Messages

1

2006 / Cascading Powerbook failure?

« on: October 18, 2006, 11:17:52 AM »

Thanks airbusdriver,

I could not feel any air moving out of the cooling slot. And if you heard the noise you'd agree it was a mechanical scrapping. Probably the bearing failed and/or dropped out of place.

Since the computer would not recognize (see) the internal drive when I was in firmware Idoubt target mode would work, but that's moot.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed on the data recovery.

PS, my neighbor had an HD drive at work taht was revived by a Tech that put it in the freezer.

     

2

2006 / Cascading Powerbook failure?

« on: October 17, 2006, 11:50:12 AM »

   

Hurray Hurray!

They will honor the AppleCare warranty so no charge!

They'll also upgrade the service to ProCare for $100 which means they will attempt to restore all the data on the dead drive.

This is good since she never backed it up. Even though I told her!

(Luckily I DID a backup in January).

A lessoned learned.

     

3

2006 / Cascading Powerbook failure?

« on: October 17, 2006, 09:48:23 AM »

The end of this story is yet to be as my wife is taking it to the Apple store today.

My daughter left her 12" PB 875 mhz, combo drive in sleep mode when she left for class.

When she returned it was making a loud mechanical noise and would not wake up.

Her roomate said that it was making the noise all day  

She was able to run the hardware check disc which gave two errors, one seems to be the HD and/or ATA failure and another that had the word "fan" in it.

I think the fan died and the computer overheated to the point of failure.

I can get the computer to get to firmware "select boot drive" when I have a good external firewire drive attached, but it stays stuck there.

And there is a mechanical whirring/grinding/scrapping that starts and stops, which sounds more like a fan than a bad HD.

This computer has been used but NOT abused, and was running fine until this.

  So my questions are:

1. Was this failure widespread, any class action suites? Any Apple support on this? The Applecare ended in August.

2. Replacing the HD and fan doesn't scare me as I've torn apart  laptops before and also found a great site called ifixit that has photo diagramed step-by-step instructions. My concern is if it's the ATA that is hosed, then I would probably need a new logicboard? Suposedly the computer is worth only $950, so I maybe stuck between repair/replace.

Any advice would be appreciated.

     

4

2006 / Help and Apple Draws Blank

« on: October 12, 2006, 12:15:43 PM »

   

Houston we have a problem ...

I think I have a sick users folder!

NOTE: if I login to another account everythings is just fine!

Just for the heck of it I checked the permissions of the working home folder and the "sick" home folder.

Well... the working home folder has the owner and group being the same as the account name.

The account I use has the owner as the account name BUT the group is Admin. AND when I tried to switch it to be the same as the account name I found that the name doesn't exist on the list! But the other account name is in it!

     

5

2006 / Help and Apple Draws Blank

« on: October 12, 2006, 11:04:31 AM »

Thanks Paddy,

It's pretty funny, I clicked on your link and got a blank page!

Had to switch to Camino to view it.

I found more help at   http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/helpviewer.html

I followed their advice and did the full treatment, and I got the help "home page" and search list — ONCE!

After that I'm back to blank.

     

6

2006 / Help and Apple Draws Blank

« on: October 11, 2006, 02:07:29 PM »

Totally weird!  

Starting this week, when I go to Apple's homepage (Safari's default) the Browser window is completely blank! Mousing over the page does not change the cursor to pointerhand. Other web pages display correctly.

However, if I use Camino, or FireFox I get the page.

The other crazy thing is that the Apple help now comes up blank. At first I got the homepage, and got lists if I did a search. Now it's always blank.

EXCEPT if I select a "library" from a 3rd party, like Windows Media player, Toast, etc. Those librarys work fine.

ALSO if I use a different account both Help and Safari work fine.

I've run AppleJack, Cocktail, DisckWarrior and TechTool Pro 4. No change.

Oh yes, this is a G5 tower dual 2.7 Ghz running latest Tiger.

     

7

2006 / DSL troubleshooting

« on: September 20, 2006, 12:42:56 PM »

So I've learned something.

As I was tellin my wife what I was considering doing (getting a dmarc (MPOE) DSL splitter and rewireing (re-connecting) my internal phone connections – I ended up explaining how the self-install "line filters" worked.

Then I had a revelation! In my kitchen we have a wall mounted phone that I installed the "wall-mount" filter on. This filter also had a phone socket that I then plugged my cordless phone into.

Do you get it?

That socket was a "pass-through" – no filtering was being done!

