MacBook Heat: Leopard vs. Snow Leopard
From David, following up on WindowShade X on Snow Leopard:
Charles,
Hello.
I am using Snow Leopard
at this time. Had to launch it to do a few software updates. I have two
browsers (Safari & OmniWeb) and Mail running. I did notice a quick
rise in temperature, but not that much. I'm not using any Flash
block.
This environment is not the same as what I have running under
Leopard, where my MacBook does
get very warm. I am using a single browser, Firefox, with many tabs,
and Flash is blocked. The other main application is Thunderbird. From
time to time, I would open Safari as a second browser.
Though my situation is not a good apples-to-apples comparison, I'm
seeing that my Snow Leopard environment is about 20° Fahrenheit
cooler. The rise and fall in temperature happen more often under Snow
Leopard.
BTW, I am a long-time reader of your articles. From Wallstreet PowerBook to
Unibody MacBook, the
Odyssey to OS X, and a memory trek of Kodachrome.
Thanks for sharing your photographs.
Warm Regards,
David
Hi David,
Thanks for the report. After spending three weeks or
so in Snow Leopard, I have to say I'm happy to be back running Leopard.
Peaceful without the fan cutting in all the time, and general lack of
drama.
My MacBook definitely runs much cooler in Leopard than
in Snow Leopard with the same suite of applications. I generally have
Opera, Chrome, and Firefox up and running, along with Thunderbird or
Eudora 8, and these Internet applications are the main offenders in
spiking temperature, although MacSpeech Dictate also heats things
up.
Thank you for your readership.
Charles
Fixing the Keyboard Lock Out in 10.6.3
From Patrice:
Hey Charles,
Thought I was the only one experiencing this, and I also noticed it
happening in 10.6.3 once in a while, not consistently. I found an
easier fix than rebooting, however, which is killing the Dock (it will
restart automatically).
I found some time ago that app switching and workspace switching is
handled by the Dock app. So when the keyboard gets stuck when switching
Space, it's the Dock that doesn't let go (hence the little grid showing
the spaces stays on the screen), and killing it is the only option.
Hoping 10.6.4 fixes this.
P.
Hi Patrice,
Exactly! When it happens on my rig, usually the little
grid image gets "stuck" and won't disappear. Never thought of killing
the Dock. As you observe, a lot less painful than rebooting.
Thanks for the tip!
Charles
You're welcome! I've learned to live with it, hoping to catch what
is causing it exactly or that 10.6.4 fixes it before then. Keeping my
fingers crossed lol.
cheers!
Patrice
Mac OS Versions Older Than Hardware
From Scott:
"Generally (and perhaps comprehensively - there may
have been the odd exception I'm not aware of) Macs have never supported
Mac OS versions earlier than the one they shipped with."
Hi,
There are actually a few odd exceptions out there, most of them
older machines.
- The Plus, SE, SE SuperDrive, and Classic can all run as far back
as 1.0 despite their original shipping versions of 3.0, 4.0, 6.0.3, and
6.0.6 respectively. (The Classic even has 6.0.3 on its ROM disk.)
- The LC II can run 6.0.7 or
6.0.8 despite shipping with 7.0.1. (Most everyone lists 6.0.8 as the
minimum version for an LC II, but it does work with 6.0.7 contrary to
popular belief - I actually just used a 6.0.7-equipped LC II the other
day.)
- The PowerBook 100 can run
6.0.7 or 6.0.8 despite shipping with System 7.0.1.
- The PowerBook 145 can run
7.0.1 despite shipping with 7.1.
- Some Power Mac G4
towers were capable of running OS 9 natively even after the rest of
the line had stopped supporting OS 9 booting. From what I
understand, this was actually intended, perhaps for the professionals
still relying on OS 9-based applications (keep in mind it took forever
for Quark XPress to be updated for OS X).
This is all I can think of. Shame they had to eliminate floppy
support in Snow Leopard - although the hard drive space savings was
enough for me to keep it. (I am still using 10.6.0, have not
experienced any real problems, and have not updated to the newest
double decimal point update; I have heard there are some problems
specifically with 10.6.3.)
Scott
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the mini-tutorial on OS compatibility.
I think you may be on to something by avoiding OS X
10.6.3, but my inference is that it's worth going up to 10.6.2. I'm
back in good ol' reliable 10.5.8 awaiting version 10.6.4.
Charles
Why New Macs Can't Generally Run Older Mac OS
From John in response to Can I
Use 10.5 on New Macs?:
Hi Charles,
As a rule, a Mac cannot run any version of the OS earlier than what
it shipped with. There are good reasons for this. Apple makes no effort
to ensure that any earlier version of the OS is aware of newer
hardware. That would be impossible.
In most cases the hardware will not boot from a version of the OS
earlier than what it originally shipped with.
If it does boot, it will have buggy, unpredictable behavior, even if
all seems well initially.
John
Hi John,
That squares with my impressions, and I appreciate
that the burden of assuring compatibility with older OS version would
be problematical. However, in instances of protracted, unresolved
bugginess, such as with OS X 10.6, it would certainly be
convenient to be able to downgrade to a stable version for owners of
the latest hardware.
Charles
G4 iBook Won't Boot from Cloned Drive
From David:
Do you know what it is about the iBook
G4 that makes it so system specific? My iBook G3 hard drive finally
bit the dust. I have always (last five years) booted the computer from
an OWC On the Go 7200 rpm FireWire drive. Worked beautifully and kept
the internal drive less active.
