Really enjoying my iBook recently

CptSky said:

The G4 had an ATA connector for the hard drive. Using a SSD would be useless as anyway the connector is limited to 133 MB/s. (100 MB/s with the version used by the G4) A SATA1 socket is around 187 MB/s. Most 7200 RPM HDD can go around 200 MB/s for the platter-to-buffer, so a bit more than the SATA1 max speed. So well, a SSD is just overkill for an ATA connector... A modern 5400 RPM ATA disk will just do the job.

Also, using a SSD without the support of the TRIM command is really bad for the drive... OS X implemented the TRIM command since 10.6.8. I wouldn't really suggest SSD on PPC Macs... Anyway, the best connection is using SATA1 (PowerMac G5 Late 2005), so a good 7200 RPM drive will have a real speed higher than the max speed of the buffer-to-host connection...

Click to expand...

I agree completely that it was overkill. However it gave me better battery life and less heat than the 5400rpm it replaced. A 7200 is probably your best bet. But if you can afford the ssd I would get it.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/SSDMXLE120/

$170

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Samsung/HM160HC/

$120

iBook G4 xBench score

I downloaded xBench and got the following scores on my iBooks' original 40GB, 4200 rpm drive. I ran it after a restart, and with the power adapter attached.

Pretty dismal results. I would think an SSD would murder this drive, but I agree it would be overkill.

It would be interesting if someone with a 5400rpm drive would run the same test, and post the results for a comparison.

Here's the results:

I love the G4 iBooks .

I owned one last year until it had water damage; the larger bezel looks much nicer than on the PB's. The square design is much better than on the MacBooks.

Plus, Leopard looks pretty on the iBooks' tiny screens .

CptSky said:

Also, using a SSD without the support of the TRIM command is really bad for the drive.

Click to expand...

Unless the controller takes care of TRIM for you.

jchase2057 said:

I agree completely that it was overkill. However it gave me better battery life and less heat than the 5400rpm it replaced. A 7200 is probably your best bet. But if you can afford the ssd I would get it.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/SSDMXLE120/

$170

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Samsung/HM160HC/

$120

Click to expand...

Mhm. Well for the little difference... It's just because ATA drives aren't anymore manufactured and that the maximum capacities are small I bought my two 2 TB 7200 RPM HDD for my G5 around 70$ each on sale. For the price difference, I would take the SSD to remove the mechanical parts of the G4 !

MisterKeeks said:

Unless the controller takes care of TRIM for you.

Click to expand...

An alternative which isn't available on all SSD, so basically its true to say that it is better to have an OS which support the TRIM command. Anyway, thanks for the information. I wasn't aware of this feature on OWC SSDs.

RedCroissant said:

I LOVE Geektool. I actually have that wallpaper as well and had a TRON theme on my iMac for a bit. I don't know why I haven't put it on my iBook though. It's on my iMac so now I'm going to work my PPC awesomeness even more.

Click to expand...

Geektool is cool. I'm using it on my 1Ghz Mac. Just a note though. Be careful with some of the Geeklets/Scripts you find out there. I had to ditch a few because they were written badly enough to cause high CPU cycles.

I'm using just a few. One for the day, the month and the date. I found a weather one that uses and Applescript to rotate images and info. And I cobbled together a bunch of other shell scripts to get my network, SSID, WAN and LAN IP addresses.

That last was a challenge because Geektool likes to display data linearly and I wanted the data on two lines without having to cram four scripts together and avoid overlap because they all acted separately (as well as four different calls on the system). I managed to figure out an Applescript that calls these scrips with a do shell script command (and lots of echos and &'s) that does the job. Then I have Location X which switches my laptop's locations based on network so these two Geeklet's update dynamically based on where I am.

Finally, I've combined this with Dateline, Yahoo Widgets (Widescreen Weather and Werewolf Monitor) Simple Floating Clock (three instances for three different locales). Works for me.

RedCroissant said:

Hello everyone again.

Can someone here enlighten me regarding the different startup modes and if there is a need to change it? I have the following choices on my iBook when using OnyX: Normal, Safe Mode, Verbose, and Single User.

Right now it's on normal but I was wondering if either of these gives the best startup time and why, or if I should just keep it set to "normal."

Click to expand...

Normal: Just that. You start up normally.
Safe Mode: Start up, login, no extensions.
Verbose: Normal start up, but you see a black screen showing all the various startup items being loaded and the system's response.
Single User: Normal startup, but no login screen. You boot right to Finder in the account specified.

Personally, I have my 1GHZ Mac set for verbose. I like to see what's going on when the Mac boots and shuts down, particularly since this particular Mac has a failed cache. My work G5 is set to verbose as well.

Verbose mode is also good for giving normal Mac users apopletic fits wondering what the heck is happening when your monitor starts spewing code everywhere.

RedCroissant said:

That's awesome about the verbose mode and I'm going to try it out. Is one mode faster than the others? I would assume that verbose mode would be longer but I honestly have no idea.

And is there a way to change this setting without OnyX or related apps?

Click to expand...

Well, I usually use Onyx or Tinkertool to do this. You could probably use a terminal command (I wouldn't know what it would be) or maybe a system preference like Secrets. But directly, no, I don't know of any way.

You can do it temporarily. Hold down the V key (for Verbose) when the Mac boots. Note, it may be CMD+V, not sure.

Verbose mode does not take any longer nor any shorter amount of time. It just makes what's happening visible. That spinning gear you see when the Mac boots? That's all the boot stuff being launched/loaded. Instead of showing it to you the default Apple sets is just a spinning gear. Verbose mode stops once you get to the line where launchd tells the Mac to open the loginwindow. It'll only appear again when you shutdown or restart.

Note, Verbose mode is great but you may be dismayed to see some messages flash by. Some look like errors, but may be nothing. For instance, shortly before the login window, my Mac responds to a search of Airport signal by saying "Link down on en1 (ethernet interface 1, the Airport Extreme card)." That doesn't mean my Airport card has failed, just that since no one's logged in the Mac doesn't have a connection with a network yet.

Verbose is also great for ferreting out problems. For instance, I discovered an old VNC server was running because I watched the line to load it flash by during boot. If you can't read fast enough, don't worry. All this boot stuff gets written to the Console log so you can look at all of it if you want when you finish booting.

RedCroissant said:

Cool, thanks a lot. By the way did you ever get a chance to go to the AppleOrchard? They even got in a couple of PPC machines recently(don't know if they're still there though).

Click to expand...

No, not yet. We should be getting our refund this week though so all my options are now open. I WILL be getting a 17" MBP. Just a matter of when and where.

RedCroissant said:

That's awesome. I would love to have a 17" MBP, but that will definitely have to wait(for a while).

I just booted the iBook in verbose mode and i love it. It made me a feel a little bit more "computery."

Click to expand...

LOL! Yeah, it's kind of cool. Standard UNIX stuff, OSX just stands between us and all of that.

You can roll around all over the place in the geekness if you want to check out Console. Crash logs, System logs, oh my!

redcroissant said:

"you can roll around all over the place in the geekness..."

i am going to use this phrase for the rest of my life!

Click to expand...

lol!