Hi everyone,

Recently my PowerBook G4 stopped working. Smell, crackling sounds, and now unuseable.

Fortunately I had my Mac Mini G4 which somewhat worked ok. At least that was what I thought, since the Mac Mini have started emitting a very loud noise (fans are constantly running at full speed). It has started only booting 1 out of like 6 times as well. I have opened it, but could not find anything wrong.

Anyone knows if this is fixable? Perhaps a new Mini is in order?

Thanks in advance.

Sound like a heat problem.

You will have to open it up and clean it out and I would strongly recommend redoing the thermal paste too

Yup, sounds like thermal paste issue. Or possibly either a fan at the end of the life or a broken thermal sensor.

Quote:

You could check if the thermal sensor reports anything reasonable, at least in order to check if the sensor is OK - I once did a tool for this, you could check this old thread:

Old Mac Mini G4 temperature sensor thread

Thanks for the helpful tips guys! Would be great to have the computer running properly again.

@cyfm

Thanks for the link. Have now downloaded your tool.

Quote:

If you PowerBook hasn't repair, do not throw it away, save it for spare parts.