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How can I get my pb to perform better?

R

rwm514

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 30, 2008
54
0
I have a mint condition 17 in 1.33 ghz , 1 gig ram, 80 gb hd PowerBook. I really love it. It seems a bit thinner than the 12 in and 15 in models.
I got it mainly to use as a server for my iPhone with iTunes vids, music, apps and lots of pics and videos from iPhoto. I also like to watch some videos and flash content on it at times. That is where it suffers, choppy and sometimes just won't play hd content that I have:(
Also when I ask alot from it it occasionally crashes.
I hate to spend the money for a newer machine and wondering if a bigger better hd might help or adding some ram would help it play video better. What do u think, upgrade to something newer? Can it be improved much? Thx oh yeah it's on 10.5.8
 
rwm514 said:
I have a mint condition 17 in 1.33 ghz , 1 gig ram, 80 gb hd PowerBook. I really love it. It seems a bit thinner than the 12 in and 15 in models.
I got it mainly to use as a server for my iPhone with iTunes vids, music, apps and lots of pics and videos from iPhoto. I also like to watch some videos and flash content on it at times. That is where it suffers, choppy and sometimes just won't play hd content that I have:(
Also when I ask alot from it it occasionally crashes.
I hate to spend the money for a newer machine and wondering if a bigger better hd might help or adding some ram would help it play video better. What do u think, upgrade to something newer? Can it be improved much? Thx oh yeah it's on 10.5.8
Click to expand...

Your powerbook is indeed thinner than the 12" and 15" powerbooks. The easiest upgrade you could do is to install a SSD in the machine. Keep in mind that you'll need a 2.5" PATA (or simply ATA) SSD, not a SATA unit. Upgrading the RAM would also help (not sure by how much relative to the SSD), but it is certainly a lot less expensive than the SSD.
 
For flash content on Youtube, you could try MacTubes or the Firefox add-on FlashVideoReplacer.

Video playback is mainly cpu intensive, so upgrading the hard drive and ram won't help much.
 
You can do this:

1. Get top of the line IDE superdrive dvd burner.

2. Max out your ram to two gigs. (do this.)

3. Put in either an SSD or a 320gb hard disc drive (largest for PATA/IDE format, it will actually improve overall performance)

4. iLife 08.

That's about it. Do the above and it will feel snappier happier.
 
California said:
You can do this:

1. Get top of the line IDE superdrive dvd burner.

2. Max out your ram to two gigs. (do this.)

3. Put in either an SSD or a 320gb hard disc drive (largest for PATA/IDE format, it will actually improve overall performance)

4. iLife 08.

That's about it. Do the above and it will feel snappier happier.
Click to expand...

Yeah do #s 2 and 3. 1 and 4 won't help much with youtube ;):p

Don't expect it to play any HD content even after you have basically maxed out everything.
 
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