OSNews featured two reviews of the new 12″ Powerbook from Apple last month. Using a machine and more fairly evaluating it, is a continuous process, so when new facts emerge, we should be reporting them back. So, what I discovered this weekend is that my 12″ Powerbook doesn’t like… the mountains. Read on, it is an interesting issue. Update: The issue is now logged at Apple’s tech support db.So, we spent this weekend at the mountains, in the Tahoe City (in the borders of California and Nevada). The city is at 1900 meters high from the sea level. In the two days we spent there, my Powerbook would work fine for the first 15 minutes and after the hard drive would start becoming warm (not even hot just yet), a very abrupt and clear sound would come out of it: “clong, clong”. Needless to say that I panicked and got pretty angry, thinking that my drive is near a death toll, after only a few weeks of owning this laptop (a value of about 2000 USD).
I restarted the machine several times “just in case” of bad hdd initialization, I used the disk utility to fix any problems that might have happened, but to not avail. The drive would do that “clong, clong” all the time (followed by restarting of the hdd fan, everytime!!), and the funny part is that as much hotter the drive would become, the more frequent the head of the disk would do this noisy sound. In the beginning you would get these every 20 seconds, but as the drive gets hotter they happen every 5-6 seconds! And needless to say that for the 2 seconds that this “clong, clong” sound would happen, OSX would freeze (this is pretty normal behavior actually, as the drive was doing stuff in the low level, so the OS has to wait for these actions to get completed).
Last night we came back to the Bay Area, and the problem has completely disappeared. The Powerbook now works just fine, as it did before we left for Tahoe. The only thing I can think of as an answer to the problem is the altitude in Tahoe City. Up there, there is less oxygen and the air pressure is much lower (25% less), so devices can have hard time to operate properly. In fact, for the first time since I received the Powerbook, I heard the CPU fan turn on, only after an hour of using the machine, and while the room temperature in the hotel was normal.
I searched for the specifications of the Fujitsu 40 GB drive (Model: FUJITSU MHS2040AT D, Revision: 8105 ) that comes with the Powerbook and found that Fujitsu claims that the drive can go up to 3000 meters altitude. Well, obviously, they should test it more thoroughly, or give me a refund or a free replace, as this drive doesn’t work according to the specs (or at least, so it seems).
Please note that the 12″ Powerbook comes with either a Toshiba drive or a Fujitsu drive, depends what the Apple manufacturer in Taiwan has in stock. Other customers will find in their “Apple System Profiler” application that they have the Fujitsu drive, and others that they have a Toshiba one. Right now, I wish I had that Toshiba one as I am planning to go to mainland Greece and spend some time with my family there in the mountains, and I like to have the laptop with me…
Please note:
1. The mountain pressure is not the same as inside the airplane, where there is more “artificial” pressure than outside the plane.
2. Don’t start to worry about your iBook/Powerbook, unless you have a Fujitsu drive (and even then, you shouldn’t be too worried). I got reports that at least the Toshiba drive found on some 15″ Powerbooks works fine even at 4000 meters.
Also, in my previous review, I mentioned about the poor LCD quality, same as the iBook’s, and many people replied “it’s good enough” and “I don’t see a difference”. I was able to verify with the several laptops they had on display in Palo Alto’s Apple Store, that the 12″ Powerbook LCD quality (contrast, viewing angle, “refresh” speed etc) does not hold a candle to the superb 15″ Powerbook LCD quality. The 20″ Cinema Display is impressive as well. I am not too unhappy about this LCD anymore (at least not as much anymore), as by using this great utility, really saved the day (didn’t fix the problem in its root of course, but it made the overall experience more bearable).
Should I ROTFLOL or call Apple?
Can anyone else verify this problem… I have an IBook and don’t have this problem when I take it skiing…
JL
Do you have Fujitsu hard drive or a Toshiba, also, what’s the altitude of the place where you go to ski?
Well, you might not have a Fujitsu drive. The iBook is not the 12″ Powerbook, is it? And a friend told me on IM that his 15″ Powerbook with a Toshiba drive had NO problem at all in 4000 metres. So, please check if you have a Fujitsu drive first (via Apple System Profiler) and then start to worry.
Previous year brought very bad track-record for Fujitsu.
At least for full sized IDE drives.
That crap worked 6-12 months, and then problems started.
There were several articles on the net about this failure.
So i’d recommend to avoid Fujitsu HDD next 2-3 years
The limit shows the maximum altitude. It doesn’t say it would be quiet until it reaches that altitude, it says the hard disk would run, more or less, until it reaches that altitude. So in other words, you can use the hard disk, but usage it still limited.
hopefully if enough people have this problem and complain to Apple about it, they’ll have to do a recall (blaming Fujitsu of course).
I have a 15″ powerbook with a Fujitsu drive (I forget how I found that out… but I remember seeing it), but I haven’t tried it at a high altitude yet though.
NO, I can’t use the drive up there. The fact that it boots, doesn’t mean that it works correctly. The park of the heads of the drive would FREEZE OSX every few seconds!! that is NOT what I call “works”.
