" Mike, thought I'd let you know that Marcel Bresink's Hardware Monitor v1.4 now works with ALL PowerMac G5 fan sensors enabled under 10.3.8. (there was a warning with previous OS versions - see the notes I posted last fall on the Mac Nvidia 6800 feedback/tips page where the author of HW monitor commented on this (scroll way down to the Discussions on PCI Fan Control)-Mike)
Here is a copy of my email to him & his response:

(mail to Marcel, author of Hardware Monitor)
Just wanted to let you know that Mac OS X 10.3.8 updaters were released today and after applying the update, your Hardware Monitor gave me a message on launch that stated that I could enable the disabled fan sensors because the problem in the operating system has been fixed! I enabled all sensors & all appears to be working great! Looks like Apple finally fixed the issue you told them about! Keep up the great work!
George D.

(his reply)
thank you very much for your kind feedback on Hardware Monitor. I can confirm that Apple has repaired the fan drivers in 10.3.8. That's why I had prepared this message for Hardware Monitor 1.4. ;-)
Thanks again for this information. Your support is truly appreciated.
Best regards,
Marcel Bresink "

Unfortunately some G5 owners saw erratic fan behavior after the 10.3.8 update. I didn't have any fan speed problems on a G5 here w/10.3.8 and some other G5 owners said it fixed fan speed problems they'd had previously (Apple's kbase doc specifically mentioned this). The ES performance setting tip here helped most that wrote originally, but not all that had that problem. (I've gotten even more mail on the subject to add to the 10.3.8 feedback page, I'm really swamped with 10.3.8 mails in the last 48hrs.)
Like any OS X update, there always seems to be some problems seen by a certain percentage of users - the G5 fans have been the most frequently reported complaint so far with 10.3.8. Only a small percentage of problems reported are 100% common (other than those involving 3rd party software typically), but that's little consolation to those that experience them

" We are blowing out our remaining S233 PF55 G4/900MHZ with 2MB L3 Cache Processor upgrades. These cards feature a pre-attached heatsink and are ready to plug and play with any PowerMac G4 AGP Graphics/Sawtooth* and G4 Gigabit Ethernet model system for an instant speed bump. (*AGP Graphics/Sawtooth Models must be Uni-7 or higher.)

Originally offered price was $179.95 w/2yr Warranty. The remaining supply is being blown out at $149.99 w/1yr warranty. This is a 1yr PowerLogix warranty with the full backing of Other World Computing. Also, a 30 Day 100% Refund Satisfaction guarantee also applies.
At $149.99 - these are a killer deal for anyone with a G4/350-400-450-500 PowerMac model that they'd like to kick up a good notch.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/item/5505/PLGPF55SA09002M/
Best Regards,
Lawrence R. O'Connor
Other World Computing"

" Thought you'd enjoy how my (unique) installation experience of the hack went:
PB G4 1.25GHz/FW800, OS X 10.3.8
I chickened out on the Terminal commands and went straight for drag/drop of the files. I removed Apple's AppleADBMouse.kext and put his in (acknowledging all the authentication/replace warnings). Having gotten Info on the original and examined the permissions settings, I changed the replacement to match and restarted, ie system/wheel.

After boot I got the error he warned of. Not touching my trackpad, I plugged in my tablet which worked just fine. Knowing the error was bad, I swapped the factory AppleADBMouse.kext back in and restarted again - same error. Now I was stuck with 2 "bad" drivers and no "good" drivers. Thinking it might be a permissions issue, I ran Drive Utility and repaired permissions. It found/fixed a bunch of issues related to AppleADBMouse.kext. I restarted again, no errors.

Then I got brave, put his AppleADBMouse.kext back in, changed permissions on Info (system/wheel), repaired permissions again (Drive Utility found another bunch of issues), restarted again and presto - works like a charm!

Per the other email that all scroll modes is bad, I went with the x y build.
Dan "

It's a good idea to run repair permissions after editing/replacing files in the Finder (I had to do that after editing the plist in the Apple Airport2 extension for the MS 802.11g card's ID, otherwise the driver would not load.)
As I mentioned yesterday, another option for trackpad scroll options for pre-2005 Powerbooks/iBooks is Sidetrack. (Not used it personally. I always prefer a mouse to a trackpad even with notebooks.)
Update - Dan later wrote with more info and comments on Sidetrack:

" Mike,
Actually, I've been using SideTrack for 2 weeks now and can't get used to it. Having a dedicated strip (or strips) for scrolling means that when coming in from the side to mouse, you have to avoid touching the pad on the way in, not unlike landing on an aircraft carrier - its about where you mouse. The 2 finger method is a different story, it sits waiting until you're ready to use it, lay a pair finger down anywhere - its about how you mouse. I haven't tried the circular method yet, but talking with the author it works like the iPod, nothing close is even offered by SideTrack or Apple.

