Yes, this is very exiting (AnandTech Mac section). I predict that very soon after Anand officialy opens his Mac section, Apple with seize a larger market share than the 2% that they hold today.
Why? People trust Anand. I don't need to tell you this, if you are here then you already know. This is a great opportunity for computer enthusiasts to learn an entirely new OS that is EXCELLENT.
I predict that many "die hard" PC users will adopt the Macintosh as their friend and the Mac zealots will open their minds too.
"I wonder how MacinTouch compares to ArsTechnica?"
They are different :-
ArsTechnica has the occasional tour de force article by John Siracusa et al, usually on processor or GUI design, and some news.
Macintouch is an indispensable up to the minute critique of updates & software/hardware by users. It is THE place to go before buying or installing something recently released.
SlashDot's Apple forum consistently has the best informed, best moderated, troll free Apple Mac discussions. http://apple.slashdot.org/
All are invaluable resources & deserve out support - you can help keep Macintouch up by clicking through it when you buy from Amazon.
Where Anandtech should look to add something is in Apple hardware analysis. It gets discussed well in fora at SlashDot & Ars but there isn't, to the best of my knowledge, a full Mac equivalent to Anandtech, Tomshardware or HardOCP. Beatfeats is a valiant attempt but appears under resourced. Anandtech would have added credibility being primarily a PC site... provided it managed to suppress the ZDnet, C/net delectation for Wintel sycophancy & Apple FUD. Credit where it is due though, recently there has been little of that here.
One thing worth tying is camino's (http://www.mozilla.org/camino) latest nightlies. They seem to have the nice GUI features of safari, yet maintain the uber fast surf speeds of firefox, with some fixes that seem to make it act better overall.
When you reinstall your OS, it might be a good idea to keep your home directories and swap on a separate partition. All you need to do is move your /Users directory to another partition and then create a symlink called "Users" to that drive in your root directory.
SwapCop will let you move your swap partition to a separate partition, as well.
1) For reference on Mac technical issues, there is none better than MacIntouch (www.macintouch.com). Check that site and you'll very likely find a thread on any prevelant Mac problems.
2) Is the battery holding a charge? Pull out the battery and press the button on it and check the light bar, see if it is holding a charge.
I switched 3 years ago and the Mac has been a god send. So don't give up on it. Everything has problems, but long term you'll come to appreciate how few the Mac has.
Cannot say Dell is any better. My Dell Inspiron 8200 just randomly shut off and will not even respond in any way to the power button. Have tried reseating RAM, using different power arrangements (battery present, batter not present, battery only, different outlets), etc. I've sent it back. When I mentioned this to a friend, he said that his mother's Dell laptop (a bit older) had died twice and the LCD backlight died once. Interestingly enough, before then I had heard she was considering a Powerbook.
By the way, for most people the Powerbook is more then thin and light enough. Try carrying around my 8.5 pound Inspiron. I personally am not interested in the untra portables you like because of the higher pricing and often lower specifications. According to CNet, there are four streams of laptop build classes: Mainstream, Desktop Replacement, Thin and Light, and Ultraportable. Apple's laptops often cross over the borders of the DRs, TLs, and Mainstreams.
Dell's puters have problems also from time to time Picture of smoking Dell Poweredge emerges
Alarm bells ring, but it's not the power supply
By INQUIRER staff: Saturday 27 March 2004, 09:41
A READER has sent us a picture of one of his PowerEdge 1650 servers that went up in smoke.
But, as he points out, in his case the ATI Rage chip appeared to be the place where things started getting smoked, not the power supply.
He tells us that this server had a four hour service on failure contract with Dell. The firm told him "under no circumstances" to use the RAID card or disk array to try and recover the data. The option was to send it to OnTrack, who for a piffling $8,000 to $18,000 would attempt to recover the data.
Dell has promised him a PowerEdge 1750 as a replacement but he's still to see it.
He wonders if Dell is struggling to replace a lot of such systems. µ http: //www.theinquirer.net/?article=14995
Everyone is looking at the price/performance of Apples new Xserve G5, and loving it!