And let’s be serious, 1900 meters is not _that_ high, the drive should be working fine, but it wasn’t. Toshiba drives seem to work absolutely fine even much-much higher.
This is a great story! I love querky things like this (I know you probably don’t Eugenia, what with you paying for the blasted thing!) – whats the actual cause of the problem though? Why would the altitude/air pressue cause a hard disk to work incorrectly? Is it just the heat?
Eugenia,
i checked in German my IBook 12” against a Powerbook 12” and well… the screen of my IBook is waaaaay better. Checked against a Powerbook 15” and you are right. The 15” is better.
Assuming this is your disk, it shouldn’t freeze OS X even if a read or write request takes a long time. DMA was invented to overcome this problem. So, either OS X has a bug or you have more problems than just the disk (or maybe not the disk at all).
Well, the sound did come from the disk, the heads were parking all the time and after that the hdd fan would come on and off. It was like was initializing itself all the time! And during this “initialization”, the OS *would and should* freeze. It is a very low level operation and no matter the DMA, it would have an impact on the OS.
I can imagine two reasons why altitude could affect HDs:
-The lower air pressure means that conductive/convective heat dissipation won’t work as well, as evidenced by the fact that the fan of the PB turned on.
-The lower pressure inside the drive could cause the moving parts of the drive (namely, the arm) to overshoot when doing long seeks, since air friction will be lower at such an altitude. At some point, the drive may notice that it keeps overshooting tracks, and will park/unpark its heads to try to re-calibrate – but unfortunately misdiagnoses the issue and continues overshooting.
Now, those are just ideas, I have neither the tools, nor the knowledge, not the time, not the required altitude to perform further testing.
hmm, on a second thought, the OSX freeze is either a proof of a poorly written ATA driver, or of an architectural issue with the microkernel. You are right… 😮
It might be a matter of perception…
I looked at the iBook 12″ and the PowerBook 12″, side by side, at an Apple dealer and the PB 12″ display looked “crisper” to me. Incidently, I have better than average sight ( 10/20, 15/20 ).
Well, you mean a PB 12″ would fail on Mt. Everest. Damn it! These Apple-Notebooks are completely useless.
The IBM drive in my Dell Insprion went belly up recently – it had those “clonk clonk” noises for quite a while. I’m not sure about Fujitsu, but IBM is offering a tool to test the health of your hard drive – x86 only, unfortunately. However, Eugenia, if Fujitsu should offer a similar tool and removing a hard drive from a 12″ Powerbook is easier than from an iBook, you might want to test your hard drive. Maybe it does have a permantent fault that is only emphasized by the different environment in Tahoe.
On the screen issue: I know what you mean. The LCD in my iBook is by far not as bright as the one in my Dell. And that LCD is by far not as bright as the 17″ Hyundai TFT on my desk… General advice is to never buy a screen that you haven’t seen in action before.
PS: SuperCal make a heck of a difference. I can’t understand why Apple doesn’t ship their computers with appropriate screen profiles for best user experience.
>if removing a hard drive from a 12″ Powerbook is easier than from an iBook
Unfortunately not…
http://deafchurch.net/hdswap/
There are a number of points about the features and quality of the 12″ powerbook when compared to the 15″/17″ Powerbooks, including the above, which make to always refer to this machine as the “Power-ibook” when I am among friends. 😉
In fact, my sources (yes, I got some
say that this laptop was MEANT to be the next generation ibook from Apple, but the last minute they decided against it as the new line Powerbooks were not ready (as we saw recently the 17″ Powerbook is already late).
I looked at the iBook 12″ and the PowerBook 12″, side by side, at an Apple dealer and the PB 12″ display looked “crisper” to me.
All TFTs are percetly sharp. The differnece lies in brightness, contrast and speed.
Once, I was, like, in the mountains… and a I was working on a powerbook… and then it was making sounds like “click, click, click”… and i had to, like, restart it several times…
Haha, that was a good one…
i had a similar experience. shortly after i bought my pb i noticed, that it made constantly “tic-tac” and every full hour a cuckoo showed up. then i realized that apple had delivered a schwarzwald cuckoo clock instead of the promised 12″ pb.
with HD are way more common than you think. I’m an avid digital photographer, and I used to use microdrives because of the greater storage capacity (that was before the 1GB CF came out). Well, I had two microdrives fail on me in the Alps – both IBM microdrives. The HD spins with a very thin cushion of air and air pressure density changes can basically cause your disc to “snag” and crash. However, in my limited experience, the failure is instant – no clunking sound preceding it. YMMV. Then again, I avoid all Fujitsu drives, as this company is notorious for not acknowledging hard drive problems they’ve had for years – just a bad company whose attitude to consumers merits a boycott. Thanks for the heads up – by coincidence I was looking to buy a 15″ powerbook soon – I’ll make sure to avoid Fujitsu drives on principle – of course, I wonder if I can specify, when buying, that I only want a Toshiba or non-Fujitsu hard drive, LOL!
