the daily snivel
Update to the iBook Ghetto Hack
I wanted to touch base as time went on and update interested readers in my efforts to help my iBook cheat death after installing the shim discussed in my Happy Mac post earlier this month. While I can't say I specifically recommend it to those who are at all uneasy about the idea of cracking open their pristine, shiny, lickable iBook case (you will scratch it along its sides as you progress, I guarantee this) and mucking about with the interior, I'm happy with the results.
I will say that my iBook is behaving a bit like an old mule in the sense that does need a good poke in the rear to make it go. I've had to go in again since my last post to thicken the shim so as to put more pressure on the GPU, in order to ensure that it stays in proper contact with the logic board. I found that the 1.5 millimetre shim I had employed earlier was not sufficient, and I would still encounter periodic kernel panics and even startup failures. I would say that I roughly doubled the thickness to about 3 millimetres, which makes reassembly a bit of a challenge (part of the case definitely does not want to seal up nicely with that big foreign object sitting there), but keeps the pressure on the GPU to the point where I have not had any more problems.
Overall, I am thrilled to bits that my computer works so well again (and without costing me the $300 or so to have a shop fix it for me). I can get on-line, read and answer my e-mail, manage my music collection with the amazing new features in iTunes 7, and even waste some time with mindless retro video games. I will keep you posted as to how this "hack" actually works out in practice, given that I suspect someday someone else with the same problem will stumble across these posts and wonder if it is actually worth the time and bother to go on in and fix it up like this.
Comments:I will say that my iBook is behaving a bit like an old mule in the sense that does need a good poke in the rear to make it go. I've had to go in again since my last post to thicken the shim so as to put more pressure on the GPU, in order to ensure that it stays in proper contact with the logic board. I found that the 1.5 millimetre shim I had employed earlier was not sufficient, and I would still encounter periodic kernel panics and even startup failures. I would say that I roughly doubled the thickness to about 3 millimetres, which makes reassembly a bit of a challenge (part of the case definitely does not want to seal up nicely with that big foreign object sitting there), but keeps the pressure on the GPU to the point where I have not had any more problems.
Overall, I am thrilled to bits that my computer works so well again (and without costing me the $300 or so to have a shop fix it for me). I can get on-line, read and answer my e-mail, manage my music collection with the amazing new features in iTunes 7, and even waste some time with mindless retro video games. I will keep you posted as to how this "hack" actually works out in practice, given that I suspect someday someone else with the same problem will stumble across these posts and wonder if it is actually worth the time and bother to go on in and fix it up like this.