I am not a power user but I plan to switch to Mac. I like the mini iPOD and bought Apple stock. After reading up on Apple I am learning some very interesting things. I would have to say Apple is back on track. I think that Steve Jobs sees the whole picture and is craftfully integrating many things digital with the computer. He the first to see this and now Microsoft, Intel, and Dell etc are jumping on the bandwagon. Anand may has some valid criticisim of Apple but I think Steve Jobs is on the right road because they control both the operating system and hardware in one concentric circle. I am not positive on this but it is a hunch and I going to be a switcher. Yesterday purcahsed $5,000 worth of Apple products (PowerBook, iPOD, printer, digital camera for my daugther college graduation present) and soon as the new iMAC models are out, I am buying one of them for myself. I also have read enough reviews of iLife to believe that I will have a top digital computer as compared to a Dell or HP system.
I have never use an Apple product, but I will tell you something, I am very worn out with my Gateway/Windows environment. Just today somehow a program installed itself on my desktop without my permission. The darn thing is really disrupting my system. It installed itself in the startup directory.
In your March 22 macdate you mentioned that you'd like a quick and easy way to unclutter your screen when you are working in just one app (Word was your example). Next time try the application menu (name of the active app) and select "Hide Others" or use the keys Command+Option+H.
It struck me as odd that Anand would think the PowerBooks are *too* bulky; but he does moderate it with 'for his tastes', so it becomes an opinion thing. It's also very amusing to hear that Intel has a tight grip on the mobile market because of the Centrino...
I was under the impression that the Centrino was a decided reaction to the power thrifty Transmetas and G4s/G3s, which had the battery life crown for the longest time. PC laptops with 4 hours on one battery were nearly unheard of until Centrino... right?
Have you tried reseting the PMU? I sound like the settings on your Power management Unit are buggered up. If that does not help, it might be a heat sensor as others have said.
As others have said already. The current 970 does have some downclocking functionality and the 970FX. I would say that the 970 would compare quite favorably against the Pentium M processor actually. It will have nowhere near the same heat output of the original G5 and it will have better Power management features.
" Is there any way to reinstall the OS without foobarring my home directory"
You might want to back up your home directory *anyway* because if you send it back, you'll probably come back with a blank disk!
Right click on your home directory and use the "archive" option, it'll make a zip! Or open /Applications/Utility/Disk Utility and use it to 'create a new archive from folder' and point it to your home folder. That will create a DMG file you can then burn to disk or offload to another machine, like say Anand's!
Like #22 said, do an archive&install, and then have it keep the user and network preferences(a radio button that's part of the archive&install section of the installion prefs).
Is he covered under AppleCare? He should be able to get it fixed no problem - either by sending it in or bringing it to an authorized Apple technician. The hard disk in my iBook went bad. At the time I wasn't sure if the problem was my hard disk or a fan gone bad (I just heard a noise). I called up Apple and they immediately gave me 5 addresses of local Apple dealers I could bring it to, to get it fixed under warranty. However, this iBook was covered under AppleCare. When an Apple is covered under AppleCare, it seems to be taken care of really well by the company. However, I've seen out-of-warranty folks without AppleCare get a run around from them. Is this the case with your friend? If so, I'd have it sent into an authorized Apple technician after exhausting the only realistic self-help options of resetting the PMU and ensuring a recent OS update didn't cause the problem.
You could try sending an email to the PackMUG list, or email Arman (his address should be on packmug.ncsu.edu ) for some more suggestions...
ANd, you can reinstall OS X without borking your home by doing an archive install (your home dir and OS X install is moved to another folder, so you will have to copy everything back after the install)... an Upgrade Install might do it too, without the need for copying everything back, but i'm not sure... i've never had to reinstall OS X :-)
Reinstalling the OS does NOT sound like a solution that will fix anything. It sounds like something a phone monkey would say to get you off the phone. Download the utility Cocktail and run it to clear caches and fix permissions. Run Apples hardware diagnostic CD that came with the Powerbook. Reset the NVRAM and PRAM to reset the hardware settings. Resetting the NVRAM and PRAM is very simple.
1. Restart your Mac holding down the Command, Option, O, and F keys. Wait a few seconds and then you will enter Open Firmware mode. 2. Type: reset-nvram 3. Press Return key (will return to you to the prompt, your nvram settings are now factory default) 4. Then type: reset-all 5. Press Return key (will reset your logic board and PRAM settings)
If your Mac instantly restarts, it means the process was successful.
Sounds to me like the heat sensor isn't working properly, which I doubt a reinstall will help with. Have you tried resetting the nv-ram? To do this, restart the computer and hold the comand(apple) - option - o - f keys down. This will drop you into the open firmware.
