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<title>macosxhints.com desktop Mac tips</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/index.php?topic=hwdesktop</link>
<description>Tips from macosxhints.com for desktop Macs.</description>
<managingEditor>webteam@macosxhints.com</managingEditor>
<webMaster>webteam@macosxhints.com</webMaster>
<copyright>Copyright 2013 Mac OS X Hints</copyright>
<generator>Geeklog</generator>
<pubDate>Tue, 04 Jun 2013 07:30:00 -0700</pubDate>
<language>en-gb</language>
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<item>
<title>Radical fix for dead iMac center fan </title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20130603161016526</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20130603161016526</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 04 Jun 2013 07:30:00 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20130603161016526#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>The Power Management Controller (PMC) failed for the center (hard disk) fan in my iMac Core 2 Duo 3.06 27-Inch (Late 2009). The two outer fans work perfectly, but no center fan gets no power at all.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; It took me three tries, but I finally got it right. It's an ugly fix, but it works great.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; 1. First i got Marcel Bresnik's free &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bresink.de/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html&quot;&gt;Temperature Monitor&lt;/a&gt; to read the disk's temperature. It shows the hard disk temperature in the dock. when it started to show close to 130 F, I would shut down the Mac. This was unacceptable.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; 2. I got a small, square USB fan and attached it over the rear center hole with velcro. This made the heat buildup at the hard disk worse. I figured the new fan was blowing air out of the original fan's intake, so air was moving in the wrong direction. And I couldn't tilt the screen down.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; 3. So I watched some how-to videos before cracking the case. I had to pull off the mot ...</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Multiple display mirroring on a Mac Pro</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120306053841531</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120306053841531</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 12 Mar 2012 07:30:00 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120306053841531#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>While not everyone has this problem, if you do a lot of video work, you may have come across it:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; a) You have a Mac Pro with dual video cards, and each video card can drive two monitors. You use 2 desktop monitors and 2 additional monitors (such as projectors on HDTVs, which is how I use this setup).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; b) You want to turn on Display Mirroring, but not the expected way, where all four displays to show the same image.  I wanted Monitor #1 to mirror to HDTV #3, and Monitor #2 to mirror to Projector #4.  Typically, once all the displays appear in the Displays pane of System Preferences, all mirroring does is display the output of Monitor #1 on all four devices.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; After several months of talking with Apple Geniuses, consulting multiple AV companies and purchasing useless video splitter boxes, we accidentally discovered a solution to our problem.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; Open System Preferences &gt; Displays. Hold down the option key while you drag any monitor icon on top of any o ...</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Best way to cool your iMac</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110606033134359</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110606033134359</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 07 Jun 2011 07:30:00 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110606033134359#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>My iMac killed its hard drive the second year of use and then the entire screen/graphics card and logic board had to be replaced at the three year mark. It unfortunately began to misbehave again shortly thereafter.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;I use mine to run a 54&quot; Bravia HDTV as the extended desktop and use EyeTV and noticed numerous graphics errors lines, and failures to refresh the screen during overheating bouts. I observed that the upper left hand corner of the iMac has some sort of an air pocket that traps extreme heat from the graphics card there. (The rear-viewed 'right' of the top air exhaust slot).&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;This top left hot air pocket-trap seems to be due to negative cabinet air pressure interfering with natural heat convection on the left side; heat collects there but just can't get out! The fans are part of the problem and just don't help at all.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;To verify this, I installed a small temperature probe in the back top left hand (from the front) side of the back air exhaust slot (r ...</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Indicator of iMac sleep status</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110509172602573</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110509172602573</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 11 May 2011 07:30:00 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110509172602573#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>On an iMac use the Caps Lock key to indicate whether or not the computer is awake. It is useful for those that use their iMac as a wireless access point to quickly check the status of the computer.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;If you leave the Caps Lock active, the little green LED will be glowing when the machine is awake and go dim when the iMac sleeps.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;[&lt;b&gt;crarko adds:&lt;/b&gt; I tested this, and it works as described. This should work with the built-in keyboard on a laptop, as well. I don't use any of my desktop Macs this way but do use the MacBook as an access point when I travel.]
