Club 17

[eyoungren]

I'm probably posting this more for myself than for anyone else, but here's how the A1139 restoration has gone.

First, the symptoms were exactly as I'd sussed.

Someone along the way had tried to boot from an disc install of Panther, which is not possible with the A1138 and A1139s. So I put it into target disk mode, connected it to the G5, wiped the drive, ran ASD 2.6.3, and then installed Leopard Server.

View attachment 827904 View attachment 827906 View attachment 827907


ASD hardware test passed completely. Yay.

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Superficially, it was as dirty as one could expect from being left alone for a while at a "swap shop" (i.e., pawn shop). I obviously don't know its history beyond what's before me right now, but I plan to look into it.

Whilst installing Leopard (or maybe whilst running ASD), I opened the RAM compartment to find that 2GB RAM was installed. I fully expected to find only 512MB.

View attachment 827909 View attachment 827910

In any event, there's still more work to do, but here's where things are now.

It's cleaner.

Aside from a couple of minor scratches and corner scuffs, everything appears to be in exceptional condition. I swapped the "enter" key with a second "Opt" key donated from a donor 12" PB (which, like 15 and 17-inch models, are translucent to let backlighting through, even as the 12 never was equipped to do that).

View attachment 827914 View attachment 828046


Geekbench 2 reports in at 888 for now. With an SSD, this might go up a bit. And the battery will need to be replaced, but it still holds a marginal amount of capacity.

View attachment 828047

I'm just feeling fortunate to have run across this Powerbook at all, much less for well below $100.

Looks like a real nice Mac. All it needs is a little attention.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I'm probably posting this more for myself than for anyone else, but here's how the A1139 restoration has gone.

First, the symptoms were exactly as I'd sussed.

Someone along the way had tried to boot from an disc install of Panther, which is not possible with the A1138 and A1139s. So I put it into target disk mode, connected it to the G5, wiped the drive, ran ASD 2.6.3, and then installed Leopard Server.

View attachment 827904 View attachment 827906 View attachment 827907


ASD hardware test passed completely. Yay.

View attachment 827911 View attachment 827915


Superficially, it was as dirty as one could expect from being left alone for a while at a "swap shop" (i.e., pawn shop). I obviously don't know its history beyond what's before me right now, but I plan to look into it.

Whilst installing Leopard (or maybe whilst running ASD), I opened the RAM compartment to find that 2GB RAM was installed. I fully expected to find only 512MB.

View attachment 827909 View attachment 827910

In any event, there's still more work to do, but here's where things are now.

It's cleaner.

Aside from a couple of minor scratches and corner scuffs, everything appears to be in exceptional condition. I swapped the "enter" key with a second "Opt" key donated from a donor 12" PB (which, like 15 and 17-inch models, are translucent to let backlighting through, even as the 12 never was equipped to do that).

View attachment 827914 View attachment 828046


Geekbench 2 reports in at 888 for now. With an SSD, this might go up a bit. And the battery will need to be replaced, but it still holds a marginal amount of capacity.

View attachment 828047

I'm just feeling fortunate to have run across this Powerbook at all, much less for well below $100.

very nice find

as a side note GB2 does not benchmark HDD speeds so an SSD wont change your score, however I noticed your using an old version of Geekbench 2

I recommend using the latest version for Leopard which is GeekBench 2.2.7 http://geekbench.s3.amazonaws.com/Geekbench-2.2.7-Mac.zip

 

[B S Magnet]

very nice find

as a side note GB2 does not benchmark HDD speeds so an SSD wont change your score, however I noticed your using an old version of Geekbench 2

I recommend using the latest version for Leopard which is GeekBench 2.2.7 http://geekbench.s3.amazonaws.com/Geekbench-2.2.7-Mac.zip

I should do that, then.

I thought drive bus was part of the bench testing, mostly because when I tested the key lime shortly after I first bought it in ’07, the scores were at or below whatever Everymac posted, while the ones I posted in January this year, following a lot of the post-2018 upgrades (including the mSATA SSD), ranked the scores higher than any other reported FW/466 model.

I guess I learnt something else out of this.

 

[eyoungren]

I should do that, then.

I thought drive bus was part of the bench testing, mostly because when I tested the key lime shortly after I first bought it in ’07, the scores were at or below whatever Everymac posted, while the ones I posted in January this year, following a lot of the post-2018 upgrades (including the mSATA SSD), ranked the scores higher than any other reported FW/466 model.

I guess I learnt something else out of this.

You might try AJA System Test.

It tests hard drive speeds.