No, you can’t specify unfortunately.
You will need to buy it in a retailer and tell them to turn it on for you and see if you have the fujitsu drive, via the System Apple Profiler application which shows which drive you got.
However, I don’t know if the 15″ Powerbooks come with Fujitsus, I know that the 12″ does (along with Toshibas, depends on their stock), but no idea about the 15 and the 17″ ones.
Just because your hard drive is broken, doesn’t mean they ALL are broken. Too bad the failure is not reproduceable at the factory, I would still call and ask for a replacement.
I think it is irresponsible to scare everyone by stating that the 12″ PB doesn’t work in the mountains. You’re hard disk is the exception, not the rule.
maybe its because ive used pc’s longer then a mac but after using the SAME 8GB hard drive from my first computer, (and still using it today!) its like 7 years old and has been formatted and repartioned coutless times. still going. i use maxtor in all of the servers i have built at work (2) and i have never had one just die on me like ive heard some people tell me.
nvidia
maxtor
reltek
VIA chipset mobo’s
none of it has givem me much trouble.
only my boses Dell laptop (and sometimes this 12′ powebook im using right now because my boss is using my pc right now) give me trouble, the mac is mostly software related, because of our windows network.
>By Happy Hippo – Posted on 2003-03-03 22:05:16
>What about using them on the moon? Or would they run on mars better?
This post was moderated down!
Hey, what’s that? Do you mean, this is against board rules?
I interpreted following from this post:
It should be obvious, that he meant, that it does not matter, if the pb works on this altitude. Apple did not praise this notebook for climbers, or did they?
As long as the pb works on the altitudes it is designed for, the pb is all right.
Sorry, osnews moderators, but this is NOT the right behavior!
Why, you had an experience with the Powerbook 12″ WITH a Fujitsu drive that WORKED in the mountains?? IF yes, THEN speak, otherwise you can cut your Apple-loving USELESS comment.
>Just because your hard drive is broken
My hard drive is not “bad”, neither problematic. It is just how it works in the altitude and it is likely that the rest Fujitsus on the 12″ Powerbooks will be the same. (but we don’t know for sure, do we? )
IF you DO have evidence AGAINST the evidence I offered, THEN please come forward. Otherwise, stay in your hole instead of calling me “irresponsible” because I get on fire easily and you don’t want to see me pissed. Cappito? >:(
>As long as the pb works on the altitudes it is designed for, the pb is all right.
Exactly. 1900 meters is NOT much. And the Fujitsu SPEC SHEET states 3,000 meters. Which means that the drive does NOT work as it should in the altitudes in was designed for. Or at least, this is what it seems to be happening, given no other ideas.
As for modding, that comment was sarcastic and completely useless. It offered nothing new, in fact, it was right down sarcastic, I didn’t find it funny not one bit. This is not Slashdot, if you haven’t noticed.
WonderedBoy wrote:
>Sorry, osnews moderators, but this is NOT the right >behavior!
Uhh, you’re on the right way fpr a smacked bottom!
Of course it doesn’t mean ALL the HD are bad – even in bad batches of HDs where you have 40% failure rates within a month, you can get lucky and be within the 60% who manage to escape without harm – whoopie! Not! I for one appreciate the heads up, I don’t want to take a chance here – given the substantial hassle this would represent. Any component can fail. However, why should I take a chance with a component that is KNOWN to have problems (Fujitsu HDs)? To me, better safe than sorry – which is why I often prefer to pay a bit more for better quality than take a chance – sure, there are no guarantees, but it is all about odds – I like to cut my odds of a bad outcome, and so I appreciate warnings. Perhaps you prefer to wait until your HD fails before saying “wow, it is now 100% confirmed”. I prefer not to take the chance, and so I’m glad Eugenia posted the warning. YMMV.
Exactly. This is the right line of thinking. Thank you StopDaBombing.
I’d argue that that is in fact not the case. If a HD is malfunctioning, there could possibly be several paths to reset it *in real time* that may have to be taken by the driver. If I were the driver writer for a laptop, which only had one drive, I would definitely shutoff pre-emption, drop priority on everything right on the floor, and tend to my broken hardware *right now*. Some tasks require realtime — the driver may even be doing a time sensitive diagnostic during those hangs. In addition, what on earth could you be doing that does not require entering a spin lock for disk access? Geez, this is a laptop not a oil refinery valve control! Almost everything requires disk access since some components within a running program can be paged out — its the essence of performance optimization.
This all said, sucks that the drive is broken at 1900m, but please, don’t blame the OS for trying to keep your box held together for you!
Thanks!
…most drives have a membrane that stabilizes pressure between the platter bay and the outside world. These can be seen on portable and fullsize drives. Usually hidden under a “if you open this, you are screwed” sticker. Manufacturing being what it is, hopefully a bad membrane issue would be limited to less than 1% occurence (acceptable rates in most places).
Well, thx for the information of the spec sheet!
You’re right, Eugenia, it is bad the pb does not work on this altitudes.
