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Wanting to buy a Clamshell iBook and I have some questions about Clamshells

R

Roba

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 18, 2006
349
2
Hi i am looking to buy a clamshell iBook of Ebay and i was unsure of a few things. Not coming from a Mac background i actually do not know to much about these things and a few things are unclear to me that I hope that somebody will be able to clear up for me.

I had a look on the Apple website page and they listed that these clamshells were introduced in 1999 however I have read that some came into production in 2002 on the welovemacs website
http://www.welovemacs.com/m2453b.html. I was looking for a clamshell with a 466 or 366 processor speed previously but if some later models with lower processor speeds have higher video ram cards then i would consider that as well. The 466mhz and 366mhz models clamshells that I have seen seem to come with 8MB of vram as standard.
I also thought that the 300mhz models came with 32MB memory as standard thus allowing for a lower capacity overall but I do not know if this is correct now.
Right now i am a bit confused as to what i should be looking for now. Maybe somebody could direct me as to what i should be looking for?

I also have a 30GB hard drive to spare the part number is MK3018GAS interface : Enhanced IDE (ATA-5) height : 9.5 mm and I was thinking about possibly buying a clamshell with a lower hard drive capacity and installing my hard drive instead. Does anybody know if this is going to be possible for me? Does the Clamshell iBook use the same sort of hard drive as the one that i own?

Clamshells in the UK are in short supply so i may have to buy one from abroad and get it shipped to me. I really would love a lime green one or a green one but i am looking at Graphite/Grey models as well.
 
I have just come across this timeline that was on the wikipedia website that detailed the history of the iBooks. It looks like what i believed in the beginning was correct and that the welovemacs website has made an error there in their description.

An answer though to my hard drive question will be helpful though.

Thanks
 
Hi Roba.

I don't have a good answer to your question, but I have the start of a good answer to your question.

First of all, you're right -- the iBook was around in 1999. I know, because I was writing papers on mine!

Here's a really helpful link re: uprgrading your HD. I'm thinking about doing the same, and the link has a pictorial walk through of the process. I'm a hardware noob, so it's comforting to me.

The 9.5 mm HD is the right size, but I'm not sure about your item number.

So, I second Roba's question -- can we put any kind of 9.5 mm HD into our old clamshells, and if not, what are our limits? Can someone rec. an appropriate HD?

Lowendmac (and Wikipedia) suggests RAM can be upgraded to 544 on the 300 mhz (32 soldered on) and 576 on the 366 mhz (64 soldered on).
 
changing the HD
is possible
but- gotta be careful
i've done it 3 times
once i totally broke the machine

as for the details ur asking- i don't remember & am not sure
i've since then gotten rid of my clamshells
 
Roba said:
Hi i am looking to buy a clamshell iBook of Ebay and i was unsure of a few things. Not coming from a Mac background i actually do not know to much about these things and a few things are unclear to me that I hope that somebody will be able to clear up for me.

I had a look on the Apple website page and they listed that these clamshells were introduced in 1999 however I have read that some came into production in 2002 on the welovemacs website
http://www.welovemacs.com/m2453b.html. I was looking for a clamshell with a 466 or 366 processor speed previously but if some later models with lower processor speeds have higher video ram cards then i would consider that as well. The 466mhz and 366mhz models clamshells that I have seen seem to come with 8MB of vram as standard.
I also thought that the 300mhz models came with 32MB memory as standard thus allowing for a lower capacity overall but I do not know if this is correct now.
Right now i am a bit confused as to what i should be looking for now. Maybe somebody could direct me as to what i should be looking for?

I also have a 30GB hard drive to spare the part number is MK3018GAS interface : Enhanced IDE (ATA-5) height : 9.5 mm and I was thinking about possibly buying a clamshell with a lower hard drive capacity and installing my hard drive instead. Does anybody know if this is going to be possible for me? Does the Clamshell iBook use the same sort of hard drive as the one that i own?

Clamshells in the UK are in short supply so i may have to buy one from abroad and get it shipped to me. I really would love a lime green one or a green one but i am looking at Graphite/Grey models as well.
Click to expand...



The first clamshells were released in 1999 and ran at 300MHz.