Type: reset-nvram and hit return
The type: reset-all
the computer should then restart and see if that solves things.
As for reinstalling without fubaring your home directory, there's an option in the installer called install in place or something like that (read the descriptions) it will put all your old system info in a folder on your HDD and do a clean install with your home folder preserved.
Sometimes on my G4 Quicksilver I lose Sound. The Sound preference fails to recognize the built-in audio controller. After running Dragster everything comes back to normal. It may do a similar magic on the heat sensor problem you are experiencing. Dragster can remove some hidden preference files at the 'home' and 'global' level.
I am in fact, the poor schmuck with the problem Anand is referring to. I'm pretty sure it's a hardware problem because I haven't done anything crazy with the OS, but I will reinstall as soon as I have some free time. Is there any way to reinstall the OS without foobarring my home directory???
I can't take it to the Apple Store because the computer belongs to the university, and I can't send it back yet because they asked me to reinstall the OS first, but I haven't had a lick of free time since this came up (the computer first started doing it on Tuesday and I called them yesterday afternoon).
Basically, after the 'book has been running for about 20-30 minutes, it goes into sleep mode. It won't come out of sleep mode unless I wait about 10-15 minutes. It sounds to me as if something overheating is causing the sleep system to go off, but the computer never gets hot enough to set off the fan.
Appreciate all the info, especially about whether I can reinstall without overwriting everything.
#14: I have a TiBook that is starting to see some of these issues. It's an old machine, so I'm not frustrated, but sometimes the keyboard goes all haywire (delete key activates expose, etc). Simply lifting the keyboard and reseatting carefully solves it, which is a clear indication that the orange cable is crimped or frayed. No biggie for me and I don't think this is the problem with Anand's friend.
Newsflash: Apple's HW, while good, are still susceptible to HW failures. That's why they have service options and support. Unfortunetelly we all have bad experiences with something we own sometimes.
There was a problem that developed in some of the old 15inch powerbooks, that may actualy be manifesting itself in your friend's notebook (though it will be a lot harder to diagnose). Under the keyboard arround the spacebar and the left hand command key there was a little orange cable that ran under the frame. The problem was, on some laptops, it was in the right spot and the user used it in the right way to fray the cable. This seemed to cause random crashes and shutdowns, though I never heard of not being able to start it back up.
But I agree with #13, take it into the Apple Store.
"What I've noticed from reading the Apple support messageboards is that Apple's hardware is not flawless as some like to think."
Its kind of hard to imagine that anyone thinks Apple could ship tens of millions of computer over 25 years and that they were all "flawless", lol. Mass production doesn't support perfection in my experience. In any event, if you read the quality surveys by PC Magazine and Consumer Reports over the last couple of years, Macs consistently rank at the top in terms of least amount of problems and customer satisfaction. In terms of reliability, they compare favorably to the other name brands. Check out the repair problems Sony and Dell users endure, as reported by PC Magazine:
Reading any company's technical support site is not a good barometer of quality, since every one posting there has a problem of some sort. Apple's notebooks certainly are not close to flawless, but as of those surveys they are as close as any other brand.
Sounds like a faulty power button. Tell him to activate "Restart after power failure" because this should reveal if the problem is a power interruption.
Do a search on PowerTune, which is the new technology IBM is using in the 970fx. It's pretty neat stuff. For lack of a better term, it strobes the on-off-sleep functions of the CPU so fast that you get a huge bump in both battery life and length of use. It literally snaps the CPU off in-between computing cycles to do this.
Oh, Anand in case you read my mail I wrote a while ago: I got an IBM ThinkPad T41p (on which I'm just writing this :) ) and must say as a previous Dell owner: This notebook is great and not comparable to any Dell I've seen before (and I've seen many of them). It's a good combination of power/weight. Only one small problem is to keep the top of the lid fingertip-free ;-)
Yeah, if he can do an OS re-install it would be interesting to see what happens. While his problem may indeed be hardware-related, it's not completely unheard of to have OS-related problems do this if somehow he managed to completely fubar his OS. (eg. I've heard randomly deleting system files, etc. can lead to a similar outcome to your friend's.)
Fortunately OS X installs are generally much faster and simpler than Windows installs.
I was telling you guys about how I installed Panther on my Mom's G4. I used a Western Digital HDD that was Windows and Apple compatible. The install went smooth, except soon the system would not boot anymore.
