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General discussion

MORE iBook problems.

Nov 21, 2007 11:37PM PST

Yes people, it's me. AGAIN.

This time, el iBook "likes to annoy Callum very much" has decided that after standby (two days of it this time) is going to freeze up the mouse and keyboard. This seems to only happen after the computer is "cold".

I just booted into Mac OS 9, and it did it for a second in there too.

What gives, with this darn wretched rebellious thing that I dare to call a computer?!

Discussion is locked

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Shhhh... it can hear you !
Nov 22, 2007 12:28AM PST
Devil
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"This seems to only happen after the computer is "cold"."
Nov 22, 2007 12:43AM PST

That's common with old electronics due to ELECTROLYTIC CAPACITOR AGING. It's fairly difficult for most technicians to spot which to replace so for technicians we'll just swap them all with the parts we can obtain.

Here's an article about the aging due to water http://www.sencore.com/custsup/pdf/TT105.pdf

There are plenty more out there for your research. But the bottom line is that when you see this issue you are usually looking at 5 year old gear. Owners usually will not pay for the labor or the replacement boards. Some may require more (education) time than the service counters can offer for free (you pay the techs so you have to move these customers out of the queue.)

Bob

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(NT) So in other words, like it or lump it?
Nov 22, 2007 12:53AM PST
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Or fix it.
Nov 22, 2007 1:07AM PST

The issue I find is that most service counters or the back work areas don't have the needed gear and parts to resolve this issue. In fact Apple authorized service centers don't allow use of the solder irons so it's strictly a board swap job.

But since you can own a solder iron, research this issue and possibly learn to solder it can be fixed.

Bob

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Well, I could
Nov 22, 2007 1:15AM PST

use this opportunity to swap out the logic board with one of the more powerful 466 Logic boards - I'm currently using the 366.

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That's more inline with current owner capabilities.
Nov 22, 2007 1:26AM PST

While there is a fine supply of such boards out there, reliable operation is difficult on aged boards. Mostly due to the issue I've written about.

Bob

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True, but I'm useless with a soldering iron.
Nov 22, 2007 1:28AM PST

And who's to know which caps have gone bad? Tomorrow I'll get ahold of a Torx screwdriver and actually take this computer apart. Who knows, I might a hamster inside it.

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LOL. Now's another chance for you to upgrade it.
Nov 22, 2007 8:08AM PST

Strip the 366 board out and stick the 466 board in. Then trash that HD while you're at it and put in two new flash drives. Put back in your new RAM and put Classic back on it. Then your G3 should be better than before.

It's funny you mentioned it only messes up in the cold. My friend who uses a Power Mac G4 (Sawtooth, 400Mhz) as his primary computer told me that in the cold, his computer runs quietly and the fans are silent. However, during the summer, his house tends to heat up a lot, and his fans go nuts! Extremely loud, and I think he said the performance drags. And it is over 5 years old I'm guessing, since it's a Power Mac G4. I think he should take it apart, install a dual G4 1.8Ghz upgrade, put new drives in it, new RAM... but he doesn't want to do that since he plans to buy a new iMac soon. Plus, he says there's too many screws and whatnot to remove the power supply and other components to clean out all the dust it has collected. That machine will explode eventually. What do you know, an Apple labeled time bomb! Wink

Anyway... if you really plan on taking it apart, go ahead and put some new drives in it. Better to plunk down extra on such a nice looking G3 (the case is cool, or so I think) than to toss it. Though a new MacBook would probably own that machine in a heartbeat... haha. Let us know what you do to it.
-BMF

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I might sell it and put the money towards
Nov 22, 2007 8:21AM PST

Vista. I hardly ever use the thing anymore (I inadvertently woke it up from standby after about 2 days of not using it and discovered this. If I hadn't, I may well have not woken it until the weekend) and while I have, ahem, "enjoyed" the Mac experience, using this computer has just made me realise Apple is not for me. I just don't like the way Apple does things, and in using it I've come to appreciate the PC side of things more. Not only that, but never in my whole life have I had so many problems from a 6 year old machine. I'm absolutely strapped for cash right now, what with Christmas and all, and I'm DESPERATE to get Vista. While I will miss OS 9 crashing and OS 10 dinging at me, I can always buy a bigger, better Mac in the future when I have more money. Not that I think I would, but yeah.

With regard to those Flash drives, in order to get ahold of an 8GB or a 12GB one, the cost is insanely expensive, and to fit a dual flash card holder in that computer would be very tricky, as they are too high for the drive bay. So I'd have to either settle for much less storage than even my current POS hard drive, or spend an arm and a leg on a single large card. No thanks. I've already spent a lot on the machine itself AND subsequent upgrades. Enough is enough.

You can probably guess I've been procrastinating over this an awful lot. One minute I'll think "don't upgrade to Vista, and do up the Mac" and then the next I'll think "sell the Mac, and the rest of my junk and upgrade to Vista" and gradually I keep having the latter thought more and more. Windows delivers for me, and the Mac doesn't. It just... sits there. So realistically, my decision is set.

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Well... I'd buy it if you sold it, but I'm not in the market
Nov 22, 2007 9:52AM PST

right now. Still, you haven't bought a Mac with Leopard, so you may not know how thrilling it is to have a better OS than Vista. But you like it more, which a lot of people do. At least you HAVE used a Mac and decided you don't like it rather than just hating them for not running Windows (directed at MS fanboys). Then again, it's an unfair comparison, an iBook G3 running Panther/OS 9 compared to say, a WinBox running XP/Vista. And I watched your startup race on the Tube, so I don't think that a dual-USB iBook G3 counts. Man, those dual-USB iBooks just gave nothing but trouble. My friend has a "broken" one, literally the whole thing broke. Board problems... case problems... every component inside had something wrong, and it's beyond repair. Apple techs couldn't fix it for him. Point is, I don't think you experienced the "current/real" Mac experience until you've used Tiger or Leopard for awhile. Panther is okay, but until iLife started to get good, Macs weren't known for much. Thank God for iTunes.

But if you like Windows, rock out to that tune. I personally think the new Vista eye-candy looks cool. If only I would get off my Macs and fix my aging Vectra... then I could run a new install of XP and be happier. I'd buy a new quad-core HP too, but to crack down that kind of money is beyond me right now. If I could get one, I'd just get an iMac and run Boot Camp and Parallels. Sorry for the "essay". I type a lot :-0. LOL. Windows is good for most people until you become a knowledgeable user. That's when everything goes wrong... Sigh... I miss the days where I could turn on a Windows machine and use it for all I needed without problems.
-BMF