ill just go with disassembling the laptop cause it would work just the same but without the bulk. Wish me luck the thermal paste will be here soon in a few days.
 
Yeah its bulky but I dont take it anywhere anyways,keep posted if it has a very dramatic increase because im not beyond doing that too if its gonna make considerable difference because trust me ive thought about doing it over and over with the exact same product but with so so many different opinions I wanna know exactly how it works for you.
 
ppcfanforever1 said:
Sounds like to much bulk for me, I think Ill just go with disassembling the laptop cause it would work just the same but without the bulk. Wish me luck the thermal paste will be here soon in a few days.
Click to expand...

It will even work better. It's always more effective to cure cause than effect. You'll probably find some dust bunnies inside.
 
666sheep said:
It will even work better. It's always more effective to cure cause than effect. You'll probably find some dust bunnies inside.
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Yeah I probably will, I only took it apart to the point of hdd replacement. This will be fun lol. I just have one question how should I go about removing the thermal compound off the motherboard?
 
Rubbing alcohol will be good to clean CPU and heatsink. GPU heatsink has very thin thermal pad on it.
 
666sheep said:
Rubbing alcohol will be good to clean CPU and heatsink. GPU heatsink has very thin thermal pad on it.
Click to expand...

So on what components would it be wise to put paste on? I should probably get some rubbing alcohol. Should I use a Q-Tip for rubbing it off with alcohol? Would 70% be ok?
 
Thermal grease on CPU, thermal pad on GPU. You'll see when you'll diassemble it. Check iFixit or service manual.
Any rubbing alcohol will be good. Q-Tip, soft cloth or even paper towel will do.
 
666sheep said:
Thermal grease on CPU, thermal pad on GPU. You'll see when you'll diassemble it. Check iFixit or service manual.
Any rubbing alcohol will be good. Q-Tip, soft cloth or even paper towel will do.
Click to expand...

But would I NEED a thermal pad? I couldn't find any on ebay and what is the difference really?
 
Don't use Arctic Silver 5. It's electrically conductive (making it a potential hazard to keeping your beloved PPC Mac alive), it requires you to go through an annoying and time wasting curing process for maximum benefit, and it's just plain ancient.

I service PowerPC Macs all the time as part of my side business, and I still regularly use two of them (a Quad G5 and my PBG4 Titanium). I always use Arctic Cooling MX-4. Works as well or better than AS5, it's not electrically conductive, and there's no curing process to go through.
 
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Frost7 said:
Don't use Arctic Silver 5. It's electrically conductive (making it a potential hazard to keeping your beloved PPC Mac alive), it requires you to go through an annoying and time wasting curing process for maximum benefit, and it's just plain ancient.

I service PowerPC Macs all the time as part of my side business, and I still regularly use two of them (a Quad G5 and my PBG4 Titanium). I always use Arctic Cooling MX-4. Works as well or better than AS5, it's not electrically conductive, and there's no curing process to go through.
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What would the difference between putting this between any other processor and the g4 be? My athlon II runs fine with the artic silver 5.
 
ppcfanforever1 said:
What would the difference between putting this between any other processor and the g4 be? My athlon II runs fine with the artic silver 5.
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Shouldn't be any difference whatsoever. Just saying there's really no point in using something that has a lengthy 200-hour cure time and is electrically conductive when there are much safer, longer-lasting thermal compounds that don't need to cure on the market today for pretty much the same price.

AS5 used the be the best out there and I used to use it too, but that hasn't been the case for some years now. I like to recommend MX-4 now because it's performed extremely well on the numerous G5s I've serviced vs. both AS5 and MX-2, which I used to use. If there ever was a CPU that was demanding for cooling, it's the 970.
 
I can relate to the Ti heat issue...hear is mine apart to fix.

picture.php


-i used rubbing alcohol and q-tips to clean old (horrible green crap that apple used by default)
-when reapplying paste i use rice grain size and use small plastic bag to tap down and give nice even coverage
-i used ifixit guide and keep small baggies for each step,and labeled them...took about 2 hours...just take your time and work slowly and be gental when removing cables ect.
-now my Ti still get's warm,and fans still run louder then i would like...but no longer can i cook eggs on it,or have fan sound like jet engine...so well worth the effort!
 
Yeah, the life of that craptastic green gum Apple used is long past by now, and I doubt it was ever all that good in the first place. I've got a 1 GHz PowerBook G4 Titanium (the last model before they went aluminum) and it used to get very hot. New thermal paste cleared that up quite well when I changed it out. Now the fans don't all come together on unless I've got the CPU running at 100% for several minutes. And it certainly doesn't get burning hot.
 
tom vilsack said:
I can relate to the Ti heat issue...hear is mine apart to fix.

picture.php


-i used rubbing alcohol and q-tips to clean old (horrible green crap that apple used by default)
-when reapplying paste i use rice grain size and use small plastic bag to tap down and give nice even coverage
-i used ifixit guide and keep small baggies for each step,and labeled them...took about 2 hours...just take your time and work slowly and be gental when removing cables ect.
-now my Ti still get's warm,and fans still run louder then i would like...but no longer can i cook eggs on it,or have fan sound like jet engine...so well worth the effort!
Click to expand...

Ok thanks, great to know. I feel slightly better about doing this knowing someone was successful and had good results.
 
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