Upgrading a Mac Powerbook G4

[p38arover]

My wife currently uses a Mac Powerbook G4. I can't see a lable anywhere with the actual model no. but this is the system profile (more detail in attached PDF file):

Machine Name: PowerBook G4 12"
Machine Model: PowerBook6,4
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.1)
No. of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.32 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 256 MB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.8.3f1
Serial No. 4H41939788LPX

OS is OS X 10.4.11 (8S165)
Kernel Version: Darwin 8.11.0

The HDD is a 60 GB unit with 36 GB free.

Now, she complains it is slow and wants to upgrade the Mac to the latest Dual Core system. Noting she always uses the 'Net via wireless, I'm not sure it will help. It will improve boot up speed.

What else can I do to improve the G4's speed? Will upgrading the onboard memory from 256 MB help? It does on Windows machines. How far gan it be increased? 512 MB? 1 GB? More?

Is it worth changing the HDD noting there is 36 GB free on the existing?

Ron

[incisor]

ram is the only option that will help speed on that unit.

and the increase will be about 10-12% at most

if you need a BIG increase in speed it's buy a new one time...

[ariddell]

I'd have thought that RAM would make a really quite noticeable difference on that system actually. I had a powerbook G4 for a while and it ran perfectly happily once i threw 2Gb of RAM at it.

OSX is complete memory hog so if she's only using it for web access over wireless and general non intensive stuff i would have thought it would zip along quite happily if you bump it up to the max it will take which on that model is 1.12Gb.

128Mb is built in on board so you can only add a single 1Gb module (PC2100 speed) onto it. The hard drive will also be a slow 5400rpm model so upgrading this to a 7200rpm one would make a bit of a difference, but not not a huge one so not likely to be worth the trouble.

I'd be tempted to get a 1Gb module in there and see how it goes before upgrading the whole thing, especially since memory is dirt cheap nowadays.

[disco2hse]

My wife currently uses a Mac Powerbook G4.

An eye for quality I see.


Now, she complains it is slow and wants to upgrade the Mac to the latest Dual Core system. Noting she always uses the 'Net via wireless, I'm not sure it will help. It will improve boot up speed.


I had one of those until the beginning of this year. The new Mac Book Pro is far faster. The one downside is that it doesn't have an s-video output (I used to use the old one for playing movie files on the tellie via the video).

Moving to the Intel chipset is a major step in the right direction. Apple is phasing out PPC support, albeit slowly. It would also be a good move to upgrade to OSX 10.5. This system version provides many improvements over the previous ones.


What else can I do to improve the G4's speed? Will upgrading the onboard memory from 256 MB help? It does on Windows machines. How far gan it be increased? 512 MB? 1 GB? More?

Is it worth changing the HDD noting there is 36 GB free on the existing?

Upgrading the RAM will significantly improve speed and performance. IIRC it will take up to 4Gb.

There is not a lot of point in changing HDDs. Laptop HDDs are more expensive than normal ones. There is also the risk that in fiddling around with the system's internals you will void the warranty. Apple has a lifetime warranty on parts. If the parts fail, they will replace them, although conditions apply.

The cost and hassle for transferring data over to a new one, you may as go for a new one and sell this one off. They are still worth money. Getting a new Mac is as easy as pie. When you boot it up for the first time it asks if you have another Mac you want to move every over from. You connect them, say via ethernet, and leave them to tango while you have dinner. When you come back the new one has all the toys that were on the old, plus all those important family photos.

[incisor]

done dozens of em and 12% is the best increase i have seen....

[ariddell]

Fair enough, i don't have any point of reference for what 12% actually equates to in terms of usability but when i bumped my old one from 512Mb to 2Gb it went from being noticably sluggish and not overly pleasant to use to being responsive and perfectly good to use for general browsing, email, etc which was all that was required of it.

Depends on what she wants to use it for really, personally I hate this obcesion with having the latest and greatest and having to have dual core this and 8gb that just because it's possible and the newest shinyest thing around for the next 5 mins.

If all it's needed for is web browsing and general desktop use even though the new one will be several hundred % faster on paper and in the benchmark tests, personally i wouldn't think that a $3000 brand new one would actually feel $2950 faster than throwing a $50 RAM upgrade into a perfectly usable, if dated machine that's only used for surfing the web.

[p38arover]

OK, in the short term, can I swap RAM from my laptop to hers.