Well there could be a lot of reasons why this happened. The issue is not that I was too lazy to figure it out, it just seemed when I searched for a solution (on the internet) I found absolutely nothing.
Where with the PC there I have always recieved support somewhere on an forum where I was given a solution. That is probably because there are millions more PC's around and have been for several years. That is one of the problems with Apple--there are very few units and thus when there is a hardware problem often the problem persists for a longer duration than a, say, PC problem because there just are more PCs around.
P.S. I personally am not a big fan of the uber-small laptops. The light weight is very nice, but the screens are often high dpi which makes me squint, and often the keyboard is a non-standard size. I already find the 106 dpi of the 12" PowerBook 1024x768 screen squint inducing, but I do like it's full-size keyboard. The 15 and 17" PowerBooks have screen densities closer to 100 dpi, which IMO is much easier on the eyes.
I also like to have ALL my laptop ports/drives built-in. Some of the uber-small machines have docking stations or external drives, both of which I find to be a major pain.
OTOH, PowerBooks have full-size keyboards, reasonable screen densities, DVI, SuperDrives, integrated 802.11g, Bluetooth, powered Firewire, etc, yet at the same time avoid being the 9 lb desktop replacement monstrosities you see from certain companies.
No idea about the PowerBook, but it does sound hardware related. I'd suggest the hardware test disc, but I suspect it would test fine, unless it was memory or something. Hopefully it's under warranty. And considering the 12" PowerBook is based off the iBook design, I just hope this is not a sign of the famed iBook video/logic board problem.
My PowerBook 15" Titanium is working great after 14 months though. :)
As for 970FX and mobile parts, I'll give my 2 cents... as a casual outside observer...
Sure the 970FX isn't a Pentium M in terms of performance vs. wattage, but it's still not bad and it may be an improvement over G4s used in current Macs in terms of power management. And remember, G4 power specs were nothing like desktop P4 power specs either.
Right now the 970FX power utilization at 1.4 GHz is 12.3 Watts "typical", which would lead me to believe that the max power utilization is in the range of 25 Watts. And the 970FX adds PowerTune, which the original 970 does not support.
My uneducated guess is that a 970FX would make a reasonable laptop chip at up to about 1.6 GHz.
As for the (higher voltage) desktop 970FX parts, I find this picture interesting:
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47 Comments
Back to Article
Adam K - Monday, March 29, 2004 - link
What is up with PCWorld.com's website?http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,11527...
(super slow!) They need some quad Opterons, too, it seems!
Anonymous - Monday, March 29, 2004 - link
Bluetooth better on a Mac?http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,11527...
Adam K. - Monday, March 29, 2004 - link
Yes, this is very exiting (AnandTech Mac section). I predict that very soon after Anand officialy opens his Mac section, Apple with seize a larger market share than the 2% that they hold today.Why? People trust Anand. I don't need to tell you this, if you are here then you already know. This is a great opportunity for computer enthusiasts to learn an entirely new OS that is EXCELLENT.
I predict that many "die hard" PC users will adopt the Macintosh as their friend and the Mac zealots will open their minds too.
Thanks, Anand. This makes me happy.
:)
DrTrustme - Monday, March 29, 2004 - link
"I wonder how MacinTouch compares to ArsTechnica?"They are different :-
ArsTechnica has the occasional tour de force article by John Siracusa et al, usually on processor or GUI design, and some news.
Macintouch is an indispensable up to the minute critique of updates & software/hardware by users. It is THE place to go before buying or installing something recently released.
SlashDot's Apple forum consistently has the best informed, best moderated, troll free Apple Mac discussions. http://apple.slashdot.org/
All are invaluable resources & deserve out support - you can help keep Macintouch up by clicking through it when you buy from Amazon.
Where Anandtech should look to add something is in Apple hardware analysis. It gets discussed well in fora at SlashDot & Ars but there isn't, to the best of my knowledge, a full Mac equivalent to Anandtech, Tomshardware or HardOCP. Beatfeats is a valiant attempt but appears under resourced. Anandtech would have added credibility being primarily a PC site... provided it managed to suppress the ZDnet, C/net delectation for Wintel sycophancy & Apple FUD. Credit where it is due though, recently there has been little of that here.
