My 15 inch PowerBook G4 is getting really hot.

greentigergreentiger
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
The bottom of my PowerBook is getting very hot on a regular basis. I have a Widget that gives me all of the computer's vitals, which includes the speeds of the fans. Every time I check it tells me the fans aren't running. My dog pulled it off the table several months ago and I'm thinking the fans are now broken. What can I do to double check if the fans are in fact broken, and what are my options for fixing the problem. Also, is there any chance this problem could lead to something more serious than burning my legs? I'm worried about losing pictures, music, docs and such. Thanks for the help.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 1
    allinoneallinone Posts: 279member
    Does your widget indicate fan speed? If not you might want to try hardwaremonitor which does (at least on my PowerMac G5).



    I think it is unlikely that any of your fans are completely non-functional as I believe a fryup would follow swiftly in such a case.



    Also, I believe that there's a preference (Energy Saver maybe) where you can toggle from better performance to better power conservation. Setting it to lower power mode should cool it off a little. I believe by default it is configured to be in performance mode when plugged in and power saver mode when running off battery. I believe that the setting lowers the clock rate on the CPU, so for CPU intensive tasks you may notice that your machine is slower in power saver mode.



    If you are interested in servicing the machine yourself ifixit has a number of really terrific guides:



    http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/



    Hope this helps.
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