Fixing a Narcoleptic PowerBook G4
From Kellie:
Dear Mr. Moore:
I got your name from a nice fellow at LEM who called you the
"PowerBook guru", so I imagine my email is making it to the right
person!
We have a Aluminum PB G4
1.67 GHz with the sleep problems widely discussed on message
boards, etc. It has, according to hubby-user, been happening since he
got it. Why he didn't make an issue while it was still under warranty
defies logic, but he didn't, and now of course Apple can't help in any
meaningful way, as we do not have an Apple Store nearby and tech
service on the phone they acted like I was asking how to change the
carburetor on a Model T when asked them about it.
We get this problem - described accurately on
Wikipedia.
"There has also been a rash of reports concerning
sudden and pervasive sleeping of 1.5 and 1.67 GHz models.[5][6]
Symptoms include the PowerBook suddenly entering sleep mode, no matter
what the battery level is or if it is plugged in. One cause is the
ambient light sensing, and associated instruction set coding, with
possible keyboard backlight and sleep light issues accompanying the
so-called 'narcolepsy'. Another cause is the trackpad heat sensor
monitoring the trackpad; system logs report 'Power Management received
emergency overtemp signal. Going to sleep.'
"To correct this, service groups will often replace
the motherboard or power converter, but the actual fix
(depending on the model) for the first cause is to replace or remove
the left or right ambient light sensors; and for the second cause,
disconnect, remove, or replace the heat sensor, or the entire top case
which holds the trackpad heat sensor. Alternatively, there are
reports which detail success in() call; though permanent solution of
the sleep issue in this manner is little documented." (italic text
added by me to address our particular issue)
In particular, I noticed this Power Management issue in the logs,
and that is what I think is the problem. Even if the laptop is stone
cold, it will go to sleep, and I cannot start it up without pulling all
the power and waiting a few minutes. I can't keep a good log, because I
have to pull the battery and reset the PMU just to get it started
again, but I have noted this alert in the logs several times when the
laptop was cool or just started up. FYI - because LEM guy thought this
might be of note - File Vault id "off" and I have set the laptop to
"never go to sleep." Yet it sleeps.
Of course, this is not a feasible way to continue using this laptop
- pulling all power, waiting, resetting PMU, restarting, resetting
clock, etc., every time I try to start up. If I keep it out of sleep
mode, I can use it, and it will restart if I shut down completely at
the Apple Menu, but if it goes to sleep or if I sleep it, the cycle of
not starting up begins again.
It is a good and serviceable laptop when it is not dead asleep! Any
ideas about how a regular person can fix this? I do not write code or
understand how to mess with "kernel extension," but I need to know how
to fix this myself or at least what to tell a service person to do so
they do not lead us astray.
Any ideas? I hope I have given you adequate info and that is is not
too jumbled up.
Thanks so much!
Kellie
Hi Kellie,
Actually, changing the carburetor on a Model T Ford is
a piece of cake compared with addressing this problem. ;-)
I haven't personally encountered this issue firsthand
(my PowerBook G4 is a 1.33 GHz unit), but Google tells me plenty of
folks have (c. 80,000 hits to PowerBook sleep problem).
One discussion and potential workaround is here with
detailed instructions on how to proceed:
PowerBook Sleep Problem Fix
However, the author also notes that "The best solution
yet is to get Apple replace the defective trackpad sensor." That would
be expensive, though, now that the machine is off-warranty.
I would suggest enquiring with one of the third-party
outfits that does mail-in repairs on Apple laptops, such as TechRestore or iResQ
as to what they would charge to diagnose and fix the problem
properly.
Hope this helps. Let us know how you make out.
Charles
Charles W. Moore wrote:
One discussion and potential workaround is here with
detailed instructions on how to proceed: PowerBook Sleep Problem
Fix
Hey Mr. Moore-
I tried this, and it seems to be working . . . small victory dance
scheduled. However, I have two questions: 1) Do you think there is a
downside to this simple fix? I am no programmer and have no idea what I
am doing when it comes to this sort of tinkering. I was very nervous
about doing it but went ahead and followed the instructions carefully -
and lo and behold, it is working. However, could it cause problems down
the line? Also, 2) What do I do with that folder the instructions said
to create as a backup for those extension files? I saved the copies as
instructed. Can I just trash them now?
Also, I installed a small program called Caffeine, which seems to prevent
auto-sleep when enabled (changing system prefs did not stop auto sleep
even when set to "never"). However, unlike before the "fix," when I do
put the laptop to sleep manually, it does wake up promptly and with no
restarting,or battery pulling, etc. Any ideas as to a downside using
this program?