OoTLink - Monday, March 29, 2004 - link
One thing worth tying is camino's (http://www.mozilla.org/camino) latest nightlies. They seem to have the nice GUI features of safari, yet maintain the uber fast surf speeds of firefox, with some fixes that seem to make it act better overall.Well worth the try :)
Adam K - Sunday, March 28, 2004 - link
WOW, Anand, the site is loading super fast! (THE QUAD OPTERONS ROCK!!!)Damien Sorresso - Sunday, March 28, 2004 - link
When you reinstall your OS, it might be a good idea to keep your home directories and swap on a separate partition. All you need to do is move your /Users directory to another partition and then create a symlink called "Users" to that drive in your root directory.SwapCop will let you move your swap partition to a separate partition, as well.
Adam K - Sunday, March 28, 2004 - link
#39: So does neowin:http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?act=SC&c...
I posted Anand's blog:
Here:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=14...
Louis - Sunday, March 28, 2004 - link
I wonder how MacinTouch compares to ArsTechnica?http://www.arstechnica.com
They've got their own Mac forum
The Best - Sunday, March 28, 2004 - link
macosrumors.com is PURE TRIPE. The dude makes everything up. It's pure BS. He was outed a couple years ago.
Reliable Mac rumor sites are:
www.thinksecret.com (very high accuracy)
www.applesinsider.com
www.macrumors.com (they centralize the rumors)
avoid anything else.
The Best - Sunday, March 28, 2004 - link
1) For reference on Mac technical issues, there is none better than MacIntouch (www.macintouch.com). Check that site and you'll very likely find a thread on any prevelant Mac problems.
2) Is the battery holding a charge? Pull out the battery and press the button on it and check the light bar, see if it is holding a charge.
I switched 3 years ago and the Mac has been a god send. So don't give up on it. Everything has problems, but long term you'll come to appreciate how few the Mac has.
qiranworms - Saturday, March 27, 2004 - link
Cannot say Dell is any better. My Dell Inspiron 8200 just randomly shut off and will not even respond in any way to the power button. Have tried reseating RAM, using different power arrangements (battery present, batter not present, battery only, different outlets), etc. I've sent it back. When I mentioned this to a friend, he said that his mother's Dell laptop (a bit older) had died twice and the LCD backlight died once. Interestingly enough, before then I had heard she was considering a Powerbook.By the way, for most people the Powerbook is more then thin and light enough. Try carrying around my 8.5 pound Inspiron. I personally am not interested in the untra portables you like because of the higher pricing and often lower specifications. According to CNet, there are four streams of laptop build classes: Mainstream, Desktop Replacement, Thin and Light, and Ultraportable. Apple's laptops often cross over the borders of the DRs, TLs, and Mainstreams.
Colin Richardson - Saturday, March 27, 2004 - link
Hmm...at least Mac isn't like Windows in that reinstallation is the answer to a good 60% of the problems on the PC.Anonymous - Saturday, March 27, 2004 - link
Dell's puters have problems also from time to timePicture of smoking Dell Poweredge emerges
Alarm bells ring, but it's not the power supply
By INQUIRER staff: Saturday 27 March 2004, 09:41
A READER has sent us a picture of one of his PowerEdge 1650 servers that went up in smoke.
But, as he points out, in his case the ATI Rage chip appeared to be the place where things started getting smoked, not the power supply.
He tells us that this server had a four hour service on failure contract with Dell. The firm told him "under no circumstances" to use the RAID card or disk array to try and recover the data. The option was to send it to OnTrack, who for a piffling $8,000 to $18,000 would attempt to recover the data.
Dell has promised him a PowerEdge 1750 as a replacement but he's still to see it.
He wonders if Dell is struggling to replace a lot of such systems. µ
http: //www.theinquirer.net/?article=14995
Everyone is looking at the price/performance of Apples new Xserve G5, and loving it!
Anonymous - Saturday, March 27, 2004 - link
I am not a power user but I plan to switch to Mac. I like the mini iPOD and bought Apple stock. After reading up on Apple I am learning some very interesting things. I would have to say Apple is back on track. I think that Steve Jobs sees the whole picture and is craftfully integrating many things digital with the computer. He the first to see this and now Microsoft, Intel, and Dell etc are jumping on the bandwagon. Anand may has some valid criticisim of Apple but I think Steve Jobs is on the right road because they control both the operating system and hardware in one concentric circle. I am not positive on this but it is a hunch and I going to be a switcher. Yesterday purcahsed $5,000 worth of Apple products (PowerBook, iPOD, printer, digital camera for my daugther college graduation present) and soon as the new iMAC models are out, I am buying one of them for myself. I also have read enough reviews of iLife to believe that I will have a top digital computer as compared to a Dell or HP system.I have never use an Apple product, but I will tell you something, I am very worn out with my Gateway/Windows environment. Just today somehow a program installed itself on my desktop without my permission. The darn thing is really disrupting my system. It installed itself in the startup directory.
