Club 17

[eyoungren]

How well do the 07/08 MBPs run El Capitan? I'm a bit concerned about RAM, but it would be useful to have more recent versions of Adobe CC.

The only issue I've ever noticed running El Cap or higher is heat. Depending on the comfort level of the room I'm in, heat can spike up to 170º if I'm taxing the processor. And that's with smcFanControl going full blast.

Now, if my A/C is working (broke in June, so I'm averaging a room around 90º depending on the day) then smcFanControl can keep things around 140º or so (at full blast) when taxing the CPU. General surfing, moderate work I'm running around 125-140º.

Photoshop CC is no issue. I do have a 500GB SSD installed, but I can't really say it's an improvement over a stock 7200rpm drive. The HD I DID replace though was 4200rpm, so having the SSD has benefitted the Mac.

 

[eyoungren]

I posted here back in late 2018 when my wife got me a 2005 PowerBook G4 17" for Christmas, it was the biggest, baddest laptop I grew up wanting, along with using Mac OS X back in the day when I was stuck on XP and later moved to Linux for a long time. Sadly, the laptop didn't last long as my charger broke, and I didn't know it was the charger and then she got left to gather dust - the laptop, not my wife, we know have a lovely energetic 16 month old daughter together - and life got in the way, all of that. During lockdown in the UK I got her up and running with a different charger, and now I've finally gotten round to putting 2GB of RAM in the old girl. I have a new HDD on its way that should be both larger and quicker, once that's done I'll be posting some fun shots of her doing...something.


It's been funny reading your past posts here from everyone, especially the graphics issue on the original MacBook Pros. My PowerBook had the classic loose display connection cable issue. And it was a nightmare for me to get fixed, and it the end I 100% bodged it, I have little 3M command strip pieces - you know the things you use to hang stuff without nails and such - on the logic board ensuring the perfect angle to connect the display cable to the logic board. It looks funky - but fairly neat - but IT WORKS. I've not had a display issue since I did the fix, and I've moved it all over the house, used it on my lap, on the table, all of that and I've had no issues. Finally getting to do the upgrades and tweaks to it that I wanted to almost two years ago now!

Back in 2010 I attempted to replace the LCVDS cable on my 17" PB. I did not go well. I had to remove the back of the LCD and those hooks on the inside of the panel tore my hands up. Blood everywhere. Replacing the damn panel was a Frankenstein work because those metal hooks had been on strips that tore off.

I eventually just said 'screw it' and replaced the entire LCD. I have replaced a logicboard on the 17's three times now - but I will never try and replace the LCVDS cable. Just easier to swap displays.

 

[Toyface19]

Back in 2010 I attempted to replace the LCVDS cable on my 17" PB. I did not go well. I had to remove the back of the LCD and those hooks on the inside of the panel tore my hands up. Blood everywhere. Replacing the damn panel was a Frankenstein work because those metal hooks had been on strips that tore off.

I eventually just said 'screw it' and replaced the entire LCD. I have replaced a logicboard on the 17's three times now - but I will never try and replace the LCVDS cable. Just easier to swap displays.

Yeah, I luckily had a lot of help from iFixIt and videos online on how to get the display lid off - which I need to replace as it's fixed on, but there's a gap and I have a dent in the lid, too, but that's a job for another time - and while I had the machine turned on but in pieces I determined the problem was the connector on the board underneath the keyboard, so since I made sure that connects well and STAYS in the position it likes - no more problem. I can see why those panel clips cut you up they're nasty, amiright?! I did buy another 17-inch for spare parts but it was a much older version, and nothing of note is really compatible with this so I'm currently parting it out and putting it on eBay piece by piece.

 

[Riviera122]

The only issue I've ever noticed running El Cap or higher is heat. Depending on the comfort level of the room I'm in, heat can spike up to 170º if I'm taxing the processor. And that's with smcFanControl going full blast.

Now, if my A/C is working (broke in June, so I'm averaging a room around 90º depending on the day) then smcFanControl can keep things around 140º or so (at full blast) when taxing the CPU. General surfing, moderate work I'm running around 125-140º.

Photoshop CC is no issue. I do have a 500GB SSD installed, but I can't really say it's an improvement over a stock 7200rpm drive. The HD I DID replace though was 4200rpm, so having the SSD has benefitted the Mac.

Interesting, thanks. Looks like I'll be sticking with Mavericks until I upgrade to an SSD and max out the RAM.

