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New PowerBook G4 owner! Now, I have a few questions...

Steve.P.JobsFan

Steve.P.JobsFan

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 27, 2010
1,010
613
Columbus
I just purchased my first portable Mac, that being a 15" PowerBook G4, with a 1.5 GHz G4, 512 MB RAM, ATI Radeon Mobility 9700 w/64 MB VRAM, and a fresh install of 10.4.11. The notebook has the AirPort Extreme card, but it's only 802.11b/g. Didn't Apple sell an AirPort Extreme card with 802.11n? If they did, does the PowerBook even support 802.11n? Also, are there any tips I should know, being a new PowerBook owner? How's the battery life, also?

Also, I just bought 2GB of RAM from OWC. I'm maxing it out.
 
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Leopard does support it, but you cannot put a Airport Extreme N card inside of a PPC Mac.
 
Cool. How much did you pay for it? I sold my powerbook g4 shortly after snow leopard for about $400.. If only you could install an ssd in that machine, it would have really made it much more usable as a daily driver =/
 
aixporter said:
Cool. How much did you pay for it? I sold my powerbook g4 shortly after snow leopard for about $400.. If only you could install an ssd in that machine, it would have really made it much more usable as a daily driver =/
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Get this. He was asking $320 on eBay. I got it for $230 shipped. $214.39 for the PowerBook (it was on sale), and $15.61 for shipping.

I don't think I can post eBay links on MR, so here's some screenies. If you want the link to the eBay auction, or want to see more photos, PM me. What's a good notebook bag, just out of curiosity?

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Screen_Shot_2012_07_13_at_7_05_08_PM.png
 
aixporter said:
If only you could install an ssd in that machine, it would have really made it much more usable as a daily driver =/
Click to expand...

You can easily stick an IDE SSD in there.

To OP - Enjoy your machine! I got my 1.67 BTO for £95 ($150) & am absolutely loving it. In regard to zen's post - I wouldn't recommend one of those dongles. I now have 7 in my house, all of which are either totally dead, or work when they want to (seller kept sending me new ones). Personally, the Extreme card in the PowerBook serves me really well. I'd get another 512mb stick and upgrade to Leopard if I were you too. My PowerBook runs Leopard superbly with 1gb. In regard to battery life - I have a new 3rd party eBay battery (£30) and it lasts a good 4 hours in AppleWorks.
 
Goftrey said:
You can easily stick an IDE SSD in there.

To OP - Enjoy your machine! I got my 1.67 BTO for £95 ($150) & am absolutely loving it. In regard to zen's post - I wouldn't recommend one of those dongles. I now have 7 in my house, all of which are either totally dead, or work when they want to (seller kept sending me new ones). Personally, the Extreme card in the PowerBook serves me really well. I'd get another 512mb stick and upgrade to Leopard if I were you too. My PowerBook runs Leopard superbly with 1gb. In regard to battery life - I have a new 3rd party eBay battery (£30) and it lasts a good 4 hours in AppleWorks.
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I purchased this to compliment my Mid-2011 iMac, in case you all were wondering. I had a PowerMac G4, and I was a fool to sell it for iMac RAM. I really do miss that machine. I absolutely adore PPC Macintoshes. I purchased 2GB of RAM from OWC, I'm maxing that RAM out. As soon as I have it next week, I'm going to use CarbonCopyCloner, and image the fresh install of 10.4.11, and store that off-site on an external HDD. Then, I'll install 10.5.8. I'm going through my data now, and I have to be selective on what I want to also be on my PB G4. I only have 80GB of space. I found a video from OWC on replacing the HDD, and it looks intimidating to me. Granite, I've done plenty of challenging work with PC/Mac's, I'd just rather stay away from it. My local Apple Authorized Service Provider said if I could find a drive (The PB G4 has a ATA drive, NOT SATA), he'd install it - for $75 an hour. Ouch. For now, I'll stick with the stock 80GB drive. I can't copy all my data over, as I have 79.6GB of data. I'll have to be really picky.
 
Steve.P.JobsFan said:
I purchased this to compliment my Mid-2011 iMac, in case you all were wondering. I had a PowerMac G4, and I was a fool to sell it for iMac RAM. I really do miss that machine. I absolutely adore PPC Macintoshes. I purchased 2GB of RAM from OWC, I'm maxing that RAM out. As soon as I have it next week, I'm going to use CarbonCopyCloner, and image the fresh install of 10.4.11, and store that off-site on an external HDD. Then, I'll install 10.5.8. I'm going through my data now, and I have to be selective on what I want to also be on my PB G4. I only have 80GB of space. I found a video from OWC on replacing the HDD, and it looks intimidating to me. Granite, I've done plenty of challenging work with PC/Mac's, I'd just rather stay away from it. My local Apple Authorized Service Provider said if I could find a drive (The PB G4 has a ATA drive, NOT SATA), he'd install it - for $75 an hour. Ouch. For now, I'll stick with the stock 80GB drive. I can't copy all my data over, as I have 79.6GB of data. I'll have to be really picky.
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The hard drives really aren't a pain to replace at all. It's the truck loads of screws you have to worry about :p

It'll fly by with 2gb, enjoy it!
 
