Okay, this looks like a silly question. I guess I'm hearing a fan or could it be the hard drive. The unit is getting hot. The fan or whatever never came on before. I have the unit raised a little to let air pass beneath. Should I worry? I'm in the middle of a huge project and if I lose my computer function . . .
iBook G4,
Mac OS X (10.4.4),
30yrs on Windows: New to Apple--Happy, but CLUELESS.
Not good to be "clueless". Nor is there such a thing as a "silly question".
Suggest purchasing one of the many helpful manuals for understanding and using Mac OS X. Visit one of the national book stores and have a look at the selection in the Computer section. Buy the one that makes most sense to your level of understanding. The manual will offer guidance about system maintenance, efficiency, shortcuts, and general system operation.
To the matter at hand:
Heat is a function of how much usage is occurring with the system processor. If you are running a memory intensive program, such as Photoshop, the fans may come on to reduce the unit's heat. If you are not running a memory intensive program, then you may need to perform some system maintenance.
I would use a PMU reset only as a last resort, as all of your settings will revert back to their default setting. Also, you may be better served having someone physically look at your machine if the fan issue persists rather than tread into areas you don't fully understand.
In the meantime, have a go at the various routine maintenance procedures suggested earlier.
Quite a learning curve! It's good to be pro-active about your computer, as long as you understand the consequences of each step.
The first and assuredly most important thing to do is to make a complete back up of your project--onto an external separate hard drive, on the .mac server, on to a zip drive. Even e-mail it yourself if you have a workplace computer that's different.
You could also send it to a friend for safe-keeping.
You want to regularly make backups, probably save a new version of your project every day onto a separate drive. (I even make a backup of ikmportant docs that I'm working on to another drive every few hours if I've put in a lot of work that would be hard to redo.)
I would also, given your level of concern, save a copy somewhere off site, away from where your iBook is. that way, if there is a fire or your iBook is stolen, you'll have all your work!
Doing that, and regularly backing up will save you in the event something does happen to the iBook's hard drive and you lose all that's on there.
You should, absolutely, assume that at some point your entire hard drive will become toast and that you will lose everything that's on there--it's just a matter of time.
So be prepared so that when that happens, you can shrug it off and simply get a new hard drive and reinstall your latest backup.
