Zapping the PRAM does not affect power management or the PMU.

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This reminds me of a question I saw on VersionTracker in regards to Temperature Monitor. How hot is too hot? My 'book will get up to around 145f and it's almost too hot to handle. Plus, my hard drive started making some chugging noises after an extended h264 encoding session. When am I in trouble?

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I'd be worried about "chugging noises" from your PB hard disk, if they are anything like the chugging noises** I had six weeks or so ago I'd run some disk checks. Something like Drive 10 or Disk Warrior if you have them, alternatively Drive Genius allows limited use of it for free/evaluation. Run a surface scan and make sure you don't have any bad blocks. During the scan you may hear more chugging noises from the drive doing multiple retries in the failing areas and see the scan slowing down to a crawl - not a good sign. I had both symptoms and some gradual loss*** of seemingly random files (not enough to kill the OS). This persisted even after several complete zero erases and re-installs - a fatal sign. Luckily it happened _just_ within warranty and an Apple engineer came out to fix it last week. Disappointingly, Disk Utility S.M.A.R.T status was still saying verified even though the disk was clearly in trouble.

** if you're old enough to remember floppy disk drives ;-) the noise is a quieter version of when floppys get read/write errors (chuggggg, chuggggg, pause, chuggggg, chuggggg, pause etc).

*** files would still be listed but would report input/ouput errors when read - I came up with some simple scripts to scan a disk for such issues if folks are interested.

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I would be interested in the scripts you referred to ... I'm in the middle of a reformat & reinstall of 10.3.9 b/c my 10.4.1 client acting as a lightweight fileserver just had the HD crap out. The HD couldn't mount, even as a FW drive in TargetDisk Mode. (DiskRescue did a very decent job of recovery)

I got input/output errors on an rsync 2 days earlier and wish I recognized the problem for what it was.

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I can't even read the temperature of my Rev-D 17" powerbook, you insensitive clod!


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Works great with my 15"

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Everyone loves a clown, but no one will lend him money!

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I've try this hint, but now i want to reinstall originial extension (10.4.1).

I've been able to reinstall it BUT when i reboot my alubook, system says that extension won't be used because it was not rightly installed !!!

That's sounds strange to me, can anybody help please ?

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Heat and technology don't go together. Have you seen those supercooled supercomputers? They cool them so they run faster. I would say to get some kind of laptop desk that reduces your PB's heat and keeps it away from your lap as well! Heat isn't good for our delicate parts either, I've heard. Here is the one I use:

http://www.gear4laptops.com/laptopdesk2f.html

The same company makes Mac Feet which stick to the bottom of your PB and help to cool it down and angle the keyboard too.

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Does anyone know how to get this change to work on a 12" Rev. D (i.e. 1.5 Ghz) PowerBook? My fans activitate when the computer reaches 45.8 C exactly. Using Laptop Legs my computer holds steady (after 2+ hours of use) at 45-45.2 C but threatens to skirt the 45.8 C line with several apps open. If I could increase the fan threshold just a little bit, I bet I could get it so the computer's fan would never come on doing basic work. That would be a dream come true. Any ideas?

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Works perfectly for me! Just try it yourself!

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Visit http://www.jan-peters.net!

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It is really strange, but I can't make it work on my Powerbook 12''. I replaced AppleADM133x.kext with the one from Mac OS X update 10.2.8 - the fan still turns on at 48-50C. In some places it is said also to replace AppleADT746x.kext - replaced the file and still nothing. The permissions are set to root/wheel. I copied the files through the console (in fact these are directories) and everything seems to be in place. Am I missing something? This noise is really irritating.

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I also have been trying to figure out a way to mess with the threshold (except I need it *lower* becasue I use ATICCelerator on my PowerBook, it works great, but the heat boosts right up).
I think if we could figure out a way to mess with the threshold values, we'd all be better off than relying on potentially incompatible kext extensions.
Cheers,
Peter

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It is really strange, but I can't make it work on my Powerbook 12''. I replaced AppleADM133x.kext with the one from Mac OS X update 10.2.8 - the fan still turns on at 48-50C. In some places it is said also to replace AppleADT746x.kext - replaced the file and still nothing. The permissions are set to root/wheel. I copied the files through the console (in fact these are directories) and everything seems to be in place. Am I missing something? This noise is really irritating.

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I agree... I also tried this on my Rev. D PowerBook and cannot get it to work. Once the Hard Drive Bottomside temperature reaches 46 C (which happens by essentially idling the computer) the fan turns on for me. This hack does NOT work for the lastest model PowerBooks. Any other bright ideas?

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It works fine on my Powerbook G4 12" 867.
But... I haven't heard the fan since I replacer the extension... I hope it will start soon enough.
My temp rises sometimes 62°C, when plugged in and charging...

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Christian

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Thanks to your hint Junkiesxl I finally managed to get my Powerbook G4 550 Mhz (yes quite an old one) back its previous silent behaviour. I also noticed incredible noise but it took me some time to realise that it all started just after installing 10.4. I first hoovered all dust out of the machine (always a good idea anyway to remove all dust periodically), then I thought it was just getting noisier with age... Thanks to some reading including yours I realised that some software control was involved.
To thank you for that and share a little more experience here is more :
with a little bit more of research I found the source code of the Applefan project on this link http://darwingrok.physics.ox.ac.uk:8080/source/xref/AppleFan/
which gave me more info on the extensions involved, namely :
AppleADM103x.kext, AppleADT746x.kext, AppleCPUThermo.kext, IOI2CADT746x.kext and AppleFan.kext.
Then I explored my original OS X system disk (version 10.0), the one that came with the machine, and explored it with great utility Pacifist (excellent software). I realised that there was no such extensions at the time at all. The machine at the time was probably just relying on the harware fan trigger. And it worked fine (proof is it is still working).
So, I decided to remove (actually copy in a safe place) all extensions involved in the AppleFan : the system is operating normally and the fan doesn't go crazy any more.
Warning : please note that I own an old 550 MHz, for which overheating is probably not a big risk. You guys with higher clock frequencies must be carefull !
Regards to all
Alex

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My powerbook g4 had been getting very noisy and warm very quickly. I installed istat menus to monitor the temp and fan activity and the noisy fan was kicking in at around 62 degrees. I ran a vacuum cleaner over the air vents at the back and the situation has improved dramatically.It is now running 20 degrees cooler and is as quiet as a mouse. I suspect it was clogged with dust....anyway really pleased so thought I'd share this handy tip.

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