Titanium PowerBook Crashes During Heavy Activity

[CC_333]

Hi,

Well, this PowerBook works perfectly most of the time, but when under Leopard (It happened during install, too; I had to use target disk mode from my Quicksilver to install it on the PowerBook), It will do a hard crash (you know, the dimmed screen with the "You have to restart..." message) when it's in the middle of doing relatively intensive stuff, like installing updates. It seems to coincide with the heatsink fan coming on. Could it be overheating? The person from whom I bought it said he had installed a new logic board, so I doubt anything could be wrong with it.

It is conceivable, though.

Incidentally, it doesn't happen under Tiger at all. Only Leopard. If it's unresolve-able, I'll just downgrade it back to Tiger (Leopard's relative modern-ness is nice, but even at 1 GHz with 1 GB RAM, it's a little sluggish).

c

[gobabushka]

i would think overheating, at least possibly. I would suggest take it apart, clean it, reapply thermal paste and try try again.

[CC_333]

I would suggest take it apart, clean it, reapply thermal paste and try try again.

I was afraid of that!

I guess I'll have to.

Thank you!

c

[gobabushka]

yep! I had that problem on a couple of laptops ive owned, i just did it to my 1st gen macbook, runs cooler now.

[CC_333]

Hi,

Is it possible that the heatsink is different between 867 MHz and 1 GHz models? I doubt it, but I'd like to cover all bases.

I just remembered another symptom: while doing light stuff, programs (TenFourFox and Safari so far) will unexpectedly quit. This happens under both Leopard and Tiger.

I noted that this also happens when the cooling fan is engaged.

I looked up the disassembly procedure, and it looks relatively easy, albeit somewhat arduous.

c

[techknight]

make sure the heatsink fins are not plugged either.

[CC_333]

Hi,

techknight: Thank you for your suggestion, but the heatsink fins are clear. In fact, I didn't see any dirt anywhere. The previous owner evidently kept it very clean.

Anyway, I think I've solved the problem! I disassembled the thing, cleared the old thermal pad off the heatsink, and put on new thermal paste.

I've done some testing, and it seems to be OK (fingers crossed). I will do more and see what happens.

Leopard is still a bit slowish, but that's OK since it means it's somewhat more modern, which allows it to do some more modern stuff (within the G4's capabilities, of course).

Thanks for the help!!!

c

[CC_333]

Well... It crashed again!

Here's what happened:

I was watching a video, and about 11 minutes in, the picture froze and the sound stopped, then VLC quit a few seconds later. When I tried restarting VLC and queuing up the video to the point at which it froze, the computer experienced another hard freeze. I restarted it, and it hard froze once more while I was reopening the video. After restarting again, I let the computer idle for a few minutes, and then tried to play the video. It played through the rest of the video flawlessly, so that period where the computer idled (the fans were spinning full speed, by the way) must've helped cool things down a bit.

I guess the problem is a little more under control, but unfortunately it's still there.

c

[CC_333]

After about 3 days of testing, I have decided that it's probably a logic board problem.

I disassembled the machine, cleaned up the old thermal pad from the heatsink, cleaned up the CPU, and applied new paste. It seemed to help for awhile, but now it seems to be back where it was again.

It is now crashing about the same under Tiger as it was with Leopard. However, it seems to be perfectly stable if I keep it cool. It only acts up, it appears, when it's hot (which it usually is after doing some heavy activity such as watching a video).

That being said, is it possible that a cracked solder joint somewhere could be causing this problem? If so, would a reflow of the affected area solve the problem, at least for awhile?

It's a really nice machine, and it's unfortunate that it has this problem.

c

[MacJunky]

I should say that a thermal pad gets replaced with another thermal pad of the same thickness. Thermal compound/goo/paste/tape is used when there is essentially no gap between the CPU and heatsink. Pads are used when there is a gap.

I do not know what the TiBooks had though so I cannot comment further.

[bd1308]

TiBooks had no thermal pad between the CPU/Heatsink and a very VERY thin thermal pad between GPU/Heatsink. I left the thermal pad alone, and re-applied thermal grease. The old thermal grease had a plastic-like quality to it. I scraped off the old stuff and put down some new. Seemed to make things cooler.

[CC_333]

Hmmm...

Maybe I need to replace that thermal pad with another thermal pad, then?

