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Mac Hammer Fan · Mar 30, 2006, 09:21 AM

Hi,
I bought one of those new ZIFs and I installed it as instructed.
There were no instructions of bending the hetasink clip in the manual. (which was only on CD-ROM) I didn't use thermal paste as there was a heatsink pad that is used instead. I first installed it in a G3 beige. I cleaned the heatsink before.
It booted once, but as soon as I set the CPU director to 1000 Mhz it crashed. It refused to restart. I have tried in a second computer, a G3 B&W and the Mac doesn't boot either. I tried the following:
reset the CUDA, replace PRAM battery, removed some RAM, nothing helped...
As soon as I replace the original ZIF, the computers boot fine...
Is this ZIF defective? It seems that a lot of other people also did have problems with Powerlogix zifs. (I didn't have any problems with Sonnet and OWC ZIFs in the past)
Any help or advice is highly appreciated. Thanks.

Lateralus · Mar 30, 2006, 11:53 AM

What heatsink pad? The blue piece of plastic? You must take that off before powering up the machine. All it is is protective plastic for the CPU die.

Mac Hammer Fan · 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by Lateralus

What heatsink pad? The blue piece of plastic? You must take that off before powering up the machine. All it is is protective plastic for the CPU die.

I removed to blue piece of plastic, but under that there was a white material, that replaced the thermal grease.. And I left that on the processor. The instructions told me to remove the blue tab, not the white material.
The manual was not up to date at all. they told about "add thermal grease" and this was in an installation movie too. But nothing about bending the heatsink clip...
However, I didn't add thermal grease and cleaned the heatsink before...

Mac Hammer Fan · Mar 30, 2006, 11:02 PM

update
I have put this zif in a 3rd machine, an old G3 beige 266 and it wouldn't boot either. After reinstallation of the original ZIF, I had boot problems too. But after cleaning the heatsink pad, It worked fine again. It seems that the white material (thermal pad) isn't working properly anymore but I don't want to boot without it but is in contradiction with the intructions.
If I only had bought a Daystar ZIF instead. If you read the forums at www.xlr8yourmac.com and at www.macfixit.com you see that nobody had trouble with Daystar ZIFs, but a lot of people had bad experiences with Powerlogix...

Lateralus · Mar 31, 2006, 02:15 AM

Originally Posted by Mac Hammer Fan

If I only had bought a Daystar ZIF instead. If you read the forums at www.xlr8yourmac.com and at www.macfixit.com you see that nobody had trouble with Daystar ZIFs, but a lot of people had bad experiences with Powerlogix...

PowerLogix sells many more ZIFs than Daystar does. And considering most people only voice their opinion of something online when they've had a bad experience with it, it's pretty easy to understand why there would be more negative reports on PowerLogix than on Daystar.

Why not try exchanging it for a ZIF that is in proper operating order? It's not that hard.

That said, you're free to go with a Daystar G4, it's your choice. But it would be a bad choice since the 600MHz G4 costs at least as much as the 1GHz 750GX and perfoms significantly worse across the board. And it wouldn't be an appreciable step up from the G4 ZIF you have now.

Mac Hammer Fan · 12:49 AM

I won't ask for a replacement because the shipping costs and the taxes in belgium are too high (25% VAT) I already lost enough money.
And now I have to pay an additional resrocking fee of 15%...

kick52 · Apr 2, 2006, 08:02 AM

you could try running it with the powerlogix open, and no heat protective stuff and run the mac open with a really powerful fan inside....

Mac Hammer Fan · Apr 3, 2006, 04:16 AM

Originally Posted by kick52

you could try running it with the powerlogix open, and no heat protective stuff and run the mac open with a really powerful fan inside....

I have no intention to try this

chris v · Apr 3, 2006, 06:56 AM

Originally Posted by Mac Hammer Fan

I won't ask for a replacement because the shipping costs and the taxes in belgium are too high (25% VAT) I already lost enough money.
And now I have to pay an additional resrocking fee of 15%...

If they sent you a clearly defective product, there should be no shipping costs or restocking fee to get it warrantied. It they're trying to gig you for more money, I'd be polite but firm in my refusal to pay at first, then I'd raise hell.