Thanks so much. I cannot tell you how many hours I spent
diagnosing/researching this issue. We have no Mac support within an
hour of here, and then it is only sporadic, so your help is very much
appreciated.
Thanks - Kellie
Hi Kellie,
Delighted to have been of service - and to hear that
the "fix" seems to be working, although I can't take any credit for
figuring the workaround out.
So long as you keep your important files backed up
(which you should under any circumstances), you should be okay. You
could just tuck those saved extension files away somewhere for future
reference if necessary, but you won't likely need them, and I can't see
this fix (or Caffeine) doing any harm, with the caveat that I'm not a
programmer either.
I can identify with being far distant from Mac
support. My nearest Apple authorized dealer and service outlet is 150
miles away, although the university in the nearest town to here (50
miles) recently switched wholesale to Macs, and I understand that one
of the computer service firms there has begun working on Macs.
Charles
Have you seen or tried InsomniaX? Would it work for
narcolepsy problem?
Thanks - Kellie
Hi Kellie,
I can't speak to your question with any authority, but
my guess is that it wouldn't help.
However, it's freeware, so there should be no downside
to giving it a try.
Charles
How Much Longer Will Apple Support Tiger?
From John:
Charles -
I've been wondering something recently. How much longer will Apple
support Mac OS X 10.4
"Tiger"? This is an important question for many LEM readers, since
A) Tiger is often the best - and often only! - choice for many older
systems and B) security patches/repairs are probably a good thing,
particularly now that the Mac OS is becoming more popular.
John
Hi John,
Good question. I think it's safe to say that the
phase-out of support for Tiger is already underway, and unless some
sort of security patch is urgently needed, the current version
(10.4.11) will remain the ultimate version of Tiger for posterity.
While Apple did release an OS X 10.4 version of Safari
4, browsers are something of a special case, and I expect development
of updates for other 10.4 versions of Apple software has already been
terminated, and indeed it won't surprise me if Safari 4 is the last
version of the browser that will support Tiger.
On the other hand, I doubt that a minimum of support
for Tiger in the form of information being available will be cut off
any time soon. Interestingly, Apple still has a support page for
OS 9 posted, but any serious attention Apple gives to development
of PowerPC OS support is already primarily focused on Leopard.
Charles
Mac OS Leopard 10.5.4 Install Disc
From Anthony, following up on Leopard on a Digital Audio Power Mac:
Dear Charles,
Thank you for getting back to me so quickly! Okay, what I've got
here is a CD install disc for Mac OS X version 10.5.4. We've
determined that I need another RAM chip, as I only have 256 MB built-in
memory.
Thanks for all the Macpertise!
very truly yours,
Anthony J. Connors
Hi Anthony,
You definitely need more RAM.
I have 1.5 GB in my PowerBook G4, and I only consider
that marginal for running Mac
OS X 10.5 "Leopard" half-decently.
I'm getting along with 640 MB in the Pismo running Tiger, but
finding it not enough.
I'm still confused about the OS X 10.5.4 install disc.
To the best of my knowledge, Apple only sold the generic OS X 10.5
install disc as OS 10.5, and users are expected to download the combo
updater to bring it up to whatever (10.5.8 is the ultimate).
If it's specified to have 10.5.4 on it, it must be a
software restore disc that was originally to ship with a specific model
Mac, so even if you get more RAM, I'm skeptical that it will install on
your machine, although I have heard of such installs occasionally
working.
Best,
Charles
Eudora and Disappearing Features
From Bob, following up on Useful
Eudora Feature:
Charles,
Thanks for the reply!
Computer technology generally seems to move ahead, but it sure is
irritating when a wonderful feature that one has grown to depend on is
"lost" in the march forward.
I too still have a Pismo that works great - it may one day be the
computer that my Eudora archives live on for posterity's sake after I
have been forced (kicking and screaming) to move to another email
client.
Cheers,
Bob
Hi Bob,
I agree unreservedly about the missing/disappearing
features. There are still a number of aspects of Mac OS 9 that
simply haven't been replaced adequately in OS X - and probably
never will be.
One cool thing about Eudora archives is that you can
open them in any text editor to get at the content.
Charles
Spam Filtering in Eudora 8
Hi Charles,
Are you satisfied with the handling of spam in the Mozilla version
of Eudora? Personally, being on Thunderbird 2, as long as SpamSieve does not support
Thunderbird 3
- or Eudora 8 -
I am reluctant to try.
