Stacks Of Notebooks!

[iMac600]

Nice freebie haul today, should keep me busy for a while.

There's nothing specific known about these machines yet, so I'll cut right to the chase. Today I picked up 7 Apple notebooks, all of them with various issues.

- 3x PowerBook G4 15-inch

- 2x PowerBook G4 17-inch

- 2x MacBook Pro 15-inch (2.2GHz / nVidia GeForce 8600M GT)

The PowerBook G4 15-inchers and 17-inchers all run, but they're all missing parts, some consistent between them. I'm confident I can rebuild the 17-inch systems, but I'll need to source spares before I can fully reassemble the 15-inch systems.

The MacBook Pros have nVidia GeForce 8600M GTs in them. This requires no further explanation. I'm optimistic that I'll be able to repair these as well.

I also picked up a Power Macintosh G5 enclosure, case only. I'll keep it in case a damaged G5 turns up (as they do every so often) or consider case modding it. Sitting on top of the case is a LaCie 2big Quadra RAID unit that apparently blows any drives that are fitted to it. I'll test this with a couple of junk drives and see if I can repair it.

Finally, I picked up a couple of Intel Xeon "Woodcrest" dual-core processors, clocked at 2.66GHz each. I don't have anything to fit these to at the moment, unfortunately.

Cheers,

Michael.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Very cool, one day I hope to get a 17 incher. :approve:

 

[olePigeon]

The G5 and Mac Pro cases are popular amongst case modders. So if you don't find a use, you could probably sell it or trade it.

 

[Gorgonops]

Very cool, one day I hope to get a 17 incher. :approve:

Isn't that what every man wants? ("Baaah-bumm-baaah!" *cymbal crash*.)

 

[CC_333]

Very cool, one day I hope to get a 17 incher. :approve:

I have one! I need at least $200 for it, though.
I'm actually tempted to keep it, though; I kind of like it!

It makes me kind of wish I got the 17 inch MacBook Pro instead of the 15 inch model, but aside from screen size, they're basically the same machine, so not much is lost. Perhaps someday when MBPs are cheap (like where older PBs are now), I'll get myself one .

c

p.s. This summer I got a bunch of cheap junker PowerBooks. I was able to build one working 15" A1106 and one 17" A1085 from the lot (with enough parts potentially for another 17", but too much is wrong with it to bother).

 

[iMac600]

A small update:

- I repaired both MacBook Pro Logic Boards tonight. The first board only required a reflow. The second board required a reflow and some manual touch-up around the memory slot connectors. Both now start up successfully into OS X Mountain Lion and only require replacement top cases and screw kits to complete their reassembly.

- The 17-inch PowerBook G4s are fully assembled with spares I had around the place and both now boot correctly into OS X Leopard. One of them had a hi-resolution 1680 x 1050 display, but unfortunately it was cracked in multiple places so I had to change it out for a 1440 x 900 panel I had as a spare. Thankfully it works fine with this display. I still have two spare Logic Boards (1.5GHz and 1.67GHz I believe), AirPort cards, a plethora of cables and a screen for these machines if they're needed, although chances are I'll end up passing them on to someone that needs them after I've had time to sift through it all.

- The LaCie 2big Quadra has yet to blow any drives, which is promising. I'll have to continue testing this one.

The only machines that still require attention are the 15-inch PowerBook G4s, but four machines repaired so far isn't bad from a haul of seven.

 

[antony701]

nice collection of Al notebooks!

 

[TheMacGuy]

I didn't know Mountain Lion supported MacBook Pros that far back!

 

[iMac600]

Mountain Lion supports the MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007) or later. These machines are on the very trailing edge of Mountain Lion's supported specifications.

There's a little piece of information I want to share with everyone. When repairing these MacBook Pros, I found myself treating the process much like a restaurant kitchen, with very minimal time to spare. I removed one logic board in preparation for the reflow. Into the oven it went for precisely 7 minutes, 30 seconds at 190 degrees Celsius. With overheads, this left me 6 minutes to disassemble the second system, remove the logic board, remove any plastic trims and clean the board of any adhesives and thermal material in preparation for the oven. I had the board removed and prepared in 5 minutes.

