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New Mac! PowerBook G4 15"- Early 2005 1.67

gavinstubbs09

gavinstubbs09

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 17, 2013
1,386
256
NorCal boonies ~~~by Reno sorta
With my sister using my MBP more than I do, and me wanting a PowerBook again I was going through ebay with a friend and came across a 15" PowerBook with the guy saying that there's no hard drive and it boots to the ? mark, so I either have to see if there is a drive in there or throw in some drive I have in the parts bin. If it's the DDR model I have 2x1GB sticks to max that out. The power adapter looks nasty but nothing a cloth can't clean :)

No word on the serial number and I sent a message seeing if he could get it for me before it gets shipped out, but that would be luck if I came across the DLSD model!

Ended up paying $64.94 total.

And like Raymel, I contacted the company with the shells in hopes I can get a black one for this.


Update! The seller was super cool and gave me the serial number. It's a Early 2005 with the 1.67GHz.
 

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How I miss that keyboard though ... Sure hope you can clean that adapter because damn, it's looking nasty.
 
I wouldn't fret on the dual-layer superdrive. Even if it lacks that, you can always install one, if you are that concerned over it. The Apple DL burning drives are a bit of a pain, usually slow, and prone to failure; and you would do better to buy a FW400, or FW800 burner versus the internal mechanism.

I often run across lots of several, to dozens of PB/iBook G4 units, as 'parts/not working', and buy them, for most of the time they only lack the HDD, and it is possible for me to run them without an HDD on my Netboot network.

If you want a valuable suggestion: Use a CF to IDE/PATA adapter with a fast 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB CF card, as an alternative to SSD modules.

That will improve system performance, and last a jolly long time: Used IDE drives are a coin-toss, and new mechanisms above 60-80GB are often not worth the time and expense. The WD 320GB drive is still available, and is the newest, and largest HDD model that you can use in this system without a SATA bridge converter, which is hard to fit inside the system enclosure.

Older, PATA SSDs are also expensive, and unless you want to modify one with larger NAND, the CF option is a useful alternative.
 
Intell said:
This is a much better option than a CompactFlash card. It'll last longer, bigger capacity, faster, and possibly cheaper.
Click to expand...

The reason that I do not suggest this by default, is that I have encountered problems with some ATA/SATA bridges, whereby the SATA devices are not properly recognised, or not bootable, because of some flaw in the design of the bridge host controller.

This cost me a good deal, when I advised using them to a client at one point, as the system refused to see any drives behind the adapters.

CF cards, are already PATA, so there is far less of a chance of this sort of problem, however, if a mSATA adapter is known to be good for boot devices on PM G3/G4 systems, then by all means, go with that option.
 
There are mainly two SATA-PATA chips on the market, the better slightly more expensive Marvell controller and the cheaper yet slightly slower Jmicron controller. Both of those work very well in PowerPC Macs without any problems. There is only one or two different mSATA to 2.5" EIDE adapters on the internet, sold on many different sites. Both of them have the same Jmicron controller in them, just oriented differently. Between the two, only one will fit in a Powerbook. Many have been used in not only my PowerPC based Macs, but others on here as well. All with great results.
 
Intell said:
There are mainly two SATA-PATA chips on the market, the better slightly more expensive Marvell controller and the cheaper yet slightly slower Jmicron controller. Both of those work very well in PowerPC Macs without any problems. There is only one or two different mSATA to 2.5" EIDE adapters on the internet, sold on many different sites. Both of them have the same Jmicron controller in them, just oriented differently. Between the two, only one will fit in a Powerbook. Many have been used in not only my PowerPC based Macs, but others on here as well. All with great results.
Click to expand...


Thank you for that: It would make some of my work a bit easier, with more peace of mind. I haven;t any idea what chipset the controllers used, on the G3/G4 conversion that I advised, but that was in 2006, and they did not work, for whatever reason. I also seem to recall that a PCI SATA card that the customer purchased, that was supposedly specified to work in Mac systems, also did not work for him.

It made me seem like a fool, at the time, despite having done similar procedures on many other systems with success. The truth is that it cost me a good deal in terms of hours on paper, as the job was for many systems, and I couldn't ethically bill for any of it. That was around the time that I stopped doing on-site work for anyone, and was a pitiful failure of a job in my mind.

After that, I have been wavering on this topic. I do still suggest them at times, but with the caution that the chipset may not be compatible, based on the bridgeboard. Knowing exactly what controllers to use is quite helpful, and may prove invaluable to me directly, with my own systems.
 
I've heard about that RAM issue. I was lucky enough to find one of the dual-layer/high-res models, which also were the first to use DDR2... does anyone know if that's something I should be worried about?

My only other aluminum PowerBook was the 12", which had only one RAM slot, and I never had any problems with it.

I'm loving my 'new' 15". I got it with the idea of playing games (Blizzard games, older Classic-era titles, etc) but have since decided to give it a shot as a productivity machine and installed iLife and iWork '09, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc and dug out my Wacom pad. Art as a hobby for me fell by the wayside about the same time as PowerPC... seems fitting to resurrect them at the same time. Also downloaded TenFourFox, Transmission, etc. The lack of Netflix is hurting at the moment, but I'll find a way around that.
 
OrangeSVTguy said:
I do believe if the lower RAM slot stopped working, a single 2GB DDR2 sodimm will work.
Click to expand...

Really? I didn't know that. I know the first MB's could read anything you put in it, but it would only utilize the first 1GB of each module.

Question, does the A1138 1.67 suffer the same problem? Its the DLSD/Hi-Res model.
 
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