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- Mar 9, 2004
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- Your Mac's Specs
- Aluminium Macbook 2.4 Ghz 4GB RAM, SSD 24" Samsung Display, iPhone 4, iPad 2
This thread is intended as a ready-reference for useful shortcuts and quick troubleshooting hints that might or might not help solve your iBook problems.
(Some of these tips also apply to Powerbook's and Macbook's)
If anyone would like to add any tips, hints or corrections, please do so.
Emergency! My iBook won't turn on! (and other power issues...)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are experiencing trouble with power issues, such as:
- Battery charging problems
- Sudden loss of power whilst running off battery
- iBook refuses to switch on
then you might need to reset the PRAM (Parameter RAM) or the PMU (Power Management Unit).
(Neither of these should delete any data - some settings might be lost though)
My iBook turns on, but won't boot?
------------------------------------------------------
If you get the ? icon at startup, your startup disk might be broken.
You can boot off the included system discs by holding down "c" at the apple logo. Then select 'tools' from the menu bar during installation process and select 'Disk Utility'. Try repairing the disk from there.
Alternatively:
Try booting in single user mode and perform a disk scan:
Pianodavid has another potential booting issue, and a fix!
iBook hardware maintanence & Cleaning
-------------------------
There's not really much you need to do to keep your iBook's hardware in shape...
If you want to upgrade or replace a user-installable part (airport extreme card, RAM, keyboard) check Apple's instructions on how-to go about that here: Apple instructions
For advanced upgrades, customisations or replacement, here's a handy guide for taking apart your iBook and digging around inside:http://www.pbfixit.com/Guide/83.0.0.html
If your iBook gets dirty, try Mr Clean's Magic Eraser to restore the white finish.
To remove any scratches, check out the various products for cleaning an iPod's white glossy surface. (iCleaner, Icecleaner etc.) iLounge.com has reviews on these and generally they can be used on your iBook as well.
General OS X tips:
----------------------
Some of you might already be familiar with these tips, but I mention them anyway, as often these 3 things can solve glitches in Applications or OS X…
1. Repair disk permissions: Go to ‘Applications -> Utilites -> Disk Utility’ and select your Startup disk from the column on the left. The hit the ‘Repair Disk Permissions’ button.
2. Run crons (regular system maintenance): Download a utility such as
‘Cocktail' (shareware): http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/18282 or
‘OnyX’(free): http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20070 from Versiontracker and run the maintenance scripts.
3. Reboot OS X. Sounds simple, but can work wonders…
Useful Startup Shortcuts:
--------------------------------
There are various startup options available by pressing certain shortcut keys at the Apple startup logo.
To boot from a CD / DVD: “ C ”;
To eject removable discs: Hold down the mouse button during startup;
To select a different startup disk (such as an external drive): “Option” key;
To startup in single user mode: “Apple + S”
Fixing Apps:
----------------------------
Occasionally an app just won't start, without any real reason. A tip that has helped me out once or twice might come in handy for you:
Do a search for 'appname plist' (for 'appname' insert the name of the app you're having issues with i.e. iChat, iMovie).
Move any plist files you find that are associated with that app to the desktop and restart the application.
The app will make new plist files automatically and will hopefully start normally.
Example:
If your help viewer doesn't display any content when you select 'Help' from an application or the finder, you need to delete these preference files:
-com.apple.help.plist
-com.apple.helpui.plist
-com.apple.helpviewer.plist
They're in Home-> Library -> Preferences, but it's easier to find them using the search built-in to Finder or Spotlight.
If you have any other questions, just ask them in the appropriate forum! But remember to search beforehand to see if it hasn't been answered in another post!
Hope you find this useful, post below for additional help!
(Some of these tips also apply to Powerbook's and Macbook's)
If anyone would like to add any tips, hints or corrections, please do so.
Emergency! My iBook won't turn on! (and other power issues...)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are experiencing trouble with power issues, such as:
- Battery charging problems
- Sudden loss of power whilst running off battery
- iBook refuses to switch on
then you might need to reset the PRAM (Parameter RAM) or the PMU (Power Management Unit).
To reset the PRAM, hold Apple-Option-P-R simultaneously at the Apple logo.
To reset the PMU, hold down “Shift-Control-Option-Power “.
To reset the PMU, hold down “Shift-Control-Option-Power “.