According to RamCity, mine uses

Kingston 512MB 200-pin SO-DIMM (http://www.ramcity.com.au/product/KIN1-HPSX14-512-01.htm)
Speed: DDR-333 / PC2700
Part No: KTH-ZD7000/512

Hers would use:

Kingston 512MB 200-pin SO-DIMM (http://www.ramcity.com.au/product/KIN1-APKG4%20-512-04.htm)
Speed: DDR-333 / PC2700
Part No: KTA-PBG4333/512


The type numbers are different even though both are 200-pin SO-DIMM, Speed: DDR-333 / PC2700 - Does that matter?

[abaddonxi]

It's a match. Kingston give different part numbers for the same stuff to different manufacturer's machines.

Macs are sometimes picky about the quality of the RAM put into them, but it's usually a case of try it out, and if the RAM doesn't show up you take it out again.

Simon

[p38arover]

Thanks Simon, I'll give it a go.

Do you drink red wine?

Ron

[disco2hse]

Just one thing with the RAM Ron, if the Mac doesn't like it the machine will beep angrily at you. At which point you can shut it down. It will not hurt it.

Alan

[Captain_Rightfoot]

I agree with the RAM suggestion.

Generally Apples don't really slow down like windows machines through their lifetime. You can't really do defrags because the OS does disk management better so it's not really a problem. It can be done but it is dubious as to the result.

However you can do a permissions repair which may help (I'm told). It's never done anything for me but maybe before bed one night it might be worth a try.

Open diskutility. Use spotlight (Apple-space) and type in "disk utility". It should come up as an app. Hit that. Select mac hard disk and then click repair permissions or verify permissions. It might take a while. :)

EDIT: Also is she starting it and re-starting it every time? If she doesn't remind her to re-boot it every few months. If she does re-start it then tell her not too! Macs have **really** good sleep modes. Just leave the computer when she is done with it and it should pop to sleep in a few minutes (unless someone has tinkered with it). You can also tell it to do it or close the lid. When she wants to use it just tap a key or open the lid. It will be right for action in <5 secs!

[abaddonxi]

Thanks Simon, I'll give it a go.

Do you drink red wine?

Ron

Not as much as I'd like to.:D

[p38arover]

When she wants to use it just tap a key or open the lid. It will be right for action in <5 secs!

That's why she want s new Mac. It takes well over a minute to come up after sleep mode.

[Captain_Rightfoot]

That's why she want s new Mac. It takes well over a minute to come up after sleep mode.

Is this something that has changed over time or always been that way?

If it's always been that way it's possible someone told it to "safe sleep". That means it writes the memory to disk and shuts down (no battery drain). This mode takes far longer to wake though.

Have a read of this. (http://installingcats.com/tag/safe-sleep/)

Can you start terminal and check the sleep mode? If you want I'm happy to call you and talk you through it.

INC, have you heard of this stuff happening? You've been around apples far longer than me :)

[p38arover]

I tried that link and entered

pmset -g | grep hibernatemode

It didn't give any response - just a new line.

So we tried

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

It gave a warning message but allowed us to continue. We did that but there was no response afterward. We tried the first pmset again but, again, no response.

Gahhh! I hate Macs. I'm far more comfortable with Windows and MSDOS.

FYI, before we did this we tried opening the Mac and timed it. 45 Secs to usable. Then we closed it down and tried again after 10 minutes. Almost immediately it was usable.

[disco2hse]

It didn't give any response - just a new line.

That's cos it worked ;)



So we tried

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

It gave a warning message but allowed us to continue. We did that but there was no response afterward. We tried the first pmset again but, again, no response.

That's cos it failed then when you tried again, it worked :p

That's difference between Unix and Windows. In Unix usage the assumption is that the user knows what they are doing; in Windows usage the assumption is that the user doesn't.

Alan

[Captain_Rightfoot]

If you ever run a command and you don't know what has happened try "echo $?" that will give the result of the last command. The standard is 0 for successful and other numbers depend on the command. :)

Let's hope that works. By the way Ron you've told it do do something that microsoft have never been able to do. Standard on your 4/5 year old mac :)

[Captain_Rightfoot]

What is more in safe sleep it writes a 1gb file that you may be able to delete. That link I gave had another link that talked about it. Check the file date was after the last sleep to be sure it's still not using it!

[dmdigital]

Just as an aside to this if you are looking at replacing the Macbook Apple looks to be launching new ones this week according to macrumors.com and a few other sites.

[Captain_Rightfoot]

Just as an aside to this if you are looking at replacing the Macbook Apple looks to be launching new ones this week according to macrumors.com and a few other sites.

