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Readers Write In: PowerBook Processor Upgrade Experiences
Prior to Macworld Expo, we asked readers to send in their experiences with the PowerBook upgrades available from NewerTech (Through OWC), PowerLogix and Sonnet. Here's what we received:
I just got my Pismo back [the reader installed NewerTech's upgrade via OWC] and all went well. It took a long time (sent
6/20 and returned 7/17) but was well worth it to me. I added 1GB
memory and sent it in with the unit and they installed it during the
process. Of course I bought the memory from OWC at the same time as the
upgrade. I do not have benchmarks but I find it to be very well worth
the price and if they will do the memory at the same time, great. For
$501.00 I got the whole shebang and I am ecstatic over the result. Talk
to Dennis Gray x. 157 at OWC for help if necessary.
I upgraded my Pismo 400 MHz with Power Logix G4 500 a few days after the upgrade
became available. The guy at Power Logix told me that I will receive a box
with padding and that it will take less then 5 business days for PB to come
back to me. I submitted the order on the web. The shopping card had strange
³Testing² or ³Demo² message
Couple of days later the box arrived and in about 5 days my PB came back
upgraded to G4 500 (they kept an old 400Mh board ). Sending-receiving
process was absolutely painless.
I did not get a chance to run any performance test yet, but so far seems
much faster and more responsive.
I think it is a great upgrade for $300.
My Powerbook G3 Series 1999 (Lombard) 400 MHz developed serious problems a
few months ago. Would freeze after sleep, forcing to shut down somehow. It
wouldn't cold boot either. Symptoms where a bit more complex.
To make a long story short, I ruled out memory, devices, software, you name
it. The problem was related with temperature: Starting from room
temperature, the processor would halt. After forcing boot several times, and
when the processor got warmer, I could manage to work perfectly with the
Powerbook, letting me back up everything.
If I let the Lombard sleep,
something would cool off, and halt the computer. I also placed the Lombard
in the freezer for a few minutes, let the condensation dissipate safely, and
again the Lombard would start all right, halt, warm up more, and go.
My big problem was living in the turmoiled tropical Venezuela. I went to my
local trusty tech support dealer, but would have to either buy an original
Apple (ouch) processor board at very expensive prices. The dealer was hoping
to get a similar Powerbook in, to confirm that the processor board was
defective. I would still be waiting for this option to come true.
This stalemate situation forced me to replace the Lombard for a Titanium 550
(right before being discontinued by the way....)
Having again a working Mac at hand, I decided to take a shot at fixing the
Lombard, and I purchased the Powerlogix Blue Chip LS G4 500 MHz upgrade
card.
My biggest concern was flashing the original processor board ROM with the
utility that ships with the Powerlogix upgrade.
The upgrade went just fine, after taking the Lombard up to operating
temperature.
The new board flashed the ROM flawlessly, and that was a big relief. I
finally pinpointed the processor halts to the processor board.
I have a "new" Lombard, that matches closely the Titanium G4 550 MHz.
Comparing the two, is kind of unfair, since other hardware components like
video, are different. But in a broad sense, you do feel that the Lombard is
very close to a G4 Titanium 550 MHz.
OS X (10.1.5) runs smooth and snappy.
OS 9.2.2 runs also snappy. Photoshop 5.5 runs just fine. There's an Altivec
enabler that you need to download if it's not included in the CD ROM.
Both operating systems have a cache control panel to change some parameters,
check processor temperature, and so on. The Powerlogix G4 has good energy
saving settings. Battery life did not change noticeably for me, if not at
all.
Quite frankly I have no serious complaints from this upgrade. I had an
expensive paper weight before, and the headache of having to sell it as
parts.
Details:
Powerlogix upgrade has a problem if the Powerbook goes to sleep under OS 9.
If you let it do so, the system will crash. There is a sleep patch, but does
not cover OS 9.2.2 yet. For the moment I use OS X all the time, and use OS
9.2.2 only when I need to.
Powerlogix and Apple's original board are quite identical. I had some
difficulty putting the upgrade in place since the upper RAM steel memory
retainer clips have a bent part that touches the PowerBook plastic case.
This metal lip or bend was filed out on Apple's board. I was tempted to do
the same, but with patience the processor board finally got into place. Once
it started working, I didn't take it apart again. (If it works, don't touch
it)
Sometimes, when I start from OS 9 the system will freeze when the two
Powerlogix init icons are coming out at the bottom of the screen. Hopefully
new versions will fix this. Under OS X, I don't have any startup problems
whatsoever. I have everybody else's problem of upgrading and porting to OSX.
