iBook OS X upgrade what do you recomend?

I've managed to get my 1.5 g4 powerbook to perform quite comfortably doing basic tasks using the following:

1. Upgrade the ram to the maximum of 1.25 gigs. Look on ifixit.com to see if you're comfortable doing it with your skill level, manual dexterity, etc.

2. Put in a larger, faster hard drive. The original one that came with it is probably nearing its expiration date anyway. Consult with ifixit again.

3. Upgrade to 10.4 or 10.5. If you go with 10.5, there's a couple of online guides that can help you optimize the OS to run on your system, most of which involve turning off unnecessary eye candy or processes that you're unlikely to use.

My septuagenarian dad has the same model ibook that he bought last winter with 768 mb of ram to browse and pursue the iLife, and it does basic tasks quite surprisingly well.

I have the same ibook as you. all i did was max the ram to 1.25 gb by inserting a 1 gig dimm. there is 256mb built in already. after doing that i installed leopard and it works great for me, no hiccups at all. Boot up is slower than it was with tiger but not that much slower, it just sits at the black screen before the white apple boot screen comes on a little longer than tiger did. I love this computer and use it every day... see no need for a macbook.

u guys have answered my prayers...all in one..but to add to this.can it be possible to have the same upgrade and same efficiency as you guys as i have the 800mhz..??if so is there a massive difference between our processors.?

Ljw1976 said:

u guys have answered my prayers...all in one..but to add to this.can it be possible to have the same upgrade and same efficiency as you guys as i have the 800mhz..??if so is there a massive difference between our processors.?

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The 800mhz iBook G4 is limited to 640MB of RAM, so that's a knock right off the bat. The processor is also not officially supported by 10.5, so you'd have to do some firmware hacking to get 10.5 to run on an 800mhz G4 system.

I had 10.5 on my computer but I'll be downgrading it back to 10.4 as soon as my new Ram comes in (1gig stick bit the farm). From my experience, 10.4 seems to a more stable OS, and since I can't upgrade to 10.6, I'd rather have something that works really well than something that works well most of the time.

but i can get a 1gig stick for the 800 mhz right..???
]
so that means i can run tiger quite well..
as im not bothered about leopard...if i was to upgrade to leopard..i would upgrade my laptop fullstop



so am i correct in saying i am able to upgrade to 1gig..and run tiger smoothly

*edit* after doing some research, I realised my post was a mistake xD

Ljw1976 said:

so am i correct in saying i am able to upgrade to 1gig..and run tiger smoothly

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The following quote is taken from HERE

*Apple reports that the maximum memory capacity of this system is 640 MB with 128 MB onboard and a 512 MB SO-DIMM. However, third-parties have been able to upgrade the system to 1152 MB with the 128 MB onboard and a single 1.0 GB memory module.

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Ljw1976 said:

but i can get a 1gig stick for the 800 mhz right..???
]
so that means i can run tiger quite well..
as im not bothered about leopard...if i was to upgrade to leopard..i would upgrade my laptop fullstop



so am i correct in saying i am able to upgrade to 1gig..and run tiger smoothly

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You may or may not be. Some folks have been able to run 1GB+built in 128MB of RAM, others not so much. When I upgraded to 640MB, RAM was still kind of pricey, so I didn't want the hassle if the 1GB didn't work/be addressed.

Tiger will run just dandy on 640MB too.

I would just run tiger and use third party apps to get the leopard add-ons. You can get retail copies fairly cheap on ebay and craigslist.

I agree with the others above, I bought my iBook in January this year. It had nothing with it but the charger, I got 2 copies of Tiger (unopened) for 50 euros, and got free RAM from work, now it has 1.12 GBs, with a 933MHz processor. It flies along on internet and iTunes. A great investment because I wanted an Apple for a long time but never had the money. Definitely get Tiger, you'll see the difference straight away.

I'm restoring an original 12" Powerbook at the moment. It's the 867Mhz model.

I just (today in fact) upgraded the RAM in the computer to 1.12GB. Mine only has 128mb pre-installed so all I could add was an additional 1GB. I have also ordered a replacement hard drive, which is SIGNIFICANTLY larger and faster (5400RPM vs 4200RPM)

I also received the computer with leopard pre-installed. I actually down-graded it and it runs a whole lot better on Tiger. I'm also going to have to replace the battery (but that's another issue).

I would say max out the ram, and upgrade the hard drive. install Tiger, and you'll still have a fairly usable computer. I'm mostly using this powerbook as a netbook because honestly it can't do much else lol!

Having the same ibook (1ghz), with the RAM maxed out, and a 7200rpm drive put in it.

Leopard does run, but I from my experiences Tiger runs much better, although you may miss some of the newer features.

As for the videos - I think that is just the nature of adobe video on the PPC - I don't think the code is as good as it is for intel, and the 1ghz PPC proc is a few years older. Although I found that VLC, was best at handing video, although primarily Xvid, etc. as my iBook sits next to the tv currently functioning as a ghetto AppleTV!

Newbie question here which I hope I'm posting in the right spot:

I just purchased an old ibook G4 that has OS 9 running on it. I know I have to install updates, but would I still be able to go straight to Leopard 10.5.6 if purchased?

enoves24 said:

Newbie question here which I hope I'm posting in the right spot:

I just purchased an old ibook G4 that has OS 9 running on it. I know I have to install updates, but would I still be able to go straight to Leopard 10.5.6 if purchased?

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If it's >867mhz you can do this straight away. If it's the 800mhz model you'll need a firmware hack to install Leopard.

NewMacbookPlz said:

If it's >867mhz you can do this straight away. If it's the 800mhz model you'll need a firmware hack to install Leopard.

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it's 1.5GHz. So I don't even have to worry about updates, and can just buy leopard 10.5.6 and be good to go? Thanks in advance...