I've given up on it for now (it seems to be working well enough), but I'll take a look at it when I get some free time.

c

[bd1308]

I haven't the slightest clue where to get new thermal pads, so I just put my finger on it and determined whether or not it wicked away heat, and it did, so i left it alone.

[gobabushka]

what i did once to my dv6000 to avoid excess heat, i layered it like this:

heatsink
thermal paste
copper shim
thermal paste
cpu

this configuration still works like a charm to this day after years of heavy use

[CC_333]

Hi,

This thread has languished here for awhile, so I thought I'd give a brief update.

I did something very extraordinary: I put a gel ice pack on the heat sink. And believe it or not, it worked!

Obviously I wouldn't do that regularly, but I wanted to try it out and see what happened.

Also, I noticed that it's much less prone to overheating and crashing in cooler weather.

I gave up on it shortly after this, but I did use it a bit recently, and it worked fine. It's been cool lately, which probably explains why it worked fine.

I'll probably get back to it once I finish up a few other projects. Until then, I'm content with it as is.

Thanks for all the help!

c

[spiceyokooko]

Interesting reading this thread through.

I would say with almost 100% certainty that your problem is stemming from overheating.

I did some research recently on my own G4 Powerbook (1.67) as I was trying to find a reason for why the fans were so noisy, when another identical Powerbook G4 was almost silent. First, I thought it was the hard disk making the noise, but research did confirm that it was the fans.

This appears to be a fairly common problem now with these G4 Powerbooks, whose processors just cannot handle the processor intensive web pages and flash/java that so many web pages now seem to have. I installed MenuMeters on suggestion from someone in the irc channel and it soon became evident that the fans were noisiest when the processor had the most intensive activity.

Given the problems you're experiencing and the fact that you're running Leopard and accessing videos on a 1Gig TiBook pretty much confirms that the processor is getting overwhelmed and overheating. The intermittent problems you're getting are typical of an over-heating processor.

The bottom line here is this - G4 processors simply cannot handle the feature rich web content now typically found on the internet. Sure, they're still useable (I use my G4 Powerbook as my everyday machine) for general web browsing and email, but try anything much more complicated than that and they run into trouble. Apples have always struggled somewhat with flash and java content and these slowish G4 processors just make the problem worse.

I've just acquired a 1Gig Titanium Powerbook for use as my primary Classic OS machine and I'm going to upgrade the 1.67 Powerbook to an early Macbook Pro or Mac Mini as my primary internet machine as I'm getting a little weary of the sluggish speed and whining fans of the Powerbook.

I'm not a 'power user' by any stretch of the imagination but in my opinion, given the above, I just feel that the G4 processor in laptops particularly is now just too slow to use as an everyday internet general purpose machine and that it's perhaps time (for me) to move up to a Core Duo processor.

[CC_333]

Hi,

Good analysis, spiceyokooko.

I'm afraid you're probably right. One thing that I've noted with this machine, however, is that it'll overheat and crash while doing relatively (in my opinion) ordinary things, such as installing an application or update. It was worst while installing Leopard. It just simply wouldn't install without a crash or error (the only way I could install it was by target disk mode via another machine). This behavior led me to believe that this degree of overheating was not normal, even during severely processor-intensive tasks (such as flash video), and that some sort of fault exists in the hardware (it may be a simple mechanical thing, such as the heat sink not making full contact with the CPU) which is causing this behavior, and I started this thread to get various opinions on what this fault could be, and how I go about fixing it.

Anyway, back to your point- it probably is simply just too old to handle what I'm asking of it. I do have a perfectly modern 2009 Unibody MacBook Pro, and If there were some way of connecting it to an old CRT-based TV set, I'd rather use that and reserve the PowerBook for stuff more contemporary to that machine.

So if you know of a way to adapt a modern MBP to the task, I'm all ears.

Until then, I'll have to make due with what I have (I found that I can encode a video file into a format more contemporary with the PowerBook, and it plays fine, even with the processor set to reduced mode, so that's a good workaround for now; it doesn't generally act up if I keep it set to reduced, which is nice).

c

[coius]

They have displayport and Thunderbolt VGA adapters. You need one of them. I think $19 from apple. The Thunderbolt VGA adapters are crap from firsthand experience (requiring me to upgrade my mom's LCD on her new 2012 Mac Mini i5 to a DVI display via the HDMI port. The VGA refused to come out of sleep and it seems the adapter was the issue)

[CC_333]

They have displayport and Thunderbolt VGA adapters.

