repair
Major Surgery
04/05/2006 11:15 PM Categories:
Gadgets &
Computers
My PowerBook's right
fan has been making loud noises, skipping on occasion, and choking
on dust bunnies half the time it's on. I run Seti@Home, so the fans run quite often.
Since I already had experience opening up my PowerBook thanks to
iFixit's helpful guides to replace my
hard-drive (details in previous blog entry in March), I decided to
do something about the loud fan before my notebook died for
good.
I ordered both left and right fans (you can never be too sure) from iFixit. Today they arrived, so after backing up my hard-drive (while we ate dinner), setting up a workspace (Ricky free due to the puppy fence we have setup in the computer/Ricky room), and making sure all my tools were in easy reach, I began my deepest surgery yet into my PowerBook. You can see the gory details from the example iFixit pics above and can read the process from iFixit's guide here. As you can see, I had to actually remove practically everything inside the PowerBook including the logicboard. There are about 17 different ribbon/thin cables to disconnect and tons of screws. Luckily, just like the last PowerBook surgery, I used iFixit's excellent screw organization system with some tape to prevent any mixups. One of the things I had to do when putting it all back together was scrape old heat transfer material from the CPU and heatsink...and also from the ATI graphics array/heatsink. After cleaning with isopropyl Alcohol and letting it dry, I re-applied new thermal paste from a little Heatsink tub I had from my Overclocking PC days. It's actually the best Heatsink material available according to old [H]ardOCP tests, so I figured it's probably much better than what Apple used in the manufacturing process.
Once everything was back together, I booted up and tested everything I could. Everything from the keyboard/trackpad, to all the ports and the Airport/Bluetooth worked perfectly. Not only that, but everything seemed to be running smoother/quicker. Even bootup was much quicker. The CPU Temp was actually running about 5 degrees cooler even with Seti@Home on; and, I could not hear the fans (though I knew they were running). So far it looks like it was a successful transplant and should tide me over until it's next replacement (probably not until next Winter with a 2nd rev MacBook Pro).
And just so it doesn't look like I'm TOTALLY out of sync with what's going on out there in Apple land... yes I know about BootCamp. It is pretty cool (though those who used the previous hack to do pretty much the same thing have to do a full reinstall). I still think that true Virtualization using the kernel optimized Qemu would be a better solution to run necessary windows apps on top of OSX. Then again, it is a good idea for when you want to play the occasional PC only game.
UPDATE:
I guess I spoke to soon... Parallels Workstation was announced today. It's a new piece of software that provides full Virtualization support under OSX. This means you can run at "near native" speeds multiple OS's like Linux and Windows XP on top of OSX on a MacIntel and be significantly faster than Emulators like Qemu and MS Virtual PC (which is still PPC only). Though this would make a great way to test out Windows Browsers while developing on top of OSX... and use Corporate mandated PC software, it is probably not an ideal environment for running the more demanding PC games. When I eventually get a MacIntel (probably not until next winter) I would mostly stay in OSX, run Parallels Workstation for the occasional Windows/Linux test or NBC Remote Access, then use BootCamp to play any Windows only heavy games. Of course, it would be better if those games were available for OSX (like Star Wars Empire at War, but at least there will be a way (or multiple ways) to play them on the same box now.
Read More...
I ordered both left and right fans (you can never be too sure) from iFixit. Today they arrived, so after backing up my hard-drive (while we ate dinner), setting up a workspace (Ricky free due to the puppy fence we have setup in the computer/Ricky room), and making sure all my tools were in easy reach, I began my deepest surgery yet into my PowerBook. You can see the gory details from the example iFixit pics above and can read the process from iFixit's guide here. As you can see, I had to actually remove practically everything inside the PowerBook including the logicboard. There are about 17 different ribbon/thin cables to disconnect and tons of screws. Luckily, just like the last PowerBook surgery, I used iFixit's excellent screw organization system with some tape to prevent any mixups. One of the things I had to do when putting it all back together was scrape old heat transfer material from the CPU and heatsink...and also from the ATI graphics array/heatsink. After cleaning with isopropyl Alcohol and letting it dry, I re-applied new thermal paste from a little Heatsink tub I had from my Overclocking PC days. It's actually the best Heatsink material available according to old [H]ardOCP tests, so I figured it's probably much better than what Apple used in the manufacturing process.
