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iBook g3 clamshell hardware upgrades/updates

O

OWriDL

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 5, 2011
15
0
I have a 300mhz iBook g3 clamshell, and was wondering what I could do to make it a little less frustrating ;) I am planning on getting a 512 mb ram, and a larger hard drive. But I was wondering if there was a way to add a better graphics card? I heard of someone doing it but not sure how they did, or if it worked. It has a 4mb VRAM now, which isn't fun lol
 
OWriDL said:
I have a 300mhz iBook g3 clamshell, and was wondering what I could do to make it a little less frustrating ;) I am planning on getting a 512 mb ram, and a larger hard drive. But I was wondering if there was a way to add a better graphics card? I heard of someone doing it but not sure how they did, or if it worked. It has a 4mb VRAM now, which isn't fun lol
Click to expand...

ur ibook same with me. my ibook is blueberry, and u?
u can upgrade ur 512 memory and 40/80 giga hardisk. find in here http://www.macsales.com/
about VGA not suggestion to u. i think it will be quickly ur ibook to dead esspecially ur screen.

if ur ibook already have 512 memory and HD more than 20 giga. u can upgrade os be os tiger.
it work will slowly.
but don't worry modern app minimun support os tiger than panther.


:apple: correct me if i'm wrong
 
OP, what do you expect from your Clamshell? With OS X nowadays it may serve well as iTunes player, but even light web browsing could be too much for it. But with OS 9 it can be more useful if you have some old software or games.

Max out RAM, replace old HDD with 5400 or 7200 one (or cheap IDE SSD - 32GB will be enough) and that's all you can do (except overclocking maybe).
 
I just wanted to use it for web browsing. i most definetly do not want to use OS 9 because internet explorer 5 isnt supported by a lot of websites. But would flash content(youtube, vimeo, etc) be pretty much not possible?
 
OWriDL said:
oh, also would replacing the HD with an SSD help?
Click to expand...

It is not going to be worth the time and effort and money. You might only see a slight performance increase on startup time if any at all......

Max out the RAM and install Panther, use Camino 1.6.11 for a browser and you will have decent browsing performance.
 
Flash isn't going to work on a G3 no matter what you do to it, and a SSD really wouldn't be worth the money, especially with a relatively slow connection.
 
Ive always wanted one of these clamshell ibooks. I love the look of them, especially the orange one. It's too bad they are just too slow for much of anything.
 
Austin Leeds of Low End Mac replaced his hard drive with a Compact Flash card in his Clamshell iBook and had an interesting 5 part series on it.

Here's part 4, with his benchmarks and talking about how fast it is/isn't.

http://lowendmac.com/ed/leeds/11al/clamshell-resurrection-4.html

He's running OS 9 on his main partition doesn't talk much about web browsing, but does note that flash isn't going to work, period.

In part 5 he also put Tiger on there and ran some benchmarks.

http://lowendmac.com/ed/leeds/11al/clamshell-resurrection-5.html

One other thing to note, though, those Clamshell iBooks are a pain in the behind to do most work on.
 
First Rule: A clamshell won't do crap regardless of what you try, It will NEVER run youtube videos, 300mhz won't do crap.

Second Rule: Tiger will pretty much run like crap, I wouldn't suggest it.

You could however, if you have some extra money and just like it for cosmetic reasons, just buy a macbook and put its parts inside of the casing... it will be a pain in the A$$ (Censorship, I gots it) But I'm pretty sure it's possible.

All in all, that kinda stuff is, sad to say, pretty much useless in todays age... if you have it... put it in a box, keep it to show someone later what people had to deal with back in those years of 1999 and 2000 and they will say Grandpa, why doesn't it have a 20Ghz processor and 60GB RAM?

If your an old mac fanatic like me, play around with it and see what you can do, but don't expect to be able to do anything... I can't even check Yahoo mail on my ibook 500Mhz because Camino isn't compatable with it.

You could just buy a cheap $100 netbook if your looking to just browse the web though.

Not to be mean or anything but it's the truth. It was a cool laptop but it got destroyed by time. Best of luck to you though.
 
The point isn't that it cannot run youtube, it's that

#1 you cannot upgrade to Flash 10, which Youtube requires.

#2 300Mhz isn't enough to watch youtube vids.
 
i have two clams...

-300 GHz 288mb (32 stock,256 pc 100) ram 40 gig hd (upgraded)
-366 GHz 192mb (64 stock,128 pc 100) ram 6 gig hd

i have done pretty much everything under the sun with these..so here it goes

-tiger from mac os 9.2.2 using XPostFacto4...yes you can then use tenfourfox browser (which will not give you script errors..see below),but trust me don't waste your time...grass grows faster!
-panther installed running camino web browser 1.6.11....it runs ok...but unlike what adcx64 says it runs ok at best as long as you stay away from graphic rich web sites (even yahoo home page will cause script error that is a pain waiting for)...it you stick to simple pages like macrumor forums,craigslist ect ect sites it's fine.
-tryed osx 10.1...it's faster running then panther,but because of lack of modern browser,itunes ect it's pretty much a non starter
-i have run and installed unbuntu 6.10...it ran ok but i had issues with slow graphics and never could get wifi working
-so now what i believe is truly your best bet for using with a clamshell...mac os 9.2.2,then install classilla web browser,...then pages even like yahoo home page will load without errors and a good deal faster then in osx panther.

ps: i run a dual partitioned 40 gig drive with mac os 9.2.2 and osx panther (which in classic mode i run classilla)

ps: here is how to take apart a clam to upgrade harddrive...if you try...take your time and place screws ect in numbered bags ect so as not to get confused when putting back togeather....it does look a tad tricky...but really not as bad as it may seem if you take your time

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/iBook-G3-Clamshell-Hard-Drive/115/1
 
Des Zac said:
The point isn't that it cannot run youtube, it's that

#1 you cannot upgrade to Flash 10, which Youtube requires.