Eug - Saturday, March 27, 2004 - link
To those posting Mac OS Rumors stuff. Please note that they are the laughing stock of Mac sites, even compared to other Mac rumour sites.Sometimes they are just so far off I have to wonder if they're making predictions seem idiotic intentionally just for their own amusement.
voline - Saturday, March 27, 2004 - link
In your March 22 macdate you mentioned that you'd like a quick and easy way to unclutter your screen when you are working in just one app (Word was your example). Next time try the application menu (name of the active app) and select "Hide Others" or use the keys Command+Option+H.Ghengis Bush - Saturday, March 27, 2004 - link
Off topic:There is worthwhile tutorial on hidden Panther features here:
http://www.macworld.com/2004/03/features/pantherse...
Louis - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
It struck me as odd that Anand would think the PowerBooks are *too* bulky; but he does moderate it with 'for his tastes', so it becomes an opinion thing. It's also very amusing to hear that Intel has a tight grip on the mobile market because of the Centrino...I was under the impression that the Centrino was a decided reaction to the power thrifty Transmetas and G4s/G3s, which had the battery life crown for the longest time. PC laptops with 4 hours on one battery were nearly unheard of until Centrino... right?
aristotle - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Have you tried reseting the PMU? I sound like the settings on your Power management Unit are buggered up. If that does not help, it might be a heat sensor as others have said.As others have said already. The current 970 does have some downclocking functionality and the 970FX. I would say that the 970 would compare quite favorably against the Pentium M processor actually. It will have nowhere near the same heat output of the original G5 and it will have better Power management features.
Louis - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
" Is there any way to reinstall the OS without foobarring my home directory"You might want to back up your home directory *anyway* because if you send it back, you'll probably come back with a blank disk!
Right click on your home directory and use the "archive" option, it'll make a zip! Or open /Applications/Utility/Disk Utility and use it to 'create a new archive from folder' and point it to your home folder. That will create a DMG file you can then burn to disk or offload to another machine, like say Anand's!
Scott - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Anand,Maybe an iBook is in your future:
http://www.macosrumors.com/32504E.html
Anonymous - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Give your PowerBook a ride on a pony to see if it cheers up.ViRGE - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Like #22 said, do an archive&install, and then have it keep the user and network preferences(a radio button that's part of the archive&install section of the installion prefs).Anonymous - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Is he covered under AppleCare? He should be able to get it fixed no problem - either by sending it in or bringing it to an authorized Apple technician. The hard disk in my iBook went bad. At the time I wasn't sure if the problem was my hard disk or a fan gone bad (I just heard a noise). I called up Apple and they immediately gave me 5 addresses of local Apple dealers I could bring it to, to get it fixed under warranty. However, this iBook was covered under AppleCare. When an Apple is covered under AppleCare, it seems to be taken care of really well by the company. However, I've seen out-of-warranty folks without AppleCare get a run around from them. Is this the case with your friend? If so, I'd have it sent into an authorized Apple technician after exhausting the only realistic self-help options of resetting the PMU and ensuring a recent OS update didn't cause the problem.NCSUStudent - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
You could try sending an email to the PackMUG list, or email Arman (his address should be on packmug.ncsu.edu ) for some more suggestions...ANd, you can reinstall OS X without borking your home by doing an archive install (your home dir and OS X install is moved to another folder, so you will have to copy everything back after the install)... an Upgrade Install might do it too, without the need for copying everything back, but i'm not sure... i've never had to reinstall OS X :-)
TMoney - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
It's also possible that the fan is broken, which if none of this helps, is probably what is wrong.Terry - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Reinstalling the OS does NOT sound like a solution that will fix anything. It sounds like something a phone monkey would say to get you off the phone. Download the utility Cocktail and run it to clear caches and fix permissions. Run Apples hardware diagnostic CD that came with the Powerbook. Reset the NVRAM and PRAM to reset the hardware settings.Resetting the NVRAM and PRAM is very simple.