 

[mikiotty]

I’m glad to enter the club with my new 17” MacBook Pro 2.1, which I bought yesterday for just 25€.
It had some issues, like the display casing snapped on the hinge and some glitches from a failing BGA on the X1600. A quick thermal paste change and 1 minute with a heat gun fixed it. Now it’s running beautifully
Gonna find another display housing later on.

 

[mikiotty]

This is BY FAR the best laptop I have ever owned or used. I absolutely LOVE it. I'm tempted to find a 2011 model and use that as my main portable machine, selling the 13" retina

 

[B S Magnet]

This is BY FAR the best laptop I have ever owned or used. I absolutely LOVE it. I'm tempted to find a 2011 model and use that as my main portable machine, selling the 13" retina

If you do, be mindful of the video card nightmare plaguing all the early-/late-2011 MBP 15"/17" models.

Were it not for that, I'd totally be on board with eventually replacing my early 2011 13" MBP with a 15" or 17" late-2011, not only because of screen real estate and unibody solidity, but also they will boot into Snow Leopard. But the video card thing is a mess.

Also: I'm also loving the 17" G4 right now. It might sound silly, but I've made it my dedicated device for using Duolingo (with TFF, as it won't work with ArcticFox yet).

 

[mikiotty]

If you do, be mindful of the video card nightmare plaguing all the early-/late-2011 MBP 15"/17" models.

Were it not for that, I'd totally be on board with eventually replacing my early 2011 13" MBP with a 15" or 17" late-2011, not only because of screen real estate and unibody solidity, but also they will boot into Snow Leopard. But the video card thing is a mess.

Also: I'm also loving the 17" G4 right now. It might sound silly, but I've made it my dedicated device for using Duolingo (with TFF, as it won't work with ArcticFox yet).

Considering the tasks I do on my Mac, I'd be totally fine even with a 2010 one. I'll try and use the 17" I've got for a week as my main and only Mac and see how it goes, but I'm 99% sure I can use it as my daily.

 

[eyoungren]

This is BY FAR the best laptop I have ever owned or used. I absolutely LOVE it. I'm tempted to find a 2011 model and use that as my main portable machine, selling the 13" retina

This is why I use the 17's. People just see "HUGE LAPTOP" and never get beyond that. It takes using them for a little while before you realize that the large screen and the real estate space for the keyboard are very good to work with. They are just really nice systems.

 

[bobesch]

This is why I use the 17's. People just see "HUGE LAPTOP" and never get beyond that. It takes using them for a little while before you realize that the large screen and the real estate space for the keyboard are very good to work with. They are just really nice systems.

They are! I don't dare to use 17" as a daily driver, because I fear, this will make my great fancy for the 15" come to an end ... (Happend to me and my 13" MBP, when I started to use my first 15" book.)

 

[Amethyst1]

They are! I don't dare to use 17" as a daily driver, because I fear, this will make my great fancy for the 15" come to an end ... (Happend to me and my 13" MBP, when I started to use my first 15" book.)

For me, it tends to work the other way round - having grown accustomed to 12", the additional size and weight of the 15" and 17" suddenly becomes very noticeable. That's not to say they're not gorgeous machines though.

 

[MagicBoy]

They're not that much worse than some 15" laptops. I recently picked up a Thinkpad T540, and there's very little between the two. The MacBook is slightly thinner, and narrower.

 

[B S Magnet]

For me, it tends to work the other way round - having grown accustomed to 12", the additional size and weight of the 15" and 17" suddenly becomes very noticeable. That's not to say they're not gorgeous machines though.

Interestingly, the factory gross weight of the Powerbook 17" (~3.1kg/6.9#) is just a hair heavier than the factory gross weight for the iBook SE 466 clamshell (~3.04kg/6.7#). What that mass lacks in the PowerBook, of course, is the immensely useful handle to carry it around.

(I stress “factory gross weight”, as there are routine — and not so routine — ways to calve grams from either. Even little things like converting HDD to SSD, though marginal, will lighten the final weight of your own device.)

 

[gts250gamer101]

Just registered for a MacRumors account just so I could post about my new PowerBook! I got it for free, it's a 17-inch 1.5GHz Aluminum PowerBook G4! Unfortunately, it has a dead display backlight. I am visiting the local Free Geek soon to see if they have any donor PowerBooks (they usually sell donor laptops for around $5 that have dead motherboards, proprietary connections that they cannot refurb/use, etc.)

