News for Saturday, 22 October 2005

Thanks to Stéphane for this news

My wife is still using her old iBook SE. But several weeks ago I noticed that the SE display was getting "yellowish"... in addition the soft plastic rubber surrounding the computer was not really glued to the case anymore.
So I decided to revive the iBook SE.
Following the instruction given in the following web page :
http://homepage.mac.com/friesen/CCFL.html I exchanged the iBook's backlight. Hereafter is a photo taken in April 2004 featuring the iBook SE with yellowish display side by side with my PowerBook 15" 1.5Ghz :

Once the iBook's backlight replaced by a new one the same picture was taken, this time it was a PB 15" 1.67Ghz.

The soft plastic rubber was glued again, with care, making the operation almost invisible:

Yesterday, I was given the task to pick a new generation PowerBook G4 15'' and to prepare it for the end of the week-end.
Main avantage of a line that doesn't change much, they already arrived yesterday morning by resellers.
We thus went to our partners CLG to pick the computer (2,032 Euros).
We went to Macway to buy a Hitachi 100 Go and 7200 T/min HD, with 8 Mo cache (249.96 Euros).
On the other hand, no Mac reseller was already able to sell SO-DIMM DDR2 PC4200. We found one (1 Go, brand Corsair) at Surcouf for 139 Euros.
The total amount is of 2,421 Euros. On the Apple Storea configuration with 1.5 Go RAM will cost 200 Euros more, and here we retain a 80 Go HD that we will mount in an external Firewire enclosure.
We immediately opened the PowerBook. Never do that! If you're not in such a hurry, always take the time to check that it works correctly for at least a few hours, and a few days will be better!

Opening this machine is identical to the one it replaces, an differences inside are minimal, the motherboard is different yet of the same type. Notice that the Superdrive is a UJ-846.
Replace the HD will take twenty minutes to someone used to the task.
Here's a picture of the Corsair RAM near Apple's.

Once the machine is operational again (booteed without any problem), the system is installed.
Here are side by side the new 1.67 (left) and that of the preceding line on the right.

Despite our fears, the higher density screen remains easy to read and even looked better. The picture won't show that is also seems more shining.
We didn't have time to compare the overall performances of the two machines, yet we at least compared the speeds of the Momentus 100 Go 5400 T/mn and the Hitachi.


And the winner is... the Hitachi (down) is almost 50% faster! We'd already noticed in the past that 5400 T/mn Seagate models really lacked of performances. The difference is already noticeable by boot.
Sorry we didn't have time to conduct more tests, yet our advice is that you change your machine HD if you want to increase performances. Notice that the original 80 Go is also a Seagate Momentus.
[Upd.] Some more details:
Apple DDR2 as well as the Corsair have timings of 4-4-4.
Though strange as it may seem, even in the panel "energy saving", it's not possible to force the CPU in maximal or minimal performance mode any more. It seems energy saving is no more user manageable.
Not only faster than the Momentus, the Hitachi is also more silent. It's almost not to be heard, even when accessing files.
The quality and the density of the new display remind us that of a 30", a good point indeed.

Microsoft has released a beta of a quite interesting application for Windows which enables Wi-Fi channelization. This process will allow simultaneous connexions on different networks or, for exemple, printer-driving on a channel and web-connexion on the other. Moreover, data-transfer rates aren't affected in the process.
More information on SSCH technology (pdf).
Steve, won't you get us something like this?