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lewd0006 · Feb 3, 2005, 11:49 AM

I have a 12" 1.33Ghz Powerbook.. bought it about 3 months ago. About 1 month ago, the fan stopped kicking on at the right time (ie, it would get WAY too hot before it did), and if it didn't come on in time, I'd get either a solid freeze or kernel panic resulting in a hard restart. I've actually had to set this powerbook on the side panel of my g5 case just to help distribute the heat better... its one hell of an awkward setup when i'm trying to work in the bedroom. My nearest Apple Store is in Orlando, about 150 miles away (Jacksonville store doesn't open until March) so it'd be a pain to go drop it off there unless Apple could ship it back to my apartment in Jax. Has anyone else dealt with this before? Any ideas what it could be? Also, is there any way I can just send it back to Apple without having to give it to an Apple store first? Thanks!

Randman · Feb 3, 2005, 12:01 PM

Check your energy settings. Create a new user and see if the fan kicks on there as well. If not, then you might want to consider doing a fresh install. Back up and go for it. If so, you might want to see if it could be ram, or lack thereof.

Could also do all the usual suspects, repair permissions, clean caches, etc. If you have DiskWarrior, run that. Check Disk Utility to see what the drive says. Could also check the Hardware test that came with the install CDs.

lewd0006 · Feb 3, 2005, 12:33 PM

I did the hardware test once and it ran the simple test fine.. when i ran the extended test, it crashed on the ram test.

i have an extra 512 module in there, but I don't get why it would go bad after a month.

Tried the new user thing... the fan has kicked on automatically, and when i switch back to my original admin user, it stays on. You think a fresh install is needed? I'm going to keep it on and ramp up the cpu usage to see if it's going to crash again just sitting on a glass desk.

lewd0006 · Feb 3, 2005, 12:37 PM

Originally posted by Randman:
Check your energy settings. Create a new user and see if the fan kicks on there as well. If not, then you might want to consider doing a fresh install. Back up and go for it. If so, you might want to see if it could be ram, or lack thereof.

Could also do all the usual suspects, repair permissions, clean caches, etc. If you have DiskWarrior, run that. Check Disk Utility to see what the drive says. Could also check the Hardware test that came with the install CDs.

Just ran disk utility... had about a BOOK of differing permissions. What's DiskWarrior?

Randman · Feb 3, 2005, 12:49 PM

If repairing permissions doesn't help, remove the ram and see if that could be it. Ram can go bad after some time. Diskwarrior is like a turbo Disk Utility.

lewd0006 · Feb 3, 2005, 12:54 PM

I don't understand how it works... what do bad permissions have to do with my system fan?

Switching users seemed to help.. but is it safe to go back to my admin now, or do i have to redo everything now? ugh... mac os x elludes me.

lewd0006 · Feb 3, 2005, 01:24 PM

Ok.. just an update... it was bad ram. My system fan wasn't even ON with the bad ram in. Wow... I'm surprised I didn't fry anything.