From a product handed to you point of view, I'd say Powerlogix covers well
the point.
Good packaging (it survived a trip to Venezuela), good instructions, even a
how to do Quicktime video, the screw driver you'll need, the processor board
remover you'll need, plenty of thermal transfer compound to play with.
Perhaps they should pitch in a cheap antistatic strap, but I'm not a
complainer.
For the what choices did I have part:
I had two choices besides Powerlogix. Apple's original replacement for
$800+, or Pbparts.com for $360. Nothing from Newer Technology yet.
Powelogix was in the middle for me, and I'm glad I took the chance.
The Lombard has a 10Gb disc, 384 Mb RAM, DVD ROM (reads CD's not DVD's), 2
batteries, expansion bay superdisk, SCSI scanner, hard disks inherited from
previous Macs owned.
Please don't go scaring you folks with a laptop in the fridge, and don't
flame me if you do and something goes terribly wrong.
HI - I got the PowerLogix G4 500 MHz for my Lombard G3 400 about six
months ago. The backside cache had failed on my original processor,
rendering the computer nearly useless. Instead of getting Apple to put
the same process back in for $350+, we decided to get the upgrade.
I had removed the card before to add RAM, so I wasn't worried about it.
I put the RAM (512 MB) onto the new card, and put the quarter-sized heat
sink in place (with some of the included thermal paste) and put the chip
in, after running the utility that came with the chip that copies the
ROM to the hard drive.
After the chip was in place, I restarted, and everything worked. The Mac
is noticeably faster and snappier, both in OS 9 and OS X.
I am running OS 10.1.5. There was a fix for the ATI drivers, included in
OS X 10.1.5, where you put the machine number into a file. After doing
this, the graphics are a lot smoother in OS X and I can actually play
Quicktime movies as well.
If I start doing a lot of processor intensive stuff, the fan will come
on, and the bottom gets pretty hot, but I have not seen the temperature
go above 52 C yet. I have also not had a single kernel panic. I've been
very pleased with the performance of the chip and the computer since
installation.
There's also another peculiar thing about the Lombard and OS X, at least
on mine. Sometimes the system will slow to a crawl, and if you look at
top -u in terminal, you will see that a process called "kernel task" has
taken over. I finally found a solution on the web; if you disconnect the
CD/DVD player, as if you were going to remove the entire assembly (for a
swap out), the task releases the Mac. Weird.
Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase.
Other readers with upgrades are encouraged to write in as well. Thanks to those that already did!
I upgraded my Pismo 400 MHz with Power Logix G4 500 a few days after the upgrade became available. The guy at Power Logix told me that I will receive a box with padding and that it will take less then 5 business days for PB to come back to me. I submitted the order on the web. The shopping card had strange ³Testing² or ³Demo² message Couple of days later the box arrived and in about 5 days my PB came back upgraded to G4 500 (they kept an old 400Mh board ). Sending-receiving process was absolutely painless. I did not get a chance to run any performance test yet, but so far seems much faster and more responsive. I think it is a great upgrade for $300.
My Powerbook G3 Series 1999 (Lombard) 400 MHz developed serious problems a few months ago. Would freeze after sleep, forcing to shut down somehow. It wouldn't cold boot either. Symptoms where a bit more complex. To make a long story short, I ruled out memory, devices, software, you name it. The problem was related with temperature: Starting from room temperature, the processor would halt. After forcing boot several times, and when the processor got warmer, I could manage to work perfectly with the Powerbook, letting me back up everything.
If I let the Lombard sleep, something would cool off, and halt the computer. I also placed the Lombard in the freezer for a few minutes, let the condensation dissipate safely, and again the Lombard would start all right, halt, warm up more, and go. My big problem was living in the turmoiled tropical Venezuela. I went to my local trusty tech support dealer, but would have to either buy an original Apple (ouch) processor board at very expensive prices. The dealer was hoping to get a similar Powerbook in, to confirm that the processor board was defective. I would still be waiting for this option to come true. This stalemate situation forced me to replace the Lombard for a Titanium 550 (right before being discontinued by the way....) Having again a working Mac at hand, I decided to take a shot at fixing the Lombard, and I purchased the Powerlogix Blue Chip LS G4 500 MHz upgrade card.