So I added a line filter between it and the cordless phone.

And now it's all quite on the phone lines.

In my own defense I gotta knock AT&T/SBC for having such lightweight instructions. They did not explain, or even show the wall-mount filter in their instruction manual.

Thanks again for all your help, and I enjoyed the tangents this thread went on.

     

8

2006 / Silent Mac

« on: September 08, 2006, 03:35:19 PM »

My son's new Mac Book Pro (15.4") was playing the sounds from his games (Second life and Lugaru).

Last night I did a mega install of Adobe CS2 suite, MS Office X, Audacity, FX Effects Lab, etc and then ran the /sbin/fsck disk repair (none needed) and then ran Cocktail (crons, repair permissions, delete caches).

All the "real software" is working fine with sound.

The games work, but no sound.

Since he's leaving for school tomorrow I'm short on time.

PS. a re-install of Lugaru didn't change it.

Thanks
     

9

2006 / OT: Anyone have an opinion about a Canon ZR-600?

« on: September 08, 2006, 02:16:21 PM »

A good place to look for electronics is www.dealmac.com .

Of course it's got "mac deals" but they also have cameras, RAM, even PCees.

You can search for specific items as well as by type/catagory.

I saw a JVC GR-D370US MiniDV Camcorder for $270.

There's also a forum that discusses these things as well as Mac stuff.

Kinda like Techsurvivors and Bizate combined.


PS. I picked up a Cannon A620 for $178.
http://dealmac.com/search.html?search=Cano...amp;x=0&y=0

     

10

2006 / CrossOver Mac beta released

« on: September 01, 2006, 03:54:05 PM »

I'm holding out for the free version. Check out:

http://darwine.opendarwin.org/


     

11

2006 / DSL troubleshooting

« on: August 31, 2006, 08:59:40 AM »

Thanks folks!

To answer your collective questions:

1- I installed the included filters on all the phones.

2- Yes I do have a 2 different 2.4 Ghz cordless phones:
     a- Panasonic multi-phone unit (one remote phone) with digital
          ansewering machine.
     b- Panasonic single unit phone.

3- The house was built in 1959, and has had little done to the wiring
    as far as I can tell. I believe that the "in-wall" is the old "3-wire" stuff.
    I would also say that all the pone lines are spliced off of a single line
    coming in the house.

4- I have my G5 tower and my son's MacBook Pro running wireless.
    With the G5 file sharing over the AirPort.

I do have an "tank" of an AT&T touchtone that I rescued from the trash bin at work. I used to use it, so I'll plug it back in and run the "strip-down" test.

I think that there is a telephone "Patch Box" outside my house. I may try running a dedicated line from there. I was lucky a few years ago to have gotten a good supply of CAT-5 wire and I bought a RJ45/RJ11 plug installer.

     

12

2006 / 9600 mystery part!

« on: August 30, 2006, 05:05:51 PM »

DAVID!!!!

That's it!!!

     

I guess it confirms my suspicion that this machine was untouched since purchased!

Thanks again everyone!

     

13

2006 / DSL troubleshooting

« on: August 29, 2006, 03:27:20 PM »

I just installed SBC/Yahoo High Speed Internet and was very pleased with the speed (I was on dial-up).

   Unfortunately my phone has gotten a LOT of static.

If I unplug the wireless "modem" ("2wire" branded) the phone is back to normal.

The static is there even if I use a "wired" phone.

I have yet to contact AT&T about this, but since I have Macs, it might be difficult for them.

Thanks!

     

14

2006 / 9600 mystery part!

« on: August 29, 2006, 03:14:03 PM »

This is some fun!  

I thoroughly enjoyed all your posts!

Sorry I took so long to get back. I'm installing a bathroom, shopping for a car and have been very busy at work.

Anyways....

It's not the support foot that David took a picture of. And it does look like an "E" or an "M" depending on the orientation.

I've taken a picture of it, but I don't think I can include it since I don't have a .mac or webpage to link to.

If anyone can help, I'll email it to you.

Also, for as small as it is, this thing has a part number.

It is 815-1406 REV B.

I "Googled" it – but no luck!

     

15

2006 / 9600 mystery part!

« on: August 23, 2006, 02:52:17 PM »

It looks like an "E" but it also looks like a pitchfork!


Ack! it must be a Windoze part!    


I'm sure it's something from the Mac.

I need a an exploded view of all the bits!

Hey anybody have a microfish slide of the parts?