Running old iBook G4 1.42ghz topspeed

[harryhood]

I remember reading some articles about utilizing everything that your old mac has to offer and getting it to run a bit faster. I just got an old iBook G4 1.42ghz for free and am about to install leopard on it and everything. Just wondering if there is anything i could do to make it run as smoothly and fast as possible.
it has 1g of ram.

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

I remember reading some articles about utilizing everything that your old mac has to offer and getting it to run a bit faster. I just got an old iBook G4 1.42ghz for free and am about to install leopard on it and everything. Just wondering if there is anything i could do to make it run as smoothly and fast as possible.
it has 1g of ram.

Not much you can really do. Sell the 512mb stick of memory in there and purchase a 1gb to max out the memory to 1.5gb. Buy a 100gb 7200 IDE/ATA hard drive or the 250gb 5400rpm drive is good too. Other than that, there's not much that you can do.

 

[harryhood]

Not much you can really do. Sell the 512mb stick of memory in there and purchase a 1gb to max out the memory to 1.5gb. Buy a 100gb 7200 IDE/ATA hard drive or the 250gb 5400rpm drive is good too. Other than that, there's not much that you can do.

alright thanks. Is it hard/risky switching out ram on my ibook?

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

alright thanks. Is it hard/risky switching out ram on my ibook?

The memory is actually easy. Just lift up the keyboard and remove your airport card(if installed). There's a metal shield with 4 small philips screws holding it on, remove that and swap.

Check out www.ifixit.com for the guide with pictures. You might not like changing out the HDD though If you're local, I could do it in less then 30 minutes.

 

[harryhood]

The memory is actually easy. Just lift up the keyboard and remove your airport card(if installed). There's a metal shield with 4 small philips screws holding it on, remove that and swap.

Check out www.ifixit.com for the guide with pictures. You might not like changing out the HDD though If you're local, I could do it in less then 30 minutes.

sweet thanks ill look into it.

i actually live in chicago

thanks for the offer though

 

[animaxcg]

The memory is actually easy. Just lift up the keyboard and remove your airport card(if installed). There's a metal shield with 4 small philips screws holding it on, remove that and swap.

Check out www.ifixit.com for the guide with pictures. You might not like changing out the HDD though If you're local, I could do it in less then 30 minutes.

ram is cheap and easy to install

 

[harryhood]

The memory is actually easy. Just lift up the keyboard and remove your airport card(if installed). There's a metal shield with 4 small philips screws holding it on, remove that and swap.

Check out www.ifixit.com for the guide with pictures. You might not like changing out the HDD though If you're local, I could do it in less then 30 minutes.

ifixit doesnt seem to have guides for 1.42ghz ibook g4, if i followed the guides for the 933 MHz - 1.33 GHz ibook do you think it will work just the same on mine?

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac

I just bought this memory:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250360180607

and was going to buy this harddrive:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ils?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1232494646&sr=8-1&seller=

and then follow the guides on ifixit

sound good?

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

ifixit doesnt seem to have guides for 1.42ghz ibook g4, if i followed the guides for the 933 MHz - 1.33 GHz ibook do you think it will work just the same on mine?

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac

I just bought this memory:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250360180607

and was going to buy this harddrive:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ils?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1232494646&sr=8-1&seller=

and then follow the guides on ifixit

sound good?

Yeah that guide is basically the same. The memory will work fine but a SATA drive won't, you need this one http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=pc&qid=1232495790&sr=1-2. You want PATA.

 

[harryhood]

Yeah that guide is basically the same. The memory will work fine but a SATA drive won't, you need this one http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=pc&qid=1232495790&sr=1-2. You want PATA.

awesome, so any PATA drive will do? Is 250gb the absolute biggest that this ibook can handle? I would really like to install more than that. Thanks again.

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

250gb is the biggest possible drive period for PATA interface LOL.

 

[harryhood]

250gb is the biggest possible drive period for PATA interface LOL.

Alright so I just got my PATA drive and am copying my current HD with carbon copy cloner via usb enclosure. Once it is done being cloned is it simply ready for installation or do I need to do anything else before putting it in? Thanks!

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

Boot up your iBook with your installation CDs and use Disk Utility to format your newly installed drive to HFS+ (Journaled).

Do you have a firewire enclosure? You need to boot from your "clone" so you can clone it back to your new hard drive. PPC Macs can't boot from USB.

 

[harryhood]

Boot up your iBook with your installation CDs and use Disk Utility to format your newly installed drive to HFS+ (Journaled).

Do you have a firewire enclosure? You need to boot from your "clone" so you can clone it back to your new hard drive. PPC Macs can't boot from USB.

My drive is in a USB enclosure and hooked up to my laptop. I used carbon copy cloner and cloned my Laptop's harddrive to my brand new one.

Im going to follow the guide on ifixit and take the old drive out and install the brand new cloned one.

Is this right?


UPDATE:

Alright so I followed the instructions and managed to get everything done pretty smoothly..except for one unfortunate event..

The blue and white power/speaker chord it snapped off the main board. I followed the instructions and tried to carefully pry it off with a toothpick but the sucker just broke right off. Everything else is perfect except that.

Now, because of this, I can't turn on the computer. So is this something I can fix myself?

I still have valid applecare for about 4 more months. I wonder if I could get away with them fixing it?

Thanks for your help again.

I found another thread with people asking about this. I guess i could try soldering it, but do you think I could somehow get applecare to fix it?

(picture of cable)