SETI + TiBook + no fan = slight problems

murbot · September 16, 2002 8:57PM

I'm stealing this from a thread at the MacNN forums... but since I know none of you would ever go there, I'll post the same here.

Seems a guy left his 550 MHz Ti book crunching SETI all night, and woke up to this:

<a href="http://www.quarkfactor.com/melt.jpg"; target="_blank">

</a>

Click thumb for larger image.

Fans are a GOOD thing.

Read the guy's thread in the Mac Addict forums <a href="http://www.macaddict.com/forums/Forum1/HTML/018159.html"; target="_blank">here</a>.

Poor bastard.

[ 09-16-2002: Message edited by: murbot ]

alcimedes · September 16, 2002 9:23PM

oh my goodness. what a moron.

i'm sure that did a lot of damage to the internals as well. i wonder if SETI has temp. thresholds like dnet does? if not that would be a nice feature to add.

-alcimedes

macubus · September 16, 2002 9:28PM

oh crap, I would not be able to handle it if that happened to a powerbook I owned. Poor guy, next time put it in the freezer.....

patchouli · September 16, 2002 9:31PM

Holy shite! That is really messed up.

I wouldn't exactly call him a moron though, I mean it's not his fault that the fan never came on. Certainly you should be able to use the processor over night regardless what the task it.

Luckily Apple is replacing it (assuming they will replace both the fan and keyboard). You're right, god knows what else melted in there.

I've got a program on my PC notebook that makes the fan come on at certain temperatures that you set. My notebook is never over 40 degrees celsius. I wonder if there is one for OS X out there? I am sure there is.

anamac · September 16, 2002 10:36PM

Oh boy, that's the last sort of picture I want to see as I'm typing away on my intact PB.

Any theory that maybe SETI actually reached an intelligent lifeform that just got so excited about seeing a Mac that it overheated?

luca · September 16, 2002 11:25PM

Maybe it discovered intelligent life that didn't want to be discovered, after seeing how messed up our planet is, so they shot the TiBook with a death ray to prevent their discovery

At first I thought this was another thread like that hard drive thread of yours, murbot. But yeah, that sucks, and it looks like a real flaw in the TiBook's design. I should tell my dad, he has a TiBook 550. But he keeps his on little risers to help the airflow. The fan doesn't come on as often with the risers (actually ankle weights but they do the trick).

jeremiah rich · September 16, 2002 11:31PM

Wow. THAT really stinx. At least Apple should cover the warranty. Reading over the responses @ the original site, people are claiming a notebook should not be run for 8 hrs at a time, or used intensively for that long. Apple themselves market this as a desktop replacement! This DOES mean people WILL do overnight video renders and such. I know when I get one that will be the purpose. So, yeah.

rogue27 · September 17, 2002 1:22AM

What if the fan did come on, but the book wasn't in a well-ventilated area on a hot day?

I mean, if it's 95 degrees, you don't have air conditioning, and you have your powerbook sitting on a piece of cloth, I could see it getting pretty hot even with the fan running.

alcimedes · September 17, 2002 9:34AM

well, i've just worked with enough OC'ed PC's to know that you NEVER, EVER run something if you don't have a few temp. failsafes built in, either on the hardware end or the software end. for those who run crap all night long that won't shut off if it exceeds thresholds, especially something that's designed to use 100% CPU, you're playing with fire.

it would be a nice feature to had to the machine though, if possible.

sushiism · September 17, 2002 10:12AM

think its his own stupid fault for running that seti crap, I'd hardly call it a design flaw, heck good thing it was made of titanium or the entire thing could have melted and then he'd really be ****ed hehe at least he could prolly use an external keyboard and mouse

yevgeny · September 17, 2002 10:14AM

Actually, it is pretty easy to do heat damage to a PC as well. I destroyed the CD drive on my Dell laptop by installing a program and leaving my dell on my bed. That is all it took to make my CD drive unusable. Still though, that is one SCARY picture.

thuh freak · September 17, 2002 11:00AM

[quote]Originally posted by rogue27:

...you don't have air conditioning...<hr></blockquote>

there are still people without a/c? i thot we conquered commonism.

majormatt · September 17, 2002 2:11PM

AC? What's that?

klinux · September 19, 2002 3:44AM

[quote]Originally posted by Yevgeny:

Actually, it is pretty easy to do heat damage to a PC as well. I destroyed the CD drive on my Dell laptop by installing a program and leaving my dell on my bed. That is all it took to make my CD drive unusable. Still though, that is one SCARY picture.<hr></blockquote>

Uh yeah, putting any running laptop on something that is designed to *insulate* is bad idea!

[ 09-19-2002: Message edited by: klinux ]

defiant · September 19, 2002 3:56AM

if I remember correctly, his fan failed.

fobie · September 19, 2002 4:29AM

You can't blaim him if he is telling the truth.

Now I'm afraid to leave my iBook on running SETI the whole night.

defiant · September 19, 2002 4:34AM

[quote]Originally posted by Fobie:

You can't blame him if he is telling the truth. <hr></blockquote>

how do you mean that ?

smithjoel · September 19, 2002 10:08PM

[quote]Originally posted by Defiant:

if I remember correctly, his fan failed.<hr></blockquote>

A fan that runs on at most 12V is suposed to stop this:

[quote]Originally posted by murbot:



<a href="http://www.quarkfactor.com/melt.jpg"; target="_blank">

</a>

<hr></blockquote>

Come on. I think it's fake. When the CPU stops working it stops making heat.

qazii · September 19, 2002 11:43PM

How did those keys get so far from their orginial location (especially the ones on the lower left)? Do they jump really high when the heat disconnects them (springs, maybe?)? I'd love to see a video of jumping keys. Anybody want to volunteer his/her TiBook?

alcimedes · September 19, 2002 11:49PM

i can't imagine there was this much heat w/o the CPU locking up solid. the guy said that when he got up, the comp. was still running, and he saved some files before shutting it down.

he also said that initially the keys weren't that far apart, but when they cooled they shrunk down and moved.

not sure if i can believe it. seems a bit unlikely to me.

edit: just lifted up the keyboard to my powerbook. not sure how much the design changed between the 550 and the 800, but in my case, the heat would have all been on the top row of keys, the center and lower ones shouldn't have melted at all, as the RAM card is right below there, and wouldn't generate any heat. i can't believe that enough heat would travel through convection in plastic to melt the lower keys.

here's where the heatsink is on the older powerbooks.

[ 09-20-2002: Message edited by: alcimedes ]

ebby · September 20, 2002 1:11AM

<a href="http://www.ssba.com/lad/melt.jpg"; target="_blank">Melt image</a>

SETI + TiBook + no fan = slight problems

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