The first drawback to the hack is that according to his description, it only works on late model 'books, suggesting SideTrack would be needed for Ti/Pismo/Lombard, etc. The other problem, though temporary is that being a hack, the issue with permissions was serious. The manual file swapping currently required means possibly knocking the trackpad out of commission until/unless permissions are repaired. Once its a real installer, it should be fine.

I threw out SideTrack last night and will probably stay with the hack. Once its prime time, I'll be recommending it to everyone I know.
Dan "

" Hello Mike!
This guy fixed something in uControl. Works for me.
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=6550043&forum_id=36416
-Andrey
(I asked for more info and he later wrote)
It points to message with link to modified package of version 1.4.4. It's not "authentic", but works as I wrote before.

As of today - the author of uControl released two updated pre-release versions of uControl too 1.4.5 and 1.4.6. For details you have to check check another link, sorry :)
sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=6553986&forum_id=36416
Regards, Andrey "

I'll add this to the previous problem reports on the 10.3.8 Update reader Feedback and Tips page. (I've gotten a lot more mail on 10.3.8 from readers to add to the page later today.)

" G5 runs Windows version of Excel with Virtual PC faster than Mac version with OS X"
From the Apple forum thread:

"I work with a lot of complicated financial spreadsheets that take anything up to 30 seconds to recalculate. Rather embarrassingly, these recalculate faster on my Dell laptop (W2k, Excel 2000) than they do on my G5 using Excel for Office Mac 2004.
However, I can speed up the recalculation on the G5 if I use Excel for Windows under Virtual PC 7 (though it's still not as fast as the Dell). So Excel runs faster on the G5 using emulation than does the "bespoke" mac version.

So what can we conclude? That M'soft, despite the hype, have offered us mac users a pretty lame port of their office suite. Any other suggestions?"

I saw a big performance difference in Excel (PC vs Mac) many years ago in a review here of a PB G3 wallstreet vs a Gateway notebook. At the next Macworld NY I mentioned this to some MS employees at their booth and they said that was going to be improved in future Office versions. (Way back then there was no OS X version of Office.)

" I just wanted let you know about what may be an issue with the new 12" powerbooks with the 100 GB drives (the Seagate ST9100823A model). Apparently, many people have been experiencing a strange 'soft meaty metallic plunking type of sound' coming from their hard drives. It doesn't matter whether they are doing anything with their hard drive or not or how stable the powerbook is.
There is a growing Apple discussions thread here that better describes the problem.

Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads up because your site is always a great resource to get more information or potential solutions. Several of those affected have already taken their powerbooks to Apple Stores and/or called AppleCare, run the gamut of tests (All come up clean) and yet still experience the noise. If you could post this so that we can find out hard large the problem is, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it! Thanks again!
Sincerely, Yaser H. "

I searched the drive database here (using Hard Drive/Seagate/IDE/PowerBook G4 as criteria - to date 10 reports on this drive from PB G4 owners) and found a 1/29/2005 dated report from a 12in PB G4 user (Glenn) that didn't note anything like this (he said "The drive is working well, and is reasonably quiet.") but maybe it's something he's not noticed yet (Update - Glenn spotted this post today and sent an update with comments on noise - see below). However a report from another AL PB G4 owner (didn't note specific model) dated Jan. 26th did note noises:

"The occasional thermal recalibration noises are disturbingly loud, though, I really wonder what Seagate meant with their "Quiet Ramp" technology. So maybe it's quiet when the drive gets into idle mode, but that recal-noise sounds like there's someone inside the PB knocking, wanting to get out.
(After seeing this he wrote with an update via email.-Mike)

It's a 12" AlPB. It indeed seems to be a thermal recalibration noise, since it mostly happens during "heat-up" after switching it on. I checked the internal status with smartctl (http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/) and it always reports fine, so I don't think there's anything to worry about. It's a controlled noise, something the drive does on purpose, not some head-on-disc-scratching-noise, so if that noise were a problem it would probably be reported by SMART.

Otherwise the drive emits a faint, high-frequency noise, but it's not too bad, I heard other drives do much worse.

Overall a great drive. Don't forget the 5-year warranty! I made my PB my main workhorse the moment I built in the new drive (end of December) and I didn't have any problems so far (793 hours power-on-time).
Steffen B."