They had 32MB of RAM and 4MB of VRAM.

The very first ones had 3GB drives, but that was quickly upgraded to 6GB (the 6GB drive versions also has 64MB of RAM instead of 64MB). If you tinker with them you can get a larger drive in there, but they're not fun to play with.

The last clamshells that were released came out in 2001. They ran at 466MHz.

They came with 64MB of RAM and 8MB of VRAM, and maxed out at 320MB of physical RAM (32MB more than the aforementioned model).

ONLY THE LATER 366MHz models and the 466MHz models come with 8MB of VRAM. There were early 366MHz revs that had 64MB of RAM but still had 4MB of video. Be careful with this if you insist on getting 8MB of VRAM. Otherwise, if you're fine with 4MB of VRAM, it's possible to find a cheap 300MHz model with 64MB of RAM on the motherboard.

Hope this helps.
 
Unspeaked said:
The first clamshells were released in 1999 and ran at 300MHz.

They had 32MB of RAM and 4MB of VRAM.

The very first ones had 3GB drives,
Click to expand...


i got mine in december of '99 and the video card and processor speed were state of the art for a consumer laptop, but the 32 megs of ram were short of practical

i put in 128 megs of ram for a total of 160 and the thing served me well for 4 1/2 years until i replaced it with a used dual G4 power mac, which i still use...but i sneak over to my dad's house and often use his dual intel 20" inch imac and it's hard to imagine this machine, like those, ever getting obsolete

...but in time even the intel imacs will be seriously outdated :)
 
Roba said:
Hi i am looking to buy a clamshell iBook of Ebay and i was unsure of a few things. Not coming from a Mac background i actually do not know to much about these things and a few things are unclear to me that I hope that somebody will be able to clear up for me.
Click to expand...

First thing go to the crucial webpage and check how much memory for various models costs. Apple changed the memory that is used at some point; if you buy an old model you will pay an arm and a leg for memory.
 
Thank you all for your help :)


I have got my eye on a few clamshells right now on Ebay and i will probably buy a lime green one because that is the one that i really want.

I know that a 800x600 resolution is not great but i love the physical looks of these clamshells and it will be very useful for me to use for word processing when i am not at home so i do not have to take my MacBook Pro out with me. It will also be useful for me when my sisters little kids come round to stay so that they will not all fight over my laptop as there will be more than one internet connection available. I do not intend to use the Clamshell for more than word processing or for occasional internet use so i only need something quite basic really. I already have a MacBook Pro that i will use as my main notebook.

When i get one of these from Ebay I will most likely along with the hard drive upgrade also upgrade the memory and add an Airport card to if i can find an Airport card for a decent price. I have noticed that 512 memory modules are very expensive on Ebay. I have another question can i only use a specific type of Apple memory of will any say generic memory from Crucial or the like do?


thedude110 good luck with your research and paper writing.


edit-
gnasher729 I just saw your post after i posted. Thank you for your advice.
Thank you
 
I read that someone put a 60gb 7200rpm Travelstar hard drive in a clamshell, maxed out the ram and was very happy. I might have the ram to sell you. Gotta give someone else on MR the price first.
 
I have bought one now. Price wise it was a little bit more expensive than some 466mhz Graphite models that i saw but i wanted a lime green one so that was ok to me. I had to practically beg the seller to ship it over here to me.

I was looking at this auction for a Clamshell on Ebay and wow the seller has really maxed that out.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-iBook-Cla...6QQihZ007QQcategoryZ80050QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The Clamshell that i bought has a small corporate marking on the lid I will try and remove that when I receive it if i cannot i will just place a sticker over it.
I will also need to purchase a UK power adapter but there is no rush on that and i may just use a travel adapter for a little while.

California thank you for your help. Do you live in the US? I am going to try and see if i can get some generic ram in the UK from ebay now that i know that the Clamshell can take generic ram but thanks for the offer of help.

thedude110 I came across this clamshell laptop by a company called Ego. I think that they were influenced by the old clamshells. Maybe this will interest you with your research? I don't know if you have seen this before but here are some links anyway.
http://www.ego-lifestyle.com/mytulip.htm
The following link mentions this laptop at the bottom of the page
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4794204.stm
 
redeye be that link was helpful, thank you.

