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Power Mac G5 logic board failure?

glaston — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:23:19 GMT

http://forums.macworld.com/community-document-picker.jspa?communityID=&subject=quoteojsosa wrote:

IC's can run hot for a
very long time if they are monitored and maintained w/in their limits.
Heating up of an IC to the point that solder melts (especially
lead-free solder) would be very difficult to do w/out permanent damage
to the IC.

There has to be a way to isolate the specific parts of the board that need reflow.

Wrap the whole board with tinfoil, mark the areas to be exposed, remove the foil and cut out the areas you marked.

Put some sort of insulation material over the board and then put the foil back on top of that.

Bring the temp of the whole board down to freezing.

Then take your heat gun and heat up the exposed areas properly for reflow.

The insulated foil will protect the rest of the board from direct heat, freezing the board will slow the heat propogation and buy you the time you need to bring the exposed area up to reflow temp without effecting the rest of the board.

It would be helpful to know what the thermal coefficient is for the wafer and solder, and at what temp the 2 materials begin to change state.

What worries me about doing the reflow on my own is that it seems that the silicon wafer would have a much lower thermal tolerance than the solder.

So by the time reflow temps are reached, the silicon wafer has already changed state and started to break down.

ojsosa wrote:

Now, with regards to
"underfilling" and IC, that's not intended to help w/ heat dissipation
or ball contacts. That's done to help larger IC with rigidity so that
it can withstand flexes in the board they sit on. As for a "spring
mechanism", I have no idea.

I know.

But aren't the flexes caused by heat?

In that IBM technote it shows cross sections of the ball contacts with and without the use of the underfill after having been stressed by thermal cycling.

That polymer underfill encapsulates the ball array, preventing them from slowly slipping away from each other when one of those flexes occurs.

The spring mechanism aids in this by putting pressure on the chip.

An excerpt from the technote:

The BGA reliability evaluation effort focused on
characterizing the impact of the applied compressive load on
the solder ball grid array (BGA) connections between the
PowerPC 970 module and G5 system processor card,
improving the mechanical integrity of the CBGA array, and
mitigating long term reliability risk due to creep and cyclic
fatigue.

So yeah, it doesn't dissipate the heat.

It reinforces the BGA integrity to help prevent breakdown from heat.

I used to be a repair tech for a local company that supported local NT business networks and ISP's.

I was constantly replacing hardware for a couple architecture firms that had small net render farms for FormZ and Lightwave.

The majority of the issues were bad RAM, RAID disks, GPU failures, license server and dongle issues, and network bottlenecks.

I worked there probably 4-5 years and in that time I never saw a logic board problem like apple products are always having, and never even heard of reflowing the solder on the board.

Boards sometimes needed replacement, but it was never anything like with the apple boards.

All the boards in those archviz workstations were either Asus or Iwill.

Mainly P4 and Xeon single CPU configs.

Also, I've been watching alot of youtube clips on different ways to do a reflow, and they're all apple machines(many G4 iBooks) and 360's(some cell phones and portable devices too).

So is there some reason that PC mother boards aren't effected by this?

Are apples boards just really poor quality?

Or are they that much more complex and specialized than PC boards, which makes any problem with them a big mess?

Could be that during my time with that company, CPU speeds weren't fast enough to generate heat levels like we have now.

That was back in 1999-2003/4, and clock speeds maxed out at like 1.4GHz P4's/1.8GHz Xeon's before I left that job.

Are There any AVCHD Gurus Around

nkrause — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:21:19 GMT

We recently bought the canon hf100 and my PC is too old to even attempt editing the avchd footage. I do not do any tinkering with computers so upgrading is not being considered and the kids will use my current machine. I need to buy a new computer and the research process has consumed me the last few weeks. We all know the great stories mac users have to say about their macs. However, after researching macs I see that apple software transcodes to AIC and there are some who insist that hd quality is degraded during this process and some that insist it is not. In the pc world, there are many editing options and according to the forums, there are a lot of bad experiences for pcs as well.

So, I am hoping to make a decision this weekend after getting some feedback from users that are having good experiences editing avchd on macs and pcs. If you are out there, can you provide your real life experiences and specifically try to explain your thoughts on pros and cons of PC vs Mac for what I want to do buy using your real life experience with your workflow.

If I go the pc route I would probably buy the new i7 2.66 (dell) or at least a 2.66 quad core (HP) with at least 4GB of RAM and a decent video card. If I go the mac route I would probably get the iMac 20 or 24 with at least 2.66 processor. Would either of these pc / mac configurations allow me to accomplish these things:

1. record at highest quality
2. easily transfer avchd footage to computer
3. I currently feel the need to permanently save my raw avchd footage but this may not be necessary.
4. edit by adding fades, effects, music, menus and titles
5. burn to standard dvd in SD for friends and burn to standard dvd in hd for my PS3. I do think I will get a bluray burner in the future.
6. I have days of raw old family footage on DVD from my old hi8 and minidvd camcorder that I would like to edit and possibly merge with the new avchd footage.
I would of course like to do all of this efficiently and with no crashes...I realize no crashes is wishful thinking but the fewer crashes the better.

If you are a pc user, what software do you use and what version of that software?
Does the video card have a big impact on stability and efficiency? I think one of the editors is optimized with nvidia cuda technology?
Are there any all-in-ones by dell or hp that can handle avchd editing?
Is Mac or PC better for what I want to do? If Mac, please provide your experience with transcoding to AIC and then the end result quality once edited footage is burned to dvd.

How have you customized OS X?

