ibook g3 arrived

[Harmush]

got it this morning of ebay. £100 i got it for with a airport card and the guy put a new screen on for me. i reckon its pretty good price.
any hints with them, its my first apple laptop, and its not what am used too. even tho i have had a new imac for some time now.
does anyone know if it would support the newest OSX or would that be pushing it a bit?

 

[Telp]

What are some of the specs on it? I doubt that you could put leopard on that but someone tell me otherwise.

 

[Harmush]

What are some of the specs on it? I doubt that you could put leopard on that but someone tell me otherwise.

the specs are in my signature. i doubt it too, its fine as it is tbh. i wanted it as a internet and uni note thing. so nothing graphic desgin wise on it.
maybe some more ram, anyone know what it maxes out at?

 

[rd261]

the specs are in my signature. i doubt it too, its fine as it is tbh. i wanted it as a internet and uni note thing. so nothing graphic desgin wise on it.
maybe some more ram, anyone know what it maxes out at?

For leopard you need a g4 processor or higher. Also you need 512mb of ram.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs/

 

[Telp]

the specs are in my signature. i doubt it too, its fine as it is tbh. i wanted it as a internet and uni note thing. so nothing graphic desgin wise on it.
maybe some more ram, anyone know what it maxes out at?

Yes, you need atleast a G4, altough I'm sure Tiger would work on it if you were interested in that. For RAM i believe you can max out at 1.25GB? Someone back me up on that one, otherwise I'm not sure.

 

[Harmush]

maybe, would it be worth the money upgrading the OS to tiger that much tho?

1.25GB rings a bell tbh. but someone back us up still.

 

[rd261]

Yes, you need atleast a G4, altough I'm sure Tiger would work on it if you were interested in that. For RAM i believe you can max out at 1.25GB? Someone back me up on that one, otherwise I'm not sure.

I think the maximum is something like 640mb or close to that. The g4 is the one that supports more than 1gb I think. But Im not sure.

 

[Telp]

maybe, would it be worth the money upgrading the OS to tiger that much tho?

1.25GB rings a bell tbh. but someone back us up still.

What is it currently running? Panther? I thought Tiger/Leopard are the most aestechically pleasing (wow spelled that wrong, sorry), but besides that, its up to you. If you have the Tiger disks, definatly, otherwise, im not sure its worth it.

 

[Harmush]

10.2.8

is that panther??

 

[Telp]

10.2.8

is that panther??

10.2 is Jaguar, actually.

 

[Harmush]

older or newer than panther??

 

[Telp]

older or newer than panther??

Older, Panther is 10.3.

 

[Harmush]

okay. well either way its fine for what i want.

i've just found 512mb of DDR2. is that the right type of ram for it? i might put it in?

 

[Telp]

okay. well either way its fine for what i want.

i've just found 512mb of DDR2. is that the right type of ram for it? i might put it in?

Check your "about this mac" to see what is in there currently, but that sounds right.

 

[Harmush]

its PC133 but i sure DDR2 will just work because its newer so it will just low down or whatever it does.

(am a graphics designer, not a engineer or coder or anything, hence all the simple questions)


EDIT - just realized its 144 pin not 200

 

[mkrishnan]

its PC133 but i sure DDR2 will just work because its newer so it will just low down or whatever it does.

No... it doesn't work this way. When you have a computer that accepts DDR2 memory (SODIMM), you can use any faster speed and it will automatically slow down, but the SODIMMs are physically different from the ones that go in your iBook -- the new DDR2 SODIMMs have 200 pins and yours have 144.

The iBook G4's used PC133 and the first iteration shipped with 128 soldered + one slot, and although it was listed as only upgradeable to 640MB, you could actually put a 1GB module in and get 1.125GB. I don't know if that's true for the iBook G3 or not (this is the revision you have).

 

[Harmush]

yeah i just noticed the pin difference when i was looking around the net then.

thanks for your help. am not hardware person.
thanks for the help lads

 

[LowEnder]

I have the G3 iBook 500mhz with 256 ram and it runs Panther very well (as it did Jaguar before I updated recently). In fact, a knowledgable friend offered to install Tiger when I first inherited it and said it would work with only 256. I am about to add 512 to it...which would give me the max of 640 (128 is soldered in).....for more information, go LowEndMac

http://lowendmac.com/pb2/12in-ibook-g3-800-nov-2002.html
Have fun with it! Mine has been/is great....keep us posted

 

[molala]

I'm sure you can go with Panther (10.3) and it will run well. I have Panther on an even older laptop than yours. But I'm not sure about Tiger.

 

[nick9191]

As with most OS X releases (except Leopard), the newer one tends to run faster. You'll probably find Tiger faster than Panther.

 

[Harmush]

how much would a copy of panther set me back?

 

[molala]

As with most OS X releases (except Leopard), the newer one tends to run faster. You'll probably find Tiger faster than Panther.

Only if the computer meets the minimum requirements for Tiger. I couldn't reliably run Tiger on a G4 tower at work (500 MHz, 512MB RAM - I think) so it had to be Panther.

 

[mkrishnan]

I would guess that if you shop around, you would find Panther for about 20-25 pounds and Tiger for perhaps 35-40 pounds. Tiger will be slightly faster than Panther, with enough available RAM. But at 512-640, you would at least want to disable Dashboard and maybe also Spotlight. If you run Tiger with Spotlight and Dashboard disabled, its disk and memory requirements will be comparable to Panther, and it will be slightly faster, plus you will have better compatibility with apps and things. But Panther is a good buy also. You definitely do not want to use anything older than 10.3.9....

 

[BanjoBanker]

Panther will run fine on a G3 iBook. However, go ahead and add 512 mb to it. 640 is all it will handle. 2 of my kids had 900 Mhz iBooks that ran Panther great, but could not handle Tiger at all. I ended up buying 2 C2D MacBooks rather than fool with the iBooks, both of which were three years old at the time. One thing about the 12" iBooks is they are damn near indestructible! Believe me, both the kids tried! I bought keys from a guy I know who was scrapping a bunch of iBooks for parts, but other than the occasional replaced key, they took quite a licking and kept on ticking. I watched in horror as my son's was knocked off the pool table! I picked it up, opened it, and the screen came right on. My daughter's has a funny color on the bottom from sitting on her legs while she sat outside and chatted via iChat. I am sure there was some form of lotion involved. Anyway, load Panther and 512 of RAM and enjoy. They are great little machines.

 

[LowEnder]

a "retail version" (NOT the grey disks) of Panther UPGRADE should not cost you more than 40$ US...you may have to shop a bit on eBay,etc....
As you already have Jaguar installed, you just need an upgrade disk plus an UPDATE disk to get you to 10.3.9)