PowerBook G4 Upgrades

[Gerri Shin]

I recently 'inherited' my brother's old 12" PowerBook G4 867MHz after he found the hard drive failed and bought a new MacBook. I've replaced the original 60GB hard drive with a new working 160GB hard drive and re-installed tiger onto it.
It currently only has a 256MB RAM stick in it, but I was wondering where I might find a cheap, reliable 1GB stick to put into it. (the cheapest I've seen so far has been newegg @ 39.99)
I'm also wondering if it would be wiser to stick with Tiger or to put Leopard onto it. I don't plan on using this Mac myself, as I already own a MacBook Pro, but I do have a young friend in high school who could use it for writing reports and surfing the web.
My last question, for this post, is are there any other recommended upgrades that I missed, or would it simply be better to sell this on eBay and try and get a new[er] mac?

thanks

 

[Shake 'n' Bake]

I recently 'inherited' my brother's old 12" PowerBook G4 867MHz after he found the hard drive failed and bought a new MacBook. I've replaced the original 60GB hard drive with a new working 160GB hard drive and re-installed tiger onto it.
It currently only has a 256MB RAM stick in it, but I was wondering where I might find a cheap, reliable 1GB stick to put into it. (the cheapest I've seen so far has been newegg @ 39.99)
I'm also wondering if it would be wiser to stick with Tiger or to put Leopard onto it. I don't plan on using this Mac myself, as I already own a MacBook Pro, but I do have a young friend in high school who could use it for writing reports and surfing the web.
My last question, for this post, is are there any other recommended upgrades that I missed, or would it simply be better to sell this on eBay and try and get a new[er] mac?

thanks

Don't ebay it! Keep Tiger, This PB will barley run Leopard. Also, go to PriceGraber.com for RAM, you can do much better than $40. But first use the Crucial Scanner (http://www.crucial.com/systemscanner/MacOS.aspx). Using this will tell you what type of RAM to get, and it doesn't have to be Crucial.

 

[Illicit]

I recently 'inherited' my brother's old 12" PowerBook G4 867MHz after he found the hard drive failed and bought a new MacBook. I've replaced the original 60GB hard drive with a new working 160GB hard drive and re-installed tiger onto it.
It currently only has a 256MB RAM stick in it, but I was wondering where I might find a cheap, reliable 1GB stick to put into it. (the cheapest I've seen so far has been newegg @ 39.99)
I'm also wondering if it would be wiser to stick with Tiger or to put Leopard onto it. I don't plan on using this Mac myself, as I already own a MacBook Pro, but I do have a young friend in high school who could use it for writing reports and surfing the web.
My last question, for this post, is are there any other recommended upgrades that I missed, or would it simply be better to sell this on eBay and try and get a new[er] mac?

thanks

Frankly speaking this laptop is last decade's technology. You'd probably be better off just using it as it is or purchase 2nd hand RAM from eBay, RedFlagdeals, Craigslist or other for less than $50 for 2x1GB sticks (if you can find them). Don't bother with new retail ram.

From the looks of it you need PC-2100 SDRAM (http://www.edgetechcorp.com/memory/upgrade.asp?cid=24072)

You also do not meet the minimum requirements atm for Leopard (http://www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs/).

 

[bobjob186]

$40 for a new ram stick for an older machine isn't a bad price. You should stick with Tiger. You can get the machine to run Leopard but it might not be worth it. What speed hard drive did you put into it? Also, you're not going to be able to get much money out of it if you sell it, so regardless I would keep the computer, even if it's not enough computer for you.

 

[clyde2801]

Technically, the system barely meets leopard's requirements with 512mb of ram or more, but I'd stick with tiger. Stick as much ram as you can in it; it'll make that machine a lot more usable. Hopefully, you lucked out and got one of the samsung ide hard drives that's a single platter and faster than any other ide laptop hard drive going. It's got airport, right? It should take either pc 2100 or pc 2700 ram.

The g4 powerbooks are fine for consumer purposes, like browsing, email and word processing. Anything more processor intensive, like video encoding or virtual pc, will be painful on it. It has always been one of apple's most popular portables due to it's design and form factor, and still has its fans and users today. It will do your friend just fine for the simple modest purposes you mentioned.

 

[Gerri Shin]

thanks for the tips everyone, I knew it would have been a stretch for the cpu if I put Leo on it, but I wanted to know what others who owned PBs had to say about it.
I figure I'll get a 1GB RAM stick for it at some point, probably after I get home from Holiday with it.

the original 60GB hard drive from Apple kicked the bucket last year so I replaced it with a WD 160GB 5400RPM ata drive. It seems to be working flawlessly, and according to my brother faster than before.

once again, thanks for the tips everyone.