But several posts contained only following information:
“Oh, no, it does not work on these altitudes!!!”
I am not a fanatic apple user nor I own one, but these postings seem a kind of flaming, or not?
Flaming? Where? Which posts?
I can’t speak for the rest of the people, well it is their problem if they want to worry for things that they shouldn’t yet.
I clearly state in both a comment and in the story that only START to worry if you got a fujitsu drive and not before (and even then, it is not sure if that’s the problem). I even state that the Toshiba drive can do 4000 meters without a single problem!
> it shouldn’t freeze OS X even if a read or write request
> takes a long time. DMA was invented to overcome this
> problem.
> the OSX freeze is either a proof of a poorly written ATA
> driver, or of an architectural issue with the microkernel.
Well, actually, neither of them. When the OS is swapping (managing virtual memory; as opposed to simply serving normal processes’ read/write requests) nothing can go on until the operation is finished. No other process can be scheduled to run, no system services can be let to go on. AFAIK, not a single normal desktop OS exists that can continue to work while waiting for a swapping operation to complete.
Sorry for the offtopic though.
Well, when I saw this, I went running to check my 12″ PB. Well, I have the Toshiba, so I feel pretty fortunate. I live at about 1100 M and have had no problems. The fan hasn’t even come on yet. Hmm, I have no anticipated plans to go to high altitudes. On the contrary, going to the ocean is more likely. I really like my PowerBook, it’s been performing really well. But, that really stinks, Eugenia. I’ll have to start looking at the Apple Discussion Boards to see if there are other reports of this as time goes on.
Maybe, but who said _anything_ about swapping?
I got 640 MB here, and I am fairly sure that swap was not touched at that point, so swap wasn’t in the picture…
BTW, this is for that sarcastic guy who said “shouldn’t it work to the moon/mars?”.
Well, if this powerbook or any laptop shouldn’t work in the 1900 meters high, then the hotel would not offer wireless services, would they? I mean, what is the point if no computer works up there, to have a full ISP inside the hotel and offer wireless services to customer’s laptops?
Again, 1900 meters is NOT too high to really cause problems to devices, but it is not sea level either. But it is high enough for Fujitsu it seems…
Jay, you are a lucky man.
I know!
I didn’t see you mention calling Apple. I really think you should. This is the type of thing we watch for(yes, I work for Apple) and I think you will find we try to make it right. At the very least, calling up so we can log issues like this will help prevent this type of thing from happening in the future.
Even if you have a huge amount of RAM, this does not necessarily mean virtual memory will not come into play. Most modern OS will leave unused parts of the program mapped, but not loaded. When the processor attempts to jump to a “virtually there” chunk, an exception occurs and the necessary block from the code file is paged in.
This leaves your 640MB of RAM open to debate by the system resource manager in case you decide to open photoshop while surfing with 97 instances of Safari opened
Where should I call? Support? Please email me and give me a phone number and I will fill you up with any details you need. I can bring my laptop over if you want me to, as I only live 20 mins away from Apple.
I had pretty much exactly the same problem with an IBM Thinkpad, I’m not sure what hard disk was in it (I assume it would be an IBM?).
The hard disk made the clonk-clonk noise you describe and sometimes a grating noise too. Windows 2000 would freeze up for a second or two while the hard disk was making the noises, so that isn’t an OS X problem. The noises stopped when I wasn’t using it at a high altitude and tests didn’t show any faults. But after less than a month of use the drive failed totally and had to be replaced. I assumed the disk was already faulty and the extra strain of working at high altitude simply made it fail sooner.
An office I worked at bought a number of desktop computers (mainly quite low end workstations, with a couple of faster PCs for graphics) fitted with a bad batch of the rather infamous IBM 75GXP hard disks. They had nearly all failed within 6 months, but ones in the faster (and hotter) PCs started showing problems (clicking and bad sectors) after only a couple of weeks. Obviously all the drives had the fault that made them die, but only the ones running at a higher temperature showed symptoms early on.
If I was you, I’d make sure that you backup data very often and be prepared for the drive to fail without warning. Also, I’m sure there are other Powerbook users using them at similar altitudes, are other people having this problem? If they aren’t, then I would certainly suspect a bad hard disk rather than a general problem.
I only had a single Safari window open and nothing else. Hardly a 640 MB/swap case…
Tahoe at 1900 m (6233 ft.) is close to typical jetliner cabin pressures. See, for example:
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/cabinair/environmentfacts.html
where Boeing gives cabin pressures from 5400 to 7000 ft.
> I only had a single Safari window open and nothing else. Hardly a 640 MB/swap case…
True, but still, I doubt the OS would bring the entire browser into RAM — plus you have cache accesses occuring in a browser.
The sort of on-demand paging I am speaking of is a black art in OS design. It’s basically gambling, but it can be tuned to “typical use”. The gamble is that of the 100 bazillion functions in word, you will only end up using 8 of them during the course of a word session. Your job is to figure out in *any given proggy* what the top eight functions are (this is simplistic, it’s more like the top 8 code paths), and make those resident in memory, and keep enough spare room around for the next new thing you will ask of the OS.
