Understanding my Ibook G3

[JGC843]

Hello to everyone. First off, let me state that this is my first Apple computer. I looked for about a month and figured I would start out small and if I enjoyed it, I would invest more later on. I bought an Ibook G3 off of ebay.

It has a 700MHz processor, 80 GB hard drive, airport card, and it says 384 memory. I am wanting to upgrade the RAM, mostly for watching videos. I find some of them a little bit choppy. I am trying to figure out (before I crack it open) is there additional RAM already installed, and if so, how much? I was looking on Wikipedia and I cannot find where 384 was a factory amount, and a friend of mine (who uses PCs only) says that there is no way that it's 384.

Also, if you guys can give me any advice on other upgrades I should perform, I would love to hear them.

Thanks for any advice you guys are able to give me.

 

[NewMacbookPlz]

As far as watching videos: If they're streaming online, RAM won't help too much, chances are you're choking out the processor.

The way you have 384MB is that there's 128MB soldered onto the logicboard, and the previous owner installed a 256MB DIMM in the available slot. The maximum amount of RAM it can support should be 640MB, which means you'd just have to install a 512MB 144-pin PC100 SO-DIMM into the slot that's currently occupied by the 256MB DIMM

Also, is the case plastic opaque or translucent? If it's the latter, it has a slower video chip as well, which will hamper your ability to do video with it I'd imagine. Either way it's 16MB VRAM, but its the difference between the ATI Mobility Radeon and the updated Mobility Radeon 7500.

 

[Abstract]

The laptop has 2 RAM slots, and the RAM in one of those slots is inaccessible to the user because it's actually soldered onto the logic board.

Basically, there is 128 MB of RAM in one of the slots, and you can't take it out or do anything about it. The other slot can hold a maximum of 512 MB of RAM, I believe. If your laptop has 384 MB of RAM, then you have 128 MB in one slot (default), plus 256 MB of RAM in the other slot.

 

[JGC843]

As far as watching videos: If they're streaming online, RAM won't help too much, chances are you're choking out the processor.

Nope, mostly downloading and then watcching. After downloading some other programs, I did get it to run a bit smoother. Thanks for the help with the RAM question. I'll be upgrading soon. And I have the oqaque ibook.