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I have created the ultimate in useless beasties.
I have removed the CRT from my G3 AIO thanks to much patience from my wife, a spare lcd that I wasn't using, luck and a dremel (black and decker rotary tool, actually) I have replaced it with with an LCD.
The LCD is powered off of the internal rail, and everything works the way it is supposed to.
The box is currently running 10.3.9, 9.22, has 768 megs of ram, a sixty gig harddrive, a 16x dvd, the original processor (233mhz g3), usb2.0 and firewire.
I need a USB 2.0 wifi adapter that will work in OS X, so right now I'm using the onboard 10bt.
I currently can't play DVD movies, but I'm working on a way around that right now. (it reads dvd's fine, but all programs give an error when trying to play movies)
I deliberately made it a little ugly, to help emphasize what it is.
More pictures and a step by step will follow when I'm not so lazy.
I'm sure that the LCD is much brighter than the original CRT. On my AIO, an external display seems to be twice as bright as the built-in one.
If anyone knows how to tell OS X to make the screen brighter, let me know.
Need to dress up the edges somehow. Man I hate those things almost as much as the eMac. No one should have to completely disassamble a machine to replace the hard drive. That and I'm tired of replacing crts in them too. Freakin molars of the new generation of macs... Cool hack though, what are you going to do with all that space behind the lcd now??
I have a small point of contention. This computer has one of the easiest upgrade paths I've ever worked on. The back has a few screws, then the whole thing slides out. There are tabs for each drive. A few screws and there you go. It has multiple drive slots if you remove the floppy or internal zip.
I know the edges need to get something, but for now I like the idea that it looks like a mouth full of messed up teeth, what with it being a molar mac and all.
Actually I've been calling it the BANANA JR because of the way it resembles the all in one mac parody from Doonesbury.
The space behind the lcd isn't being used because without it I can run the box with no fan at all. It's kinda spooky when the hard disk isn't being a pain to have a computer that makes no sound at all.
I need a hdparm like utility for os x to help quiet the drive, though.
It's too loud most of the time.
A new drive should quiet it down a bit. I'm not knocking your computer or anything, I just don't like the molars. Prolly because my first "professional" computer gnome work was in a whole lab of them that were hosed. Took me a week to straighten out. I would say if you were still running 9 you could get a ata to cf adapter and install it to a 1Gb cf card. Then it would be totally silent. If I could come up with the cash to get a 4Gb cf I might try it with my pbook.
Actually, it's got a relatively new sixty gig maxtor drive in it. It's just loud. I'm running 10.3 on it right now, so it's not really feasible to install to CF
Stick a seagate in there so its more quiet and then do some prettying up of the front, it looks bad but a cool hack!
So, this mod has been changed to include a silent 450 watt ATX psu AND...the guts of a g4 ibook.
It now has front panel usb and firewire, a kvm for switching between the beige and the g4, and the stereo output of the ibook goes through the WORKING speakers that have a FUNCTIONING front panel volume knob, front panel soft power that works for both the ibook and the g3.
The Ibook's combo drive is replaced with a combo drive that's connected through a usb 2.0 to ide adapter that sits in the drive tray of the g3.
Oh, and with a crossover cable, the g3 can surf the net through the airport extreme of the g4 ibook.
A lot of people say how ugly it is, well i wanted it to look like a monster, and damn it works.
Full pictures to follow shortly!
i dont think i could do that to my AIO the case is to flawless. once the internal monitor gives out i might try to mod the AIO with the LCD and the video card mod. but the case isnt going to be hacked up like that. it wont be touched i will prolly take the bad crt some where and have a mold made of it so i can have a clear look alike crt type of look and put the lcd behind it and just put the buttons on the botom of the case but make them look like it was orignal part of the case
go into displays under preferences, and go to color calibrate screen. Click on the right of each of the contrast and brightness bars.
then quit the calibrator.
I have to do this everytime I start in OS X. It's a quirk that happens as a result of using OS X on the machine
Does anybody know of a way to write a script that would achieve what coius is talking about?
The 5500 has issues with brightness. It can be changed in the firmware.
i dont seem to have that problem in OS X 10.2.8 my internal monitor keeps its settings
Yeah, but, 5500's can't install OS X. Anyways, It's the fact that OS X doesn't recognize the Drivers for the Display, or the internal CRT for that fact. The thing with the Towers or desktops, was that the Display was external, and had their own brightness settings. IIRC, I installed OS X on a Bondi iMac that had the brightness problem. It's just a quirk of the later OS X's. Yeah, i ran 10.2 on mine for a few days, and the screen didn't have a problem, but the upgrade to the OS's past that did. Since 10.2 is the last "officially" supported OS on the Beige's, it's the thing that Apple didn't give 10 a reason to use the drivers, and so XPost forces it to use the old drivers that OS X.x disregards, as it shouldn't work on older machines. so, XPost installs the drivers, and forces it to use the drivers.
Fact being aside, I think the only thing to get the display brighter, is this way. I have tried everywhich way to get around it. It's not going to work. That is one reason I rarely turn off the AIO.
