Mac Forum / General / Hardware / February 2010

I have an old iBook G4 that was working fine, until I started it up, and
after I got a blue screen, I got a message in 4 languages, " You need to
restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or
press the restart button."

On Friday at the Macworld Expo 2010 in San Francisco,
the Star Trek rock band, Warp 11, played four numbers
for the live, on-stage Leo Laporte show.  In introducing
the band, Leo spoke about the Video Toaster and had a

Lately I've been seeing some odd behavior when it comes to battery
life and charging for my MacBook Pro (MB133*/A). None of the behavior
is perfectly consistent, but here's a few things I've seen more than a
handful of times:

My System:
Dual 2.5GHz PowerPC G5 - 1.25GHz per processor - 1.5 GB RAM - M9457LL/A
Full specs here; last column:
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP80

I'm in a situation where I find myself wanting a second CD reader in a
computer. I have a dead PowerMac 6500/300 gathering dust in the
basement. Can I rip out its Apple 12X CD-ROM drive and install it in a
modern Gateway DX4200 computer running Windows Vista?

Still relatively new to the Mac world, I have an iMac and MacBook Pro
connected to my Time Capsule which include the Time Machine.   Let me
add quickly that I've just moved and haven't gotten all my boxes
opened, including the one which has the Time Capsule manual.  So, it

hardware: iMac core2duo 2.1GHz, 2MB RAM (late 2006)
software: 10.4.11
Long story, but I'll try to keep it brief and report it in sequence:
mid-December 2009:

I've just taken delivery of a Garmin gps unit and I'd like to use my Mac
(Snow Leopard 10.6.2) to read data from the unit's micro SD card. The problem
is that after doing this the gps unit crashed spectacularly the next time I
used it with the flash card inserted.

I have a 2.5" SATA enclosure and want to get a HD for it.
Will a 7200 rpm HD matter if the drive is used as a startup disk, or
does the USB connection cut down the speed so there is no advantage?
Will a 7200 rpm HD in an aluminum enclosure get very hot?

I used a 13 inch Macbook pro for a  short time and have a backup on my
Time Capsule.  I'm getting back into the Mac world but moving up in size
to the 15 inch MBP.  My question is, are there architectural differences
 in the two which might make a mess of things if I try to ...

I'm thinking of adding a Mac Mini to go along with the MacBook Pro I've
ordered and don't have a pressing need for an iMac.  I had planned on
ordering the higher end Mini primarily for the larger hard drive but on
their site today, I notice for roughly two hundred more, I can get ...

Someone just "gifted" me with a large box of assorted cables. Among them
was an Apple-branded USB extension (male "A" on one end, female "A" on
the other) with the addition that the female connector has a little bump
sticking into the side of the socket so that no "ordinary" male ...

OK, first I'll admit that this is not exactly a mac.hardware problem but
there doesn't appear to be a usenet group for general-purpose monitor or
display issues, so let me try my luck here.
I've got a 21" Samsung SyncMaster (214T) with which, when it worked