[Ti] 667 overheating?

[Kynan Shook]

Wow, I actually have never seen a PowerBook come in for repair to the 
AASP that I work for that is overheating...  But it sounds like that 
might be exactly what's happening to you, possibly.

Now, if I recall correctly (I don't have the service manual in front of 
me, and I can't get it right now either), the 667 only has one fan; If 
you have the "Gigabit Ethernet" model (eg the 550/667 model), I know 
there is only one fan.  If you have the DVI model (aka 667/800), I 
believe that was where they put a fan on the 800, but just an empty 
bracket on the 667 since it didn't need the extra cooling.

Anyway, you might just want to make sure that your fan is working 
properly.  You should be able to hear it come on; those fans aren't 
quiet in any way.  Otherwise, just pop your keyboard up; the fan is 
right in the middle of the computer at the very back, under the F6 or 
F7 keys (or somewhere in that vicinity).  There's also a little 2-wire 
connector at the right side of the fan, plugged into the logic board.  
The plug itself has 3 holes in it, but there are probably only 2 wires 
that actually go to the fan.  You should make sure the fan is working, 
and that the cable is plugged in and not damaged.

Is it possible that somebody did some repair to the computer involving 
removing the logic board, and they didn't put it back in correctly?  If 
the processor isn't touching the heatsink, and if there's no thermal 
compound on the processor, it could overheat pretty quickly.

To prevent it, there are lots of things you can do.  Running on battery 
power usually makes the computer run cooler.  Charging the battery 
produces lots of extra heat, and being plugged in without charging is 
somewhere in the middle.  Try running in reduced processor speed; the 
setting is in the Energy Saver control panel.  Don't use disks in the 
optical drive, if possible.  Try and get the power consumption as low 
as possible; dimming the display might help, I'm not sure; otherwise, 
leave peripherals unplugged and such.

Also, you might try putting something hard underneath the computer.  If 
there is airflow, it will help cool the computer.  Make sure that the 
vents aren't blocked.  If the computer still gets very hot, or if you 
suspect that it wasn't put back together properly sometime, you should 
take it in for repair, because repeated excessive heat can permanently 
damage electronics.

Unfortunately, you can't monitor the temperature with this computer; 
the temperature sensor in the chips Motorola was making at the time 
didn't work properly.  Many other computers can use something called 
Temperature Monitor (search VersionTracker) or ThermographX 
(http://www.kezer.net/thermographx.html) to see the temperature of the 
computer.  What might help though, is Activity Monitor.  Personally, I 
leave Activity Monitor running all the time, with the CPU display in 
the dock; if something starts monopolizing the CPU, I can see, and then 
use it to quit or force quit the rogue process, if necessary.  Some 
applications are just CPU hogs under normal operation (often, these are 
also written by Microsoft...  ;-), but most applications are pretty 
good about sharing.  Anyway, CPU usage is very directly tied to heat 
production.  The difference between leaving my computer running idle 
and having an application using up all the computing power can easily 
reach 30 degrees F, plus a running fan due to the extra heat.  I also 
like keeping Activity Monitor around because more heat means more power 
is being used; if I'm on battery, I can tell if some program is eating 
through my battery faster than it should be.

Hope that helps,

Jesse Proudman <j.list at blueboxdev.com> writes:
> Since last night, my computer has randomly started going to sleep.
> It's primarily when I'm working in bed for extended periods of time.
> If I bring it out of sleep without letting it sit, it goes back to
> sleep or freezes.  I'm guessing it's overheating.  Any ideas on how to
> prevent this, why it's doing it only with Panther (Never did this with
> Jaguar) and how I can monitor the temp?