My biggest concern was flashing the original processor board ROM with the utility that ships with the Powerlogix upgrade. The upgrade went just fine, after taking the Lombard up to operating temperature. The new board flashed the ROM flawlessly, and that was a big relief. I finally pinpointed the processor halts to the processor board. I have a "new" Lombard, that matches closely the Titanium G4 550 MHz. Comparing the two, is kind of unfair, since other hardware components like video, are different. But in a broad sense, you do feel that the Lombard is very close to a G4 Titanium 550 MHz. OS X (10.1.5) runs smooth and snappy.
OS 9.2.2 runs also snappy. Photoshop 5.5 runs just fine. There's an Altivec enabler that you need to download if it's not included in the CD ROM. Both operating systems have a cache control panel to change some parameters, check processor temperature, and so on. The Powerlogix G4 has good energy saving settings. Battery life did not change noticeably for me, if not at all. Quite frankly I have no serious complaints from this upgrade. I had an expensive paper weight before, and the headache of having to sell it as parts.
Details: Powerlogix upgrade has a problem if the Powerbook goes to sleep under OS 9. If you let it do so, the system will crash. There is a sleep patch, but does not cover OS 9.2.2 yet. For the moment I use OS X all the time, and use OS 9.2.2 only when I need to.
Powerlogix and Apple's original board are quite identical. I had some difficulty putting the upgrade in place since the upper RAM steel memory retainer clips have a bent part that touches the PowerBook plastic case. This metal lip or bend was filed out on Apple's board. I was tempted to do the same, but with patience the processor board finally got into place. Once it started working, I didn't take it apart again. (If it works, don't touch it)
Sometimes, when I start from OS 9 the system will freeze when the two Powerlogix init icons are coming out at the bottom of the screen. Hopefully new versions will fix this. Under OS X, I don't have any startup problems whatsoever. I have everybody else's problem of upgrading and porting to OSX.
From a product handed to you point of view, I'd say Powerlogix covers well the point. Good packaging (it survived a trip to Venezuela), good instructions, even a how to do Quicktime video, the screw driver you'll need, the processor board remover you'll need, plenty of thermal transfer compound to play with. Perhaps they should pitch in a cheap antistatic strap, but I'm not a complainer.
For the what choices did I have part: I had two choices besides Powerlogix. Apple's original replacement for $800+, or Pbparts.com for $360. Nothing from Newer Technology yet. Powelogix was in the middle for me, and I'm glad I took the chance.
The Lombard has a 10Gb disc, 384 Mb RAM, DVD ROM (reads CD's not DVD's), 2 batteries, expansion bay superdisk, SCSI scanner, hard disks inherited from previous Macs owned.
Please don't go scaring you folks with a laptop in the fridge, and don't flame me if you do and something goes terribly wrong.
HI - I got the PowerLogix G4 500 MHz for my Lombard G3 400 about six months ago. The backside cache had failed on my original processor, rendering the computer nearly useless. Instead of getting Apple to put the same process back in for $350+, we decided to get the upgrade.
I had removed the card before to add RAM, so I wasn't worried about it. I put the RAM (512 MB) onto the new card, and put the quarter-sized heat sink in place (with some of the included thermal paste) and put the chip in, after running the utility that came with the chip that copies the ROM to the hard drive.
After the chip was in place, I restarted, and everything worked. The Mac is noticeably faster and snappier, both in OS 9 and OS X.
I am running OS 10.1.5. There was a fix for the ATI drivers, included in OS X 10.1.5, where you put the machine number into a file. After doing this, the graphics are a lot smoother in OS X and I can actually play Quicktime movies as well.
If I start doing a lot of processor intensive stuff, the fan will come on, and the bottom gets pretty hot, but I have not seen the temperature go above 52 C yet. I have also not had a single kernel panic. I've been very pleased with the performance of the chip and the computer since installation.
There's also another peculiar thing about the Lombard and OS X, at least on mine. Sometimes the system will slow to a crawl, and if you look at top -u in terminal, you will see that a process called "kernel task" has taken over. I finally found a solution on the web; if you disconnect the CD/DVD player, as if you were going to remove the entire assembly (for a swap out), the task releases the Mac. Weird.
Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase.
Published by Doug B. Landry and contributing staff. Trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., and others reserved. ©2002 Delta Design. Publishing headquarters is located in Santa Cruz, California. Index version 1.1.2