</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Quick access to System Preferences isn't gone</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2011010510333475</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2011010510333475</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:30:00 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2011010510333475#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>You can open several frequently used System Preferences directly in 10.5 and 10.6 with a simple keyboard shortcut.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;If you have an Apple keyboard (or a third party one with similarly branded function keys) you can bring up various system preference panels without using your mouse at all.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Simply hold down the Option key combined with one of the Apple-branded function keys to bring up the related preference panel. So Option+F1 or Option+F2 will bring up Displays.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;On the newer keyboards Apple changed the layout of a few of these function keys so they could include iTunes control keys; Option+ those f-keys used to bring up iTunes (under 10.5 and maybe the early versions of 10.6?) but that does nothing now.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Option+ any of the volume keys will bring up the Sound System Pref, and Option+ any of the Expos function keys will bring up the Expos/Spaces System Pref.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;On a related note -- those newer Apple keyboards no long designate F7 as a toggle f ...</description>
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<item>
<title>Yet another method of ejecting stuck CD/DVD media</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100207111453283</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100207111453283</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:30:00 -0800</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100207111453283#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>I had a DVD in my iMac that would not mount, and would not eject. After Googling around and trying various methods, I ended up calling Apple Support, and got this tip that I had not run across in my searches:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Boot the iMac while holding down the Option key to get to the boot menu, where the start up drives are displayed. Press and hold down the Eject key on the keyboard, and the stuck disc should eject.This tip worked great for me; I hope it's helpful to others.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;[&lt;b&gt;robg adds:&lt;/b&gt; The topic of stuck media has been quite popular here in the past. In an effort to turn today's tip into a one-stop reference for all the potential solutions, here are the methods covered in past hints:&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Power up the machine and let it sit &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060814211608242&quot;&gt;[hint]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Use Open Firmware &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031210193237190&quot;&gt;[hint]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Use FireWire Target Disk Mode  ...&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>One way to fix an overheating graphics chip in an iMac</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100117025218440</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100117025218440</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 20 Jan 2010 07:30:00 -0800</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100117025218440#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>My late 2006 iMac started to freeze and have graphics issues after about 18 months of use. It turned out that this was an overheating problem experienced by a lot of users. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.eidac.de/?p=180&quot;&gt;smcFanControl&lt;/a&gt; made the computer noisy, but didn't stop the problem, especially in the summer. I'd had the iMac sitting (unused) on a desk for a while, and was going to throw it out...but instead, I tried making a few ventilation holes, as seen in &lt;a href=&quot;http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t267/allijb/Back_of_iMac.jpg&quot;&gt;this picture&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;If you want to do this yourself, you'll have to locate a service manual for the iMac (20-inch Late 2006); try a PDF search on Google. Follow the instructions in the manual, and take almost everything out of the computer. Next, drill some holes in the back with a hole saw -- the important holes are marked in the above-linked picture. Finally, install smcFanControl, and crank up the fans.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;This modification makes the compute ...</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>10.6: One possible cause of 'random sleep' in Snow Leopard</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2009100117512456</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2009100117512456</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:30:00 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2009100117512456#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>Shortly after Apple issued 10.6.1, my 2009 iMac (2.93 GHz) began to randomly sleep, sometimes quite often, sometimes with hour-long intervals in between. The kernel began logging &lt;tt&gt;localhost kernel [0]: Previous Sleep Cause: - 101&lt;/tt&gt; after each incident.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
None of the three Apple sources I contacted would precisely identity this error code. There was no reference to it that I could find on the internet. The standard reply I got was that errors logged with a negative sign are abnormal, which has been documented, and that although Apple's engineers were aware of it, the exact meaning was closed-source. I was told, however, that this indicated a &quot;partial kernel-panic.&quot;
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
