Club 17

[DCBassman]

Interesting, thx. Why is it that it should be easier on mine?

Just my experience, and mainly using MX. I have two 2011 MBP 15 inch, each with bypassed dGPU. MX went on easiest on these. Effortlessly, in fact. Old A1181s also quite easy, 32 and 64 bit as needed. I fully expected this one to be a breeze, TBH, but I must also stress that I'm no expert. The single biggest thing was needing patience. Getting to a live desktop, even once the settings were ok, took forever. I had to steel myself to do something else until it presented me with a desktop!

 

[DCBassman]

@Romain_H I forgot to add that once installed, it runs well and boots quickly.

 

[mac57mac57]

Just saw this! Here is my admission to Club 17, a 17" PowerBook G4, the final release: 1.67 GHz G4, 2 GB of RAM and the higher resolution screen.

 

[Doq]

That looks like a 15 to me. Club 15 is next door.

 

[mac57mac57]

Good eyes, @Doq! I have thought this machine was a 17" for years. I had to get a ruler out and measure it. Sure enough, you are absolutely right... it IS a 15" display. I withdraw my application to join Club 17!

 

[ToniCH]

I still have not found a PB G4 17". But, this is how things are now:

From left: mid 2010 i5 2.53GHz ; early 2011 i7 2.3GHz ; late 2011 i7 2.4GHz ; mid 2010 i7 2.8GHz.
All have max RAM, SSD. 3 run Monterey and 1 Catalina, couple have Linux Mint too.
2010 machines have 2-core cpus and 2011 have 4-core cpus.
There are also 2 Mac Minis and a Mac Mini server box in that pic.

 

[DCBassman]

A1139 G4, £25. Dead. But not for long, AND, wonder of wonders, it has a good battery, 74 cycles! I have obtained unobtainium!
I'll probably move the A1107 on, two G4s and a 17" MBP is a lot of metal!
Edit: only 512MB RAM at the moment, but 2x1GB DDR2-533 incoming.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I still have not found a PB G4 17". But, this is how things are now:

From left: mid 2010 i5 2.53GHz ; early 2011 i7 2.3GHz ; late 2011 i7 2.4GHz ; mid 2010 i7 2.8GHz.
All have max RAM, SSD. 3 run Monterey and 1 Catalina, couple have Linux Mint too.
2010 machines have 2-core cpus and 2011 have 4-core cpus.
There are also 2 Mac Minis and a Mac Mini server box in that pic.

I spy with my naked eye ... Prehistoric macs I mean vacuum tubes! What are those plugged into?

 

[ToniCH]

vacuum tubes! What are those plugged into?

It is an amplifier. Some components of my vintage stereo system is connected to it, others being connected to a Sansui solid state amp. The thing with wires in top of it is a automatic switch allowing 2 amps to be connected to single pair or speakers.

 

[DCBassman]

I spy with my naked eye ... Prehistoric macs I mean vacuum tubes! What are those plugged into?

@ToniCH A quad of EL34s, perhaps?

 

[ToniCH]

@ToniCH A quad of EL34s, perhaps?

Yeah, they are EL34s. Have couple of sets of those and I think I have a set of KT77s for it too. And several sets of the small ones. Haven't swapped tubes for ages. It is quite rare to turn on the tube amp these days.

 

[milliectl]

New to me A1139 from my SO, named as my 'dreamg4' The CCFL is kind of dim but I can't say for sure if it's just worn or it was always like that but hey.
2GB in one stick from the seller. The charger is broken but I have an iBook charger that is fine as long as the PowerBook has a battery in it. It does, but the 'max capacity' is massively messed up like it overflowed its own 16-bit register (65k mAh lol).

Still needs some TLC when it comes to the fans but I've cleaned it up, gave it new thermal paste and a 128GB mSATA SSD. Any tips what to do next? Hardware-wise, I mean. It's not my first PPC Mac after all 🤭

 

[Forest Expertise]

View attachment 2581687
New to me A1139 from my SO, named as my 'dreamg4' The CCFL is kind of dim but I can't say for sure if it's just worn or it was always like that but hey.
2GB in one stick from the seller. The charger is broken but I have an iBook charger that is fine as long as the PowerBook has a battery in it. It does, but the 'max capacity' is massively messed up like it overflowed its own 16-bit register (65k mAh lol).

Still needs some TLC when it comes to the fans but I've cleaned it up, gave it new thermal paste and a 128GB mSATA SSD. Any tips what to do next? Hardware-wise, I mean. It's not my first PPC Mac after all 🤭

You could add 802.11n Wifi to it, as detailed here: https://lowendmac.com/2024/low-end-...-draft-and-bluetooth-2-1-to-your-powerpc-mac/
If you find a good Cardbus card supplier, let us know in the thread - I would love to add 802.11n to my own 17" book.

 

[Doq]

But watch out!

The BCM4321 is only recognised on Leopard or newer (or Linux). If you're using or need Tiger, you're outta luck. Ran into this with my own WPC600N and was why I didn't use it on my 17 until I switched to Leopard as main.

 

[milliectl]

Yeah... there's not a lot of these CardBus cards available 🥴
Same with the batteries 🤭