At 9:59 AM -0400 5/30/00, Paul S Vail wrote:
>The 6 Gb should be fine, size-wise. While Ralph brought up an important
>point about heat issues, I'd be a lot more concerned about disrupting the
>heat transfer pad for the CPU. I've talked several times with the folks
>from Newer about their cards, failure rates and losing contact with the
>heat pipe. They claim there is no significant return rate for their
>upgrade cards. Our experience has been markedly different, and we
>suspect (but cannot prove without their help) that loss of contact
>between the CPU and the heat pipe's pad is a contributing factor (if not
>the cause) for the G3 upgrade failure rate.
>
>Why would I bring this up with you? Well, to replace your drive, you
>will disturb the contact between the 603e chip and this heat pipe contact
>pad. And I would wager that most folks wouldn't realize that they should
>add a spot of fresh thermal transfer grease during reassembly... thus
>potentially setting the stage for thermal damage to their CPU later. It
>is for this reason (and several others) that we recommend 2400 owners
>have a professional work on their powerbook.
I certainly don't realize why I should apply thermal grease to the
CPU during reassembly. Apple didn't put any on at the factory; why
should I?
The most important thing is making sure the spongy heat transfer pad
attached to the CPU (either 603e or G3 upgrade) is firmly compressed
between the CPU and the heat pipe's transfer block when the computer
is assembled. That spongy material needs some compression force to
be effective at conducting heat. In some 2400s, you need to install
a shim between the heat pipe transfer block and the EMI shield to get
good compression.
Grease won't hurt, if applied correctly (overdoses are bad), but it
isn't a part of the way Apple designed the computer.
>Heat transfer for the hard drive won't be quite as critical
Hard drives generally have a low maximum operating temperature. If
they get too hot, bad things happen, such as thermal breakdown of the
lubricant in the main spindle bearing. This won't always have an
immediate effect, but will lead to the drive dying at an early age.
For this reason, I cannot recommend using anything but a 12.5mm drive
in a 2400. 9.5mm drives will not contact the heat transfer pad Apple
put in the computer to cool the hard drive.
I don't claim that data loss is automatic if you don't take care of
cooling, but with something like a hard drive it pays to be cautious.
> -- 'though
>it's probably a good idea if folks on this list consider slower drives
>(5400 RPM over the 9600s and such -- slower is usually a lower
>heat-producing drive).
There aren't any 2.5" drives which spin faster than 5400 RPM.
Tim Seufert
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