 

[z970]

Just registered for a MacRumors account just so I could post about my new PowerBook! I got it for free, it's a 17-inch 1.5GHz Aluminum PowerBook G4! Unfortunately, it has a dead display backlight. I am visiting the local Free Geek soon to see if they have any donor PowerBooks (they usually sell donor laptops for around $5 that have dead motherboards, proprietary connections that they cannot refurb/use, etc.)

Welcome to the family.

 

[eyoungren]

Just registered for a MacRumors account just so I could post about my new PowerBook! I got it for free, it's a 17-inch 1.5GHz Aluminum PowerBook G4! Unfortunately, it has a dead display backlight. I am visiting the local Free Geek soon to see if they have any donor PowerBooks (they usually sell donor laptops for around $5 that have dead motherboards, proprietary connections that they cannot refurb/use, etc.)

Nice!

Be sure to show pics when you can. If they don't have anything for you a good alternative is to buy a dead system off eBay for parts.

 

[Raging Dufus]

Hey can I join your club?

A few weeks ago I scored off the 'Bay a beautiful A1212 17" MacBook Pro 2,1. I've been getting it set up for daily driving, which has proved to be more challenging than I thought, but it's pretty close to completion. Time to show it off!



It's a 2.33 GHz Core2Duo (T7600) model from 2006. I specifically sought this model because: a) I need an Intel Mac for certain tasks; b) I decided my mobile computing needs would be better served by a larger screen than I had; and c) this is the latest/greatest 17" MBP to come with a CPU unburdened by Intel's Management Engine security/privacy compromises.

Officially, this model only supports up to 10.7 Lion, but aided by one of @dosdude1's patches it now runs 10.8 Mountain Lion, including all OS & security updates. It's pretty remarkable how well this machine handles Mountain Lion, far snappier than with Lion. Mountain Lion also introduces some security features not present in Lion, and gives me the ability to run ParrotGeek's build of FireFox Quantum 69.0 for legacy hardware, as well as @wicknix's excellent 64-bit Pale Moon for Mac. My browsing and general security needs are therefore met on Mac OS, at least for the present.



But I'm not just running Mountain Lion. The machine is set up to triple-boot Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion, and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 64-bit. This way legacy software needs are covered by Rosetta under 10.6, and future security/standards-compliance needs covered by a Linux distribution supported until 2023.



As for the hardware itself, I really, really got lucky here. I took a chance on some poorly-lit photos in an eBay listing hoping the seller's description was accurate and honest. Turned out, it was exactly what the seller said it was: a public library's newly-surplused 2006 MacBook Pro in excellent physical condition. The pics were bad enough that others had been passing it by, but I made an offer and received this one-owner beauty, which clearly had been handled little. By what was left on the drive, it was obvious that it had been set up as a graphics design workstation (in fact the computer name was "Graphic Designer's Computer"), which to me means it was likely used to teach classes. I doubt this thing was moved much, if at all, since the library bought it new in 2006 and set it up to teach those classes. My photos don't do justice, it looks nearly brand new, but see for yourselves:





It's not perfect, there are just a couple of small annoyances physically: namely, the wearing down of the tiny rubber nibs on each side of the display - which is a mystery to me, I don't see how that could have happened without leaving some marks on the bezel; and, someone somehow made a Sharpie mark across the backlit Apple logo and left it there long enough for the solvent-based ink to embed itself in the plastic. I can't think of a way to remedy either of those conditions, without resorting to some unnecessary surgery, so I'll just live with them. Small trouble.



The best news of all, though, is this: I opened up the computer when I got it, because of course it needed some fresh thermal paste, and I wanted to replace the spinner drive with a new Crucial 500 GB SSD. When I removed the top case - queue angels singing - I was greeted by an absolutely pristine, theretofore untouched logic board. All of the yellow tape installed at the factory was present and undisturbed, with no fingerprints. The hard drive was original equipment with Apple logo. It was clear that no one had been inside this machine since it left the factory, and - get this! - it. was. CLEAN!!! I mean, no corrosion, no dirt, hair, dead bugs or other contaminants of any kind. There was only the slightest bit of dust present on the heat sinks, which of course for a 13-year-old computer is unavoidable. It was then I knew what I had: this machine had clearly only ever been used inside a climate-controlled facility, and probably not much at that. I have never before seen a used computer in such exceptional interior condition. As such, I have every reason to expect years of good service from my new companion.

So there's my club membership application, I hope you like it. I sure do. I'd always imagined a 17-incher to be an unnecessary, unwieldy behemoth compared to my 15-inchers. But I have to say - I love this thing! It's not too big or heavy at all, it's actually kinda sleek and sexy seeing that expanse of aluminum supporting that big, beautiful display. I just love the design of these pre-unibody MBP's/PB's, so this is more of a good thing. I'm looking forward to using it!

