What spawned my discussion about being surrounded by Macs in my day-to-day environment on campus was a friend of mine in my Compiler class (ECE466 for Statefolk). He had a 12" Powerbook and seeing him switch made me wonder exactly how prevalent these things had become.
Today he finds himself in a bit of a pickle, or more like a jar of pickles with a broken 12" Powerbook. His Powerbook will randomly shut off and not turn back on. A call to Apple results in little more than the following two options:
1) Reset your power management settings, or
2) Reinstall your OS
Now he tried the first option, and being that he was in class at the time the second option well, wasn't really an option. His issue has hardware-problem written all over it (at least the PC diagnostic side of me thinks so, but I claim no expertise in the Mac-arts) despite what Apple says. The problem exists regardless of whether or not the Powerbook is plugged in, so it's not a battery issue.
Any thoughts?
What I've noticed from reading the Apple support messageboards is that Apple's hardware is not flawless as some like to think. It seems to either work perfectly (and I mean perfectly), or have some extremely obscure problem (usually with an even more obscure fix). I'm just hoping I have none of the horrible problems I've read about the G5s; I have this bad habit of tempting fate, maybe I should quit while I'm ahead :)
I still keep my stance on Apple's Powerbooks: they are too bulky for my tastes. Make a thin-and-light notebook and I'll be a mobile convert, but sticking a 90nm PPC 970FX processor in a laptop is not the solution. Intel had the right mentality with Pentium M, a mobile processor has to be designed from the ground up to be a mobile processor - it cannot simply be a underclocked desktop part that can go to sleep every now and then. Until other companies decide to dedicate the resources necessary to implement a similar approach Intel will retain their tight grip on the mobile market. Apple isn't in the business of microprocessor design so I'm not faulting them, but there are others out there who are: they're at fault :) (I know it's not easy to design a chip, much less a good one so I will entertain and accept "easier said than done" responses to my comments). Oh and the same "designed to be a mobile chip first" applies to mobile GPUs as well; mobile gaming will not be a reality unless a similar approach is entertained.
It's bedtime for me, goodnight all :)
Today he finds himself in a bit of a pickle, or more like a jar of pickles with a broken 12" Powerbook. His Powerbook will randomly shut off and not turn back on. A call to Apple results in little more than the following two options:
1) Reset your power management settings, or
2) Reinstall your OS
Now he tried the first option, and being that he was in class at the time the second option well, wasn't really an option. His issue has hardware-problem written all over it (at least the PC diagnostic side of me thinks so, but I claim no expertise in the Mac-arts) despite what Apple says. The problem exists regardless of whether or not the Powerbook is plugged in, so it's not a battery issue.
Any thoughts?
What I've noticed from reading the Apple support messageboards is that Apple's hardware is not flawless as some like to think. It seems to either work perfectly (and I mean perfectly), or have some extremely obscure problem (usually with an even more obscure fix). I'm just hoping I have none of the horrible problems I've read about the G5s; I have this bad habit of tempting fate, maybe I should quit while I'm ahead :)
I still keep my stance on Apple's Powerbooks: they are too bulky for my tastes. Make a thin-and-light notebook and I'll be a mobile convert, but sticking a 90nm PPC 970FX processor in a laptop is not the solution. Intel had the right mentality with Pentium M, a mobile processor has to be designed from the ground up to be a mobile processor - it cannot simply be a underclocked desktop part that can go to sleep every now and then. Until other companies decide to dedicate the resources necessary to implement a similar approach Intel will retain their tight grip on the mobile market. Apple isn't in the business of microprocessor design so I'm not faulting them, but there are others out there who are: they're at fault :) (I know it's not easy to design a chip, much less a good one so I will entertain and accept "easier said than done" responses to my comments). Oh and the same "designed to be a mobile chip first" applies to mobile GPUs as well; mobile gaming will not be a reality unless a similar approach is entertained.
It's bedtime for me, goodnight all :)
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
47 Comments
View All Comments
Naden - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Apparently 10.3.3 has an issue with Powerbook batteries not recharging properly. Maybe he check out if that is the problem.Eug - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Yeah, if he can do an OS re-install it would be interesting to see what happens. While his problem may indeed be hardware-related, it's not completely unheard of to have OS-related problems do this if somehow he managed to completely fubar his OS. (eg. I've heard randomly deleting system files, etc. can lead to a similar outcome to your friend's.)Fortunately OS X installs are generally much faster and simpler than Windows installs.
Adam K - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
I think I mentioned something like this before.I was telling you guys about how I installed Panther on my Mom's G4. I used a Western Digital HDD that was Windows and Apple compatible. The install went smooth, except soon the system would not boot anymore.
Well there could be a lot of reasons why this happened. The issue is not that I was too lazy to figure it out, it just seemed when I searched for a solution (on the internet) I found absolutely nothing.
Where with the PC there I have always recieved support somewhere on an forum where I was given a solution. That is probably because there are millions more PC's around and have been for several years. That is one of the problems with Apple--there are very few units and thus when there is a hardware problem often the problem persists for a longer duration than a, say, PC problem because there just are more PCs around.
Anonymous - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
"What I've noticed from reading the Apple support messageboards is that Apple's hardware is not flawless as some like to think."LMFAO ROFLMFAO
Eug - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
P.S. I personally am not a big fan of the uber-small laptops. The light weight is very nice, but the screens are often high dpi which makes me squint, and often the keyboard is a non-standard size. I already find the 106 dpi of the 12" PowerBook 1024x768 screen squint inducing, but I do like it's full-size keyboard. The 15 and 17" PowerBooks have screen densities closer to 100 dpi, which IMO is much easier on the eyes.I also like to have ALL my laptop ports/drives built-in. Some of the uber-small machines have docking stations or external drives, both of which I find to be a major pain.
OTOH, PowerBooks have full-size keyboards, reasonable screen densities, DVI, SuperDrives, integrated 802.11g, Bluetooth, powered Firewire, etc, yet at the same time avoid being the 9 lb desktop replacement monstrosities you see from certain companies.
Eug - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
No idea about the PowerBook, but it does sound hardware related. I'd suggest the hardware test disc, but I suspect it would test fine, unless it was memory or something. Hopefully it's under warranty. And considering the 12" PowerBook is based off the iBook design, I just hope this is not a sign of the famed iBook video/logic board problem.http://www.apple.com/support/ibook/faq/
My PowerBook 15" Titanium is working great after 14 months though. :)
As for 970FX and mobile parts, I'll give my 2 cents... as a casual outside observer...
Sure the 970FX isn't a Pentium M in terms of performance vs. wattage, but it's still not bad and it may be an improvement over G4s used in current Macs in terms of power management. And remember, G4 power specs were nothing like desktop P4 power specs either.
Right now the 970FX power utilization at 1.4 GHz is 12.3 Watts "typical", which would lead me to believe that the max power utilization is in the range of 25 Watts. And the 970FX adds PowerTune, which the original 970 does not support.
My uneducated guess is that a 970FX would make a reasonable laptop chip at up to about 1.6 GHz.
As for the (higher voltage) desktop 970FX parts, I find this picture interesting:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/eug/Apple/powerdraw.jpg
Anonymous - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Any progress with the Raptor article?