Thanks for the info. In other words, I should not even think getting my laptop in the airplane with me and use it, when going to Greece…
Can anyone think of a reason why a HD would not work on that altitude?
Speaking of the clunk-clunk noises, that’s what my 40gb Maxtor has been doing lately and that’s followed by a reboot usually. I thought it was the PSU but disconnecting the HD and booting off a Knoppix CD I was able to run for a long long time without any problems. The weird thing is, the drive is stationary on the desk here about 60 meters from sea level and has been for over a year. There were problems with the PSU as well though. But today I’ve had no problems although I used to experience a reboot every few hours or so. Very weird.
Anyway, about HD quality. It seems to be related to the size of the HD. Newer and bigger drives tend to crash much more often while old cheap 3gb and smaller ones live happily on. They just dont make em like they used to.
>Can anyone think of a reason why a HD would not work on that altitude?
Already answered in the first page of the comments by JBQ.
Here’s a thought: pick up a few of those “cold packs”, stick them in the freezer for a while, and then lay them under your laptop while you’re in the mountains. If it functions better, then heat dissipation is more likely to be the culprit.
Yours truly,
Jeffrey Boulier
*pathetic*
Chip Slush, you are right.
But Eugenia wants to know it better…
(sorry, Eugenia, you make a great work for osnews.com, but nobody is perfect…)
What exactly is pathetic? >:(
I hardly understand your comments.
I am reminded now that my own iBook experienced this issue with OS9 a while back while watching a DVD at the hotel. The problem at that time was heat (the system would hang every few minutes, and then pick up where it left off). When I removed it from the blankets and placed it on my lap, the issue went away.
Where you really operating it as a laptop or a bed top
?
Both. Same problem, for two days.
I am aware of heat problems on the 12″, so I am always careful about it.
>I should not even think getting my laptop in the airplane with me and use it, when going to Greece…
Which is quite ironic really since the TV advert (over in the UK at least) for the 12″ is set on a plane!
“The mountain pressure is not the same as inside the airplane, where there is more “artificial” pressure than outside the plane.”
A bit off topic, but, pressure is pressure. Perhaps the the ratio of gases (O2, N2, H2O, CO, CO2, etc.. ) are different but that is about it. As someone has stated before airplan pressure is comparable to being in Tahoe.
Sounds like its time to buy a new drive. Sorry to hear you are having problems (I am an Apple fan myself)
-b
I have an iBook that I purchased a few months before I moved from Hawaii back to the mainland (it has a Fujitsu drive) around the late November timeframe and it began to make terrible noises w/the HDD crawling to a stop. I was at sea level in Honolulu. I formatted the HDD and reinstalled OS X and all my apps. I have also made it a habit to keep my HDD defragmented (via Norton Utilities) –when I first got the iBook, being my first Mac in a LONG time, I was installing and uninstalling software like mad — I figure my problems had to do with fragmentation, perhaps. After the cleanup I have never had any HDD problems again. Having moved to Nebraska in the winter, however, I have found the fan turning on — werid considering that the humidity and the temps are WAY lower than they were in Hawaii.
apple probably got a discount on these drives, some barely tested just-for-apple oem specials.
i think the mac community is far too forgiving of apple using shoddy parts and charging top dollar for them.
a bad drive and a bad screen? sounds like a lemon to me.
i’d return it and get a better notebook.
–ms
Just because you got it from MacWareHouse doesn’t mean you can’t contact Apple about a product under warranty. Just because MacWareHouse isn’t at the SPECIFIC elevation you were at doesn’t mean they shouldn’t fix it? Did you not call them either?
And because you haven’t been contacted by someone who has reproduced the circumstances but doesn’t have the problem, you feel safe to presume this will be true of ALL such PBs?
I’ll never understand why you are so quick tempered and unforgiving… particularly when you haven’t done the most obvious steps to get the problem corrected.
“Where should I call? Support?” Wow, I wonder where you might find that information…
I agree wrt. holding Apple’s feet to the fire over poor quality hardware. For it to be so overpriced and at the same time, substandard is a real turn-off.
But to be fair, I don’t think all models of their laptops are overpriced across the board, for what they give you – compared to PC laptops. In fact, the reason I’m getting an apple laptop is exactly because of the price/performance (I have nothing else from Apple).
Also, to be fair, it sounds like their 15″ does use good quality components. Maybe it is only the 12″ that’s a lemon. No excuse of course, but perhaps not the absolute pits either, at least in this case.
I just talked to Apple, I have just hanged up the phone and they are interesting into looking into this.
>, you feel safe to presume this will be true of ALL such PBs?
No. Only the ones with a Fujitsu drive.
>most obvious steps to get the problem corrected.
There is nothing to be corrected. The drive works FINE in the bay area, so there is nothing I can do to get SUCH so specific support.
But as I said, I logged the issue with Apple and hopefully, an engineer will have a look at it.