 

[eyoungren]

Hey can I join your club?

Sure! Welcome!

It's not perfect, there are just a couple of small annoyances physically: namely, the wearing down of the tiny rubber nibs on each side of the display - which is a mystery to me, I don't see how that could have happened without leaving some marks on the bezel; and, someone somehow made a Sharpie mark across the backlit Apple logo and left it there long enough for the solvent-based ink to embed itself in the plastic. I can't think of a way to remedy either of those conditions, without resorting to some unnecessary surgery, so I'll just live with them. Small trouble.

Try using hairspray. A side benefit of that stuff is that it removes ink. Also, the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser has been purported to do miraculous things around here.

I'd always imagined a 17-incher to be an unnecessary, unwieldy behemoth compared to my 15-inchers. But I have to say - I love this thing! It's not too big or heavy at all, it's actually kinda sleek and sexy seeing that expanse of aluminum supporting that big, beautiful display. I just love the design of these pre-unibody MBP's/PB's, so this is more of a good thing. I'm looking forward to using it!

I hear that a lot from users who've never tried the 17" Macs. Then they do and well…now you understand.

 

[Raging Dufus]

Try using hairspray. A side benefit of that stuff is that it removes ink. Also, the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser has been purported to do miraculous things around here.

Magic Erasers do indeed do miraculous things, I use them often. Unfortunately they're of little use when a stain has penetrated beyond the surface, which this one has. This is a good reason not to use Sharpies or other permanent markers to label things - their "permanence" comes from solvents in the ink that are designed to penetrate. That explains why the mark on my MBP only persists in the plastic Apple logo, and not on the surrounding aluminum.

I tried the hairspray trick, no joy there either. I thought about maybe painting the logo with some white paint to cover the mark, but I'll probably just live with it until/unless the backlight needs replacing. Thanks for the suggestions though!

 

[z970]

Also, the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser has been purported to do miraculous things around here.

I can personally attest to the power of that stuff, especially when soaked with rubbing alcohol, itself being another reliable cleaner.

Cleans up cases and contacts all the time.

 

[B S Magnet]

Sure! Welcome!


Try using hairspray. A side benefit of that stuff is that it removes ink. Also, the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser has been purported to do miraculous things around here.


I hear that a lot from users who've never tried the 17" Macs. Then they do and well…now you understand.

Yeah. Don't fuss with the hairspray. Magic eraser sponge will be your hero here. ?

 

[bobesch]

I'd keep that mark as a remembrance of the certain circumstances, this great MacBook comes from ...
And BTW: congrats to that 17" Book.

And also thanks for making me think again about trying to patch my white intel-Macs to run ML!

 

[dbdjre0143]

Just registered for a MacRumors account just so I could post about my new PowerBook! I got it for free, it's a 17-inch 1.5GHz Aluminum PowerBook G4! Unfortunately, it has a dead display backlight. I am visiting the local Free Geek soon to see if they have any donor PowerBooks (they usually sell donor laptops for around $5 that have dead motherboards, proprietary connections that they cannot refurb/use, etc.)

I can't remember for sure if the panels are compatible. (Pretty sure someone else in this thread can answer that), but I have a DLSD panel laying around you could have very cheaply if it would work for you. (That assumes you're in the U.S. - priced shipping it to someone elsewhere awhile back and the price was horrible.)

 

[eyoungren]

Yeah. Don't fuss with the hairspray. Magic eraser sponge will be your hero here. ?

The last time I really used it was to remove a black marker streak that my then 3 year old niece had put on my white car from the front passenger door to the rear quarter panel. Her mother (my wife's younger sister) tried to pass it off as "kids will be kids" but I wasn't happy.

My niece is in her 20s now and I no longer have the car but the hairspray did work, LOL!

 

[Raging Dufus]

Yeah. Don't fuss with the hairspray. Magic eraser sponge will be your hero here. ?

I tried it, unfortunately what's left of the stain is subsurface.
Magic or not, it can't erase what it can't reach
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I can't remember for sure if the panels are compatible. (Pretty sure someone else in this thread can answer that), but I have a DLSD panel laying around you could have very cheaply if it would work for you. (That assumes you're in the U.S. - priced shipping it to someone elsewhere awhile back and the price was horrible.)

Wow that's generous, and I appreciate the offer! But this thing has such a great screen, I just don't want to mess with it. I can live with the imperfection, especially since I can't even see it while the computer is in use