 

[Riviera122]

Checking out the "Embracing Early Intel" thread on here reminded me to check in with the Club on my recent 17 MBP purchase!

It's currently in use as my "portable WFH" setup. Here's what that looks like:

The matte display really makes it look like a PBG4

- iPod Hi-Fi wirelessly streaming music over AirPlay, using a Gen 2(?) AirPort Express connected via AUX. I love this speaker. Its size makes the sound much more "room-filling" than, say, a HomePod or other portable speaker, and it goes LOUD. Not to mention the classic Steve Jobs-era design. An underrated product, in my opinion, due to the device's high RRP compared to competitors (e.g. Bose SoundDock), which deterred a lot of people at the time. Never seen a reason to upgrade.

- Gen 1 Magic Trackpad for gesture functionality; a must if using Adobe apps.

- Upgraded to 6GB RAM. Expensive, but worth it as running an Adobe document (e.g. InDesign with dozens of spreads) + Spotify + internet (especially Chrome, which I'm forced to use for compatibility reasons) eats up 4GB RAM easily. I have definitely noticed an increase in performance.

- It has been a fine WFH machine. Instant messaging, screen sharing, Voice/Video chat all work perfectly. Running Mavericks has presented a few compatibility issues with some work software, but web app variants are powerful enough these days to pretty much guarantee full functionality. The hi-def screen is fantastic and is a joy to design on, especially thanks to the matte coating.

I can't put my finger on what it is exactly, but the user experience on these 17" machines is unparalleled. The fact it's still practically usable in 2020 is just a bonus.

Edit: Here are the computer's specs.

Mid-2007 "Santa Rosa" MBP with hi-res matte display and revised Nvidia 8600GT GPU
2.4GHz Core 2 Duo
160GB HDD
6GB DDR2 RAM
Mac OS X Mavericks

 

[mikiotty]

Checking out the "Embracing Early Intel" thread on here reminded me to check in with the Club on my recent 17 MBP purchase!

It's currently in use as my "portable WFH" setup. Here's what that looks like:

View attachment 962611

The matte display really makes it look like a PBG4

- iPod Hi-Fi wirelessly streaming music over AirPlay, using a Gen 2(?) AirPort Express connected via AUX. I love this product. Its size makes the sound much more "room-filling" than, say, a HomePod or other portable speaker, and it goes LOUD. Not to mention the classic Steve Jobs-era design. An underrated product, in my opinion, due to the device's high RRP compared to competitors (e.g. Bose Soundstage), which deterred a lot of people at the time. Never seen a reason to upgrade.

- Gen 1 Magic Trackpad for gesture functionality; a must if using Adobe apps.

- Upgraded to 6GB RAM. Expensive, but worth it as running an InDesign document with dozens of pages + Spotify + internet (especially Chrome, which I'm forced to use for compatibility reasons) eats up 4GB RAM easily. I definitely have noticed a difference.

- It has been a fine WFH machine. Instant messaging, screen sharing, Voice/Video chat all work perfectly. Running Mavericks has presented a few compatibility issues with other work software, but web app variants are powerful enough these days to pretty much guarantee full functionality. The hi-def screen is fantastic and is a joy to design on, especially thanks to the matte coating.

I can't put my finger on what it is exactly, but the user experience on these 17" machines is unparalleled. The fact it's still practically usable in 2020 is just a bonus.

Awesome! It would be nice to know the full specs ?

 

[eyoungren]

…(especially Chrome, which I'm forced to use for compatibility reasons)…

Does it have to be Chrome? I know that Opera, Vivaldi (which I use) and Brave allow you to install Chrome Extensions as they are chromium based. I would just think that if you have to, you could change the user agent. But at least, you'd have a choice of browser.

 

[timidpimpin]

It's been well over a decade, and I'm still in awe of how massive the speakers are on the 17". I've heard several, and the bigger size really makes a difference.

 

[Amethyst1]

It's been well over a decade, and I'm still in awe of how massive the speakers are on the 17". I've heard several, and the bigger size really makes a difference.

Now where's the 20" PowerBook/MacBook Pro with 5.1 surround sound? That beast would have to have a 2304×1440 LCD to be in the same PPI ballpark as the 17" 1920×1200 FWIW. Now where have I come across this resolution before...?

 

[bobesch]

Awesome! It would be nice to know the full specs ?

