Nov 8 2006
AppleJack or how I almost shit myself
WOW! I almost made bears in my pants tonight because I thought I jacked up my computer (again)!
I was listening to Mac Break Weekly at work today and Merlin Mann of 43 Folders fame was talking about using AppleJack. I had seen AppleJack in my MUMenu a few times so I was somewhat familiar with it, but I had never bothered trying it. Well, tonight I was kind of bored and even though my computer had been running fine and even though there was a warning in big red letters on the MacUpdate.com page for AppleJack to NOT download it, I did anyways.
It installed fine and I booted into single user mode to try it out. Straight away my fans started blasting away, which was normal whenever I would boot into single user mode or when I would get a Kernel Panic. I didn’t really think anything of it. I tried AppleJack and it did its thing and then I booted my computer normally. I downloaded and installed AppleJack on my G3 too and I got the brilliant idea to see if my iMac G5 would run AppleJack much faster than my G3, so I booted both Macs into single user mode. Well, when I went to use AppleJack on my iMac I couldn’t type anything. I figured something happened to my BlueTooth connection for my keyboard (which sometimes happens) so I held down the power button until it shut down. I tried to boot into single user mode again, and that worked, but, again, I couldn’t type anything. I booted my iMac normally again, and that was when I noticed that my fans were still running at full blast. This was when the bears nearly started coming out of my butt! I was like, “Oh, great! Why am I not surprised?”
I shut my computer down again and let it set for a few seconds. I started it up and the fans were still blowing away. I was ready to zap my NVRAM and PRAM and I had thought about unplugging my computer for a bit if that didn’t work, but I decided to read the readme that came with AppleJack first. RIght there in the “Known Issues” section was this little gem:
Some users of G5 systems have reported that the fans ramp up very fast. This is not related to AppleJack, but is due to the fact that the thermal controllers are not loaded while in single user mode. If this condition persists after restarting into Mac OS X, you may have run into one of the many known fan-management bugs. See the apple.com support forums, or macosxhints.com for help.
The fact that a solution wasn’t listed in the readme kept the bears marching towards the exit, but at least I knew I wasn’t alone in experiencing this problem. I headed to macosxhints.com, did a search for “imac g5 fans” and found this. Apparently someone had nearly the exact same problem as me, and they did what I had planned on doing… They unplugged their iMac for a bit and after that their fans were back to their normal speed. I did the same and had similar success. The bears stopped trying to escape from my butt and now my iMac G5 is running as silently as it ever has. H00RAY!!
Nov 10 2006
on the verge of being dirty t00 and still rippin’!
If I didn’t receive a birthday card from you in the mail today, you can deliver it to me personally tomorrow (Saturday). I don’t have any plans so I’ll probably just be hanging out. I am hoping there will be a parade down Washington like last year, but I can’t find any info about it on the CMB site.
I actually like late birthday cards more than cards that come early. Since my birthday is always on a no-mail holiday, I never get cards in the mail on my actual birth day. Cards that come early kind of suck because either you open them before your birthday, which is fine, I guess, but not usually my style, or you save them for the real day. Early birthday cards that you save for the actual day are real assholes though! They’re all tempting you and they’re like, “C’mon! OPEN ME!! I’m for you!! Someone probably wrote some nice things about you and maybe there’s money in me. Don’t you want to find out? C’mon!! Don’t try to kid yourself; you know you don’t have enough will power to wait until your birthday! Just open me right now! What are you waiting for??” and stuff like that.
Birthday cards that show up late are awesome! It’s like, your birthday comes and goes and you’re over it and then a couple days later you check your mail and HOLY MEAT! ANOTHER BIRTHDAY CARD!! H00RAY!!! and you get to celebrate a little more.
This year I received 5 cards in the mail from two aunts, one uncle, my parents, and my grandparents. I haven’t opened them yet. They’re taunting me as I type this. I’ll show them that I DO have enough will power to wait another 4 hours before I open them.
It looks like the most birthday love is coming from MySpace this year. Nearly two dozen happy birthday comments/messages to date.
We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
By FANLESS • Uncategorized • 2 • Tags: IRL