2 GB RAM in an eMac
From Paul O'Keefe
Charles,
Here is news of someone successfully maxing out the 1.25 GHz eMac's RAM to
2 GB.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/apr04/042904.html#S17348
The 1 GB DIMMs they used came from www.transintl.com
Paul O'Keefe
Hi Paul,
Cool! Thanks for the link!
Charles
iBook Repair Issue
From Kathy White
Hello, I wonder if you can help me?
I have just been reading your
article on backing up your data before sending your iBook in for
repair. I have just had my iBook repaired, and it was sent back to me
with a brand new hard drive in it.
Do you know if they always replace the hard drive when they do these
repairs?
Is it necessary for the hard drive to be replaced?
I was unaware of the logic board problems, as I have been travelling
around India for 4 months with no access to the Web.
My iBook died the day before I was coming home, therefore I was
unable to do any kind of back up because my screen had gone blank. I
have lost a lot of the work I had been doing.
I am in the process of trying to get my old hard drive back, and I
would appreciate any other information you may have about this
issue.
Many thanks,
Kathy White
Hi Kathy,
Losing all your un-backed-up work must be
devastating.
To the best of my knowledge, they don't always replace
the hard drive, but they sometimes do. Replacement would only be done
if an issue is detected, I would think.
That's not much help to you now. All I can suggest is
that you contact Apple Service, explain your problem, and hope that
they tag pulled hard drives for identification.
I wish I could be encouraging, but I suspect that
getting your data back is a very long shot. Hope I'm wrong.
Charles
Pismo Repairs
From Simon Magennis
Hi Charles,
I thought I'd update you on a repair job I carried out on my
Pismo. The power
connector on the power and sound board has been loose for some time and
eventually broke off. I took the Pismo to pieces (after looking at the
tear down instructions you had a link for sometime ago) and discovered
that the two metal pins from the power connector through the circuit
board had actually broken - it looks like they may have corroded. The
pins on the back of the connector carry the power and are soldered to
the top of the circuit board - not through it.
So I cleaned it up as best I could and then used Superglue to glue
the connector back onto the board - the bottom of the connector is
plastic - and then I soldered the pins on the back of the connector
back in place. So far it is working fine, and there is very little
movement on the back of connector as I put the power adaptor in.
I also did a repair on the yo-yo adaptor. I am currently on my
fourth yo-yo in 3.5 years. What happened with the three that failed is
that the cable comes loose at the point where it enters the connector
which goes into the PowerBook - the reinforcement plastic breaks, and
then it shorts out. The plastic cracked on my current yo-yo a few weeks
back (about one year old). I put some Superglue on the crack and around
it, and it worked - I wasn't sure if it would take on a "rubbery"
plastic , but it worked fine. In fact I would say that it is now
stronger than it was before.
Now all I need to do is source a backlight and solve the orange
discolouration - I tried the link you gave some months back without
success.
Now if only I could figure a way of replacing the print head on an
Epson 860 printer I would really be doing my part slowing down the
march of computer parts to landfill.
Regards,
Simon Magennis
Hi Simon,
Thanks for the report. Superglue to the rescue!
Was the place you tried for a replacement backlight
here?
http://www.jkllamps.com/
They seem to be still in business (just checked the
link)
Charles
Pismo Screen
From Tyler
Hi,
I was reading some of your articles on the Pismo and was noticing
that my screen looked different than when I had purchased it several
months ago. I noticed that when the backlight is turned on after being
asleep or off for a period of time, the display seems dim and takes
around 3 min. to reach full brightness. Also, the lower left looks
darker than the rest of the screen. I was wondering if it is possible
to just replace the light in the display or if this is just a normal
occurrence.
Thanx,
Tyler
Hi Tyler,
A new Apple
Knowledge Base Article notes that LCD panels require a warm-up
period to reach full brightness.
"When you first turn on a backlit display, or wake it
from a lengthy sleep, its brightness gradually increases until it
reaches a normal operating temperature. This warm-up period can range
from several minutes to over an hour, depending on display's size and
the environment in which it is being used."
Interestingly, while my G3 iBook very much manifests
this warm-up phenomenon, my Pismo and WallStreet PowerBooks do
not.
The backlights in these displays also very gradually
lose some of their brilliance with use over time. Backlights can be
replaced. You can find them at <http://www.jkllamps.com/>.
LCDS4LESS
offers replacement Apple notebook LCD screens and has units for the
Apple PowerBook G3 Series 14.1" for $395. Since you can pick up a whole
used Pismo these days for about $600, I'm not sure about the economics
of that.
Charles
WallStreet Problem
From Matthew Junker
Charles,
I have a Wallstreet
233 MHz rev2 that has fried one screen since switching to OS X
and appears to be on the way to screen No. 2.
A lifelong Mac junkie, I wanted to get into OS X without a big
outlay of cash to see if I liked it.
After buying a no-frills Wallstreet for $200 on
eBay, I picked up OS X 10.2 and started using the new OS.
I'd say I like it a lot, but I have a screen problem in it.
It boots fine, and the gray apple is there okay, but as soon as it
switches to the next screen, it goes blank, and you have to increase
the brightness to get it to come up.
After about a month, the same thing happens, but after hitting the
brightness, the screen comes up with lots of lines and weird stuff.
This gets quickly worse until the screen is unreadable.
I am running w/o a battery.
What do you think? Perhaps a cracked motherboard?
