Two Pismo Powerbook Questions: Fan and Battery

nvmnvm
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Hi everyone. I have a G3 500 Pismo, OS10.3.9. Since I've owned it (a year), the fan has turned on probably half a dozen times, maybe a bit more. Is this normal, or should it come on pretty often? I'm not in the Arctic, it runs hot.



Also, i was reading the FAQ in this fourm, and it mentioned "Reseting Power Management Unit." My laptop has some problems reading it's power level, and seems inconsistant with charging etc, so maybe I need to do this.. I was wondering how it's done on these older G3 Pismos. Thanks!!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    First, My fan has only activated once when it crashed and almost overheated in my backpack back in the days of OS 9. I have the 400Mhz model.



    Second, there is a reset button on the back between the VGA and modem. Use a pen tip or paperclip and hold it down for 5 seconds. Than charge the battery or restart on AC. Hopefully that works.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    nvmnvm Posts: 24member
    Thanks, so the fan seems normal.



    I'm not looking for a reset button for the computer, but rather a sequence of events to reset the power management, like in the FAQ in this forum. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!
  • Reply 3 of 3
    neutrino23neutrino23 Posts: 1,562member
    You can get instructions for resetting various PowerBook power managers at Apple's support site. Here is the relevant document.



    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449



    The fan may come on when the processor is stressed. This happens anytime it is running at high utilization for several minutes or more. On mine it happens about ten minutes into the process of encoding a file with iTunes. Sometimes it happens with Safari if the site has a lot of java clutter.



    You can use Activity Monitor (in the Utilities folder in the Application folder) to check processor load.
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