Q: Newbie having problems with noisy fan and high CPU usage in Activity Monitor
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May 9, 2012 8:17 AMby Allan Jones,Welcome to the world of PowerBook!
One of the first symptoms i noticed was that watching stuff on youtube was slow and jumped a lot. I checked a few things out and looked the CPU usage in activity monitor and this was about 80% to 100% when on youtube
Virtually no G4s are dealing well with web video anymore. The video technology used by modern developers puts a huge strain on a G4 processor. As this a choice made by coders, there is not much you can do about it. Some people suggest adding RAM but the effect is marginal considering it's the processor that's taxed.
Notebooks get hot. The fans in my 1Ghz 17-inch PowerBook from 2003 kick in between 130 and 140°F. The danger point is not until in the vicinity of 100F so don't sweat it to much. Make sure you do not cover the case bottom by setting the computer on a thick cloth placemat, pillow or other bedding item, or on your lap without a lapboard. The bootom of the case is part of the heat dissipation system and needs air under it to work
A lot of PowerBooks have, by now, lost some or all of their "feet" that gve a little space under the case. Don't bother looking for official replacements--get the silicone door/drawer bumpers from the hardware store that stick on. I found some about 3/16" thick that let more air under my PB thatn the mostly missing originals.
The next thing I discovered was that if i disconnected the laptop from the mains and played youtube and some other applications the whole thing would go into sleep mode very quickly
Your battery is likely dead from old age. Batteries only last about 2-3 years. You are seeing a sign of the battery lacking sufficient remaining capacity to run the computer. Get this utility:
http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/
(you'll need the 2.6.6 version for Tiger) and post what is says about "Health" and "Cycles."
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May 9, 2012 10:53 AMby joshfacejosh,Hi Allan
Thanks for the quick response. I downloaded the coconut battery and it says "102 " for loadcycles. Not sure about health as I can't see that listed. It says it is 102 months old.
Many thanks again...
PS its current capacity seems to be 79% of what it was.
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May 9, 2012 11:07 AMby joshfacejosh,Yeah, i'm just doing some stuff on Go Live and there is already a whirring. The CPU was running high because a video was playing and the hottest part of the mac is the processor bottomside which is 57% out of a upper limit of 73%.
I'm not sure the previous battery readings indicate that that is the problem.
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May 9, 2012 6:21 PMby Allan Jones,Was out much of the day so just now got back to your query.
Sorry, I didn't have my MacBook Pro out when I responded this morning to check on the Coconut battery nomenclature. The capacity number is the same as "health." It's how much of the battery's "when new" capacity is still available.
The battery has probably failed from lack of use by the original owner. These batteries should get enough use to show 1-2 cycles/week or 50-100 a year. As the last PowerBooks were shipped in April 2006, that battery should have a minumum of 300 cycles today.
The battery was already flakey when a friend gave me my PowerBook used. He said he basically used it as a desktop computer and seldom ran it on battery. The numbers were quite close to what yours shows, and it would only run abut 30 minutes on a full charge and go to sleep when it hit 60 percent charge.
I had an Apple tech look at it and he said that consistent powering down at about the same charge level every time was an indication that one of the internal cells in the battery had failed. I got a new battery and all is now fine. He said a failed cell will not show up int eh readings that System Profiler, Coconut battery, and similar status programs use. The bad-cell symptom is consistently shutting down at the same charge point.
Apple no longer sells PowerBook batteries, so look at this vendor. It's about the only one I trust for after-market batteries:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Apple/Laptop/Batteries
I don't know your screen size, but note that different sizes mean a different battery. Make sure you know your screen size before ordering.
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May 10, 2012 9:11 PMby Allan Jones,"Runtime" and "Battery life" get incorrectly interchanged by some people. Runtime is how many hours the computer with operate on a fully-charge battery. Battery life is how many years the battery can serve the computer's power needs before it can no longer hold a charge.
I feel your battery issues are independent of the slowness.
How much RAM is installed? What's the processor speed? Most 15- and 17-inch PowerBooks starting with the 1G Al models can accept and access twice as much RAM as the outdated Apple specs state.