I also have a few more questions about this.

Does anybody know what type of memory the Clamshell takes? I had a look on the Crucial website and they stated that it was a PC133 however the Kingston website states that it takes a PC100. I am looking on Ebay at the moment and i am not sure whether to buy a PC100 or a PC133. The PC100 memory modules do seem to be a bit cheaper than the PC133 ones.

Also, i live in the UK and i am looking for something that will be able to get marker stains of the plastic of the Clamshell. Does anybody know of something that i could use in the UK that they could recommend to me?

I am also looking at purchasing an Airport card right now and i have been reading on the net and i have found that this Buffalo card WLI-PCM-L11GP-3 can be used as an Airport card. Any thoughts on this? If other Airport cards can be used if you know of any others could you recommend them for me please the make and model number, thank you. The Apple old Airport cards are very expensive on Ebay and if I could save myself a bit of money i would like to.

My last question is that this model that i am getting comes installed with Mac 9.0. I am planning to change the hard drive and put a newer Mac OS on it. Would i need something like this made specifically for the iBook
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110014714524&fromMakeTrack=true or would a current Tiger CD do that can be used on the newer Macs do?

I am trying to prepare myself for when the Clamshell comes so that i will have everything to hand.

Thanks
 
According to Mactracker the iBook takes one
PC66 3.3V 144-pin SO-DIMM.
Faster RAM will also work at this lower speed. As longs as the RAM chip is pin compatible it will probably work. (but test before you buy if possible :eek: ) I don't really recall which one i bought specifically, but it sure wasn't PC66...

i'll look in to it, the desk needs a cleaning anyhow ... :(

As for the airport card, a living thread about belkin cards
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/197477/

You do not need the iBook OS X CD.
Just try to get your hands on the install CD's of 10.3 - or 10.4. If you have an install DVD of Tiger, i think you can exchange them somehow.

Cheers
 
I have a soft spot for the Clamshells as well. They're the closest to tanks Apple's ever built. After WWIII, all that will be left is cockroaches using Clamshell iBooks...
 
Hector thanks i will have to get some of the methelated spirit that you recommended :)

redeye be thanks you for your help. Everything is pretty clear to me now. The Belkin link was interesting. I don't think that I am going to buy the Buffalo wifi card now. I think that i may keep on trying to get an Airport card that is within my acceptable price range.

I came across this review on Ebay and it is quite informative about what will and won't work as a replacement for the Apple Airport card.

http://reviews.ebay.com/Apple-Airpo...0000748015?ssPageName=BUYGD:CAT:-1:LISTINGS:6

I also came across this page to but what they did seems a bit to much of a hassle for me. What they did seemed to have worked well though.
 
Just a little update. Maybe this will help others in my position as well. I have decided not to get the Airport card and get a cheaper alternative instead.

I came across this post on macrumors today and the OP mentioned that they had good success with a Buffalo wireless card.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/2120581/

I also saw this post on the Apple forums today and somebody inserted a Orinoco silver PCMCIA card in a iBook clamshell without modification. They have included a picture as well.
Here is the post-
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=566531&tstart=15
That is all that i need to see and seeing that has convinced me to get one of those or at least one very similar to it, they are reasonably priced as well.
 
I did it!

So, I know this won't mean much to most of you, but you have to understand -- I'm a total hardware noob. I used to work at a Help Desk, but all of my support was on the software side -- the most I'd ever done inside a machine was swap out the ram.

Anyway, using the guide linked to in this thread, I opened my iBook, took it apart, got to my old 3 gig HD, swapped it out with the 60 gig HD California suggested and then installed OS X. I had some trouble installing -- there were a few moments where I thought I killed my machine -- but sure enough -- it works! Well, I killed the trackpad. But still! Oh. And I have two screws leftover. God knows where they were supposed to go.

What a testament to Apple -- a seven year old laptop now running a fairly contemporary OS in a beyond functional way.

Two pics: First, my setup for taking apart the laptop -- each piece of masking tape represents the pieces from that "step" in the process of getting at my HD. Second, my seven year old computer, with a 20x larger HD, running OS X.

setup.jpg

ibook.jpg

:) :)
 
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