PowerBook G4 hard drive (& possibly more) replacement?

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LF - 12 Nov 2007 06:57 GMT

My (new to me) 1.33 GHz 15" G4 stared to buzz intermittently, more so
if I move it while it is running. I imagine this is a warning sign
that the hard drive is getting ready to fail.

The current drive is a 55.89 GB TOSHIBA MK6025GAS. The G4 has 2GB ram,
and seems to run a little hot (by touch; aluminum is a good
conductor). Should I stick with a 5400 rpm drive, or can go with a
7200 rpm without actually overheating? Any suggestions about a good
candidate for replacement? SSDs are still too pricey.

The optical drive is a MATSHITACD-RW CW-8123. Seems to work fine for
reading CDs. As long as I have the G4 opened up, I could upgrade the
optical drive as well. Again, suggestions for a good replacement
candidate will be much appreciated.h

While I have the case opened, are there any other upgrades or hacks I
might consider?

Thanks,
Larry

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Tom Anderson - 12 Nov 2007 12:34 GMT

> My (new to me) 1.33 GHz 15" G4 stared to buzz intermittently, more so if
> I move it while it is running. I imagine this is a warning sign that
> the hard drive is getting ready to fail.

Dude! This is exactly what happened to me the other week! See the two
threads i started recently. The only difference is that my machine is 1.5
GHz, but it's of the type that also came out in 1.33 GHz.

When the true fail comes, you'll get a quite exciting chirp sound - starts
low and shoots up to ultrasonic in a fraction of a second. You're then
just hours away from needing a new drive.

You've made a backup, right?

> The current drive is a 55.89 GB TOSHIBA MK6025GAS. The G4 has 2GB ram,
> and seems to run a little hot (by touch; aluminum is a good conductor).
> Should I stick with a 5400 rpm drive, or can go with a 7200 rpm without
> actually overheating? Any suggestions about a good candidate for
> replacement? SSDs are still too pricey.

I just bought a Seagate Momentus 7200.1 (which, as the name hints, is a
7200 rpm drive), at 100 GB, off the back of this review:

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2884

Sadly, they don't make the bigger sizes in PATA; 100 GB is still 20 GB up
from the current/last drive, though.

I haven't received it yet, and so haven't had a chance to see how hot or
loud it is. If you fancy waiting a week or so, i can let you know!

My understanding is that most of the heat dissipated by a laptop is from
the CPU and other bits of high-speed logic, not the hard disk (for
instance, if i set my machine doing modular exponentiation on huge numbers
in an endless loop, it reaches maximum heat - i did this on purpose to dry
some socks the other day). So, even if the disk puts out 50% more heat, it
won't make much of a difference to the machine's total heat output.

> The optical drive is a MATSHITACD-RW CW-8123. Seems to work fine for
> reading CDs. As long as I have the G4 opened up, I could upgrade the
> optical drive as well. Again, suggestions for a good replacement
> candidate will be much appreciated.

I got the superdrive as a factory option, and i've been very happy with
that - being able to play and burn DVDs is really nice.

> While I have the case opened, are there any other upgrades or hacks I
> might consider?

Run a vacuum cleaner over it to take out any dust. Wave a dead chicken.

tom

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LF - 12 Nov 2007 22:04 GMT

> Dude! This is exactly what happened to me the other week! See the two
> threads i started recently. <snip>

Thanks much. Very helpful.

Best,
Larry

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Shawn H. - 13 Nov 2007 11:26 GMT

> My (new to me) 1.33 GHz 15" G4 stared to buzz intermittently, more so
> if I move it while it is running. I imagine this is a warning sign
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
> Thanks,
> Larry

If I were you, I would concentrate on fixing only the problem at hand.
If you replace multiple components and something goes wrong, you have
added to the complexity of finding the cause of the problem.

You didn't say what capacity drive you are installing, but I would go
for the largest capacity drive you can afford, regardless of its speed.
That's just me though. If you are into video editing, the faster drive
is the way to go.

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LF - 21 Nov 2007 13:52 GMT

> My (new to me) 1.33 GHz 15" G4 stared to buzz intermittently <snip>

Thanks all. I installed Seagate 100G 7200 and a Pioneer superdrive,
both from Newegg. The iFixit <http://www.ifixit.com/> tutorial was
great.

Fortunately, I followed Shawn's advice, and installed one at a time.

I've only worked on PCs before, so formatting the hard drive took a
little figuring out, and googling. It would have been easier to
format the new drive, via USB, as an external drive -- before I took
the Powerbook apart.

Thanks all.
Best,
Larry

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Mac Forum / General / Portable Macs / November 2007

PowerBook G4 hard drive (& possibly more) replacement?