Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.3.2: Increased PowerBook G4 12" fan usage; Possible fix for DVD Player problems; more

Increased PowerBook G4 12" fan usage At first this seemed like an innocuous, or unrepeatable problem, but we are receiving more and more reports from PowerBook G4 12" owners that after installing Mac OS X 10.3.2, CPU and overall system temperature are significantly higher. This is a notable issue, as PowerBook G4 12" models are already known to get quite hot.

Andy Ringsmuth has one of the best descriptions from the reports we've received so far "After installing the 10.3.2 and battery updates, I'm noticing my fan seems to run considerably more often and at full speed. Right now, the computer has been on less than an hour, and according to ThermographX, my GPU Topside temp is 129 degrees F and CPU bottomside is 140 degrees F. Previously, it would take a few more hours for the fan to turn on, and then the computer would be hot to the touch in some areas, particularly above the ESC and F1/F2 keys (where the microphone is). Right now, that area, as well as the left palm rest, are warm to the touch, but nowhere near hot, and yet the fan is going full blast."

Originally some users were attributing this change in temperature to Apple's Battery Update 1.0, which was also released yesterday, but this notion has since been discarded as a number of readers have only applied the Battery Update (not Mac OS X 10.3.2), and are not experiencing the problem.

We have a PowerBook G4/867 (USB 1.1) in-house, and will be monitoring its reaction to Mac OS X 10.3.2, in terms of temperature, in the coming days. We're not yet sure if the problem affects other PowerBooks, though we have been receiving reports from some Titanium PowerBook owners that their fans are running more, and sooner after applying the update.

If you are interested in comparing the temperature of your PowerBook G4 12" before and after applying Mac OS X 10.3.2, check out the shareware utility Thermograph X.

Possible fix for DVD Player problems Some users have reported problems running DVD Player after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.3.2 - most commonly image distortion (one MacFixIt reader posted an image of the problem).

For users experiencing this specific problem (which seems to be related to some ATI graphics cards), trashing three preference files, ATI Monitor.plist, ATIMonitor.plist, and com.apple.DVDPlayer.plist, followed by a restart seems to resolve the problem.

Safari print problems not resolved Though Apple states "the size of printouts from certain applications, including Safari, has been fixed," in the documentation for Mac OS X 10.3.2, it appears that users are still having problems with Safari's margin settings. MacFixIt reader Denis Stanton writes:

"For a moment there I really hoped that Apple might have rectified the one thing that makes Safari unusable for my business clients. All Safari printouts have an unchangeable 3 CM (1.3 inch) margin down both sides. Printed reports that look perfectly fine in Internet Explorer come out very badly on Safari as the text is jammed into the middle of the page with these huge margins wasting space down both sides. The reports we're printing are made up on tables with text in cells. Because the page is compressed the text in many cells is forced to wrap. Very ugly. Sadly this has not changed with the upgrade to 10.3.2."

Permissions problem still exists in Mail.app Sam Venning reports that a fairly irritating bug still exists in Mail.app 1.3.2 (the new version included with Mac OS X 10.3.2), where if you drag an attachment out of Mail (such as a Microsoft Word document) permissions will be set to read-only. If, however, you use the "Save All" function, attachments are saved with the correct permissions (read and write).

You can check and modify the permissions of a document by using the File > Get Info option in Mac OS X's Finder.

New ATTO drivers to address serious Panther issues A posting on the post on the Mac-L mailing list by Mark James of SoftRAID indicates that new drivers from ATTO will address some of the the serious performance issues with their SCSI adapters that have cropped up under Mac OS X 10.3.x,.

It is not yet clear whether or not this update will also resolve the mounting issues being experienced by UL4D owners using Panther, nor has ATTO provided word on when it will release updated drivers for the UL2D and UL3D, with which readers are also reporting problems.

James writes "I learned today that ATTO will be posting new drivers for its UL4D tomorrow on its web site. This is important because it also addresses significant performance issues with Panther and the UL4D SCSI card. I do not think other cards will have updated drivers posted, just for the UL4D."

Problems shutting down after upgrading Several users have reported problems restarting or shutting down after Software Update is done installing Mac OS X 10.3.2. In order to force a shutdown, go to Terminal.app (located in Applications/Utilities) and type:

• sudo shutdown -r now

You should be able to normally shut down and restart thereafter.

HP Printer problems We're receiving sporadic reports of trouble printing with Hewlett Packard printers after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.3.2. Specifically, the HP LaserJet 5 series seems to be affected.

If you are having problems, or have had success with using a third party driver set like gimp-print under Mac OS X 10.3.2, please drop us a line at late-breakers@macfixit.com.

CH products regain functionality MacFixIt reader Dave Wilson reports that yokes and joysticks from CH once again function properly after applying the Mac OS X 10.3.2 update.

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