@Riviera122: a 2007 17" Santa Rosa, isn't it?
They sport the additional "page"/"home"/ "end". naming on the cursor keys - the early2008 don't. And the 17" from 2006 are (edit:'officially') limited to Lion because of the 32bit EFI thing.
Oh, that's a nice machine - congrats! And you really made best use of it.
I do recommend an Aluminum "iLap stand" when at home or "Just Mobile Lazy couch" for on the go, to keep the book cool.

As an alternative to your great speaker a BassJump2 USB-subwoofer is also a good gadget to improve the sound of the inbuilt speakers.

edit #1: oh, I really forgot about your previous post #365, where you've already lifted all secrets ... ? (and that it has got a refurbished GPU ?)

edit #2: I forgot to mention an USB 3.0 PC EcpressCard (this seller offers ExpressCards, that works out of the box without any extra modifications. - Mods, not my auction!). That lifts up USB-level to MBP-2012 standard.
Great to shovel data to an external drive. It offers enough power for a single SSD in an external case - for spinning drives you need a Y-cable to get additional power from the inbuilt USB 2.0 socket. The only drawback, that you have to keep the machine awake during operation (e.g. when performing CCC-clone-backups) - otherwise connection get's lost and backup stops. I use Caffein-App to prevent hibernation in this special situation.
USB 3.0 & external SSD is great for superfast scheduled CCC backups (launch on plug-in) of selected folders / the document folder. (I have a few virtual machines. The VMs are excluded from these fast backups, but since all personal files/data are stored outside of the VMs, they are included into the backups too.)

 

[B S Magnet]

@Riviera122: a 2007 17" Santa Rosa, isn't it?
They sport the additional "up"/"down"/ etc. naming on the cursor keys - the early2008 don't

I went over to my yet-to-be-fixed Penryn 17" to check this — comparing it with my constantly on DLSD 17" — and wouldn’t you know it! They’re just triangle-arrows!

I legitimately learnt something new today! Thank you!

 

[Amethyst1]

And the 17" from 2006 are limited to Lion because of the 32bit EFI thing

Mountain Lion can be patched to run on them. And it's totally worth it because it runs great.

 

[Riviera122]

Does it have to be Chrome? I know that Opera, Vivaldi (which I use) and Brave allow you to install Chrome Extensions as they are chromium based. I would just think that if you have to, you could change the user agent. But at least, you'd have a choice of browser.

Unfortunately yes. MS Teams is used by a majority of the teams I work with on a daily basis, and they've limited functionality of the web app on Firefox, Safari, Opera and so on. Chromium sadly doesn't work either. Spoofing the user agent worked occasionally, but MS have patched it recently. They've committed to "working with" Mozilla to bring full functionality to Firefox but who knows if/when that will ever occur.

Awesome! It would be nice to know the full specs ?

Thanks. As Bobesch wrote above, Mid-2007 Santa Rosa MBP. 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 160GB HDD. With hi-res matte display and revised Nvidia 8600GT GPU

 

[Riviera122]

@Riviera122: a 2007 17" Santa Rosa, isn't it?
They sport the additional "up"/"down"/ etc. naming on the cursor keys - the early2008 don't. And the 17" from 2006 are limited to Lion because of the 32bit EFI thing.
Oh, that's a nice machine - congrats! And you really made best use of it.
I do recommend an Aluminum "iLap stand" when at home or "Just Mobile Lazy couch" for on the go, to keep the book cool.
View attachment 962654
As an alternative to your great speaker a BassJump2 USB-subwoofer is also a good gadget to improve the sound of the inbuilt speakers.

Good eye! Thanks for reminding me about getting a lap stand, it's definitely needed as these machines run red hot. The subwoofer may have to wait, but getting the MBP to sound as big as the laptop itself is surely a goal

 

[LightBulbFun]

Mountain Lion can be patched to run on them. And it's totally worth it because it runs great.

even Mavericks can

NexPostFacto

parrotgeek.com

 

[R2FX]

even Mavericks can

NexPostFacto

parrotgeek.com

duuude!!! I thought Mavericks on 2006 machines wouldn't work due to missing (not compiled) graphic drivers for those X1600....I'll definitely try it out, have 10.8 now on my older machine but would love to have both 2006 and 2008 17" on 10.9

best thread on this forum

 

[laptech]

This is my 17 Powerbook (G4 1.67 17" (DLSD/HR - Al). I've had it since 2017 but it has been in storage due to moving properties. I did post back in 2017 in here but never did a picture and recently someone made a post in here and it showed up in my notifications and it got me thinking about my powerbook so I got it out of storage and took a picture of it today

Now I am scouring the powerpc section to see how make best use of it and to see what software and programs will and will not work on it so I can use it more regularly. Only programs I have installed on it so far is VLC and Leopard-Webkit. Oh and the hard drive is going so am looking at an SSD upgrade (PATA to M2 adapter).