Here are three posts from the Apple Boards about the new PowerBooks:
“Apple states that the operating environment for the powerbooks should be 10000ft maximum in its user manual. I understand that a typical Boeing 747 flies at an altitude of 33000ft. Does this mean that it’s not recommended to use your powerbook on flights?”
“I don’t think so. Because commercial airline flights have pressurized and heated cabins, the atmosphere is very similar to being on the ground. This should not affect the machine in any way. I bet if you check the specs for most notebooks, you’ll see similar altitude numbers.
If you’re on the side of a mountain, some 15,000 feet up, it probably wouldn’t be too advisable to pull out your $2000+ powerbook. And really, why would you need to?”
“I believe the altitude restriction is due to ambient pressure. Above 10,000 ft the air pressure is so low that aircraft are required to have supplemental oxygen masks for everyone on the aircraft, and that is also why we receive training on how to use the air masks in case of an emergency every time we fly. Now since the airplane cabin is pressurized, the altitude is not an issue for us trying to breathe. Our happy Macintosh laptops feel the same way. Since the airplane cabin is pressurized, it has no idea it’s flying around at 33,000 ft, and plays your DVDs obediently.”
As someone pointed out, there’s at least another way (additionally to the two I had mentioned) that air pressure can affect a HD:
The spinning platters drag the air inside the drive, and the speed of the air rushing under the drive head will actually create a zone of lower pressure (through what’s called Venturi effect). With a lower pressure, this effect is lower, meaning that the heads are actually further away from the platters than they would be at sea level. Obvsiouly, this can affect the ability of the drive to read or write data.
I have an alternative theory to JBQ’s on the first page. In a hard drive, the heads fly just above the disks with a thin layer of air that is sucked under the head by the rotation of the disk itself. If the air is thin enough (i.e., high enough altitude), it won’t generate enough pressure to raise the head off the surface of the disk. Sounds like a recipe for a disaster to me.
Just a theory. Would love to hear from someone who has real experience in developing/manufacturing disk drives.
JBQ just beat me to it! Well, I’m in good company 🙂
Yeah, airplane cabines are pressurized, otherwise you would have a very hard time breathing (the reason why jets fly that high is precisely because there’s little pressure, which reduces friction on the outer skin of the plane). The extra air pumped into the cabin of a jumbo jet at cruise altitude weighs down the plane by about a ton.
You note your English ain’t perfect so why don’t you read more closely and try to be less presumptuous about what others are saying? Seriously, this is a tip.
For example: “No. Only the ones with a Fujitsu drive.” I said “ALL such PBs.” Emphasis on SUCH… As in the ones with Fujitsu drives… I still feel that is far too presumptuous.
“There is nothing to be corrected. The drive works FINE in the bay area, so there is nothing I can do to get SUCH so specific support.”
This is a bizarre notion. There’s nothing to be fixed, but it doesn’t work the way it should. Of course, you can pursue fixing this–all you have to do is tell Apple–“I may travel to high elevations (in fact, I already have and it was a problem) and I’m also concerned about performance during airflights. This is unacceptable as it should work fine within the specified tech specs.” Besides that issue, if there are problems at high altitudes, obviously at some point in time the HD may be affected b the problem even under normal circumstances. Obviously, I’m right if they are pursuing correcting it.
I don’t understand how you can say: “Ther is nothing to do. There is nothing to fix.” and then say that it doesn’t work and should be considered a major problem and people should hold off buying the product. That sounds like flaming to me. That sounds like unproductive stubbornness. Got to the Store in Emeryville–much more productive than going to Cupertino and I have found they are very responsive, particularly when dealing with someone face-to-face.
Just realized the Store down in the valley may be closer than E-ville.
I also wanted to add: let them know who you are and what site you administer. Then you’ll see the service really pick up.
May be a bit unfair if you are trying to “report” the average experience, but Apple doesn’t like bad press. You will see results.
Some people occassionally describe horror stories, but I’ve always had great service from Apple. The few times (over 10 years) that I’ve had to send a product in for service I was able to explain that the product was a necessary and vital piece of equipment for a production/commercial need, and that always got them to agree to send a replacement before receiving the faulty part.
Yes, they have the info they need, and they have the URL too. The guy on the line told me he will pass the info to the engineers and he logged the details in their internal database. I also told them if they need more info or this particular powerbook to test with, it is fine for me to bring it over to their labs for further testing if needed.
I would assume they would work on Airplanes considering they are showing this ad:
http://www.apple.com/hardware/video/
I have had numerous probs with my 12″ powerbook and I happen to agree they could have done a better job with the screen, it doesnt look very crisp. This will be the last Apple I buy, consider me a PC fan from now on.
Like what? I am highly suspicious of someone who says,”I have NUMEROUS problems,” but fails to mention the specifics of a single one–the LCD quality aside.
Sounds like it may be a bad drive specifically. Not that it isn’t possible all the Fujitsus have this problem–but as you observed, 1900m isn’t outrageously high, and it seems pretty unlikely that they’d all fail to operate in Tahoe by design. Operating tolerance specs are <em>not</em> absolute maximums as Rajan suggested, they’re the specs for <em>normal</em> operation–and are traditionally set conservatively.