In each case I told them I had no idea what they were or weren't allowed to say, and I didn't care -- I was just trying to fix the problem. I tried every possible method of booting Snow Leopard in both 32-bit and 64-bit modes, but couldn't solve the problem. Oddly, I wasn't able to reproduce the ...</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Use a G5 as headless port/drive extender and MIDI server</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090706005356831</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090706005356831</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:30:00 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090706005356831#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>The new Macbook Unibody has about five ports. In my case, all of them are full all the time. Unless you buy a hub, why not use that defunct G5 for additional ports and devices? You may save some energy by not relying on a large number of external devices (keyboard, monitor, hard drives, etc.) or AC power. I was also tired of the issues with a USB powered Oxygen 8 keyboard from M-Audio. Using my G5, the VNC access is actually somewhat tolerable for light operations at reasonable resolutions. If you have your Mac configured with a SATA II card and an internal drive mounting system, you can have access to more drives at decent speeds.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;These instructions cover setting up a FireWire 800 link, a MIDI Network Link, VNC access using Vine Server, which is much faster than ARD. Also, you can easily use your G5 as a bridge to connect to two-pin devices (most video-cameras). Latency is minimal and the data path is more than sufficient, if all other interfaces are disabled it is also s ...</description>
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<title>New logic board for older G5 iMacs with bad capacitors</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090314071508354</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090314071508354</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:30:01 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20090314071508354#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>Not so much a hint, but a suggestion which hopefully will help someone else. My iMac G5 (1.8 GHz, 2005 model) started having frequent kernel panics which I quickly realized was hardware related, as it persisted when booted from an external drive. When I opened the machine, I saw the dreaded &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.popularmechanics.com/content/imageview.cfm?img=http%3A//media.popularmechanics.com/images/PMX0805Upgrade003-lg.jpg&quot;&gt;bulging capacitors&lt;/a&gt;.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
This was a known issue with a defect in the manufacturing of these capacitors, and Apple had a program to replace the motherboards when the capacitors failed. As I learned when I called the Apple rep, the program just ended in January and there was &quot;nothing to be done.&quot; As I explained to the rep, I was being penalized for my machine lasting a bit longer than others, which made no sense. In fact, since there was no recall issued, I couldn't get my machine repaired before it failed, so Apple really had no choice in my opinion but ...</description>
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<title>Possibly recover from a dual CPU failure on a Mac Pro</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2008082015461281</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2008082015461281</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:30:00 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2008082015461281#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>When I tried to boot my Mac Pro recently, it failed -- all I got was a black screen and a chime. I opened the case, and on the motherboard, I saw two LEDs were red: the cpuA and cpuB failure lights.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
My warranty is over, but here are the steps I followed to get it working again:
&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Turn off your Mac and unplug the power cord.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Remove the CMOS battery on the motherboard (just above the graphic card).&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Wait 10 seconds -- I'm not sure if this is necessary, but it worked for me.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Plug the power cord back into the Mac.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Press the power button. The Mac should boot normally and give you the startup chime, but you want your CMOS battery back.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Turn off the Mac, then unplug the power cord again.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Put the CMOS battery back in.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
That's it; boot and enjoy!
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
[&lt;b&gt;robg adds:&lt;/b&gt; I've never seen this on my Mac Pro, and I'm not sure if it's a sign of a failing CMOS battery, or something else. I'm publishin ...</description>
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<title>How to pull stuck hard drive sleds from the Mac Pro</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2008051914081431</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2008051914081431</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 22 May 2008 07:30:00 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2008051914081431#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>I've been swapping hard drives in my Mac Pro a lot lately, and they kept getting more and more difficult to pull out once they'd been soundly seated, to the point where I was in danger of bending the lip of the sled.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
I was about to experiment with lubricating the things with a little graphite or similar, when I discovered that they slide out much more easily if you reach both hands inside the Mac and pull gently and evenly on the far edge of the drive itself.&lt;br /&gt;
</description>
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<title>Free up a spare drive sled in the Mac Pro</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080516002530186</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080516002530186</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 19 May 2008 07:30:00 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080516002530186#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>Need an extra MacPro hard drive sled for swapping secondary hard drives? If you do not need to swap out your primary hard drive, take it off of the sled and &lt;em&gt;carefully&lt;/em&gt; install it permanently into the first slot without the sled. First put some thick felt on top of the grey fan box. The hard drive is supported by the grey box and felt perfectly solid in this setup. Now you have a free hard drive sled to swap drives in the other three slots -- this is better than pay &amp;#36;29 plus shipping.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;[&lt;b&gt;robg adds:&lt;/b&gt; While I do have a Mac Pro, I'm not going to test this hint ... I don't swap drives often enough to merit a spare sled. Looking at the interior of the machine, though, it looks as though it would work fine -- though clearly it's not the recommended drive mounting method. Proceed at your own risk...]
