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Help speeding up a G4

S

Saidear

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 28, 2011
14
0
I recently inherited a well-loved Powerbook G4 (A1104, PowerBook6,8) that is in need of a little bit of a tune-up.

I'm already trying to source out a new battery/charger to replace the old worn out ones. I've got new RAM on order (200pin 1GB PC2700 from Crucial) and now I'm onto hard drives.

I'd like to get a SSD drive in there and I know there are a few (rare) PATA drives to be found. However would it be worthwhile to invest in, or am I better off with a traditional HD instead in terms of price/performance?

Heck, would a CF/PATA adapter work for a cheaper, space-saving alternative?

Are there any user-servicable upgrades I can put towards this to give it a bit more oomph?

I plan on using it as my go-to work laptop for browsing and office documents. It's as heavy as my larger MacBook Pro but a bit smaller and less of a high-priced theft item. I don't need it to be blazing fast but definitely not as ancient as it currently behaves.
 
Well CF or SATA adaptors might work, but space will be a mighty issue here.


I just upgraded my 1.33GHz 12" iBook with a 120GB SSD from kingspec, works like a charm.
 
If the goal is to actually increase performance and you're going to go through the trouble of opening your PB up you may as well get the most out of the whole thing in the end. The best way to do that is with an OWC 2.5" IDE SSD as jbarley also mentions.
 
a solid state drive would be a good investment in the long run I have a 60gb ssd in my powerbook g4 1.33ghz also a new screen would help with brightness as the older original powerbook screens are fadding
 
Thanks everyone, I'll add the hard drive to my order on my next paycheque.

Is there anything else I can do to up the performance just that extra notch? I already set the user agent to emulate the iPad just to eke out that extra bit out of speed when browsing.
 
Saidear said:
Thanks everyone, I'll add the hard drive to my order on my next paycheque.

Is there anything else I can do to up the performance just that extra notch? I already set the user agent to emulate the iPad just to eke out that extra bit out of speed when browsing.
Click to expand...

No to much, run monolingual, energy saver to performance, use a lighter browser (though I like Safari)...

It's a sub 2 gigahertz single core processor, you're never going to make it "fast"
 
GermanyChris said:
No to much, run monolingual, energy saver to performance, use a lighter browser (though I like Safari)...

It's a sub 2 gigahertz single core processor, you're never going to make it "fast"
Click to expand...

Definitely agreed.

But small improvements help :) Thanks. What's a good light browser then other than Firefox 3.6?
 
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