That's cutting it down to the wire. Thankfully the changeover went smoothly.

The boards are washed wherever necessary in the methylated spirit solution - the lightly purple coloured liquid in the above image - to remove any contaminants from the baking process, particularly around electrical connections such as memory slots. Sometimes it's necessary to submerge the board entirely but I find it's quite rarely that I have to do this.

Reassembly does take considerably more time as you do have to apply fresh thermal interface material and renew the adhesive on the gaskets above the ports. This machine, despite lacking a hard disk drive, did boot into Mountain Lion without issue from an external drive a few moments after this picture was taken.

I'm pleased that it's done and functional. Reflows take a lot of time, effort and precision. You want to prepare the parts well and heat them correctly. Any leftover material on the board can burn off or bake in. Plastic components that aren't heat resistant need to be removed, otherwise they'll melt down and be rendered useless. Too much heat, or applied for too long, can ruin the BGA. Too little heat or too little time and you don't get an effective or reliable reflow. I don't even bother attempting a reflow with a heat gun these days as the heat distribution is not even enough for my liking, although it may work for some.

 

[TheMacGuy]

There's a little piece of information I want to share with everyone. When repairing these MacBook Pros, I found myself treating the process much like a restaurant kitchen, with very minimal time to spare. I removed one logic board in preparation for the reflow. Into the oven it went for precisely 7 minutes, 30 seconds at 190 degrees Celsius. With overheads, this left me 6 minutes to disassemble the second system, remove the logic board, remove any plastic.

This may sound a little weird, but approximately what's your elevation? I know that the higher the elevation, the longer it takes. I'm thinking about getting a MBP for cheap and just fixing it my self.

 

[iMac600]

Apparently between 68 meters and 89 meters above sea level in my particular location, but I don't have a solid source for that.

 

[techknight]

Congrats on the reflow. May I remind you of a few things for future projects: An oven? with no board bracketry, and support? Its a wonder it worked at all, maybe by chance or luck. And it plays its part alot in this process I have found.... The #1 thing that I found doing this, and is required in some cases is a bracket designed to dis-allow the board to flex/bow/warp.

Something to look into on future reflows. Also liquid flux is a requirement. Without it, the solder degrades and will re-break again in short order. The no-clean flux is garbage, I tried it. So be warned. I have found the chipquik flux being the most effective. Some guys use kingbo. YMMV

 

[iMac600]

The board supports are in one of the trays I used. They're not part of the tray itself, just some standoffs I affixed to the pan. This worked quite well. I have seen a Power Macintosh G5 board curve under extreme heat, which I consider bad enough. I don't intend to let it happen to one of these otherwise valuable MacBook Pro boards, that's for certain. There is no downward clamping force, only elevation at six key points of the board (one each corner and two larger supports in the centre). I find it's not only necessary to prevent warping of the board, but also to get the heat moving evenly around both sides of the board.

The addition of a liquid flux to the mix is next on the order of experimentation with the nVidia 8600M GT BGA. I do need to find one that can flow in under the chip package and be removed by chemical means as I'm not removing the GPU from the boards at this stage. The reflows at this temperature and time, allowed to slow cool, do seem to be relatively stable however. I performed one with an Early 2008 board about 24 months ago and it's still ticking over.

At the moment I'm focused on experimenting with dispersing the heat faster and drawing the heat away from the chip with fewer restrictions. More efficient ceramic based thermal compounds with greater longevity than the factory silicone based material that tends to dry out and go brittle, machine surfacing of the heatsink contact points and greater surface area on the fin stack are all ideas I have in mind.

 

[TheMacGuy]

Apparently between 68 meters and 89 meters above sea level in my particular location, but I don't have a solid source for that.

That might make a difference for me considering I'm at aproximetly 1600 feet above sea level (488 meters).