</description>
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<title>Possibly solve system issues after G5 video card upgrade</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080210122930226</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080210122930226</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:30:01 -0800</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080210122930226#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>When I upgraded the video card on my Dual 1.8ghz PowerMac G5, I started having many difficulties, including:
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Optical drive not recognized.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Video card fails to power display.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Hard drive(s) not recognized.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
After several frustrating days, the solution was to reset the PMU on the motherboard. I suspect that on a newer G5, resetting the SMU would have the same effect. So, if you're out there having a hard time upgrading your G5, give it a shot!
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
[&lt;b&gt;robg adds:&lt;/b&gt; I can't confirm this one -- if anyone has had a similar experience, please post.]
</description>
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<title>Recover from an incorrect resolution setting on a mini</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071207005013627</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071207005013627</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:30:03 -0800</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071207005013627#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>Apple's Intel Mac Mini has only one display connection, the DVI interface. In case someone has chosen a wrong display resolution for a connected display, it is very difficult to switch back to a usable resolution.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
When (for example) using a Benq LCD connected via a VGA to DVI adaptor to the Mac Mini and changing the frequency from 60Hz to 75Hz, the Mini will always remember the chosen resolution, even if a PRAM reset or complete hardware reset is done. So the screen still stays black, as 75Hz can't be shown although the Displays System Preferences pane offers this frequency. It doesn't matter if you are connecting another display to the interface and afterwards changing the resolution; the Mini keeps on switching back to the former one if the misbehaving display is re-connected.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; 
In order to switch back to a usable resolution, you will have to remote control the Mini from another Mac using screen sharing, Apple Remote Desktop, VNC, or Timbuktu. Even though the ...</description>
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<title>10.5: Enable nap mode in 10.5 on G4 MDD systems</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071101231643321</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071101231643321</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 15 Nov 2007 07:30:02 -0800</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071101231643321#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.macosxhints.com/images/105only.png&quot; align=&quot;left&quot; style=&quot;margin-right: 10px&quot;&gt;Some G4 Mirrored Drive Door (MDD) systems have cooling systems that run loudly as the CPUs get hot, especially the model affectionately known at the &quot;Windtunnel&quot; G4s. On those systems, enabling nap mode brings the normal operating temperature down remarkably well, thereby quieting the fans. This was covered in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070223194451975&quot;&gt;this older hint&lt;/a&gt;.
