My powerbook g4 gets extemely hot and then the screen freezes when I have it plugged in, and it only happens when it is plugged in not while it is on the battery charge, is this a sign it needs new thermal paste maybe?
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Powerbook g4
- Thread starter LordeOurMother
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Yes. When on AC it may run warmer due to the AC board. This does sound like it is overheating. Use iStat Menus or Temperature Monitor to determine the temperature when you are working the CPU and GPU.
Sometimes, when a system crashes, it will peg the CPU at 100% usage causing increased heat.
Since I've never had a Mac overheat, I am carious, When PPC Macs overheat, Do they have the Auto off failsafe?
I have had plenty of Windows PCs overheat and when they do they always shut down no warning. One of my laptops did always freeze and shut off come to find out the battery was shorted out, getting hot, and making the computer shut itself off.
Yes, Macs have overheat protection. It's called thermal shutdown. The logicboard is programmed to shut off when a certain temperature is reached. That temp, by design, is several degrees lower than the actual temperature where damage would occur.
I've had this happen more than once on my wife's 12" PowerBook when working out the issues with replacing her LCD.
Running a 12" PowerBook without the heatsink over the processor is not recommended.
This is purely anecdotal, but I've had Macs that were very unstable until I cleaned and repasted the CPU. In the absence of any other contributing factors(such as a bad OS install or incompatible hardware) repasting cured the problem.
Unfortunately, I don't think G4s had a temperature diode that was readable by any of the commonly available programs until the MDD era(and portables didn't have them until the AlBook era) so it's impossible to actually determine the temperature other than subjective tests like touching the heatsink(be careful!).
I'm about to inherit Erik's problem with the Gigadesigns Dual 1.8, which he's told me won't run reliably at 1.8ghz without additional cooling in a Quicksilver case. I also had to add a fan when I upgraded a B&W G3 to a faster-clocked G4, as it was getting uncomfortably warm. It's cool enough now that I may even be able to safely overclock it a little bit.
Unfortunately, I don't think G4s had a temperature diode that was readable by any of the commonly available programs until the MDD era(and portables didn't have them until the AlBook era) so it's impossible to actually determine the temperature other than subjective tests like touching the heatsink(be careful!).
I'm about to inherit Erik's problem with the Gigadesigns Dual 1.8, which he's told me won't run reliably at 1.8ghz without additional cooling in a Quicksilver case. I also had to add a fan when I upgraded a B&W G3 to a faster-clocked G4, as it was getting uncomfortably warm. It's cool enough now that I may even be able to safely overclock it a little bit.
The only way I can tell that there is excessive heat in the case is to get a ballpark figure from the hard drives.
When using the dual it was not uncommon for my hard drives to be reading 121º or more. Usually right around 116º or so is when I started having issues. That said, it was not always heat. The drives could have been around 110º and the dual was still giving me fits. And this was with several additional fans.
Now I've got drive coolers and a giant hole (with a fan) in the bottom of the case. The drives have been topping out at 109º for the WD Black and 102º for the WD Green. So, I know my heat issues have been pretty much resolved as even though these temps are a little high compared to the temps in my Mac Pro at work they are still in the range of operation for the drives.
Although, in comparison to the hard drive in my iMac G5 which operates around 125º this is considerably cooler.
However, the dual was still flaky even then. I hope you get better results!
The system still gets hot, that issue wasn't solved, and will likely require thermal paste. I just meant that it doesn't freeze and hang up on me anymore.
Under extended full load when used on a hard surface like a table my PowerBook does not go over 141 F with 8 month old paste in it (Arctic Silver Ceramique 2). At about 140 F, the fans should kick in to cool it down.