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Leopard on a 1.2ghz G4, 768mb, 30GB?

I

ibookluv111

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 3, 2007
41
0
Hello. I know it's been asked a million times and that I'm a little behind in just becoming interested in this. But, I was waiting a little while for updates to come about before taking the Leopard plunge. I have an iBook G4, 12" with the 1.2ghz processor and 768mb RAM and the measly 30gb HD. I would be upgrading RAM and HD here in the near future.
I'm just curious if anyone is running Leopard on a similar configuration and what their experiences are. This is pretty much my primary laptop. I'm basically looking for a nicer looking operating system and the same or higher speeds. Also, iLife 08 speed changes. I actually have iMovie HD 06 and was wondering if the speed would increase/decrease.

Thanks!
 
I have it on a 867MHz G4 PowerMac with 768MB and it is slow, but it does work.

It's peppier on my dual-1GHz G4 with 2GB.
 
Depends on what you want the machine to do.

I have a G4 1.25 iMac with 768Mb and Leopard runs fine, but these days I only use it for web/email/office/itunes. Its very usable but the hard stuff I'll leave for the Macbook.

With Leopard running + apps it does run out of memory very quickly though which means that it will start paging out to virtual memory on disk, which could be tricky for you as with only a small (and slow) hard disk it might cause a few performance problems. Firstly make sure you have plenty of space free on your hard drive (10-15% should be OK), then I would advise maxing out the RAM ASAP. If you don't want to do anything too intense it should last you a while yet.
 
pretty damn fast on my 1ghz emac with 768, use photoshop cs, flash 8, office 04, runs fine but not all at once, oh and 40gb hd
 
Well I do have 13GB free and will be upgrading the Hard Drive soon, because an old one just makes me nervous (even thought I also have backups). Thanks everyone for your input! I have purchased Leopard and it should be here tomorrow. I'll also upgrade the ram in my iBook and then report back at the speed.
 
ibookluv111 said:
Well I do have 13GB free and will be upgrading the Hard Drive soon, because an old one just makes me nervous (even thought I also have backups). Thanks everyone for your input! I have purchased Leopard and it should be here tomorrow. I'll also upgrade the ram in my iBook and then report back at the speed.
Click to expand...

yea if u get a new one and think ur 30 can last longer buy a cheap enclosure for it and use it as external
 
I run it on a 1.33GHz iBook and while it does okay, it does get a bit irritating sometimes if you're doing a lot of things at once. I have 1GB of RAM, BTW. It's fine for me, though. All I do on it is browsing, iTunes, Mail, iChat, etc. Nothing taxing on the machine at all. That stuff I save for my iMac. I wouldn't call the iBook slow, but it's certainly not speedy. :p

It runs good, though. I'm gonna put Tiger on it here sometime soon, just to see if it runs any better.
 
FadeToBlack said:
I run it on a 1.33GHz iBook and while it does okay, it does get a bit irritating sometimes if you're doing a lot of things at once. I have 1GB of RAM, BTW. It's fine for me, though. All I do on it is browsing, iTunes, Mail, iChat, etc. Nothing taxing on the machine at all. That stuff I save for my iMac. I wouldn't call the iBook slow, but it's certainly not speedy. :p

It runs good, though. I'm gonna put Tiger on it here sometime soon, just to see if it runs any better.
Click to expand...

I installed Leopard last night and at first (while Spotlight was indexing and without the current update) it ran extremely slow. Then after indexing was complete, and this morning after I updated to 10.5.3, it's much faster than Tiger. Also, Frontrow launches much faster on my iBook than the Intel's at the Apple Store. Weird, especially being Frontrow wasn't mean to run on the ibook...
 
ibookluv111 said:
I installed Leopard last night and at first (while Spotlight was indexing and without the current update) it ran extremely slow. Then after indexing was complete, and this morning after I updated to 10.5.3, it's much faster than Tiger. Also, Frontrow launches much faster on my iBook than the Intel's at the Apple Store. Weird, especially being Frontrow wasn't mean to run on the ibook...
Click to expand...

It's probably where the Macs at the Apple Store are used all the time. It's hard to tell what people do to them when they get on 'em. I doubt those are a very good example of how the Intels run. My iMac is lightning fast. It's A LOT faster than the iBook at everything.

I love the iBook, no doubt, but I love my iMac more. :cool:
 
ibookluv111 said:
Well I do have 13GB free and will be upgrading the Hard Drive soon, because an old one just makes me nervous (even thought I also have backups). Thanks everyone for your input! I have purchased Leopard and it should be here tomorrow. I'll also upgrade the ram in my iBook and then report back at the speed.
Click to expand...

When you upgrade your drive be sure to put in a 5400rpm at least and 7200rpm if you can afford it. Trust me, you will FEEL the difference! I did on my 1.25GHz Powerbook going from the 4200rpm to a 5400rpm perpendicular drive.

I'm still on Tiger though. Now you have me thinking.... :)
 
FadeToBlack said:
It's probably where the Macs at the Apple Store are used all the time. It's hard to tell what people do to them when they get on 'em. I doubt those are a very good example of how the Intels run. My iMac is lightning fast. It's A LOT faster than the iBook at everything.

I love the iBook, no doubt, but I love my iMac more. :cool:
Click to expand...

you should see the ones at bestbuy we dont even have a apple store here
 
My grandmas Powerbook G4 with 1ghz and .5gigs ram runs it. Not sure how well, but it runs it.
 
tuxtpenguin said:
I have Leopard on a 1.33 iBook and it runs fine as long as I don't have too much running at once.
Click to expand...

Used to have Leopard (10.5.1 at the time) running on my 1.33GHz iBook G4 with 1GB RAM. It wasn't bad unless you went on flash sites, then it was like hell on earth slow.

It's running tiger now, but I may put Leopard back on it this weekend if I'm bored.

(Also got a copy of Panther. I wonder if I could coax it to run? :D)
 
1.33 GHZ 40GB 512 MB Ram it runs like a breeze it does spaz out at moments but it is really good!
Give it a shot on your ibook
 
Go with this 250GB drive from newegg. Believe me, you'll want to get the biggest drive you can into that iBook. Cuz once you do the hard drive upgrade, you'll never want to go through that again. (definitely pack a lunch when you tear that iBook apart...because it will take you a while) ;)

It's definitely doable and not a big deal if you take your time and follow decent instructions...but, at least for me (who is pretty well versed in such activities) it took longer than I expected.
 
mavherzog said:
Go with this 250GB drive from newegg. Believe me, you'll want to get the biggest drive you can into that iBook. Cuz once you do the hard drive upgrade, you'll never want to go through that again. (definitely pack a lunch when you tear that iBook apart...because it will take you a while) ;)

It's definitely doable and not a big deal if you take your time and follow decent instructions...but, at least for me (who is pretty well versed in such activities) it took longer than I expected.
Click to expand...

I know! It is just rediculous how hard it is to get them out. I did it in an iBook G3 once, never again! I think I'm going to pay an Apple service dude to do it.
 
Alright. I upgraded the ram to 1.25GB (I added a 1GB chip). Leopard runs AMAZING! I feel like I am on a new Mac. This is definitely an extremely way to improve the life of your older iBook/Powerbook, if you have one. Throw Leopard on it and max the ram. I am truly AMAZED at the speed improvements. Especially when working in iMovie, it is about 4 times speedier now.
Just thought I'd report back. :)
:apple:
 
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