 

[bobnugget]

This is a really fascinating find. I was aware of there being dev tests of 15 and 17in Core Duos, though the only models whose clock speeds I was definitively aware of were the 1.67 and 1.83 15in models cited on Everymac. As you know, the ”A1150” you have isn’t noted on there.

What’s doubly fascinating about your DVT MBP, personally speaking, is that my 17in PB G4 was built on week 12 of 2006 — meaning not only was it among the very last of the PBs made and produced a week later than your MBP, but also your DVT MBP was an example which reveals how they were still tweaking model internals before its April début.

Have you ever run Geekbench 2.2.7 to gauge its overall performance?

Just ran 2.4.3 on it - here you go: https://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench2/2690447
That was just over a third of the time the 1.5 unDLSD took to run it

 

[netsrot39]

You are all so lucky to find a 17" PowerBook. I can't seem to find any (for a reasonable price) in my area. I've been searching for over 2 years now and recently a listing showed up – a PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz (pre DLSD) for 120€. Seems a bit pricey but what do you guys think? Also, from what I've heard, it should be pretty hard to find a replacement battery, right? I love the PowerBook series (I have 5x 15" PowerBooks and 2x 12" PowerBooks) and I am generally satisfied with the machines I already own but damn I'd really like to try out a 17" PowerBook sometime Anyways, I enjoy reading this thread and what you guys make out of your PowerBooks

 

[laptech]

You are all so lucky to find a 17" PowerBook. I can't seem to find any (for a reasonable price) in my area. I've been searching for over 2 years now and recently a listing showed up – a PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz (pre DLSD) for 120€. Seems a bit pricey but what do you guys think? Also, from what I've heard, it should be pretty hard to find a replacement battery, right? I love the PowerBook series (I have 5x 15" PowerBooks and 2x 12" PowerBooks) and I am generally satisfied with the machines I already own but damn I'd really like to try out a 17" PowerBook sometime Anyways, I enjoy reading this thread and what you guys make out of your PowerBooks

I would have thought you be content in having both the 15inch and 12inch powerbooks to play with

 

[Amethyst1]

I've been searching for over 2 years now and recently a listing showed up – a PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz (pre DLSD) for 120€.

Way too expensive. A 17" DLSD sold for 60€ this morning on the German ebay. Sadly I missed it.

 

[laptech]

Way too expensive. A 17" DLSD sold for 60€ this morning on the German ebay. Sadly I missed it.

In ebay, in the search bar, type in the search criteria, for example 17inch powerbook or A1139 and then when ebay displays a list of items you will see at the top of the search list an option where is say's 'saved search'. Click on this and it will save the search. What happens is the next time someone add's an item to ebay that matches your saved search criteria, you get a notification.

I've got 2 saved searches for items I am always on the look out for and when anyone adds an item that matches my search criteria, I get a email notification. Thing to note, the notification does not tell me specifically what the item is, it just tells me that there has been a hit on my search criteria. It is then up to me to investigate further on what item(s) have been added.

Maybe you could do the same for the powerbook.

 

[Amethyst1]

In ebay, in the search bar, type in the search criteria, for example 17inch powerbook or A1139 and then when ebay displays a list of items you will see at the top of the search list an option where is say's 'saved search'.

I do have saved searches, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that I just plain forgot to check the auction.

 

[laptech]

I do have saved searches, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that I just plain forgot to check the auction.

Oh, it was a case of just forgetting..that sucks when that happens. Next time, set a reminder in your phone '1AM must check auction', '4AM must check auction' hehe hopefully the reminder beeps wont wake up too many people.

 

[Amethyst1]

Next time, set a reminder in your phone '1AM must check auction', '4AM must check auction' hehe hopefully the reminder beeps wont wake up too many people.

That's what I'll do - if someone wakes up I'll say it's an emergency