iBook G4 1.2ghz Fan Problems

[Rich Simpson]

I believe that your issue with your fan stems from the fact that OS X 
will only turn the fan on if it needs to, and is well integrated with 
your hardware, linux does not have as good of support for the power 
management features in your powerbook, and hence runs the fan even when 
it is not necessary to do so, the fan eats your battery, so I bet that 
os x would get much better battery life from your book, but I am sure 
that it would not let your powerbook get to hot.

I have a pismo (G3 powerbook) under OS X, the fan will only come on 
under extreme circumstances, I must be doing something that takes a lot 
of cpu, while using the optical drive, and have the vents partially 
covered (watching a dvd in bed will usually do it), yet with linux I 
see the same behavior as you, I have used cpu temp monitoring software, 
and my powerbook has not ever gotten too hot under OS X.

As such, I would not worry about hacking OS X to use the fan more, but 
I would think about adding better apple portable power management 
support to linux, so it would run the fan less, and get better battery 
life.

-Rich Simpson

On Nov 21, 2004, at 8:42 PM, 
yellowdog-general-request at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com wrote:

> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 13:42:11 -0600
> From: Andrew Zschetzsche <zsche004 at mrs.umn.edu>
> Subject: iBook G4 1.2ghz Fan Problems
> To: Yellow Dog Linux General Discussion List
> 	<yellowdog-general at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com>
> Message-ID: <BDC64BB3.199C%zsche004 at mrs.umn.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="US-ASCII"
>
> OK, based on that I'm going to ask everybody else:
>
> Does anyone use OS X on a regular basis on their iBook's and see their 
> fan
> spin up?
>
> My iBook G4 1.2 Ghz has gotten very hot under OS X but I have never 
> heard
> the fan run!  Under Linux, (Ubuntu), all it takes is a processor load 
> and
> the fan kicks up loud as a jet engine. Thankfully, my machine has never
> shutdown on me, but I'm getting concerned. (I want my machine to 
> _last_)
>
> Is a lack of fan under OS X something I should be yelling at Apple 
> for, or
> something I should attempt hacking?
>
> Andy Z.
>
>
> On 11/20/04 4:25 PM, "B1smooth" <b1smooth at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Andrew...I have to reinstall yaboot to get it booted into Ydl
>> 3.0.1. I figured the fan was the issue because my computer just shuts
>> itself down by itself periodically. No sleep or nothing just off. I'll
>> fix yaboot and see if you're right.
>
> -- 
> Andrew Zschetzsche
> University of Minnesota, Morris
> zsche004 at mrs.umn.edu
> aim: zsche004
> msn: zsche004 at mrs.umn.edu
>
> America's Best Public Liberal Arts College.
>
> --The best answer to a problem with multiple solutions is often the 
> simplest
> one.
>