Some other PB G4 owner reports noted it was a bit noisier than a previous drive, some others said it was quieter (one said "Seems quiet, with the exception of an occasional "bounce" sound."). Of course some of the original drives get very noisy after years of use. Some of the reports didn't comment on noise unfortunately.
Update - Glenn sent an update to his report that comments on noise:

" I did make the database entry you mention below. And I have since noted a rather unnatural sound every several hours of use, the drive will make a sound much like a rolling ball bearing glancing off a wall. I don't mind it, and have been quite happy with the drive.
--glenn "

I've added this to Glenn's original report in the db. Another reader with the drive in a Pismo wrote:

" I have a Seagate Momentus 5400.2 80GB HD in my Pismo and it makes the same clunking noise once in a while as people describe in the Apple Discussions thread. I think this noise just something that the Momentus does to test itself. It was quite unnerving when I first heard it, considering that the drive is otherwise much, much quieter than the 5400RPM Travelstar that I previously used. But I've had no problems with the drive whatsoever.
Kind regards, Brett P. "

Another reader wrote he's not noticed any noise from the drive:

" I installed a new bar Seagate ST9100823A into my 1st Gen 15" PB, been running it for about 1 month now with no noise issues, its very quiet and no strange sounds.
-Ichiro "

Yet another mail on the drive in reply to this post:

" I installed a 100gb seagate momentus 5400rpm drive in my 17 G4 1.33GHz about a month ago

it does make a "boing" noise occasionally, this has not changed in frequency, and seems to be related to hard disk parking - that is it seems to happen when I stop using the computer and activity drops off

I have a second drive I will be putting in an external case this weekend - I'll let you know if it does the same thing
Jim "

" ATI January 2005 update for OS 9
I don't think anybody noticed this (I don't remember seeing at at VT or MU), but ATI released a new set of OS 9 drivers on Jan 20th.
http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/mac/macos-jan-2005-update.html
-Benjamin R. "

The ATI page has a list of supported cards (Xclaim GA up to the Radeon 9200). The release notes list this change/fix:

" Fixed in this release
Fixed a bug where RADEON 9000 Pro Mac Edition (128MB VRAM only) would play audio but not show video on Apple DVD Player version 2.7 "

DVD-ROM Drives:
• IDE Toshiba SD-M1802 in Beige G3 (OS X 10.3)
  (problems noted)
  
  CDRW Drives:
• Firewire Que (unknown drive mechanism) used w/iBook (OS X 10.3)
  
  DVD+R/RW + DVD-R/RW Drives:
• Firewire (cased) Pioneer DVR-109 in G5 Tower (OS X 10.3)
• IDE Pioneer DVR-109 in G4/AGP (OS X 10.3)
  (Using Patchburn 3 for iApps burn support. Illustrated CD drive install guide here covers G4 towers up to the Digital Audio Model)
• IDE Pioneer DVR-K04L in PowerBook G4 (OS X 10.4)
  (noted native burn support)
  
  Hard Drives:
• IDE Maxtor 80GB in Beige G3 (OS X)
  (Beige G3 MT illustrated HD upgrade guide here)

You can find full owner reports (latest shown first) by searching the database by drive/brand/interface/mac models (the latest reports are shown first in searches). For guides to installing CD/CDRW/DVD drives or Hard drives in many mac models, see the IDE Articles page. The Firewire articles page also has guides on case kits, installing drives, etc.
If you've added a IDE, SCSI, Firewire or USB hard drive, CDRW, tape drive, etc. make sure you add a report to the database. (If you post an updated entry - make sure you use the same name, etc. as you did before so I can find your past entry. Thanks.)
(Incomplete entries are deleted. Do not post questions in the database, it's for drive reports not questions on what drive to buy - for that try searching the database for reports from owners of your mac model on the drive type/brand/interface, etc. you're interested in.)

• Sonnet G4/1GHz in Beige G3 (rated 7)
  (noted running lower bus speed/lower cpu speed due to fan/fit problems in his system. He later sent an update that a clean OS install solved the problems.)
  
  (Full reviews of G4 and G3 upgrades compared to stock CPUs, including real world apps/game tests, install info, etc. are linked at the CPU upgrades page. OC/CPU module articles are on the Systems page.)

(Warning - Overclocking may not be reliable and could lead to hardware failure or corrupted data.) You can find the full reports by searching the database selecting the indicated Mac model and upgrade card brand/type. If you've upgraded the CPU on your Mac, please post an entry in the database. Search the database for entries from most every upgradable Mac model *before* you buy. (Searchable by mac model/upgrade brand).