Hi everyone, first post here and I think (hope!) I'm posting this in the right forum.. 
I've a beloved Powerbook G4 from 2005, one of the last, and am running Leopard upgraded from Tiger. It's cpu etc from the hardware info page:
It's long in the tooth now I know, but I've never had it crash and am loathe to upgrade simply for the sake of it, but recently it's had growing problems that I'd love to hear some advice on..
It's been running hotter and hotter every year, and whilst I live in the outback it never used to singe my lap the way it does now. I installed Leopard a few months ago and realise that a new OS can have it working harder, but even since then it's been getting worse and worse with greatly shortened battery life too. During the day I've taken to plonking it upon one of those squishy icepacks with a teatowel around it to keep it cool.
It's also getting very sludgy and slow, even when not roasting hot. Firefox has always been a pain (but still seems better than Safari) to use, hanging and stopping if it's been running awhile even if there are only a few tabs open, but works again with a force quit and restart of that application. In general though it's slow with many operations, even just browsing through Finder windows it's hardly snappy, and watching streaming video on a fast internet connection is a nightmare.
My 80Gb HDD has 15Gb left available, and overall I'm thinking of erasing and reinstalling Leopard to start again. It might not help with the heat, but do you think it could help with performance? Everytime I open it up there's some update or other to download, and it must still have all the old stuff from Tiger hanging around in there someplace too.
I already have data backed up on an external drive.. how would I go about erasing and installing, is it a follow-your-nose type effort like the upgrade was? I've never done it on a Mac before!
Would it be worth tracking down two 1Gb cards of RAM to pop in instead? And is there any surgery available to cool her down - someone advised me once to send it back to have the heat cement stuff reapplied or something... if I sent her back to Apple could they service it in some way to help with this?
Sorry for the dumb q's! I used to know more about computers when I had a pc.. I used to have to know more because the bloody thing would stop every five minutes, but simply haven't needed to learn Maccy fixes, Holly's been a dream to use.
If it were yours, what would you do with it right now? Would really appreciate any and all advice!!!
I've a beloved Powerbook G4 from 2005, one of the last, and am running Leopard upgraded from Tiger. It's cpu etc from the hardware info page:
-Model Name: PowerBook G4 15"
Processor Name: PowerPC G4 (1.2)
Processor Speed: 1.5 GHz
Number Of CPUs: 1
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
-SODIMM0/J25LOWER: (x2)
Size: 512 MB
Type: DDR SDRAM
Speed: PC2700U-25330
Status: OK
-Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 74.41 GB
Available: 15.54 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s3
Processor Name: PowerPC G4 (1.2)
Processor Speed: 1.5 GHz
Number Of CPUs: 1
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
-SODIMM0/J25LOWER: (x2)
Size: 512 MB
Type: DDR SDRAM
Speed: PC2700U-25330
Status: OK
-Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 74.41 GB
Available: 15.54 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s3
It's long in the tooth now I know, but I've never had it crash and am loathe to upgrade simply for the sake of it, but recently it's had growing problems that I'd love to hear some advice on..
It's been running hotter and hotter every year, and whilst I live in the outback it never used to singe my lap the way it does now. I installed Leopard a few months ago and realise that a new OS can have it working harder, but even since then it's been getting worse and worse with greatly shortened battery life too. During the day I've taken to plonking it upon one of those squishy icepacks with a teatowel around it to keep it cool.
It's also getting very sludgy and slow, even when not roasting hot. Firefox has always been a pain (but still seems better than Safari) to use, hanging and stopping if it's been running awhile even if there are only a few tabs open, but works again with a force quit and restart of that application. In general though it's slow with many operations, even just browsing through Finder windows it's hardly snappy, and watching streaming video on a fast internet connection is a nightmare.
My 80Gb HDD has 15Gb left available, and overall I'm thinking of erasing and reinstalling Leopard to start again. It might not help with the heat, but do you think it could help with performance? Everytime I open it up there's some update or other to download, and it must still have all the old stuff from Tiger hanging around in there someplace too.
I already have data backed up on an external drive.. how would I go about erasing and installing, is it a follow-your-nose type effort like the upgrade was? I've never done it on a Mac before!
Would it be worth tracking down two 1Gb cards of RAM to pop in instead? And is there any surgery available to cool her down - someone advised me once to send it back to have the heat cement stuff reapplied or something... if I sent her back to Apple could they service it in some way to help with this?
Sorry for the dumb q's! I used to know more about computers when I had a pc.. I used to have to know more because the bloody thing would stop every five minutes, but simply haven't needed to learn Maccy fixes, Holly's been a dream to use.
If it were yours, what would you do with it right now? Would really appreciate any and all advice!!!
