Can I speed up my Powerbook G4

[Imixmuan]

With 1.25gb of RAM, I'm guessing that you likely currently have a 1gb stick and a 256mb stick. As others have said, upping your ram to 2gb(by replacing the 256mb stick with a 1gb) will make a big difference.

Currently, there are a bunch of 1gb PC-3200 SO-DIMMs(which should work fine even though your computer will officially call for PC-2700 or PC-2100) for $15 and under on Ebay including shipping. There's at least one right now for $8.90 with free shipping. If you want to be completely correct and use PC-2700 or PC-2100, you might need to shell out $20 for a stick.

Whatever you decide to do, I think that this is a good and inexpensive place to start.

That 256 MB is sodered on. Only upgradable RAM is the second slot. He already has maxed out the RAM at 1.25 GB.

Oi this thread went way off on a tangent, so once again, just turn off all Leopard eyecandy. ALL of it. Altemose, eyroungren et all have already shown everyone every trick there is to do. Leopard will then be nearly as fast as Tiger with a lot more current OS and software choices. Like Leopard Webkit, the last SeaMonkey PPC etc. Accept it is an old machine, don't expect it to do what a current Macbook Pro does, and you will be happy. Reasonably happy.

 

[reco2011]

My first Mac(and for a while my only one) was a Macbook Pro that I bought new in the Apple Store in the spring of 2012(I bought it after my Windows 7 laptop crashed hard right before a very important assignment at school).

I got into PowerPC Macs as a hobby. Money went out the window a long time ago-I've likely spent enough on PowerPC machines-and upgrade for the same-in the past year to likely buy a brand new Macbook Pro. I also bought an Intel-based Macbook in that time, and paid less for it than I did for my DLSD Powerbook.

I enjoy squeezing as much performance as I can out of my old PPC computers, even if at times it doesn't necessarily make financial sense. My DLSD is peppy with a relatively new 7200 RPM hard drive, but also is loud and I feel like the fast drive is a big drain on the battery. I'm pretty seriously considering dropping an SSD into it for those reasons, as it's a otherwise a perfectly useable computer.

Perhaps you missed where I wrote:

"If they're using the system for other reasons you make a great point."

 

[bunnspecial]

That 256 MB is sodered on. Only upgradable RAM is the second slot. He already has maxed out the RAM at 1.25 GB.

I'm not aware of any Powerbook G4 with soldered on RAM.

iBooks, yes, but every variation of the Powerbook G4 I'm aware of has two expansion slots and no soldered-on RAM.

We don't know from the opening post which Powerbook the OP has(given the RAM and processor speed it's most likely either an early 2003 17" or a late 2003 12" or 15") but any of these should have two RAM slots available.

 

[eyoungren]

I'm not aware of any Powerbook G4 with soldered on RAM.

iBooks, yes, but every variation of the Powerbook G4 I'm aware of has two expansion slots and no soldered-on RAM.

We don't know from the opening post which Powerbook the OP has(given the RAM and processor speed it's most likely either an early 2003 17" or a late 2003 12" or 15") but any of these should have two RAM slots available.

The 12" PowerBooks are like the iBooks in this regard. There is only one ram slot. My wife's 12" has 1.25GB of ram because 256MB is on the board and she has a 1GB chip.

Just pointing that out…

 

[bunnspecial]

The 12" PowerBooks are like the iBooks in this regard. There is only one ram slot. My wife's 12" has 1.25GB of ram because 256MB is on the board and she has a 1GB chip.

Just pointing that out…

Ooops, thanks for the correction on that.

However, we still don't know what the OP has...and as per Wikipedia(I know, not always the best source) a 1ghz 12" would have 2x128mb standard.

 

[eyoungren]

Ooops, thanks for the correction on that.

However, we still don't know what the OP has...and as per Wikipedia(I know, not always the best source) a 1ghz 12" would have 2x128mb standard.

You are correct, there was no specific model mentioned.

No worries!

 

[Imixmuan]

Sorry

I must have just assumed it was a 12 inch Powerbook....which is what I was thinking when I wrote that post.

 

[jrsx]

That being said, PATA hard drives are no longer in production and any drive you buy is left over stock, "refurbished", or used. KingSpec still makes some new PATA SSDs today!

Still have mine in my iBook G4. At first you may not notice a difference, but I took it out of my PowerBook before I sold it, and realized how much slower a conventional drive was. It drove me up a wall
But the SSD really made a difference IMO.

 

[Altemose]

Still have mine in my iBook G4. At first you may not notice a difference, but I took it out of my PowerBook before I sold it, and realized how much slower a conventional drive was. It drove me up a wall
But the SSD really made a difference IMO.

I agree. Now if you have a high speed drive like a 7200 RPM drive in there currently then maybe the cost/benefit ratio isn't right to upgrade.

 

[reco2011]

I agree. Now if you have a high speed drive like a 7200 RPM drive in there currently then maybe the cost/benefit ratio isn't right to upgrade.

A 7200 RPM hard drive is not what I would consider high speed. 10K or 15K drives would be considered high speed drives.

With that said I get the impression many here believe adding an SSD to anything faster than an old G4 or slower PPC system is wasted effort as the performance gains are not worth it.

 

[bunnspecial]

A 7200 RPM hard drive is not what I would consider high speed. 10K or 15K drives would be considered high speed drives.

With that said I get the impression many here believe adding an SSD to anything faster than an old G4 or slower PPC system is wasted effort as the performance gains are not worth it.

This is probably getting into semantics, but I'd probably agree with this for desktop drives where it's hard to find anything slower than 7200 rpm. For laptop drives, though-especially the IDE hard drives in our Powerbooks and iBooks, 5400 rpm is the most common and some are even 4400 RPM. The only new laptop that Apple sells with a platter drive can only be ordered with a 5400 rpm drive.

As I said earlier, my most-used Powerbook has a 7200 RPM drive, and the noise and power drain are a big downside for me.

By the way, my NAS box at home is an old IBM rack mount server rescued out of a dumpster with six hot-swappable 15K SAS drives in RAID 5. That's a FAST set-up, especially considering that it's all platter drives-but I can also see a difference in how fast the electric meter is spinning when it is on . There are 12(hot swappable) fans that all run at full blast momentarily during boot up, and it really does sound like an airplane about to take off.

 

[reco2011]

This is probably getting into semantics, but I'd probably agree with this for desktop drives where it's hard to find anything slower than 7200 rpm. For laptop drives, though-especially the IDE hard drives in our Powerbooks and iBooks, 5400 rpm is the most common and some are even 4400 RPM. The only new laptop that Apple sells with a platter drive can only be ordered with a 5400 rpm drive.

As I said earlier, my most-used Powerbook has a 7200 RPM drive, and the noise and power drain are a big downside for me.

By the way, my NAS box at home is an old IBM rack mount server rescued out of a dumpster with six hot-swappable 15K SAS drives in RAID 5. That's a FAST set-up, especially considering that it's all platter drives-but I can also see a difference in how fast the electric meter is spinning when it is on . There are 12(hot swappable) fans that all run at full blast momentarily during boot up, and it really does sound like an airplane about to take off.

My point is some here have discounted the G5 example I used because "it already had a fast hard disk" and therefore an SSD didn't offer a lot. However if you head over to the other forums you'll see people advocating SSDs in much faster, more capable systems.

As for power sucking equipment I hear you. I used to have two Sun Fire 3800 systems at home. Each one had three 1,200 watt power supplies.