Oh well, It's not going to kill me to set it everytime I start it up...
I was actually thinking a batch file or applescript that automatically changes the resolution and the brightness, any ideas?
So, that's the last of my Ubermac project. The g4 Ibook I was using inside died the typical logicboard death. I put my vote forward that the screen spanning doctor had a lot to do with overheating and eventually killing it. DAMN DAMN DAMN!!!
screen spanning doctor only sets a special option in Firmware. It does nothing to the hardware. The hardware is already capable. If it died the logic board death, it's that the Chip came loose thru josseling
Yeah, but it's been linked to heat problems with the board and theorized to help lead to the heat death issue.
On further probing, it looks like the spanning doctor causes the chip to use more energy, thus getting hotter, and since these things are flaky anyways...flup. (that's the sound of the grey screen of crap) I officially hate apple. That's it. The new apple policies and Microsoft like behaviour, releasing crappy hardware and refusing to fix it. This is the SECOND IBOOK I've had do the same thing. A g3 AND a G4. And stupid apple won't fix either, even though they admi it's a common problem. Their logic? We'll get the mac fanboys to just buy what ever piece of crap we throw out there to replace the other crap, and release the slavering dogs of mac fandom if people complain...........
Until this point, I was sympathetic to your post. However, you just condemned a lot of us here at the 'Fritter. I, for one, take umbrage to your remarks.
Every computer company today makes an occasional lemon. That's the nature of things. None of these machines are perfect, and Apple users (and fans) will admit that they are not perfect. However, I personally feel that those comments were painting with too wide a brush.
No, see the people here at applefritter tend to be Mac USERS + Techs, not fanboys. There are a few OMG APPLE!!! types, but for the most part, people tend to be understanding and intelligent. The slavering dogs are the ones that go...Well come on it's only running at 90 degrees, that's not QUITE hot enought to boil water!!! At least it's not a BLUE SCREEN!!!
As far as the lemon comment. When a significant percentage of a (actually 2) model line has the same issues and the company refuses to fix it past a short deadline, that's BS. Apple is no longer the company of long lasting machines that you can use whenever and count on. ESPECIALLY LAPTOPS. Why is that Wallstreet and Lombards and earlier are still running great but tibooks started dying left and right hinge problems that could have been avoided with GOOD design? Why is it that Ibooks just start dying JUST OUT OF WARRANTY? It's not a lemon, it's deliberate!
No, see the people here at applefritter tend to be Mac USERS + Techs, not fanboys. There are a few OMG APPLE!!! types, but for the most part, people tend to be understanding and intelligent. The slavering dogs are the ones that go...Well come on it's only running at 90 degrees, that's not QUITE hot enought to boil water!!! At least it's not a BLUE SCREEN!!!
As far as the lemon comment. When a significant percentage of any model line has the same issues and the company refuses to fix it past a short deadline, that's BS. Apple is no longer the company of long lasting machines that you can use whenever and count on. ESPECIALLY LAPTOPS. Why is that Wallstreet and Lombards and earlier are still running great but tibooks started dying left and right from hinge/screen problems that could have been avoided with GOOD design? Why is it that Ibooks just start dying JUST OUT OF WARRANTY? It's not a lemon, it's deliberate! Albooks are dissolving? What the hell! They're a company just like any other now. Any connection to the old fan base is long dead.
Look at the posts in kiwi. That's the real apple user. Broken IPods OMG I CAN'T BLLAHASHFSH.
Apple doesn't care about its old consumers. It doesn't have to.
It's like in my town, the abandoned mills were turned into a thriving artist community which revitalized the town. The town, once revitalized, helped turn the mills into $300000 tiny condos where people who think they're artistic can live but the real artist have no more space to create or live reasonably.
That's what apple's done. Disregarded the people that brought them there and now push for the market of people who can make them the biggest buck for the lowest overhead.
As an owner of several Macs (a cool dozen now), I admire their design, and tend to drift towards the older ones. My newest machine, the B&W G3 "Alcyone", is pretty much all the machine I need for most modern tasks, but then again, aside from the Internet and some astronomy imaging applications, I don't put a lot of demands on my machines.
Quality control on new computers (PC and Mac alike) is leaving much to be desired these days. My Clamshell is sturdier than the newer iBooks, and that's not saying much when it's compared with how reliable my 540c has proven to be.
Companies are fallable, mainly because they're run by humans, funny little collections of hydrocarbons and weak electrical traces that make faulty decisions and sometimes let other things guide them then the right things. Apple is no less at fault than any other large company trying to sell an inexpensive product, keep the overhead low and still make a profit. Comparitively, computers have been going down significantly in price for the better part of a decade to keep up with consumer demand. When you start trying to ship the highest numbers possible while trying to keep the prices and the manufacturing costs down, naturally you're going to have issues. Again, companies go through this cycle.
In a decade, I'll predict that we'll look back at this period in Apple's history and have mixed feelings... "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."
Peace,
Rob
EDIT - Some syntax just plain stunk... better now, happy now...
