iBook G4: Ram Upgrades

[stekerrod]

Hey guys, i've been using a 14" iBook G4 for nearly 18months now and i was wondering your opinions on upgrading its ram. The computer in question is the last of the G4 iBooks and has got a 1.42GHz proccessor, 60GB hard Disc and 512Mb of ram. i use it mainly for my university work which is alot of internet and word proccessing and also a fair amount of Adobe Creative Suite 1 and Director MX.

ive found a site that sells things to upgrade macs with and it has a 1GB ram module on, i was just wondering:

would it be worth upgrading the ram to a total of 1.25GB (the 1GB card and the 256Mb thats unchangeable)?

is it really as easy as it seems to upgrade the ram by myself? (ive never attempted upgrading a computer before)?

site link for the ram ive found:
http://www.macupgrades.co.uk/store/product_info.php?products_id=93

cheers guys!

forgot to add that it runs tiger now and when lepoard is released it'll be running that!

 

[CanadaRAM]

Yes it would be worth upgrading to 1.25 Gb.

The website says it's Kingston RAM, but doesn't list a Kingston part number, and the photo is not accurate.

You'll get a better deal at Crucial (use the link at the top ^ and choose the Union Jack) or slightly higher at Orca

 

[mattscott306]

Yah, there is a huge boost between 512 and 1.25 gigs of ram, I upgraded my old PB about two months ago for 100 bucks (american), and it was well worth it.

 

[stekerrod]

cheers guys, that link looks promising!

one last question.....with the current iMac line up is the 1GB ram (standard) on my 20" in 2 512 Modules or is it one 1GB? and if it's one 1GB would i be able to use the 256Mb Module out of my iBook in the iMac?

 

[Wilcoo]

I have an iBook G4 as well. 40GB hard drive, 768 ram, 1Ghz processor. Running 10.3.9. It's slow in everything it does. It's acceptable, but even FireFox is sloooow (safari is a lot faster). Program start ups take a while, beach ball quite often.

I'm contemplating either purchasing a new macbook (pro?) or upgrading the current one to the max ram and deal with it for a while longer. I'd like to use the iBook a bit longer, but if the RAM upgrade isn't going to do much, I'd rather upgrade right away.

Does the extra 512 matter for this machine?
Is it useful to (as it is with windows) wipe out the hard drive entirely and do a fresh install? Is there anything else that I can do to increase the machine's speed?

 

[heySparky]

Yes it would be worth upgrading to 1.25 Gb.

I agree. In fact, that is just what I did with my 12 iBook G4 and I got a noticeable improvement in performance.

 

[CanadaRAM]

The iMac and iBook/Powerbook lines use utterly different RAM, you will not be able to swop between them

As for what is installed in a current machine, go to System Profiler and look it up under Hardware - Memory. It will tell you how much is in each socket.

If its for a machine you haven't bought yet, go to the APple store online and Configure a machine -- it will show you what the installed and options are.

iBook speed.
More RAM should remove a barrier to speed and net you some improvement. How much is highly dependant on the programs you are using and what your expectation of 'noticeable improvement' is. It's not going to make your G4 machine into a superhero. Even with Max RAM in the G4 iBook, a MacBook with Universal Binary software is going to slap it silly.