Thread
Opinions on G4 Powerbook for a potential buyer
The G3 iBook appeared after I started this thread, I was repairing it for a friend. But that friend has now told me I can keep it. I've had a play with it, but tbh it is slower then my Pismo and the fact the logic boards are so unreliable just puts me off using it.
Took the plunge earlier today and bought a 2005, 1.33Ghz iBook. After reading several reviews and watching videos on YouTube, decided it will suit my needs. It's twice the speed of the Pismo, has a decent memory ceiling and Bluetooth.
Took the plunge earlier today and bought a 2005, 1.33Ghz iBook. After reading several reviews and watching videos on YouTube, decided it will suit my needs. It's twice the speed of the Pismo, has a decent memory ceiling and Bluetooth.
Welcome to the trailing edge 
I dunno, I think PowerPC machines are more like "the wake".Welcome to the trailing edge
In any case, enjoy your iBook G4. The *one* thing a 12" PowerBook G4 has over it is when you use the external monitor port a PowerBook supports "desktop extension", while I'm pretty sure all the iBooks only support mirroring. (At the internal display's sucky 1024x768 resolution.) There was a fix for that, however. Use at your own risk.
One thing I will say in defense of your decision to get a PowerPC instead of an early Macbook... I spent some time this weekend working on reactivating my "Late 2007" 17" MacBook Pro (the very earliest that will run 10.9), and I have to say I've really been put off by some of the low quality materials used in what was a $3000 laptop. Okay, I'm mostly just griping about the fossilized felt material in front of the DVD ROM drive that has stiffened to the point that it's impossible for the DVD drive to eject a disk, but... (If it were a one-off occurrence I'd blame happenstance, but so far I'm 2 for 2 on MacBooks of this era suffering this problem. The same dust curtains on my older PowerBook G4s are fine.) The hinges have also gotten quite floppy, and the wrist-rest area around the trackpad has significant corrosion that I guess I didn't remember being there when I put it away. I've had this machine since it was new, treated it well, and *haven't* used it for a long time, it just feels a lot older than its years. (Again, compared to some older Powerbook G4s, which feel new by comparison despite similar use. But then they've been blowing memory slots for no reason, so whatchya going to do?)
Probably the lesson there really is it's a bad idea to pay money for a used laptop at all, but I digress. Happy motoring with your G4!
I am typing this on a 1.33 iBook, but due to a loose joint with the Airport card which caused a KP on startup I have had to disable it and use a USB Ralink wifi adapter.
I also had to shim this iBook because unless you pressed hard on the left side next to the trackpad the machine started up with no video (black screen). Probably related to the bad solder around the Airport card.
Consequently it might run a little hot and so I'm using G4FanControl http://www.andreafabrizi.it/?g4fancontrol to make the fans come on early.
I'm sure yours will be fine, but this is just a heads up ...
Cheers
Hugh
Morning guys
I'm currently writing this on my new (old) iBook G4 1.33Ghz. I picked it up from my fathers last night, not really had time to do much with it, other then install a few apps. I have to say I really like the keyboard on the G4 over the G3, the build quality feels better but I'm not so sure about this tiny return key. I keep catching the surrounding keys instead of the hitting the return.
Thanks for the tip about the G4 fan control, incidentally I posted a thread about ibooks and extending their life. I was pretty sure I had read somewhere about a fan control app, but nobody seemed to know what i was on about. I'm glad to see I wasn't just imagining it!
One thing that did happen, which I'm hoping is just a one off. Was after unpacking the iBook and powering it up, the laptop froze with the apple logo on the screen and the spinning circle below. I ended up having to pull the battery. On the second boot the ibook gave me half of a bong and then beeped at me, followed by the sleep light flashing. I don't know how many times it beeped, I was too busy trying to get it to boot and didn't think to make a mental note DOH! So i don't know if this is has anything to do with bad ram. That happened last night after initially unpacking, I've booted it up several times since then and it has not reoccurred. So keeping my fingers crossed, would hate to have bought a £74 lemon.
I'm currently writing this on my new (old) iBook G4 1.33Ghz. I picked it up from my fathers last night, not really had time to do much with it, other then install a few apps. I have to say I really like the keyboard on the G4 over the G3, the build quality feels better but I'm not so sure about this tiny return key. I keep catching the surrounding keys instead of the hitting the return.
Thanks for the tip about the G4 fan control, incidentally I posted a thread about ibooks and extending their life. I was pretty sure I had read somewhere about a fan control app, but nobody seemed to know what i was on about. I'm glad to see I wasn't just imagining it!
One thing that did happen, which I'm hoping is just a one off. Was after unpacking the iBook and powering it up, the laptop froze with the apple logo on the screen and the spinning circle below. I ended up having to pull the battery. On the second boot the ibook gave me half of a bong and then beeped at me, followed by the sleep light flashing. I don't know how many times it beeped, I was too busy trying to get it to boot and didn't think to make a mental note DOH! So i don't know if this is has anything to do with bad ram. That happened last night after initially unpacking, I've booted it up several times since then and it has not reoccurred. So keeping my fingers crossed, would hate to have bought a £74 lemon.
What OS is it running? I would recommend pulling the RAM upgrade out of the computer (if there is one, it's under the keyboard and below a little metal shield secured by 4 Philips screws). Remove the stick and run it like that. If the problem doesn't happen again, the SODIMM chip is bad. If it continues, the soldered RAM is bad
I had this happened to me on a 466MHz graphite iBook. I was so mad since it was one of the SE models, but the seller took it back and all was well.
I had this happened to me on a 466MHz graphite iBook. I was so mad since it was one of the SE models, but the seller took it back and all was well.
It's running Tiger 10.4.11 and it doesn't have any additional memory installed, just the standard 512mb. I'm really hoping it doesn't happen again, so far everything has been ok, it hasn't crashed or repeat the beeping since that first boot.
I've read that you can fix the bad ram, it is meant to be caused by a broken connection between the board and one of the ram chips.
Hopefully i wont need to find out
I've read that you can fix the bad ram, it is meant to be caused by a broken connection between the board and one of the ram chips.
Hopefully i wont need to find out