#2 300Mhz isn't enough to watch youtube vids.
Click to expand...

You CAN upgrade to Flash Player 10 although I wouldn't even bother trying to watch video in the browser. If you're going to have to watch YouTube videos, download YouView. It doesn't require flash but don't expect anything near to decent performance as it's only a 300 MHz, even with 512mb RAM and a SSD (God knows why you'd want to do that though) it'll still desperately struggle to watch YouTube videos. If I were you I'd max out the RAM, upgrade the Hard Drive & stick Tiger on it. Mac OS 9 IMO is unusable today, if you need OS 9 just download classic. Hope this helps man :)
 
he must have a 366 thats the firewire model (better gpu) kinda a rare model...wish i could find one...because my 366 non fw with 320 ram and 40 gig hd ran tiger ok...but when using tenfourfox or camino 2.0 it was just to slow to be productive.
 
tom vilsack said:
he must have a 366 thats the firewire model (better gpu) kinda a rare model...wish i could find one...because my 366 non fw with 320 ram and 40 gig hd ran tiger ok...but when using tenfourfox or camino 2.0 it was just to slow to be productive.
Click to expand...

Cool! He's got a rare model, I'll go tell him, maybe he'll sell the damn thing, I've never really been fussed on clamshells myself, they look childish and toy'ish like those ABC 123 laptops from Vtech... Their design is iconic although I've just never really been fond of them, I much prefer the cleaner, more compact design of the dual-USB's, but that's just my two cents, it's weird though because I love the G3 iMacs design and they're from the same family...
 
Goftrey said:
Cool! He's got a rare model, I'll go tell him, maybe he'll sell the damn thing, I've never really been fussed on clamshells myself, they look childish and toy'ish like those ABC 123 laptops from Vtech... Their design is iconic although I've just never really been fond of them, I much prefer the cleaner, more compact design of the dual-USB's, but that's just my two cents, it's weird though because I love the G3 iMacs design and they're from the same family...
Click to expand...

I think the iBook Clamshell only looks really good when next to an iMac G3. Then the design looks good. (If you can match the colours, that helps). I love my 300Mhz Clamshell, even if it will never run anything newer than 9.2.2/10.0 without a RAM upgrade (I prefer my PowerBook 1400/133, which runs Mac OS 8 very nicely, so the Clamshell doesn't get a huge amount of use apart from to test OS 9 software that I don't want to risk on my 8600 or various other G3/G4s, so it is likely to stay with just 32MB RAM for the foreseeable - especially given the 1400 now has 32MB RAM, which is plenty for OS 8, as well as a good battery).

Although I must say I prefer the design of the Dual USB iBooks, I really hate the fact the keyboards have a habit of smelling bad and the graphics likes to die. This is why Im really a PowerBook person. (I may get an iBook G4 eventually... but I have lots of PowerBooks to get first)
 
chrismacguy said:
I think the iBook Clamshell only looks really good when next to an iMac G3. Then the design looks good. (If you can match the colours, that helps). I love my 300Mhz Clamshell, even if it will never run anything newer than 9.2.2/10.0 without a RAM upgrade (I prefer my PowerBook 1400/133, which runs Mac OS 8 very nicely, so the Clamshell doesn't get a huge amount of use apart from to test OS 9 software that I don't want to risk on my 8600 or various other G3/G4s, so it is likely to stay with just 32MB RAM for the foreseeable - especially given the 1400 now has 32MB RAM, which is plenty for OS 8, as well as a good battery).

Although I must say I prefer the design of the Dual USB iBooks, I really hate the fact the keyboards have a habit of smelling bad and the graphics likes to die. This is why Im really a PowerBook person. (I may get an iBook G4 eventually... but I have lots of PowerBooks to get first)
Click to expand...

Yeah, I would only get them to pair up with the G3 iMac as a collector kinda thing, then it'd look nice.

... On the other hand though my dual USB iBook had the worst smelling keyboard ever, my god it smelt like old mens boxers fermented in an athlete's armpit... And then its graphics died as well. It wasn't very reliable fair play... I've now converted to a PowerBook as they're more reliable, quicker and the keyboards are the best shipped on a mac IMO

BTW I love your YouTube channel, I've been watching them for months but I only just realised your the dude who does 'em 
 
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After doing updates and upgrades on my clamshell, I gave up on it seeing how it preformed. I now have it sitting on my "This is what the Apple laptop used to look like shelf".
 
Ive always wanted one of these clamshell ibooks. I love the look of them, especially the orange one. It's too bad they are just too slow for much of anything.

I have an iBook clamshell 466 SE. Have OS9x and run Classilla as my web
browser and can play Divx in OS9x, Office and games. In Tiger I run TenFourFox3 as a web browser, play DVD, Office and games. Would not say
that all Clamshells are too slow for anything nowadays.
 
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