Pismo OS and ram upgrade?

[mccldwll]

Want to upgrade ram and OS on a pismo (400). Have read that Panther seems to be the best OS for it, and that while 1 gb is possible, seem to be some issues with one of the ram slots. Also have heard that pismo can be pretty picky with ram compatibility. Could anyone elaborate/advise on these?
Where is good source for legal OS 10.3 at good price (other than ebay)? DMS for ram?
Thanks.

 

[kermit4161]

mccldwll,

I'm running Tiger 10.4.8 on my Pismo 400 without any issues at all. I've got 768MB of RAM installed and though about bumping it up to 1GB in the near future.

I've purchased all of my RAM from OWC (macsales.com) and have never had any issues with them at all. I'd recommend getting the low profile RAM chip though... that might be what the issue you heard about. It'll allow you to put two 512 MB chips into the Pismo (I think only one needs to be the low profile (the bottom of the two), but I don't know this for sure. You can e-mail the customer service folks at OWC to be sure.

I'm not really sure that Tiger runs slower or faster than Panther. Both systems ran without issues on my Pismo, where my ex had problems with Tiger on her Aluminum PB and I've seen issues with Tiger and Mac Minis before.

The only issues I've had with the Pismo is it is getting long in the tooth. There are some programs I'd like to run that won't on a G3 platform. Other programs are slow due to the video card limitations. It is a great laptop and I keep hanging on out of loyalty. But sooner or later I'll have to upgrade. Even then, it'll be my Internet computer.

Good luck with the upgrade!

 

[localghost]

I have 2 pismos, the 'main' one still running 10.3 with 1GB from OWC, the second (purchased for spare parts but so far nothing broke) running 10.4 (pre-installed, no licence) with only 512 MB.

10.3 @ 1GB is absolutely fine for all the basic tasks like Mail, Safari and Office. Occasional light Photoshop is ok, old iMovie- let alone FCP-versions are a possibility, but no fun. Haven't used the one with 10.4 and 512MB a lot (just testing) but it seems fine, too.

What I love is the rugged construction (6 years on the road without any damage) and the dual-battery option (10 hours w-lan with 2 new batteries from owc). It's really getting old now though - more and more programs (even some iLive features) and peripherals (iSight) will not work, 10.5 probably won't work either, so think twice before you spend a lot of money on it.

 

[macg4]

ive got a 500mhz/1gig/60gig hd running tiger..runs nicely