Apple iBook G4

[iMac600]

Specifications

1.2GHz PowerPC G4 Processor

512mb RAM (Possibly more, considering this also has onboard)

10gb Hard Disk (Came without, I only had a 10GB around)

32mb VRAM

AirPort Extreme

+ Power Adapter

Cost: Free

This machine has quite a history to it. It belonged to the IT manager and assistant principal of the school, where it was used mostly for work and some media projects for his media studies classes.

Then it died. The machine would power up, spin the fans on full blast and nothing else. It remained in a filing cabinet drawer for about 2 years.

Then I showed up. :lol:

He offered it to me if I could get it working, so I tore into it and began trying to diagnose the problem. It was the standard iBook chip heat expansion issue, so 5 minutes later, some glue and a rubber/plastic shim... (I took care here only to use non-conductive material, btw.)

She lives. It's been in testing for ages, a burn in test, heat expansion test and of course a sudden motion test. I wanted to be sure it was really working and I wasn't just dreaming. Indeed, it was really working, and it was mine.

As i'm leaving he reaches into a drawer and says "take this too". He hands me an AirPort Extreme card for it, and a Power Adapter.

Finally, after a decent charge up, the battery still works. In its life it was well looked after, always discharged and recharged fully.

Welcome to the club, iBook. I look forward to many years of service from you.

I think i'll load it up with 10.3.9. Yes, that's exactly what i'll do...

 

[heebiejeebies]

Nice one, well done !

(P.S. I hate you) [8D]

 

[iMac600]

I should have seen the standard "I hate you" coming... :lol:

Pics!

 

iBook Powered Off (taken in IT room post repair)

iBook Started Up (taken on my home "crap desk", no hard disk fitted yet, AirPort Extreme card on the palm rest)

 

[macgreg]

Nice work!

 

[Mike Richardson]

My iBook G3 had the same issue, and I fitted some plastic shims, etc. and it only temporarily fixed the problem. I kept having to add more shims until it was warping the motherboard and the plastic case. Now it sits in the drawer :/

It was a cool little iBook, my first laptop ever. Some day I'll take the motherboard out and send it to this one company who does the actual repairs for $50.

 

[iMac600]

For the record, the chip that had expanded was not the GPU. The G3's had GPU issues, it was a different, smaller chip on the G4. (Not sure which one, I only had a quick look) What I can tell is that unlike the G3 issue, it isn't a ball grid array solder job, just surface mount IC legs.

They look nice though and perform quite well. A bit of a statement, turning up for class with the nice white iBook in the field of Dells and HP's. Stands out.

 

[heebiejeebies]

They use laptops in class now?? Or is this an IT class?

Probably a dumb question, but I thought it was all still books and pens. :

 

[iMac600]

They use laptops in class now?? Or is this an IT class?
Probably a dumb question, but I thought it was all still books and pens. :

We do use books and pens, but there's an odd few who turn up with laptops just because they can. I'm one of them. :lol: With an iBook like this, I don't see why I shouldn't either.

For the record, i've been offered a free 40gb hard disk for it by one of my pals at the radio station. It'll be a month before I can get it though, so i'll put the 10gb drive in for now and run Panther.

Spec Update!

I booted it off a firewire drive with Leopard. Official Specs are:

- 1.07GHz PowerPC G4

- 768mb RAM

- ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 32mb

...all others remain unchanged.

 

[paws]

They're great computers. Damn shame about the motherboard issues - if not for that, they'd probably survive must of us.

I think you actually see more Lombards and Pismos than later models in use these days (also fantastic machines, mind) because the G3 iBooks and early TiBooks have all given up the ghost due to various design issues.

 

[bluekatt]

I should have seen the standard "I hate you" coming... :lol:
Pics!

 

iBook Powered Off (taken in IT room post repair)

iBook Started Up (taken on my home "crap desk", no hard disk fitted yet, AirPort Extreme card on the palm rest)

alright then if you insist

i hate you

there happy now ?

 

[Christopher]

I really do hate you for getting a G4 laptop for free. Seriously.

But some cash is coming in so hopefully soon I can lift off the G3 world in the line of laptops.

 

[iMac600]

If you want a tip, and this is my advice... get to know your school/uni IT departments and administrative staff. The broken equipment will be due to throw out and if they know you're keen, they can sometimes let you have some of it.

Fix it, and you're good to go.

These iBooks are a pain to pull apart, but much simpler than comparable PC notebooks i've worked on. The Compaq Armada and IBM ThinkPad are good examples. While they work great, open them up and you'll see a maze. Open up an iBook G4 and you just need to separate the top case from the bottom case, everything else is straightforward.

10.3 is installing on the drive now. I know it has reasonable specs for 10.4 or even 10.5, but I have a soft spot for Mac OS X Panther, plus some legit Panther discs just sitting here going to no use. May as well use them.

 

[Christopher]

Yes, I will get to know my IT department... Me.......

Its not easy being home schooled.

Do let us know if iTunes 8 runs on Panther.

 

[iMac600]

Yes, I will get to know my IT department... Me.......

Its not easy being home schooled.

Do let us know if iTunes 8 runs on Panther.

Well, there are some cases where getting to know the dedicated IT department are impossible... which I can't provide assistance with, sadly.

As for iTunes 8, i'll test, but I hope it doesn't work with Panther. After the iTunes 8 install on my Quicksilver desktop just about everything in iTunes slowed down. If I had the option, i'd roll it back to 7.7 but i've decided to see how the next revision goes...

 

[wood_e]

Seriously - I HATE you......

... kidding - AWESOME score there. What a difference a shim makes!

 

[iMac600]

Indeed, a little bit of compression on there had it running nicely. Also ensured to make sure the shim had decent heat transfer to the heat shield.

It's been up and running for about 8 hours now. We wanted to make sure this was really working, so we conducted a few tests.

- Heat Up & Cool Down

- System Burn-In

- Sudden Motion Test (rapidly swinging the machine to see if the chip could be unseated again)

- Standard Idle Test

- Teardown Test

Now to clarify the teardown test, this is where we put the machine together, let it run in for 30 minutes, then pulled it apart again, checked it over and reassembled. Even with the shim taken off, moved around, flipped over, etc the machine still works. So it's not a sensitive issue.

We did this after the sudden motion test to ensure no components had come loose. All was well.

10.3.9 is up and running on the machine now. It has given me a fairly decent reading of the battery, and the minutes are falling in time (aka. one minute of reported battery life equals an actual 60 seconds). The total life of this battery...

3 Hours, 40 Minutes. 8)

 

[MultiFinder]

* STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB*

Totally epic score there, mate! That's kinda like how I got my Pismo; prof that I know had it sitting in a drawer for the last three years, I caught a glance at it, asked him about it, and he just up and handed it to me

But wowzers, iBook G4 for free! And a 12 incher at that! If I were you, I'd totally go for Tiger on that bugger, but that's just me

 

[TheNeil]

Really nice machine although I do hate you for getting yours for free and me having to pay over £500 for mine

Worth upgrading the memory though if it is 512Mb. Mine shipped with 512Mb and was 'OK' - upped it to 1Gb recently and it now flies with 10.4

 

[paws]

These iBooks are a pain to pull apart, but much simpler than comparable PC notebooks i've worked on. The Compaq Armada and IBM ThinkPad are good examples. While they work great, open them up and you'll see a maze. Open up an iBook G4 and you just need to separate the top case from the bottom case, everything else is straightforward.

What ThinkPads have you worked with?