(Neither of these should delete any data - some settings might be lost though)
My iBook turns on, but won't boot?
------------------------------------------------------
If you get the ? icon at startup, your startup disk might be broken.
You can boot off the included system discs by holding down "c" at the apple logo. Then select 'tools' from the menu bar during installation process and select 'Disk Utility'. Try repairing the disk from there.
Alternatively:
Try booting in single user mode and perform a disk scan:
On any Mac OS X box, you can enter “single-user mode” by holding down command-S at startup. This gives you a root prompt and a read-only hard drive, from which you can commence your life of quiet desperation, er, troubleshooting.
Normally, you would do this to repair the drive
:# fsck -y
This is exactly equivalent to booting off the install CD and repairing your disk using Disk Utility. In Mac OS X, Disk Utility is a graphical frontend on top of fsck. It works just as well in single-user mode because the drive is mounted read-only, so there’s no chance of files being modified while the repair is running.
If fsck tells you that the file system was modified, reboot immediately
:# reboot
Repeat until fsck reports no errors. It is now safe to exit single-user mode and continue booting normally
:# exit
Pianodavid has another potential booting issue, and a fix!
A small bump to a notebook (mine is a 12"G4) can cause the airport express card to come loose.
the computer ONLY boots into open firmware (won't boot from osx dvd) and says "mem-alloc too big!" which, well, i put my gig stick in about a year ago--why is it yelling at me now?
the command hd-dir (or something close to it) is also unsuccessful making many think all is lost.
i don't know if this is well documented but a simple removal/reinstallation of the card fixes the boot problem instantly. - i read about someone else's experience on another website (the name evades me) and the apple genuis' were familiar with the problem.
these computers that came with their cards had a little plastic block glued infront of the card - that needs to be replaced either by the same piece or something else to hold the card FIRMLY in place (i used a small dot of 'mighty putty').
iBook hardware maintanence & Cleaning
-------------------------
There's not really much you need to do to keep your iBook's hardware in shape...
If you want to upgrade or replace a user-installable part (airport extreme card, RAM, keyboard) check Apple's instructions on how-to go about that here: Apple instructions
For advanced upgrades, customisations or replacement, here's a handy guide for taking apart your iBook and digging around inside:http://www.pbfixit.com/Guide/83.0.0.html
If your iBook gets dirty, try Mr Clean's Magic Eraser to restore the white finish.
To remove any scratches, check out the various products for cleaning an iPod's white glossy surface. (iCleaner, Icecleaner etc.) iLounge.com has reviews on these and generally they can be used on your iBook as well.
General OS X tips:
----------------------
Some of you might already be familiar with these tips, but I mention them anyway, as often these 3 things can solve glitches in Applications or OS X…
1. Repair disk permissions: Go to ‘Applications -> Utilites -> Disk Utility’ and select your Startup disk from the column on the left. The hit the ‘Repair Disk Permissions’ button.
2. Run crons (regular system maintenance): Download a utility such as
‘Cocktail' (shareware): http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/18282 or
‘OnyX’(free): http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20070 from Versiontracker and run the maintenance scripts.
3. Reboot OS X. Sounds simple, but can work wonders…
Useful Startup Shortcuts:
--------------------------------
There are various startup options available by pressing certain shortcut keys at the Apple startup logo.
To boot from a CD / DVD: “ C ”;
To eject removable discs: Hold down the mouse button during startup;
To select a different startup disk (such as an external drive): “Option” key;
To startup in single user mode: “Apple + S”
Fixing Apps:
----------------------------
Occasionally an app just won't start, without any real reason. A tip that has helped me out once or twice might come in handy for you:
Do a search for 'appname plist' (for 'appname' insert the name of the app you're having issues with i.e. iChat, iMovie).
Move any plist files you find that are associated with that app to the desktop and restart the application.
The app will make new plist files automatically and will hopefully start normally.
Example:
If your help viewer doesn't display any content when you select 'Help' from an application or the finder, you need to delete these preference files:
-com.apple.help.plist
-com.apple.helpui.plist
-com.apple.helpviewer.plist
They're in Home-> Library -> Preferences, but it's easier to find them using the search built-in to Finder or Spotlight.
If you have any other questions, just ask them in the appropriate forum! But remember to search beforehand to see if it hasn't been answered in another post!
Hope you find this useful, post below for additional help!