Hopefully the first new case in years. They should be swish! There were rumours they were going to be cheaper but given our $$ slide against the US I'm not sure what price we'll se here :( Look for it Wednesday morning (our time ) at about 3 am :)

[p38arover]

That's cos it worked ;)



That's cos it failed then when you tried again, it worked :p

That's difference between Unix and Windows. In Unix usage the assumption is that the user knows what they are doing; in Windows usage the assumption is that the user doesn't.

Alan

Dunno that it worked., It was supposed to tell us in which sleep mode it was configured. It didn't.

[Captain_Rightfoot]

Dunno that it worked., It was supposed to tell us in which sleep mode it was configured. It didn't.

Is it still popping out of sleep quickly?

[p38arover]

I'll ask Elisabeth.

I'm not used to Macs. I grew up with TRSDOS, then NewDOS, PCDOS. 1 and 2, MSDOS 2 through MSDOS 6 (or was it 7), Windows all iterations to the present.

I'm now a Luddite - you wouldn't know I used to manage two computer data centres. :D

I can't even use the Nokia N70 phone I've got. My Windows-based touch screen PDA phone is much easier to use.

[disco2hse]

SWMBO just git a new Palm thingamajiggyphonepdawotsit. About two touches in and I was, like, whereami? :D

Ron, about your command, it didn't tell you what the configuration was because you didn't tell it to.

Alan

[p38arover]

SWMBO just git a new Palm thingamajiggyphonepdawotsit. About two touches in and I was, like, whereami? :D

Ron, about your command, it didn't tell you what the configuration was because you didn't tell it to.

Alan

??

The link the Captain posted said it would tell me. :eek:

Bloody Macs and Unix! :mad:

:D

[Captain_Rightfoot]

??

Bloody Macs and Unix! :mad:

:D

Ron.. Please! UNIX is a real operating system for the computers of today. Modern computers have really grown into UNIX with it's better handling of multiple processors and multi-tasking.

Windows has far too much baggage from MSDOS which is meant for computers from 1985.

[p38arover]

Open diskutility. Use spotlight (Apple-space)

And you wonder why I don't like Apple. :angrylock:

That did nothing - much like the grep command earlier.

[disco2hse]

How'd you hold your tongue. I find it's best on the right lower side of the mouth :D:p

Alan

[Captain_Rightfoot]

And you wonder why I don't like Apple. :angrylock:

That did nothing - much like the grep command earlier.

Check the defined hotkey for it. It's sounding like someone has done some serious tinkering with that computer and changed a lot of defaults!

See the picture... it's on the bottom of the window accessed in the spotlight icon in system preferences. :)

Also, in the top bar at the far right is a magnifying glass. That does the same thing.

[p38arover]

I assume "space" measns the space bar.

I pressed the magnifying glass and it opened up a little blue window thing called spotlight but it was empty - it expects and entry to be typed in.

[p38arover]

OK, worked that out.

The thingie had been changed from an Apple space to ^ space.

I'll try the repair now.

[Captain_Rightfoot]

I assume "space" measns the space bar.

I pressed the magnifying glass and it opened up a little blue window thing called spotlight but it was empty - it expects and entry to be typed in.

Yep, you should try it. You can type in anything... and it will generally pull up a link to it. Email, applications, docments, internet history...and so on. On my version it even pulls up dictionary and thesaurus entries.

So, I just keep the apps I use regularly in the dock. When I want something out of the norm I just hit apple-space and type the name of it in. E.g terminal, google earth. It's far quicker than searching for it in a multitude of folders.

[p38arover]

The trouble is I don't know ANYTHING about Macs so I have no idea what I'm pressing or why.

[Captain_Rightfoot]

The trouble is I don't know ANYTHING about Macs so I have no idea what I'm pressing or why.
If you were in Brisbane I could spend hour with you and you'd be away.

When I got a mac in 06 I had about 2 nights of thinking "what have I done". I had no help as at that point I was the only person I knew with one. After introducing probably half a dozen people to them now I'm getting good at showing people the key differences.

It's great... spend a couple of hours with them and they go away and never bother me for support again! Contrast this to the days a year I had to spend re-building family windows computers.

[dmdigital]

Ron, Google is your friend as are the Mac support sites. I'm new to Mac too. Bought one in May and I hadn't used a Mac since 1985. They've changed a little since then;) Anyway I'm also rusty on unix but so far I've found everything OK.


Now if it was a real OS like VMS...

[clean32]

Contrast this to the days a year I had to spend re-building family windows computers.


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