&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The method is basically to install the last version of Apple's C.H.U.D. tools that allows Nap Mode on those machines, which is version 3.5.2 [&lt;a href=&quot;ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Tool_Chest/Testing_-_Debugging/Performance_tools/CHUD_3.5.2.dmg&quot;&gt;21MB download&lt;/a&gt;]. That version still works with Leopard, although notably it misreports cache sizes. However, the old command line utility, and therefore the derived AppleScripts, that people have relied on until now to enable nap mod ...</description>
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<title>A multiple-drive Mac Pro Migration Assistant issue</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070807115154337</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070807115154337</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Aug 2007 07:30:00 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070807115154337#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>If you order a BTO Mac Pro with two internal hard drives, you may want to make a note of this. To make a long story short: Before firing up a new Mac Pro configured with two internal hard drives to run the Migration Assistant, turn it on in Target Disk Mode and rename the empty second hard drive to something other than &lt;em&gt;Macintosh HD&lt;/em&gt;. Now, the explanation:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;I was setting up a new Mac Pro for a user at one of my clients, and attempted to migrate her from her existing Power Mac G5. The new machine was configured with two internal hard drives, 500GB each. I attempted to migrate her data from the initial Setup Assistant, and everything went smoothly until we got to the actual &quot;Transferring Information&quot; screen -- no time estimate ever appeared in the progress bar, and the drives were not making sounds that would indicate they were being accessed.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;I ended up rebooting the new machine via the power button and choosing not to migrate data when the Setup Assistant ra ...</description>
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<title>One way to 'mirror' DVI displays on a Mac mini</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070326221246345</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070326221246345</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 27 Mar 2007 07:30:02 -0700</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070326221246345#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>I am in the process of creating the &quot;ultimate&quot; Mac mini-based home entertainment system. One issue with using a mini is the lack of dual-monitor support, which is a real hassle if the mini is attached to a projector -- turning on the projector to see the screen each time is expensive and time-consuming. Since the mini only has one video output, I came up with a way to effectively mirror the video to both the DVI projector and a DVI-input LCD monitor:
&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Buy a DVI &quot;splitter&quot; cable (I got mine on ebay). You want a two-female to one-male DVI-D splitter.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Plug the monitor into one fork of the splitter.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Take the cable from the projector, and break off pins 6 and 7 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:DVI_pinout.png&quot;&gt;pinout chart&lt;/a&gt;). This will disable the monitor sense function, and the mini won't &quot;know&quot; the projector is connected. Plug it into the other fork of the splitter.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Make sure the LCD monitor's resolution matches the projector's nat ...&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;</description>
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<item>
<title>Quieting a Mirrored Drive Door Power Mac G4</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070223194451975</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070223194451975</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 28 Feb 2007 07:30:00 -0800</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070223194451975#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>I have owned an awesome Apple Powermac G4 for about two years now. It's a Dual 1Ghz machine, which is commonly known as the Mirrored Drive Door (MDD) model due to its mirror finished optical drive doors. It has been a faithful servant so far for all sorts of stuff like video editing, music production, photos, web surfing, email and business duties, to name just a few.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;I noticed when I first got it that it was a bit noisier than my old G4 533 Power Mac, but until my girlfriend's mother complained that it kept her awake all night, I didn't really take much notice of it. After that, though, it started to drive me crazy and I started a long campaign to quieten the thing down.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;First thing I did was search Google for information on how to do it, and I found &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/g4_mirrored_drive_doors/noise_reduction/g4_ddr_noise_reduction.html&quot;&gt;this page&lt;/a&gt;, which documents in detail how to replace the main 120mm cooling fan.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;After tryi ...</description>
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<item>
<title>Improve very poor AirPort card range on G5s</title>
<link>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20061230174323444</link>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20061230174323444</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 03 Jan 2007 07:30:00 -0800</pubDate>
<comments>http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20061230174323444#comments</comments>
<dc:subject>Desktop Macs</dc:subject>
<description>This is going to be ridiculously simple for many people, but hey, I made this mistake and even Apple Support couldn't figure it out. Plus, documentation at the present time for installing AirPort cards is designed for a replacement card, which misses a vital step.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Anyway, if you have a G5 and have installed an AirPort card yourself, you should know this: &lt;strong&gt;Strictly speaking, there are two antennas!&lt;/strong&gt;  &lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;There's the small internal antenna which you must click into the top of the AirPort card inside the Mac -- this bit is well documented.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Your Mac originally came with a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.welovemacs.com/9226043.html&quot;&gt;T-shaped object&lt;/a&gt;, which is the external AirPort antenna designed to overcome the metal casing of your Mac. Plug this into the AirPort port on the rear of the machine, and your range will increase from about 1m to ... well, much, much more. Go look in the box -- it's probably still there!&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;I hope this saves someone som ...</description>
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