Once everything was back together, I booted up and tested everything I could. Everything from the keyboard/trackpad, to all the ports and the Airport/Bluetooth worked perfectly. Not only that, but everything seemed to be running smoother/quicker. Even bootup was much quicker. The CPU Temp was actually running about 5 degrees cooler even with Seti@Home on; and, I could not hear the fans (though I knew they were running). So far it looks like it was a successful transplant and should tide me over until it's next replacement (probably not until next Winter with a 2nd rev MacBook Pro).
And just so it doesn't look like I'm TOTALLY out of sync with what's going on out there in Apple land... yes I know about BootCamp. It is pretty cool (though those who used the previous hack to do pretty much the same thing have to do a full reinstall). I still think that true Virtualization using the kernel optimized Qemu would be a better solution to run necessary windows apps on top of OSX. Then again, it is a good idea for when you want to play the occasional PC only game.
UPDATE:
I guess I spoke to soon... Parallels Workstation was announced today. It's a new piece of software that provides full Virtualization support under OSX. This means you can run at "near native" speeds multiple OS's like Linux and Windows XP on top of OSX on a MacIntel and be significantly faster than Emulators like Qemu and MS Virtual PC (which is still PPC only). Though this would make a great way to test out Windows Browsers while developing on top of OSX... and use Corporate mandated PC software, it is probably not an ideal environment for running the more demanding PC games. When I eventually get a MacIntel (probably not until next winter) I would mostly stay in OSX, run Parallels Workstation for the occasional Windows/Linux test or NBC Remote Access, then use BootCamp to play any Windows only heavy games. Of course, it would be better if those games were available for OSX (like Star Wars Empire at War, but at least there will be a way (or multiple ways) to play them on the same box now.
Read More...
|
PowerBook FIXED!
03/11/2006 08:35 AM Categories:
Gadgets &
Computers
I received my new 160GB 2.5"
perpendicular HardDrive and an mobile firewire/usb case yesterday
via FedEx. Once I had my PowerBook cleaned up with
Cocktail and Diskwarrior, I initialized the new HD
through the external case/firewire and ran CarbonCopyCloner for the rest of the
day.
Last night after having a little Battlestar Galactica mini Season Finale gathering, I swapped the new drive into my PowerBook. It wasn't exactly a difficult process, but it wasn't for a novice either (and definitely not for the faint of heart). The detailed instructions on iFixit.com were a GREAT help, as were their "Screw guide" PDFs which when printed, provides a nice way to organize the different sized mini screws I had to remove from the PowerBook. Good thing I opened it up because there were dustbunnies and embedded crud everwhere. Some of the screws were loose too from long term temperature creep.
The operation was a success and now I'm blogging from my newly re-invigorated PowerBook! The fit and finish weren't marred (which is important with the Alu PB) and it even seems "tighter" and more "solid" now since I was able to make sure all the screws and fasteners were factory tight again. The new HD is much quicker feeling then my old dying one, and it's dead silent (old one became loud, whiny, and clanky).
This should definitely hold me over until the next revs of the MacBook Pros come out, hopefully with a proper DL-DVD drive (or even BlueRay), a faster larger perpendicular HD, and most importantly, the Merom based duocores.
Read More...
Last night after having a little Battlestar Galactica mini Season Finale gathering, I swapped the new drive into my PowerBook. It wasn't exactly a difficult process, but it wasn't for a novice either (and definitely not for the faint of heart). The detailed instructions on iFixit.com were a GREAT help, as were their "Screw guide" PDFs which when printed, provides a nice way to organize the different sized mini screws I had to remove from the PowerBook. Good thing I opened it up because there were dustbunnies and embedded crud everwhere. Some of the screws were loose too from long term temperature creep.
The operation was a success and now I'm blogging from my newly re-invigorated PowerBook! The fit and finish weren't marred (which is important with the Alu PB) and it even seems "tighter" and more "solid" now since I was able to make sure all the screws and fasteners were factory tight again. The new HD is much quicker feeling then my old dying one, and it's dead silent (old one became loud, whiny, and clanky).
This should definitely hold me over until the next revs of the MacBook Pros come out, hopefully with a proper DL-DVD drive (or even BlueRay), a faster larger perpendicular HD, and most importantly, the Merom based duocores.
Read More...