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My New (to me) almost free Powerbook G4 1.67

F

Falstaff

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 11, 2012
45
0
Arizona
So I was trolling the apple laptop section of epray last week and happened upon a disassembled powerbook g4 15in. The owner had no idea what the processor was, it had no hard drive but did have a gig of ram. I thought what the heck if nothing else I'll have a parts machine. No one else had bid on it so I put a minimum .99 cent bid and lo and behold I won it for that same .99 cents.

I didn't have high hopes for it but I got it today, cleaned it up (man it was grimey) put it together with a spare hard drive I had,plugged her in and....that's right, she booted right up. Turns out it probably just had a bad hard drive and the previous owner knew nothing about laptops.

Long story short, she is a 1.67 model, the one with the build in airport card. The display is nice and crisp. The only things she is missing are the external case screws and the ram door cover.

So for .99 cents and the cost of shipping, i have a nice new toy to play with. In fact, I'm typing this on her right this moment.:p

Oh, as a bonus, in the dvd-r drive there was an oem apple powerbook g4 install disc.
 
Last edited:
Falstaff said:
So I was trolling the apple laptop section of epray last week and happened upon a disassembled powerbook g5 15in. The owner had no idea what the processor was, it had no hard drive but did have a gig of ram. I thought what the heck if nothing else I'll have a parts machine. No one else had bid on it so I put a minimum .99 cent bid and lo and behold I won it for that same .99 cents.

I didn't have high hopes for it but I got it today, cleaned it up (man it was grimey) put it together with a spare hard drive I had,plugged her in and....that's right, she booted right up. Turns out it probably just had a bad hard drive and the previous owner knew nothing about laptops.

Long story short, she is a 1.67 model, the one with the build in airport card. The display is nice and crisp. The only things she is missing are the external case screws and the ram door cover.

So for .99 cents and the cost of shipping, i have a nice new toy to play with. In fact, I'm typing this on her right this moment.:p

Oh, as a bonus, in the dvd-r drive there was an oem apple powerbook g4 install disc.
Click to expand...

Hot. Good for you! Pics please. How is the case?
 
Falstaff said:
So I was trolling the apple laptop section of epray last week and happened upon a disassembled powerbook g5 15in. The owner had no idea what the processor was, it had no hard drive but did have a gig of ram. I thought what the heck if nothing else I'll have a parts machine. No one else had bid on it so I put a minimum .99 cent bid and lo and behold I won it for that same .99 cents.

I didn't have high hopes for it but I got it today, cleaned it up (man it was grimey) put it together with a spare hard drive I had,plugged her in and....that's right, she booted right up. Turns out it probably just had a bad hard drive and the previous owner knew nothing about laptops.

Long story short, she is a 1.67 model, the one with the build in airport card. The display is nice and crisp. The only things she is missing are the external case screws and the ram door cover.

So for .99 cents and the cost of shipping, i have a nice new toy to play with. In fact, I'm typing this on her right this moment.:p

Oh, as a bonus, in the dvd-r drive there was an oem apple powerbook g4 install disc.
Click to expand...

Wow you have the yet to be released G5 Powerbook.:p

$0.99 cents, unbelievable, I have one, they are great machines, Powerbook G4 that is!!!
 
justperry said:
Wow you have the yet to be released G5 Powerbook.:p

$0.99 cents, unbelievable, I have one, they are great machines, Powerbook G4 that is!!!
Click to expand...

Corrected and thank you.

Case has a few rubs and slightly bent side rails but a bit of careful work with a pair of pliers and they were quickly straightened. Pics to come tomorrow.
 
It always surprises me just how clueless people on eBay are about the computers they sell "for parts or repair."

That's an unbelievable good deal. Congratulations. BTW, eBay will have case screws as well. My first 17" PowerBook came without case screws because the seller opened it up to "fix" it and didn't know what went where when he put it back together. I picked up an entire set of PowerBook screws for my model for $20. A bit pricey, I admit, but I was willing to pay for the entire set versus trying to find screws one by one.

So, do a search on eBay for case screws for your model and you'll probably find some.

Again, awesome deal!
 
Nice find..i have same model and mine cost me $125.

You can put 2 gigs of ram in it (if bottom slot doesn't have know apple issue..ie: they don't work over time)...put leopard on it,and your good to go.

if you get the chance,would love to see some pics of your great get.
 
justperry said:
Didn't work on mine, if it does not work on yours it will crash the System as soon as it gets into the lower slot RAM, so, lets say you have 1 GB in both, as soon as it goes above the first 1 GB it crashes.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think the guy that said it worked was referring to the PB his wife was using and she probably tricked herself into thinking it sped things up

Hey when yours froze all you had to do was reboot, right? No damage done?
 
jwjsr said:
Yeah I think the guy that said it worked was referring to the PB his wife was using and she probably tricked herself into thinking it sped things up

Hey when yours froze all you had to do was reboot, right? No damage done?
Click to expand...


No damage done, it just goes into physical memory which is not available so it crashes, a restart will resolve everything since the memory is mapped only one time, for instance, if it works for you it will only be so until the next restart.
This fix needs to be done each and every time on startup in Single User Mode.
 
Falstaff said:
So I was trolling the apple laptop section of epray last week and happened upon a disassembled powerbook g4 15in. The owner had no idea what the processor was, it had no hard drive but did have a gig of ram. I thought what the heck if nothing else I'll have a parts machine. No one else had bid on it so I put a minimum .99 cent bid and lo and behold I won it for that same .99 cents.

I didn't have high hopes for it but I got it today, cleaned it up (man it was grimey) put it together with a spare hard drive I had,plugged her in and....that's right, she booted right up. Turns out it probably just had a bad hard drive and the previous owner knew nothing about laptops.

Long story short, she is a 1.67 model, the one with the build in airport card. The display is nice and crisp. The only things she is missing are the external case screws and the ram door cover.

So for .99 cents and the cost of shipping, i have a nice new toy to play with. In fact, I'm typing this on her right this moment.:p

Oh, as a bonus, in the dvd-r drive there was an oem apple powerbook g4 install disc.
Click to expand...

On an entirely separate note, you don't happen to live in Flagstaff do you?
 
Just a random guess based on the fact your username roughly resembles Flagstaff and you live in AZ - I went through there on my backpacking trip recently. Not to worry - just ignore my ramblings!
 
Wildy said:
Just a random guess based on the fact your username roughly resembles Flagstaff and you live in AZ - I went through there on my backpacking trip recently. Not to worry - just ignore my ramblings!
Click to expand...

Understandable. Actually my user name is a reference to Shakespear and to a reoccurring character from three of his plays. He is describer as a jolly fellow with a dark side. A friend in college said I reminded him of Falstaff and it has kind of stuck since then. I use it quiet often but not all Falstaffs on the net are me.
 
I have a ram door from a 15" 1.5ghz model A1095. If that would work on yours, you can have it.

PM me your addy.
 
Ive been getting some good deals on g4 powerbooks too,well not .99 good but .......hey I got ripped off!!!The ones I have are seriously fast on pretty much everything even youtube SOMETIMES I can sell them pretty good because people like the looks of the alluminum case, a lot of not so computer savvy people still say I bet that was expensive.:confused:
 
Shipping as $24.99. I'm sure the seller made some bucks on shipping but I can't really fault him on that as it came from the other side of the country. I do wish he had packed it a little better though.
 
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