And when you're going from a 2.5 inch thick laptop to a less than 1 inch thick one...it's going to be a bit more flimsy. Yes, my 1400's are much more sturdy than my 14" iBook G4. But the iBook, even though it's much larger, has a much better battery life, is faster, and much thinner. You have to make tradeoffs, and when you go thinner, you get this kind of thing.
Tradeoff? ENTIRE LINES OF PRODUCT FAILING IS NOT A TRADEOFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wake up!
Uh, that's the iBook you were using in the same case with a fanless beige G3, right .... you don't think that might have contributed to a heat situation maybe? I wouldn't be swearing at Apple about this one taking a dive.
Meanwhile, I've read that people have had success taking their iBook into a general electronics repair place, tell them there's some loose solder joints on a specific surface mount chip, they'll wave their magic heat wand over it and it's as good as new. Hell, decase the mofo and bring it in with a scan of the underside, with the edges of the GPU marked in red, and you should be only out their minimum workshop charge.
I'm too lazy to look for links, but in general it's agreed that Apple's quality control and product quality is about par for the industry. That probably says something about the industry as a whole, but, well, there you go. Every product ever made has flaws, and Apple computers are no different. And it's *always* been that way. Just think about a couple points:
1: Apple has a very small model line with long-running model designs. As opposed to most other manufacturers whose basic chassis construction tend to have design lifetimes measured in months. Remember, *every* computer design is going to have flaws. I think the difference in Apple's case is because they stick to single designs for so long you'll find that a whole generations of Apple systems (white-cased iBooks, for example) have the same "weak spot". The total failure rate of those systems in aggregate might be no worse then say, Dell's total laptop failure rate, but the Dells because of their constant chassis refreshes are failing in different ways, while iBooks all die from video-related problems due to motherboard flexing.
2: Apple has a much higher "profile" then other manufacturers. Again, take Dell as an example. If, say, Dell Inspiron 3800s start losing keyboards in droves, or Latitude D600's start annoyingly screwing up because of bad soldering on their Bluetooth module connections (both real-world examples) frankly no one in the media is going to care. Grumpy customers will gripe to Dell, but, well, let's be honest: outside Corporate IT departments it's pretty unlikely you're going to find clusters of people using the same model Dell in large enough numbers to notice a failure *pattern* or be affected by it. And if a given Dell customer really get pissed off when their machine keels over just out of warrenty they have the option of buying another brand laptop, so again, there's just less traction for making a federal case out of it.
The Apple ecosystem is different: you have *many* people using the same laptop model and comparing notes when they die, and none of the people who use those machines feel like they have a choice in computers, so of course they take it personally when they die soon after the warranty runs out and Apple tells them "tough titty".
Anyway. I don't blame you for being annoyed, certainly. One thing about Apple that I really *do* fault them for is not having better extended warranties available. (Applecare is a complete joke for what it costs. For about the same price Dell will sell you "CompleteCare". which basically would let you snap your laptop in half over your knee in front of a Dell technician and still leave Dell obligated to fix it. At the office we had a machine which fell off the top of a car on the freeway replaced under it.) But, well... that's life. The basic warranty in the industry now is one year, and the Tiawanese puppy mills which turn out basically all the laptops in circulation don't build them to last much longer then that. That's why they cost "only" $1000 instead of the $2500+ (closer to $4000 in today's dollars) a similar "low-endish" laptop would of cost you a decade ago.
If you want Apple to produce higher-then-industry-standard quality products you're going to have to convince a sufficiently large customer base to pay for them. It just ain't happening. Even the relatively small premium Apple charges now (which basically all goes to cover their software development costs) is often too much for people to swallow.
So, well... good luck in your search for that other vendor which will give you an indestructable (yet still thin, light, and attractive) laptop for the low price everyone wants to pay these days. You might be looking for a while.
--Peace
Actually, it had never been closed up. It was used like ten times and I'd created more than adequate ventilation AND had a fan pointed right at it. The various heat sinks never got more than warm to the touch. Plus, it wasn't in the same case, it was in the open space from the CRT that was replaced with an lcd. It's actually not in it's case, it was mounted using the underside of the case with nothing covering anything. REALLY COOL environment. As far as the other bit; I'm quite talented with soldering, but I can't seem to figure out where on the ibook to hit.
You'd reflow the GPU. You aren't going to be ablet o do that with a soldering iron, at all. You'll need to find some sort of electronics rework shop that can handle BGA devices and see if they can reflow the chip contacts for you. What it basically would do is apply heat to the chip and shield the rest of the logic board. Then once the chip heated (carefully) to a proper temp all the way to the center of the under side, allow it to cool down slowly so that the joints don't pop again. I could propably do it myself, given a (very) sacrificial iBook mobo, a good heat gun with a precise temp control and a lot of clay and sheilding to protect the rest of the board. For the skill and hassle of it all, it might be worth the 15-30mins of shop time a real repair shop might charge to reflow it for you. You might spend about as much to get a decent heat gun as it would cost to get a pro to do the repair.