Mac Hammer Fan · 10:18 AM

Originally Posted by chris v

If they sent you a clearly defective product, there should be no shipping costs or restocking fee to get it warrantied. It they're trying to gig you for more money, I'd be polite but firm in my refusal to pay at first, then I'd raise hell.

Upon export of the defective ZIF, the custom house office here in Belgium doesn't want to pay my VAT and import duties back. "paid is paid" they say. They even will charge me another time for the same money...
They told me: ask the American seller to pay this. Unbelieveable.

chris v · Apr 3, 2006, 08:28 AM

Originally Posted by Mac Hammer Fan

Upon export of the defective ZIF, the custom house office here in Belgium don't want to pay my VAT and import duties back. "paid is paid" they say. They even will charge me another time for the same money...
They told me: ask the American seller to pay this. Unbelieveable.

That bites.

Mac Hammer Fan · Apr 3, 2006, 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by chris v

That bites.

The VAT and import duties on an amount of 240 dollar were approx. 58 dollar....

jamil5454 · Apr 3, 2006, 11:04 AM

Have you tried real thermal paste? Go out and get some silver compound and try that.

Mac Hammer Fan · 03:34 PM

Originally Posted by jamil5454

Have you tried real thermal paste? Go out and get some silver compound and try that.

OWC tells me if the ZIF doesn't boot at all it is defective. And thermal paste voids the warranty, I guess. I didn't try it.
I have some thermal paste at home, though...

I admit I didn't remove the G4 firmwire patch from my G3 B&W. But since the ZIF doesn't boot in an old G3 Beige either, I guess it's defective.

Update:
I was unable to run any firmware updater: not XLR8 G3/4 FW Updater 1.0.1 and not G4 enabler Newertech nor Apple Firmware 1.1
Everytime I goet a message: Your ROM version is too old or too new
If I boot in open firmware, I see 3.1.1 and version 1.1F4
(I have overclocked my G3 300 to 350 should I set the jumpers back first?

Mac Hammer Fan · Apr 4, 2006, 02:47 AM

update:
resetting the jumpers didn't help

and now the FedEX is asking me 104 dollars to send the unit back to the States in a brown box.
(87 EUR)
I already lost the import duties (nearly 60 dollars) and if I have to pay the 15% restocking fee there will be probably nearly nothing left.

Mac Hammer Fan · 11:41 AM

another update:
today I received this answer from OWC:
"After receiving your processor back for replacement, it has been determined that the processor die was chipped on the edges. The cause of this is related to the way the heat sink clip is installed. When the clip is installed backwards it creates excessive uneven pressure on the edge of the processor die. In most cases this will cause the die edges to crack and break off permanently damaging the cpu. Unfortunately, because this damage is related to the installation process, the warranty is voided and we cannot replace the processor. "
I did not install the heatsink clip backwards as they told. I already installed several times a ZIF in a Powermac G3 without any problem. I installed it with the "bend" (pressure point) over the CPU side of the ZIF (like the others)...
Is there anyone who has an idea what could have gone wrong?

Before I bought the ZIF , I contacted an OWC technician, and he assured me that there would be a set of pliers in the box and instructions how to bend the heatsink clip. When I received the box, there were no pliers in it and no instructions of bending at all .
I watched the installation movie and did the same. The installation movie showed apply of thermal paste. But this ZIF came with a thermal pad with a blue material above. No instructions here either. The tackiness of the heat transfer pad adhered much more to the blue cellophane than to the top of the processor, Anyway, with some effort, I removed this blue cellophan and placed the thermal pad above the heat pad of the ZIF. A possibility can be that this thermal pad has moved when I put the heatsunk back above the ZIF... In this case, the installation is really tricky. A kind of hit or miss. A play with the lottery...

Anyway, I just lost 320 dollars... (Belgian taxes and additional shipping costs included) Not happy with it.
First time in ten years that a CPU upgrade is defective after installing. Anyway, it never worked...
I guess, anyone in my place would never order such a Powerlogix ZIF again.