Leif
Hi Leif,
I use mostly Gmail these days, and they do such an
effective job of spam filtering that it's not an aspect I've explored
with Eudora 8 (actually, I never bothered with the spam filtering
features in classic Eudora either).
If you like SpamSieve, you might want to check out
MailSmith, which has
recently gone freeware, and which has integrated support for
SpamSieve.
Charles
Portable Thunderbird
From Steven:
There's a portable version of Thunderbird for PC and Mac, though the
OS X version is sorely out of date.
Not exactly what the OP wanted, but it's something.
Steven
Thanks Steven.
Charles
HTML Markup and UTF-8 Encoding
From Brian in response to Using Tex-Edit Plus and AppleScript
for HTML Markup:
Charles,
You say: "bullets aren't handled gracefully by Web browsers, so my
next step is to convert bullets to •"
You should not be using that character entity for a bullet,
since you declare in your HTML page meta-tags that you are using
UTF-8 encoding.
Ampersand-hash-149-semi-colon is only a bullet
in Windows-1252 encoding.
What you should be using, if you're declaring (and serving) your
page as UTF-8 is "•".
However, proper HTML markup - i.e., a unordered list - would be
better still.
I think this kind of thing is what happens when people use these
sticky-paper and string, long-way-around, methods. I could never put up
with all that. I just use TextMate.
Cheers,
Brian
Hi Brian,
Dan Knight does the markup and posting for Low End
Mac, so perhaps he'll want to comment on your observation about the
bullet coding (over to you, Dan).
I found the Web page link you sent very interesting
and will keep it around for reference. Thanks.
My own coding needs are for another site, whose posting engine seems
happy with the • tag, which renders bullets as desired
there.
I tried TextMate several years ago and can appreciate
its appeal to serious coders (which I am emphatically not), but for my
purposes it was overkill.
The thing that I love about Tex-Edit Plus is that it does pretty much
everything I need a text application to do - basic word processing,
text-cleaning, the HTML markup functions I use, printing, and so forth
- in one program.
Bur different strokes....
Charles
Brian,
The hoops we jump through!
Our writers submit articles in a host of formats:
Charles sends Tex-Edit Plus documents, some use Microsoft Word, a few
submit HTML or RTF, and some just send their columns in the body of an
email. My job as editor is to open those documents, massage them using
TextSoap (this cleans
up curly quotes, en- and em-dashes, extra spaces, and a whole lot
more), and then paste them into Claris Home Page.
Unlike Charles, I use two WYSIWYG HTML editors, Home
Page and KompoZer. I do all of
my writing and most of my editing in Home Page, which hasn't been
updated since 1997, is comfortable, and runs fast. It runs just fine in
Classic Mode, which is why I have to have a Tiger machine as part of my
production flow. Home Page doesn't produce standards compliant or
up-to-date HTML, but it does produce HTML that works across a wide
range of browsers - and, interestingly, it uses • as its
encoding for a bullet.
KompoZer is a work in progress that's built on the
shoulders of Nvu, itself built on the foundation of the Communicator
module in Netscape. I use KompoZer 0.7.10 to update our price trackers
and apply Cascading Style Sheets, a technology too new for inclusion in
Claris Home Page. It works very well, and it's pretty stable. It also
"updates" the HTML produced by Home Page, so the bullet, formerly
encoded at • becomes &#bull; - much more meaningful than
some obscure 4-digit number.
From there, I open the document in TextWrangler and apply Tidy to
XHTML in the Services menu. This adaptation of Tidy HTML converts the
code from Home Page and KompoZer into XHTML (XHTML 1.0 documents are
for the most part backward compatible with HTML 4, and all modern
browsers handle it well).
We use UTF-8 because it is well supported and widely
supported, as well as being backward compatible with ASCII. In addition
to supporting that standard character set, it also supports Unicode, the international
standard for encoding over 100,000 different characters and symbols
from various languages and sciences.
In the end, we should end up with pages that are well
handled by most browsers on most operating systems, although there will
be some issues with older browsers that don't support Cascading Style
Sheets. It's not a perfect process, but it comes close, and the final
step is going back to Home Page so I can uses its site manager to
upload new and changed pages to our server.
This is a time consuming process, but I believe that
taking the time to proofread, edit, and add links and images gives Low
End Mac a quality missing from too many websites these days. I do hope
to someday switch to a content management system, specifically Joomla, but there's a steep
learning curve. However, in the end, it will allow our entire staff to
submit, edit, proofread, and publish articles online instead of
everything having to go through my hands.
Dan
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