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iBook G3 Snow upgrading
- Thread starter j@yri¢hi£
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steamboat26
macrumors 65816
It might be possible to upgrade the processor, but that would be really expensive. You can upgrade the HD, RAM, and thats about it.
steamboat26
macrumors 65816
California
macrumors 68040
Get a 100gb 7200rpm Hitachi or Seagate HD. Bump up your ram to 640mb with a 512mb chip. That's all the upgrading you can do but you will be suprised at how much faster your little machine runs. Then when you are tired of a five or six year old machine, you can pull the hard drive and pull the memory and part out the machine and put the hard drive in a new laptop.
California
macrumors 68040
j@yri¢hi£ said:
You're right you can upgrade the cd drive, I think, to a combo cd burner dvd rom drive. However, it's a tray loading drive.
If i were you, I'd check the specs for Apple drives. I think the UJ 850 Panasonic Matushita drive happens to be a tray loading drive. Do your homework and then shop for the lowest price. I've had excellent luck on eBay with optical drives. Just make sure you get them new and under Panasonic warranty. Have had no experience with Sony or other manufacturer drives. Panasonic is Apple OEM.
erikamsterdam
macrumors regular
This thread makes me frown. How much money are you going to throw at a machine that is worth less than $100?
Memory, DVD drive, harddrive, you are easily talking $250 here in upgrades. That almost half a new Mac mini.
When your car is worth $500 you don't do a $1000 repair on it. At least I wouldn't.....
Memory, DVD drive, harddrive, you are easily talking $250 here in upgrades. That almost half a new Mac mini.
When your car is worth $500 you don't do a $1000 repair on it. At least I wouldn't.....
erikamsterdam
macrumors regular
Macmaniac said:
Oh yes, sorry. Some memory could help it live another year. Get an external HD I'd say, then at least you can use that for any future computer.
KingYaba
macrumors 68040
Untill you are ready to buy a new laptop, I recomend buying a 512 stick of RAM. There are some cheap external HDs around, so all you need to do is go to walmart or something because they sell cheap ones. Also if you ever do get a new computer, you can always use the external HD with any other computer.
The snow really isn't worth upgrading unless you feel totally compelled to do so. Money wise you won't get much return if you decide to sell it one day.
The snow really isn't worth upgrading unless you feel totally compelled to do so. Money wise you won't get much return if you decide to sell it one day.
erikamsterdam said:
less than 100 bucks....okay sure...but its a laptop to take to my open labs...its something small i got for a cheap price, like i said i just need photoshop and i wouldn't really buy a brand new comp when i have a G5 iMac with well over 2000 in periph's so i just want something portable and last i checked mac minis are small...but you MMMMIGHT need a screen for it....untill they start coming standard with a 8 in. pop up screen i'll keep my 100 dollar iBook....thanks... and to everyone that helped i've done my homework and gotten a cd/dvd drive hd and ram for a lil over 150....so i only spent 50 over the projected price of my iBook...i guess
California
macrumors 68040
j@yri¢hi£ said:
hey good for you. That's the spirit -- shop around until your cash outlay isn't overwhelming. I love making older lappies work. Let us know how your Snow is coming along. Great old computer.
9Charms
macrumors regular
After a lot of googling I believe that the newer slot load combo drives would also fit the snow ibook g3. i think they're cheaper, or at least more readily available. the only thing is the bezel doesn't quite line up flush with the edge of the machine... you might have better luck upgrading it from scavenging parts off a broken machine on ebay.