I’m glad Supercal made the display better.
My 12-inch PB has a fujitsu hard disk. I’ve recently moved to Mexico City, 2.200-2.300 mts above sea level, I have not experienced any problem so far.
You are lucky…
BTW, I found a similar thing to what I was experiencing, here:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/[email protected]@.3bbfa…
Too bad we don’t have more details on this.
You’ve got it backwards. You are unlucky. You and one other person… I would say amil is the norm and you are the unlucky one.
Gee, I must be REAL lucky! I just purchased a “refurb” iBook from Smalldog (Barking Special, G3/700, 12″, 384M RAM, 20G, Airport, COMBO Drive) and the profiler on mine says that it’s an IBM HD. According to the Hitachi web site (they purchased IBM’s disk business), this is a TravelStar 40GN Series 20Gig 4200 RPM IDE Drive. (running OS 10.2.4). May “main machine” is a Quicksilver G4 that came with an IBM DeskStar 60GXP Series drive @ 60G and I added a 120GXP series 80G HD later (for Scanned pictures/digital pictures and MP3’s).
Regards,
Stephen
increase ‘maxaltitude’
🙂
Eugenia, fujitsu is a very bad company, which attempted to cover up their products massive cases of hard drive failures.
I suggest you start backing up religiously from now on, because there’s a fairly good chance your hard drive is going to heaven soon.
Maybe you could try running a hard drive access logging program and record the sounds of the hard drive *clung* *clung* at the same time. Also try video recording your os screen lag too. This could convince apple that you’re not just imagining things.
Good luck.
Sounds to me like you are saying: I don’t care if I am the only one affected, I am going to scream at the top of my lungs in order to hurt Apple.
Now you are blaming it on humidity? Jeez! Guess what? Humidity in Tahoe is around 50%, and in Mexico City it’s about 25%… Guess what is is in the city (yes, SF)? 65%!!!
Blows that theory out of the water. Maybe you should admit you are just guessing at what the problem is: you have no idea if it’s altitude, humidity, was just a temporary glitch, if you alone have a bad drive, or if a significant portion of the drives are bad!!
It seems there have been several companies who have bad batches of drives in the past year or two.
The amount of storage on hard drives today is practically beyond belief, if you didn’t know and see it with your own eyes. I remember in ’95, getting a 750 MB La Cie external drive to go with my Power Mac 6100. I thought i was in hard drive heaven, I though I had storage forever. LOL! I couldn’t even install OS X or Windows on that now. Today, if you tried to sell computers with 10 GB drives, people would laugh in your face. It really is amazing and, in some ways, it is not surprising there are problems.
I don’t know about any theories, I am not a hard drive engineer. I just said that Tahoe and Mexico City are not the same environmentally and gave an example.
Fujitsu drives are known to be problematic (at least in the past) and they don’t follow the IDE spec precisely (both QNX and Be had problems with them in their IDE drivers trying to initialize them correctly; I know that for a fact as I beta tested them).
I am not interested in a flamewar Anonymous, so please don’t try to make me look like the bad guy here. I am the one who paid $2000, and I am the one who has the problems here. I expect a level of quality for this new machine, and I expect *nothing less*. If this comes off as bitchy, then it is bitchy.
That you have no clue what is causing the problem…
You have no idea if this is an isolated problem…
You do not even know if it was a temporary problem on your computer…
Your computer works fine for you now…
You say there is nothing to be fixed…
You didn’t attempt to fix anything through the normal channels before posting this story…
You are basing your presumptions on the past instances of _some_ Fujitsu products…
And this is Apple’s problem? You think Apple deserves bad press for this? You are going to continue to rant even though you had a very responsive phone call with Apple?
AND YOU GENUINELY EXPECT US TO BUY IT WHEN YOU SAY YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING AGAINST APPLE???!
Eugenia, you really need to learn to step off your high horse every once in a while.
I live at about 4500 feet and I haven’t had any problems with my hard drive. I know that’s a ways away from 1900 meters, but I have taken my 12′ pb skiing and listened to mp3s on it the whole way up and down the mountain (I’m sure we were higher than 1900 meters).
Anyway, how do I use the apple system profiler to get my hard drive manufacturer? I’ve started it up but can’t seem to find where to get that info.
Thanks.
Go to the second tab (devices and volumes) and click the little arrow in the Bus/Hard drive
Thanks Eugenia,
looks like mine’s a Toshiba, so I guess I lucked out….thank goodness. it’s too bad there’s a gamble involved here…apple really should have done better on this one.
I read OSnews because it is the only site I know of that posts links to articles about all operating systems, and links to articles that interest me.
Does anyone know any other sites that do this?
I’ve decided that Eugenia has become too insane for me, and I’d like to look at some other sites. Recommendations are welcome.
Look in Devices & Volumes.
Hey Anonymous, you are the one flaming. What is this, a courtroom and you’re the procsecutor? Buzz off!