1. Restart your Mac holding down the Command, Option, O, and F keys. Wait a few seconds and then you will enter Open Firmware mode.
2. Type: reset-nvram
3. Press Return key (will return to you to the prompt, your nvram settings are now factory default)
4. Then type: reset-all
5. Press Return key (will reset your logic board and PRAM settings)
If your Mac instantly restarts, it means the process was successful.
TMoney - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Sounds to me like the heat sensor isn't working properly, which I doubt a reinstall will help with. Have you tried resetting the nv-ram? To do this, restart the computer and hold the comand(apple) - option - o - f keys down. This will drop you into the open firmware.Type: reset-nvram and hit return
The type: reset-all
the computer should then restart and see if that solves things.
As for reinstalling without fubaring your home directory, there's an option in the installer called install in place or something like that (read the descriptions) it will put all your old system info in a folder on your HDD and do a clean install with your home folder preserved.
Anonymous - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Have you tried Dragster?http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9802
Sometimes on my G4 Quicksilver I lose Sound. The Sound preference fails to recognize the built-in audio controller. After running Dragster everything comes back to normal. It may do a similar magic on the heat sensor problem you are experiencing. Dragster can remove some hidden preference files at the 'home' and 'global' level.
Good luck with getting your Powerbook fixed.
Alex - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Just fyi, this is a 2-month old 12" AlBook-Alex
Alex - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Hey everyone,I am in fact, the poor schmuck with the problem Anand is referring to. I'm pretty sure it's a hardware problem because I haven't done anything crazy with the OS, but I will reinstall as soon as I have some free time. Is there any way to reinstall the OS without foobarring my home directory???
I can't take it to the Apple Store because the computer belongs to the university, and I can't send it back yet because they asked me to reinstall the OS first, but I haven't had a lick of free time since this came up (the computer first started doing it on Tuesday and I called them yesterday afternoon).
Basically, after the 'book has been running for about 20-30 minutes, it goes into sleep mode. It won't come out of sleep mode unless I wait about 10-15 minutes. It sounds to me as if something overheating is causing the sleep system to go off, but the computer never gets hot enough to set off the fan.
Appreciate all the info, especially about whether I can reinstall without overwriting everything.
-Alex
Braz - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
#14: I have a TiBook that is starting to see some of these issues. It's an old machine, so I'm not frustrated, but sometimes the keyboard goes all haywire (delete key activates expose, etc). Simply lifting the keyboard and reseatting carefully solves it, which is a clear indication that the orange cable is crimped or frayed. No biggie for me and I don't think this is the problem with Anand's friend.Newsflash: Apple's HW, while good, are still susceptible to HW failures. That's why they have service options and support. Unfortunetelly we all have bad experiences with something we own sometimes.
TMoney - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
There was a problem that developed in some of the old 15inch powerbooks, that may actualy be manifesting itself in your friend's notebook (though it will be a lot harder to diagnose). Under the keyboard arround the spacebar and the left hand command key there was a little orange cable that ran under the frame. The problem was, on some laptops, it was in the right spot and the user used it in the right way to fray the cable. This seemed to cause random crashes and shutdowns, though I never heard of not being able to start it back up.But I agree with #13, take it into the Apple Store.
Michael - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Tell your friend to go to the Apple Store at Southpoint. They should be able to help him out better than a phone monkey could.lookmark - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Heh. No, of course Apple hardware isn't flawless. Far from it. They make computers, after all -- complex beasts with all kinds of potential problems.Why on earth hasn't your friend sent the machine back to Apple -- is it out of warranty already? It sure sounds like a hardware issue to me.
galactusofmyth - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
"What I've noticed from reading the Apple support messageboards is that Apple's hardware is not flawless as some like to think."Its kind of hard to imagine that anyone thinks Apple could ship tens of millions of computer over 25 years and that they were all "flawless", lol. Mass production doesn't support perfection in my experience. In any event, if you read the quality surveys by PC Magazine and Consumer Reports over the last couple of years, Macs consistently rank at the top in terms of least amount of problems and customer satisfaction. In terms of reliability, they compare favorably to the other name brands. Check out the repair problems Sony and Dell users endure, as reported by PC Magazine:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1185200,00.as...