Yes, I know. And I'd use them if I could.

However, I can't.

"Why?" you may ask.

Well, I am trying to hook up to a 7 year old analog CRT television which has neither HDMI nor VGA nor DVI, but it does have composite and such. If there was some sort of adapter (or several; I'm not opposed to chaining several together, like DisplayPort to HDMI and HDMI to Composite, etc., if it's a possibility) which would let me connect the MBP to the analog inputs on the television, that would be great.

But it seems that no such solution exists (at least not for a straight DisplayPort to Composite adapter).

If I can't get the MBP to work, I'm not opposed to using a PC (a Hackintosh, perhaps?) for the purpose, since almost all but the most recent AGP/PCI-Express video cards that I've seen have an S-Video port, which this set will accept.

Worst case, I will see about making an adapter from scratch (that may take me a few years, though!)

One of the only reasons I'm using the PowerBook despite its shortcomings is the presence of an S-Video port. I can hook it up to the old TV just fine thanks to that tiny, but in my case significant, feature. Once I get another, more powerful computer set up, I can "retire" the PowerBook.

If Apple's newest offerings had such a port (or at least the provision for one, for example by way of an adapter of some kind), that'd be wonderful. But they do not, it seems.

Thank you nonetheless for your suggestion, coius. That would work perfectly if we ever upgrade the television (which eventually must happen, since it will break down, sooner or later).

Until the next post...

c

[coius]

*cough*
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004VV8R86/

[CC_333]

Oh!

I guess I didn't look hard enough!

Thank you very much!!

I'll see about getting that device soon.

c

[techknight]

Couple things:

Is there a copper heatpipe in that model? Feel that heatpipe. If its hot right at the chip and gets far too cold towards the fins/vent end, your heatpipe could have vented and lost its alcohol/acetone, and it will no longer function at transferring heat. (rare, but happens. had a dell inspiron 1100 do it once). Heatpipes work on a refrigeration principal, the alcohol/acetone boils at the chip side, taking the heat with it. It travels and condenses when cooled over by the heatsink fins, and the alcohol/acetone returns. there is a copper wick in the center that helps with this operation. If things got too hot at one point (plugged heatsink), pressures can build and split the heatpipe and vent the alcohol. It will no longer function if this happens.

Another more likely issue is the chip might need a reflow. its getting hot and the solder is breaking away.

[CC_333]

Is there a copper heatpipe in that model?

No, I don't think so. It has a bunch of aluminum colored rods that connect the various sections of the heat sink together. Are heatpipes sometimes made of things other than copper?

Another more likely issue is the chip might need a reflow. its getting hot and the solder is breaking away.

Would that explain the unusual instability? I mean, I've had computers run at higher temperatures than this, and they are a stable as ever. So, something seems wrong somehow, and the heat seems to trigger it.

What do you suggest I do, short of replacing the logic board? I'd reflow it myself, but I a) don't have the proper equipment, and b) even if I did, I wouldn't know what to do.

Thank you for your thoughts, anyway.

c

p.s. By "chip", I assume you're referring to either the CPU, or one of its support chips, correct? The video systems seem OK, since I've never noticed any problems with that (no artifacts, blanking out, etc.) However, I have noticed that when the battery goes into reserve power mode (and also while running Apple Hardware test), the backlight will stop responding and go dark. Putting the computer to sleep and waking it again fixes it. What's the deal with that?

[MacJunky]

No, I don't think so. It has a bunch of aluminum colored rods that connect the various sections of the heat sink together. Are heatpipes sometimes made of things other than copper?

Likely nickle plated then. Though idk specifics about what Apple did.

[CC_333]

Likely nickle plated then.

OK, that would explain the color. I did notice that some sections of the heat sink were somewhat cooler where it wasn't in contact with any heat producing chips.

Also, does this model of PowerBook (1 GHz) have two fans or one? I just recently noticed something, perhaps a fan, trying to work inside the machine, on the right side behind the optical drive. Is it possible that the problem could be due to a bad cooling fan?

If so, then maybe I could repair that fan, thereby solving the problem. It wouldn't hurt, right?

c