Thanks,
Matt
Hi Matt,
It's definitely not normal. You didn't say what size
screen your WallStreet has. The 13.3" models had video issued related
to a poorly designed ribbon cable connector.
Does the same phenomenon occur when you're booted in
OS 9? If so, it's probably a hardware problem. If not, one would
have to suspect some software issue with OS X.
Could be a bum mobo, but check out the more likely
stuff first.
Charles
Apple Color StyleWriter 2200 on the Pismo?
From G Farris
Good day, Charles:
Greetings from Pretoria, South Africa. I have a couple of questions
I'd like to pose, and I'm hoping you'll be kind enough to help me,
providing you have the knowledge and wish to share.
Recently, I returned to the States due to a death in the family. To
add insult to injury my Lombard and a Canon S520 were
stolen out of my suitcase in my hotel room while I was at the memorial
service.
Based in large part on your recommendations I have decided to
replace it with a Pismo
equipped with the Daystar 550 MHz G4 upgrade. I plan to partition the
drive, so I can run 8.6, but primarily I intend to run Panther. My
question centers around how I can use an Apple Color StyleWriter 2200
on the Pismo under both operating systems. Do I need special drivers,
converters, PC Cards? Any advice you can offer would be greatly
appreciated.
Very respectfully, I remain...
sine pari,
George P. Farris
Hi George,
Good choice of replacement. I'm loving my Daystar
upgraded Pismo. However, OS 8.6 is not supported by the Pismo. The
lowest OS version supported is 9.1. I recommend 9.2.2 for both direct
booting and Classic Mode.
What you need for printer support is a Keyspan USB-Serial
adapter. Here's the info:
Features:
- Plugs into any USB port
- Provides two RS-422 mini-DIN8 ports
- Supports data rates up to 1 Mbps
- Draws its power from the USB connection - a power adapter is not
required
- Emulates the printer port on one port
- Five year warranty
Macintosh Requirements:
- At least one available USB port
- Mac OS 8.6, Mac OS 9.x, or Mac OS X
Under Mac OS 9, compatible products include:
- Modems and ISDN TAs
- Apple StyleWriters
- Apple Personal LaserWriter (300/LS models only)
- Epson Stylus Color printers*
- HP DeskWriters and serial DeskJets
- Wacom Tablets
- Palm organizers
- Olympus, Epson, Agfa and other cameras
- CoStar LabelWriters
- Miro, Barco and LaCie color calibrators
Under Mac OS X compatible include:
- Modems and ISDN TAs
- Palm organizers
- digital cameras
- other serial devices which have Mac OS X drivers
For printers under Mac OS X:
- Use our USB parallel printer adapter with printers which have a
parallel port
- For printers which only have a serial port, the Twin Serial Adapter
can be used if the printer manufacturer offers a printer driver for Mac
OS X
Charles
Many Thanks!
From George Farris
Hi Charles:
May I have two follow-up questions? The first one sounds dumb, I
know, but isn't there any way by which one can run 8.6 on the Pismo?
Secondly, on the Keyspan USB-Serial adapter, do I understand you
correctly that, using the Keyspan USB-Serial adapter I will be able
print from my Pismo from OS 9.x.x to my StyleWriter 2200, but whether
I'll be able to print from 10.3.3 seems murkier? Any help you can offer
in helping me clarify that for me would be greatly appreciated. Again
my thanks.
from afar,
George
Hi George,
There are no dumb questions. ;-)
No, there is no way I know of to make a Pismo boot
from OS 8.6. As a general rule, Macs have only been able to boot from
OS versions current at the time of their manufacture and later. The
earliest Pismos came with OS 9.0.4 or 9.1 - I can't recall which off
the top of my head.
The StyleWriter through the Keyspan adapter may only
be supported by OS 9.x. It would be a driver issue. It is apparently
possible to get StyleWriters to work with OS X. More info on that
on Mac
OS X Hints.
Charles
Passwords and Dual-Boot
From Peter da Silva
You don't need a dual-boot machine to reset the password.
Boot OS X with CMD-S held down. This will bring you up in
single-user mode. Follow the instructions it gives you to check the
file system and remount the disk read-write, then remove (or rename)
the netinfo directory. Then when you reboot, it takes you through the
account setup again.
# fsck -y
# mount -uw /
# cd /var/db
# mv netinfo netinfo.bad
# reboot
Contrariwise, if you want to protect data on your laptop, encrypt
it, and store it in the keychain or some other encrypted database
(e.g., FileVault on Panther). It doesn't matter what OS you're running,
if someone has physical access to your disk then they have access to
any unencrypted data you put on it.
Thanks Peter.
Charles
Corrupt Archive in Select Mac Software
Downloads?
From Michael Thibault
Charles,
I've been on the hunt for the PPC version of Redux for quite some
time (having lost my own copy to a faulty disk) and was glad to find it
on LEM. However, the archive at http://db.tt/5T9W6LQ - which would be just
the ticket for my purposes - appears to be corrupted (or should be
binhexed to facilitate downloading). Hopefully it's simply not
binhexed; otherwise, I'm hoping you have a backup somewhere that isn't
corrupted.
Thanks for your attention in this and, of course, for all the
eye-opening info you make available on LEM - it's a perpetual
candy-store for Mac kids, and a great resource for the grown-ups.
Michael
Hi Michael,
I've forwarded you rnote to Dan Knight.
Glad you enjoy LEM.
Charles
Editor's note: I have just replaced the copy on the server with a
fresh one that I verified before posting it. This is a standard .sit
archive and should work with no problems. dk
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