> Does anyone know any other sites that do this?
Sorry, it seems that we are pretty unique on linking on small OSes. This is why we started this business as well, because it was kinda unique.
You are of course, free to go anywhere you like.
That you either should write your personal experiences or substantive reviews.
” your beef is “why was this reported? That could hurt Apple”. And I think that this stance is just LAME and unthoughtful.” WRONG
That’s not my concern at all. I think others and I have demonstrated this is minor… Maybe in a few weeks or months there will be a recall and I will be proven wrong. If anyone has this problem, they should get it fixed. And by Apple. But it’s up to you to do it before your warranty expires.
I am not trying to flame. I am trying to have a discourse. I would have no problem with you saying, for instance:
“Hey, I had a personal problem with my computer. Haven’t find anyone with similar issues or even looked. It’s fine now that I’m back home. (For some reason, I don’t think I should get it fixed because at home it works so there’s no way to show that it’s broken, right?) (in parathenses because I don’t know why you think this–very weird.) I don’t even know why it happened, but my theory is the elevation was affecting it. Is anyone else having this problem? Any theories as to what may be behind it? What do you think I should do for help?”
Instead you wrote, generally speaking: “The 12″ PBs with Fujitsu drives do not work above 1900 meters and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Which is a complete mischaracterization. That’s my point. I won’t respond to your screaming, or the utter contradiction of you not wanting to, or caring to, or plain out replying to my remarks. All I would expect is someone who can step back and admit that something they did or said in a moment may not in fact be wholly accurate, appropriate, respectful, etc… and that upon further reflection they do respond (quite) emotionally and tempermentally to certain realities and maybe if they wanted to not be perceived that way there are things they could modify or work to be aware of and improve.
First of all, let’s clear the usual mistakes/misconceptions in Eugenia’s post:
– a hard drive does not have a fan (third paragraph)
– HDDs don’t “have a hard time operating” at altitude
– nobody is suggesting you to get the drive out of the PB
– there is no reason to worry if you have a PB with Fujitsu drives
– let’s forget about “poorly written ATA drivers” and “architectural issues of the microkernel”.
I feel qualified to answer this as I work in R&D of a major HDD manufacturer. HDD are sensitive to altitude, but in fact, they operate BETTER at higher altitude. This is because the lower air pressure makes the head fly lower (closer to the disk) and therefore the readback signal is higher.
What you saw is not normal. It’s impossible to tell what happened in Tahoe without taking a look at the drive. HDDs are mass-market products with reasonably good quality standards. It seems that you had bad luck and got a defective one. No need to spread unfounded FUD about Fujitsu drives (and no, I don’t work for them….). I suggest you call Apple and have the PB sent back for repair.
Re screen: Glad to see that SuperCal helped with your screen. Try setting anti-aliasing to medium. I just got my new 12″ PB as well, and I am very happy with the screen. It is better than my old iBook’s screen. Also, it gets only slightly warmer than the iBook (up to almost hot when the HDD is in heavy use AND I am recharging the battery). Nothing to write home about.
This is definitely the best laptop I have ever had.
“”use hardware that is known to work well, and no hardware that is known to have problems, because you don’t know who will end up having the problematic ones.”
-Do you know if there are known issues with this model Futjitsu hard drive?
-Do you know if Apple knew?
-Do you know what other OEMs are or are not using this, or apparently, ANY, models of hard drive from Fujitsu?
-Are you suggesting that no product with anything produced by Fujitsu should be bought?
Basically, very frequently I find you have NO basis of fact for your THOUGHTS/BELIEFS/FEELINGS, but you state them AS fact.
Used it the entire flight, both ways and no problems to report…. and yes I have a fujitsu drive.
Whoo seen this before. The problem may or may not be the drive. I’m guessing the cable connecting the drive is faulty.
why??
The behaviour you reported could only be caused by the drive
disconnecting from the idde channel and the OS spending some
serious time looing for it. I had this problem with an Maxtor
(160M scsi Atlas 10k3) where whenever I read the internal
tracks of the drive the drive had a 20 percent chance of
resetting itself. Luckly it was on a raid so my computer
didn’t really care.
I would suggest takeing it in for service and have the drive
replaced as being faulty. (it is by the way.)
O and to answer other people, Drives do have a thin layer of
air in them.. however it’s sealed in. So the external
pressure has little to no effect. (If it wasn’t seal smoke
could get in the drive.)
And the clunking noise sounds like a heat /head crash.
Replace the drive now. data not secure.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Leslie Donaldson
P.s. Not Apple Computer Inc.’s fault.
Did you inspect your system logs for
error messages from the kernel?
Leslie
…in the Wind Rivers in Wyoming.
9300 ft.elev., 12 miles on a snowmobile to get to the cabin.
Never got above 20 degrees F., fired up my lil albook before the cabin heated up.It ran great. The only trouble I had was my girlfriend telling me to shut my lil al off.
(sometimes I wonder about the professionalism on this site)
Peace