I can boot my upgraded G4 DA machine just fine from
this FW drive, but no go on the iBook G4. Couldn't even clone the
existing Leopard system from the internal hard drive to a FW drive -
Carbon Copy Cloner did everything
fine to a clean partition on an external FW drive, so it seems, but the
computer won't boot off it. I have Tiger and Panther system disks
bought off
eBay, but neither will install on the iBook G4.
I have Leopard on way from Apple, but I really want to run Tiger on
this iBook G4, even Panther,
ideally Jaguar.
It is a mess to lose all these years of emails. I still use Classic
all the time - won't give up on Microsoft Word 5.1a,
PageMill, or
Classic
Spell Catcher. I once tried to run the iBook G3 under Panther, but
Mail just wouldn't work. Actually, Classic seems to work beautifully
under Tiger.
Any help appreciated.
David
Hi David,
I'm not sure why you're unable to boot from your
cloned system via FireWire, if it's a system version that's compatible
with your iBook. With very few exceptions, modern Macs won't boot from
OS versions older than the one they shipped with. I can't recall
whether any G4 iBooks ever shipped with Panther, but they were
generally of the Tiger era, and models that shipped with Tiger would
not be able to boot Panther, much less Jaguar.
I'm wondering if the Tiger disk you purchased on eBay
is a generic shrinkwrap installer disk, which should work with any
Tiger compatible machine, or perhaps a Software Restore disk that
shipped with somebody's Mac.
As a rule, Apple's bundled Software Restore disks are
machine-specific, as Apple restricts them via a software block to work
only with the model they shipped with.
Classic works great in OS X 10.4.11 on my old Pismo
PowerBooks.
Charles
More astounding. Booted my dying iBook into OS 9 - and Software
Update suggested some new stuff!!! This is the Apple I admire.
David
Getting Data from 800K Mac Floppies
From Troy, following up on 800K
Mac Floppy Data to Modern Macs:
Unfortunately, I have only Intel Macs in the house, so unfortunately
those are not options for me. I live in a PC dominate area (Microsoft
is just four hours north), so not many Macs around that I can find that
are older. Even the local colleges are selling surplus computers, and
they are G5s.
So I will just hold out hope that either an SE PDS or one of those
Asante devices that plug into the SE's SCSI port. Thanks Dan and
Charles for the ideas though!
Troy
Hi Troy.
I also live in a Windows-centric area. I doubt there
are more than a dozen Macs within a 25 mile radius other than my own,
and that's probably an extravagantly high estimate.
On the plus side, the "local" university (50 miles)
went Mac a couple of years ago, so one of the computer stores in that
town that caters to students sells Macs.
Charles
AppleTalk, Ethernet, and Old Macs
From Henry:
For Troy:
There are ethernet cards for the Mac SE, but they are sought after and
bring high prices on eBay. To connect an old Mac via the printer port
to an Ethernet network, you are looking for an ethernet printer adapter
like the Dayna EtherPrint or Mini EtherPrint, or one of Farallon's
adapters. These are really bridges between AppleTalk on Ethernet and
AppleTalk on LocalTalk (printer port). Your new Mac will need to
support AppleTalk, which means OS X 10.4. OS X 10.5 has
problems connecting with classic Macs, and Snow Leopard doesn't support
AppleTalk at all. It's actually easier to network an SE to a Windows
box than to a new Mac.
Henry
Thanks, Henry,
Forwarded to Troy.
Charles
Pismo Upgrade Woes Revisited
From Jesse, following up on Pismo
Thermal Paste Blues:
Hi Charles,
A quick note regarding my "Pismo upgrade woes" from March of this
year.
I tried one last time to clean out the G3 chip (thermal paste
smeared around the chip), but no luck. Since the G3 400 MHz chips are
cheap, $20 US, a quick trip to eBay solved the problem. I decided
against buying a G3 500 MHz, as those cost almost $100 US and are not
much of a speed gain over the 400. And the G4 cards would cost more
than what I paid for the Pismo. LOL
Since I thought I might be replacing the Pismo, I looked into
alternatives. I now have my eyes on either a used IBM or Dell (Linux
friendly brands) to use as my main laptop and load Ubuntu. PPC Linux on the Pismo has proved
to be a bit of a pain because of the ATI Radeon video card it uses.
G3 iMacs (my other extra Mac)
also have the problem, since the built-in monitor uses nonstandard
horizontal & vertical refresh rates. It can be done, but you still
are hampered by the same thing on OS X, the anemic video and no
Flash support on Linux PPC. Steve Jobs might have a point on the Flash
problem, as PPC Linux is otherwise useful on newer G4 & G5s.
But I will either keep the Pismo or pass it down so that it can be
used, since it is so practical. Since I have been using the laptop for
more video and less writing, it was reaching its limit in that
capacity.
BTW: Linux has windowshading by default as an option on most
distros, in case you want to dip your feet in Linux. Take a peek at the
new Ubuntu 10.04, it is very Mac-like.
Thanks
Jesse
Hi Jesse,
Thanks for the update, and the intelligence about
windowshading support in Linux, which I had wondered about.
Keep us posted on how things go with Linux on a PC
laptop as a Pismo replacement.
I'm definitely a vicarious (so far) fan of the looks
of Ubuntu 10.04, which to my eyes is more handsome than Snow
Leopard.
I haven't installed a Linux distro since SuSE
7.something and a build of Yellow Dog Linux on my old WallStreet back in the early
oughts, but I'm more and more intrigued these days.
Charles
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