PowerLogix
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Powerlogix bought by OWC
Well I think I found one of the reasons why no one replied to my recent plea for help with my PowerLogix card. It seems that PowerLogix has just been acquired by OWC. Other World Computing is a company that sells a mix of its own gear and third party hardware (including PowerLogix and other manufacturers). OWC will acquire the "exclusive rights to all PowerLogix proprietary hardware designs and software code, as well as copyrights, logos, brand names, and web domains." I hope that this means older PowerLogix hardware will continue to be supported after the buy out, if not I am really out of luck.[via MacNN]
Powerlogix problems: overheating and kernel panics
If you have upgraded your Mac using my semi-cracky How-To you may have also upgraded your Powerlogix CPU Director software as time went along. Recently I updated to CPU Director 2.3b2, and when the drop down menu in System Preferences > Energy Saver > Options > Processor Performance disappeared, I was worried. My CPU was no longer dynamically changing speed up and down from 1GHz to 2GHz and was staying solidly at 2GHz.I eventually did what my father always told me: "When all else fails, dig the manual out of the garbage." I went to the Trash and grabbed the READ ME FIRST.rtf.The readme for the newest CPU Director includes this pithy statement:Note: DFS and Power Management functions require Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, and require a PowerLogix 7447A CPU card. If you purchased a PowerLogix 7447A CPU card prior to July 27, 2005 your card requires CPU Compatibility Updater, which will be sent to existing customers. (If you have a PowerLogix 7447A CPU card and the thermal pane does not appear in CPU Director, or Processor Performance does not appear in the Energy Saver System Preference, you need the CPU Director Compatibility Updater.)I dutifully emailed Powerlogix support to ask for the CPU Director Compatibility Updater. They sent me the program, I ran it, and System Preferences > Energy Saver > Options > Processor Performance reappeared. The problem is, since this upgrade my machine systematically overheats when I tell it to choose Processor Performance: Automatic. My G4 has not had problems this bad (and subsequently caused kernel panics) since the update to 10.4.3. The ultimate solution to this problem would be dynamic CPU switching but also failsafe temperature monitoring that allowed CPU Director to force the computer down to the lower speed if overheating becomes imminent. Apparently this exists for some of the Powerlogix CPUs but it sure doesn't show up in my CPU Director software (I have the Powerlogix 7447A).There has been no word yet from Powerlogix about this issue and I'm going to have to step back in CPU Director versions. Hopefully the CPU Director Compatibility Updater won't make my setup incompatible with previous version of CPU Director. If anyone else has had similar issues and/or has a solution, feel free to post in the comments.
Powerlogix Upgrade for 10.4.4 compatibility
If you run a Powerlogix proc in your Mac then you probably are already aware that each OS upgrade means upgrading your CPU Director software. In case you were out of the loop or mesmerized by the keynote you've been looping incessantly for the past few days, be sure todownload the upgrade. I've been having kernel panics even with 10.4.3 if I don't run CPU Director in the background. Has anyone else had similar issues?
