Advice on PBook upgrade

wattage

macrumors 6502

Original poster

• Oct 15, 2005

• #1

I have a 667 pbook, 30GB hd, external 150GB Lacie, ext. Lacie D2 DL DVD-R/RW. Is it worth upgrading the processor? Or should I upgrade the HD (15gb iTunes lib, 5gb iPhoto lib). Any suggestions for specific upgrades and locations?? Thanks

 

mad jew

Moderator emeritus

• Oct 15, 2005

• #2

Umm... How were you planning to upgrade the CPU? I recommend just leaving it. There's really not much point upgrading such an old machine, you'll just hit bottleneck after bottleneck. 😱

 

California

macrumors 68040

• Oct 16, 2005

• #3

Yea, I agree with madjew. I've had that machine. Throw in a 7200rpm hd and max out the ram -- you'll be happy you did. Those 4200rpm OEM drives suck.

 

L

livingfortoday

macrumors 68030

• Oct 17, 2005

• #4

I have that exact Powerbook, and I noticed a big speed bump after upping the RAM to 768MB and adding a 7200rpm HD in there. I know there's some place that'll let you send them your Powerbook and they'll put in a new logic board with a 1.2Ghz G4 on it, but I think it's between $400 - $500, which makes it too much to be worth it, in my book.

I'd say try the RAM and HD upgrade, and if you still feel it's too slow, just get a new Powerbook. Oh, and put the 7200rpm drive in the new one, too.

 

P

pigwin32

macrumors regular

• Oct 17, 2005

• #5

California said:

Yea, I agree with madjew. I've had that machine. Throw in a 7200rpm hd and max out the ram -- you'll be happy you did. Those 4200rpm OEM drives suck.

Click to expand...

Yep, same here, and Hitachi are now doing a 100 GB 7200rpm drive. I dropped the 60GB drive into my TiBook and it was like a new machine.

 

wattage

macrumors 6502

Original poster

• Oct 18, 2005

• #6

Thanks guys, I would like to upgrade the RAM and HD, if I can only do one at a time, which first? Also, who should install the HD, I'm not very technical and don't want to *^%$ it up.

 

L

livingfortoday

macrumors 68030

• Oct 18, 2005

• #7

wattage said:

Thanks guys, I would like to upgrade the RAM and HD, if I can only do one at a time, which first? Also, who should install the HD, I'm not very technical and don't want to *^%$ it up.

Click to expand...

You should go with a RAM upgrade first, and see if that speeds things up enough for you. You can easily install that yourself on a TiBook, just lift up the keyboard and there are instructions on the back of it.

If you wanna risk the HD install on your own, go to pbfixit.com and look up a guide on how to do it. i don't know who to recommend other than that, though.

 

csubear

macrumors 6502a

• Oct 18, 2005

• #8

pigwin32 said:

Yep, same here, and Hitachi are now doing a 100 GB 7200rpm drive. I dropped the 60GB drive into my TiBook and it was like a new machine.

Click to expand...

But can you buy them anywhere? When i was looking for a new drive (about 4 months ago) i came across the mythical 100GB 7200 rpm drive on hatachi's website. Problem was no one in the world was actually selling them at that time.
I ended up with a 100GB 5400 rpm drive (and that was about $200).

 

California

macrumors 68040

• Oct 18, 2005

• #9

csubear said:

But can you buy them anywhere? When i was looking for a new drive (about 4 months ago) i came across the mythical 100GB 7200 rpm drive on hatachi's website. Problem was no one in the world was actually selling them at that time.
I ended up with a 100GB 5400 rpm drive (and that was about $200).

Click to expand...

So you ended up with a 100gb drive in the Tibook? How's it running? And hopefully you added ram?

 

csubear

macrumors 6502a

• Oct 18, 2005

• #10

California said:

So you ended up with a 100gb drive in the Tibook? How's it running? And hopefully you added ram?

Click to expand...

Its in my 12" Alu book, and it was a royal pain to put in. I would of never of done it, but the original drive failed (1 month outside the warranty). I didn't notice much a a speed increase. Some things load faster, but thats about it.