I resuscitated a busted-up old Lombard last year which had been given to someone as a castaway item. Needed a memory upgrade (maxed it out) and a screen hinge repair and a keyboard, among other fixes. I then installed Panther.
The new owner has been very happy with that machine for light usage: browsing, e-mail, and game playing. I'm very happy that the system is not going to waste nor leaching toxins in a landfill. However, she has recently been playing Civ III, and observed to me that the system becomes quite hot after a while in that game.
I asked if the fan ran. She said, "It has a fan?"
Urk. Not good. I got hold of the unit and inspected it. Sure enough, the fan does not operate even when the Lombard is very physically hot.
There is apparently a test procedure involving removing AC and battery, pulling the PRAM battery lead, waiting 10sec, reinstalling the PRAM lead and reinstalling the main battery. This, reportedly, will tell you whether the fan works, as the reinitialization test which follows includes a "blip" of the fan. Sure enough, if I do this, the system sends the fan enough of a voltage to make the rotor jerk slightly. And the motion of the fan is not obstructed by anything that I can see. The rotor moves lightly and easily when touched.
What I am wondering is whether this OS release (10.3.9) can even see the fan on this old hardware. The Lombard Bronze machines are not officially listed in the release notes as being supported. And I have installed a shareware Fan Monitor which reports that it is not aware of any working sensors nor of any fan in the system!
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