Goftrey said:
The hard drives really aren't a pain to replace at all. It's the truck loads of screws you have to worry about :p

It'll fly by with 2gb, enjoy it!
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Thank you! Now, um, I have another question for you all, if you don't mind. I used Tweetie with my G4 about 1.5 years ago, but Twitter bought Tweetie, and I can't find copies of Tweetie anywhere. What's another good/decent Twitter application for PPC?
 
Steve.P.JobsFan said:
Thank you! Now, um, I have another question for you all, if you don't mind. I used Tweetie with my G4 about 1.5 years ago, but Twitter bought Tweetie, and I can't find copies of Tweetie anywhere. What's another good/decent Twitter application for PPC?
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I use Twhirl

It's a bit of a memory hog and requires Adobe Air (You'll need to install 1.5.3, the last version available for PowerPC) but it is overall in my experience better than TweetDeck.
 
I've had good success with Belkin's F5D8013 N Wireless 300Mbps CardBus Notebook Adapter. Version 3 of the card uses a RaLink chip, and drivers for the Mac are available on RaLink's website. Look for the file STA_RT2860D-1.2.2.0UI-3.0.0.0_2010_05_18.dmg, which contains drivers for 10.5, 10.4, and 10.3. I bought a couple for computers I was fixing up, and you should be able to get them for about $25. So far, they are working well.
 
Goftrey said:
I use Twhirl

It's a bit of a memory hog and requires Adobe Air (You'll need to install 1.5.3, the last version available for PowerPC) but it is overall in my experience better than TweetDeck.
Click to expand...

I've used Twhirl, and it gets a "meh" from me. I would prefer to stay away from Adobe AIR applications, too. I mean, I'll use Twhirl, and I thank you for your suggestion. I'd just prefer a non-AIR app. I don't really want an Adobe-based app, because it's a memory hog.
 
About Harddrives...

I have the exact same PB as you and I LOVE this beauty! Best keyboard I have ever typed on in my life! If I could get one like it to use with my 2011 mini? I would be freakin off the moon!
Now to my reason for posting. With the 15 and 17's there is more than enough room to throw in a SATA drive. I did that here with mine. I purchased a small SATA/2.5 ata adapter for around 4 dollars, I can't recall where atm, but if you do a good search you can find them. That allowed me to install a 320GB SATA drive into the Book, and while I know there is a bit of a bottle neck with bus speed and all this thing FLIES! Boot time is amazing, most apps open with one or two bounces. Going from the stock/slow 80 gig to a nice and fast 320 gig was worth the time inside and the 4 bones I spent on the adapter.
 
congrats on your ebay purchase....

I'm guessing yours is model with bluetooth 1.1? if so here is site to show how to replace harddrive...it says diff,but really doesn't look hard at all (i replaced my ibook g3 harddrive twice...was lots more involved and really if you take time ,draw pics where screws go,use plastic baggies ect for each step..it's pretty easy)...and either a nice new 5400rpm ide or ide ssd would make a big difference in speed...i find it makes even a bigger difference then added ram...

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-15-Inch-1-1-5-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/227/1
 
tom vilsack said:
congrats on your ebay purchase....

I'm guessing yours is model with bluetooth 1.1? if so here is site to show how to replace harddrive...it says diff,but really doesn't look hard at all (i replaced my ibook g3 harddrive twice...was lots more involved and really if you take time ,draw pics where screws go,use plastic baggies ect for each step..it's pretty easy)...and either a nice new 5400rpm ide or ide ssd would make a big difference in speed...i find it makes even a bigger difference then added ram...

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-15-Inch-1-1-5-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/227/1
Click to expand...

Thanks for that! It'll be a help for me. I think I may replace the HDD "soon." I'm strapped for cash now. I believe my PowerBook has Bluetooth 2.0, though. I'll check when FedEx delivers it.
 
tom vilsack said:
if it's model with bluetooth 2.0 then thats fairly easy to take apart and change drive....

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-15-Inch-1-5-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/345/1
Click to expand...

Well, I believe it's BT 2.0. I'll check when it arrives. I ordered it at 4PM EST today, but apparently that was too late for the dude to ship it. If it doesn't ship today (Saturday), then it will Monday. Since it's FedEx Ground, it'll probably be here between Friday-Monday.
 
Okay, quick question. The system is coming with OS X 10.4.11 on it. Since It doesn't come with the restore disks, I want to clone the install of Tiger. That way, if I want to restore the PowerBook to Tiger, I can just restore the clone file to the drive, and I'm running Tiger again. How do I do that? If I can't understand the directions, I might just let somebody remotely access my PowerBook, and help me clone the drive.
 
Intell said:
CarbonCopyCloner. You can clone the disk to a disk image or an external drive.
Click to expand...

So, if I wanted to clone this fresh install of Tiger into a image using CCC, are these the right settings? Under "Destination", I clicked "New Disk Image", and set it to save the image to my external drive. The format is at default as "Read/write sparse disk image," then named it Fresh Install - Tiger. Are these settings correct?

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