Apple tied for highest. Consumer Reports came to the same conclusion about Apple's reliability in its most recent report on customer satisfaction.
http://www.macnn.com/news/23534
Reading any company's technical support site is not a good barometer of quality, since every one posting there has a problem of some sort. Apple's notebooks certainly are not close to flawless, but as of those surveys they are as close as any other brand.
egarc - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Sounds like a faulty power button. Tell him to activate "Restart after power failure" because this should reveal if the problem is a power interruption.Tim - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Anand:Do a search on PowerTune, which is the new technology IBM is using in the 970fx. It's pretty neat stuff. For lack of a better term, it strobes the on-off-sleep functions of the CPU so fast that you get a huge bump in both battery life and length of use. It literally snaps the CPU off in-between computing cycles to do this.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/34108.html
I still dont think it's in the same league as centrino but it's pretty spiffy. :D
Holger Eilhard - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Oh, Anand in case you read my mail I wrote a while ago: I got an IBM ThinkPad T41p (on which I'm just writing this :) ) and must say as a previous Dell owner: This notebook is great and not comparable to any Dell I've seen before (and I've seen many of them). It's a good combination of power/weight. Only one small problem is to keep the top of the lid fingertip-free ;-)Naden - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Apparently 10.3.3 has an issue with Powerbook batteries not recharging properly. Maybe he check out if that is the problem.Eug - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Yeah, if he can do an OS re-install it would be interesting to see what happens. While his problem may indeed be hardware-related, it's not completely unheard of to have OS-related problems do this if somehow he managed to completely fubar his OS. (eg. I've heard randomly deleting system files, etc. can lead to a similar outcome to your friend's.)Fortunately OS X installs are generally much faster and simpler than Windows installs.
Adam K - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
I think I mentioned something like this before.I was telling you guys about how I installed Panther on my Mom's G4. I used a Western Digital HDD that was Windows and Apple compatible. The install went smooth, except soon the system would not boot anymore.
Well there could be a lot of reasons why this happened. The issue is not that I was too lazy to figure it out, it just seemed when I searched for a solution (on the internet) I found absolutely nothing.
Where with the PC there I have always recieved support somewhere on an forum where I was given a solution. That is probably because there are millions more PC's around and have been for several years. That is one of the problems with Apple--there are very few units and thus when there is a hardware problem often the problem persists for a longer duration than a, say, PC problem because there just are more PCs around.
Anonymous - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
"What I've noticed from reading the Apple support messageboards is that Apple's hardware is not flawless as some like to think."LMFAO ROFLMFAO
Eug - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
P.S. I personally am not a big fan of the uber-small laptops. The light weight is very nice, but the screens are often high dpi which makes me squint, and often the keyboard is a non-standard size. I already find the 106 dpi of the 12" PowerBook 1024x768 screen squint inducing, but I do like it's full-size keyboard. The 15 and 17" PowerBooks have screen densities closer to 100 dpi, which IMO is much easier on the eyes.I also like to have ALL my laptop ports/drives built-in. Some of the uber-small machines have docking stations or external drives, both of which I find to be a major pain.
OTOH, PowerBooks have full-size keyboards, reasonable screen densities, DVI, SuperDrives, integrated 802.11g, Bluetooth, powered Firewire, etc, yet at the same time avoid being the 9 lb desktop replacement monstrosities you see from certain companies.
Eug - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
No idea about the PowerBook, but it does sound hardware related. I'd suggest the hardware test disc, but I suspect it would test fine, unless it was memory or something. Hopefully it's under warranty. And considering the 12" PowerBook is based off the iBook design, I just hope this is not a sign of the famed iBook video/logic board problem.http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/faq/
My PowerBook 15" Titanium is working great after 14 months though. :)
As for 970FX and mobile parts, I'll give my 2 cents... as a casual outside observer...
Sure the 970FX isn't a Pentium M in terms of performance vs. wattage, but it's still not bad and it may be an improvement over G4s used in current Macs in terms of power management. And remember, G4 power specs were nothing like desktop P4 power specs either.
Right now the 970FX power utilization at 1.4 GHz is 12.3 Watts "typical", which would lead me to believe that the max power utilization is in the range of 25 Watts. And the 970FX adds PowerTune, which the original 970 does not support.
My uneducated guess is that a 970FX would make a reasonable laptop chip at up to about 1.6 GHz.
As for the (higher voltage) desktop 970FX parts, I find this picture interesting:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/eug/Apple/powerdraw.jpg
Anonymous - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Any progress with the Raptor article?