MarkElliot — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:13:44 GMT

Menu bar items:
Fastscripts lite for managing scripts with quickeys;
Temp monitor - shows CPU and HD temps and has showed Safari to be one of the most egregious resource hogs on my machine;
GimmeSomeTune - to display tunes currently playing in iTunes

Finder window items (in dock, at top):
Keychain - managing passwords, etc; Fetch - for FTP; VPN - Virtual networking software to connect to work's drive; Automator; Script Editor - for editing applescripts that are managed with Fastscripts; and Activity monitor, which is essential for learning which background processes are slowing me down. It also identifies problem processes like Google notifier, which spins up my external hard drives unnecessarily, and Symmantec's Norton live update that persists despite efforts to eradicate it

Finder window sidebar:
Here I've dragged folders that correspond to my most important tasks, including key work-related initiatives, budgeting, pictures, etc. The innovation here for me is reorganizing my hard drive folders to reflect how I approach my work, and then using the sidebar to make the most important or often-accessed folders a one-click affair

Dock items:
With the dock at left, where I'm less likely to trigger it to be visible (auto-hide on), I've grouped my apps into groupings such as always-open apps (iTunes, Safari), productivity (Office, Omnifocus, and Endnote), imaging (Photoshop, scanner, and camera capture), and utilities such as Countdown timer (great app). At bottom I have placed a folder alias that contains reference documents such as app keyboard shortcuts to make it easier to click and consult without hunting them down in the folders tree.

Copy and paste on (some) iPhones

basso — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:01:16 GMT

Presently I do not own an iPhone. Like others I would like to have copy and paste. My Palm allows me to copy libretto from an opera score to the Palm, eliminate all of the parts that do not pertain to my voice part, to repeat or delete lines and/or words as they appear in the score for memorization and use backstage in blackout conditions. As a chorus member this feature is functional, necessary and helpful.

I understand that there are some apps, such as Text Guru and Magicpad, that give this ability. Does anyone have experience with these or others? What is your rating of them?

A software-developer-meets-OS X love story

shish1 — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:51:04 GMT

A better setup for a software developer, imho, is to get a laptop with an external monitor. Software developers often benefit from multiple screens, one for a browser/dev preview and the other for terminal windows/eclipse, etc. This setup leaves the option of portability open at any time while still having a powerful computer to work on (a 13" Unibody Macbook would be sufficient for a software developer). It's nice to simply just work in your livingroom, or outside on the deck, or in bed if you want.

Also, get the most RAM you can. It's cheap nowadays.

Hulu and Boxee disconnect

ShakeyBobWillis — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:39:49 GMT

There's already a plug-in work around. Yay open source community!

Mac clone maker wins legal round against Apple

benroethig — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:39:05 GMT

stephenrea wrote:

macbook1990 wrote:
I believe that Apple would be even more popular if OS X could be licensed to other machines.

Apple loses money on every copy of OS 10 sold without a Mac computer.
They tried that before with the clones in the 90's.
When Jobs tried to raise the license fee to stop losing money, the clone companies balked, so Jobs cancelled the whole program.

First, you're assuming they would have bought an Apple computer to begin with. Lets not kind ourselves here, Apple is no longer a full service computer maker anymore. Thier focus is premium low to middle range products for a more image conscious user. Dell with style. There's a lot of lucrative markets that Apple the hardware company seems to want no part of what Mac OS X could (and in some cases has) do well in. Entry level large screen notebooks, prosumer (mid to high end consumer, low to middle end professional), rugged field notebooks, desktop replacement notebook/mobile workstation, and every server category other than high end 1U.

Second, the only thing that the Spindler/Amelio Apple and the Jobs Apple have in common are five letters. Beige Apple was a fairly standard PC maker that steadfastly refused to change its business model form the obsolete fixed configuration through independent retailer model to the BTO direct sales model. Because of this, Apple required a ton of different models. The way the company was run, if there hadn't been Mac OS clones, Apple might have lost user to the windows world instead and might not have the potential user base for Jobs to turn things around with.

Hands on with the Fusion iPod car stereo

hillstones — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:18:45 GMT

Jason Snell wrote:
I really don't understand the aftermarket head-unit manufacturers' obsession with cheesy, gratuitous animations. I'm very tempted to buy this product, but waiting for those animations to finish in order to use the device would drive me crazy.

Also, I question the intelligence of any designer who is creating a product for people WHO ARE DRIVING that requires navigating a menu for something as simple as switching between radio stations. Physical buttons are good...

Jason,

I agree. Most car stereos are ugly these days, and the cheesy animation really makes them look stupid. It would be very annoying if you had to wait for the animation to finish before you could control the stereo. The radio tuning is especially pointless. Press the dial, then scroll to the preset, then press again? Physical buttons along the bottom would have been beneficial. Also, is the headunit satellite ready? Is it HD Radio ready? Pretty limited if it is only AM/FM/iPod. I would much rather have a full featured CD Receiver with Satellite option, and add an iPod connection kit. Current headunits are very good these days, making aftermarket headunits pretty much worthless. My OEM Navigation System in my Honda Accord is made by Alpine, and new Accords use Pioneer headunits. The satellite tuners in the Accord are also made by Pioneer.

McCartney says record label still negotiating Beatles on iTunes

StanD — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:13:50 GMT

Thank you, Chris. I apologize for my part in continuing a useless and unpleasant interaction.

Mac OS X Hints Weblog: How to hide the menu bar and Dock

James_Dempsey — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:08:51 GMT

I wish there was an easy way to bring back the ability to Command + Drag 3rd party menubar app icons to change the order they appear in the menubar.

You used to be able to do this back in 10.3, but at some point Apple made it a private API or something. I don't mind seeing the menubar in all apps, I just wish I could customize the order of the icons...