11-04-2005, 08:45 AM

I have recently bought a G3 ibook, increaded the RAM to 512mb and installed Airport card. But the proccessor is puney. Should I upgrade if i want to run broadband?? How much can i actually upgrade to?? Any suggestions?? :ninja:

11-04-2005, 10:48 AM

I don't think you can upgrade the processors in the iBooks....

11-04-2005, 10:31 PM

You could overclock your iBook with a program called iCook heres an article I found
http://www.swieskowski.net/icook/

11-05-2005, 01:16 AM

What speed is the G3?

11-05-2005, 06:18 AM

A G3 should handle broadband fine though.

Not sure if it is a clamshell (color) or white (iceBook) iBook G3 you have but you did the right thing giving it more memory. It should be fine for surfing via broadband.

Vicky

11-09-2005, 02:49 PM

I Have iBook the white one G3 500 with 320 MB RAM and easily use broadband(got a 100megabit\sec synchro via optic fiber). what`s the problem?

01-13-2006, 01:58 PM

I hear it is possible to change the motherboard to a better g3 one? I even hear it is possible to use a g4 one but I really am not sure, I too have an ibook 500 and was wondering if my local apple store could upgrade me to a g4 for less the price of a brand new one. Any suggestion?

01-13-2006, 04:55 PM

Originally Posted by makwanad

I hear it is possible to change the motherboard to a better g3 one? I even hear it is possible to use a g4 one but I really am not sure, I too have an ibook 500 and was wondering if my local apple store could upgrade me to a g4 for less the price of a brand new one. Any suggestion?

Macbook

01-14-2006, 03:20 AM

Originally Posted by Pierre

Macbook

Does not answer my questions at all, I want to know if they will do this kind of upgrade/trade and if so how much extra cost i would look at? If they can't do this I want to know if i can change the mother/logic board to a g4/high speed g3 one instead? is this possible?

01-14-2006, 11:40 AM

Originally Posted by makwanad

Does not answer my questions at all, I want to know if they will do this kind of upgrade/trade and if so how much extra cost i would look at? If they can't do this I want to know if i can change the mother/logic board to a g4/high speed g3 one instead? is this possible?

I highly doubt they will do that.

01-14-2006, 01:26 PM

Originally Posted by makwanad

I hear it is possible to change the motherboard to a better g3 one? I even hear it is possible to use a g4 one but I really am not sure, I too have an ibook 500 and was wondering if my local apple store could upgrade me to a g4 for less the price of a brand new one. Any suggestion?

"upgrading" the motherboard is not practical. Go buy an newer computer. A laptop is not like a desktop PC where you can easilty open it and easily exchange parts.

All iBooks have the same speed ethernet and most (I think!) iBooks can use the faster airport extreme. So a faster processor iBook doesn't help in this department.

If you have 512MB RAM upgrade already then the next best thing you can do to improve performance is upgrade to OS 10.3 (aka Panther). 10.3 runs noticeably faster than eariler versions.

Next, look how much disk space you have left. I think the 500MHz iBook has a 10 or 20GB drive. If you have no more than about 3 or 4 GB left, time to seriously flush junk from the drive or get a new one. The OS uses disk space for "virtual memory", and it uses several GB of disk space for it. How much depends on lots of factors like how much real memory you have, how many open apps. You can mitigate this issue by not opening lots of apps at one time. If you see lots of hesitation switching between apps or perhaps an app just "stalls" for a few seconds, then this could be a symptom of too little RAM and/or virtual memory disk space. This happens on my PC at work all the time!!

Now a hard drive upgrade is doable, but you must take your iBook apart to do it. There are clear instructions available on the internet. Do a search. I'd bet the Apple store or CompUSA and others can do it for a fee.

bottom line
If you feel compeled buy RAM, buy a new drive, and buy a new OS you might as well buy another computer w/ them already installed; and sell this one. OR just accept what you have and live w/ it until you really can afford a new(er) iBook. The Macintosh experience is WAY better than PC at any speed!

01-14-2006, 06:41 PM

Originally Posted by makwanad

Does not answer my questions at all, I want to know if they will do this kind of upgrade/trade and if so how much extra cost i would look at? If they can't do this I want to know if i can change the mother/logic board to a g4/high speed g3 one instead? is this possible?

That's extremely unlikely. As an earlier poster mentioned, you're talking about a laptop, not a desktop. It is possible to swap chips in, say, the PowerMac G4 (although not very economical given the cost of the new chip!) As far as I know, it's just flat-out impossible for the iBook. I've never, in all my Mac-fan days, heard of someone doing this.

People aren't kidding when they're telling you that it'll be more economical to sell your current machine and upgrade to a newer one than to try and replace the logic board inside the current machine. Not only will your machine almost certainly reject a logic board that's not at the right Mhz settings, but that new logic board will cost you upwards of $600-$800 (see www.pbfixit.com for price reference.) For $600-$800, you could have a G4 iBook with a 1 or 1.33Ghz processor!

Seriously, you could dump your machine on Ebay easily and people will snap it right up. Just get rid of your current one and get a newer iBook.

01-15-2006, 05:56 AM

Hmm I guess you're right... All I really need a ibook to help me run logic express 7. So how much do you reckon I could get for my iBook when you look at the specs in my sig?

01-15-2006, 06:04 AM

Originally Posted by radarbob

"upgrading" the motherboard is not practical. Go buy an newer computer. A laptop is not like a desktop PC where you can easilty open it and easily exchange parts.

All iBooks have the same speed ethernet and most (I think!) iBooks can use the faster airport extreme. So a faster processor iBook doesn't help in this department.

If you have 512MB RAM upgrade already then the next best thing you can do to improve performance is upgrade to OS 10.3 (aka Panther). 10.3 runs noticeably faster than eariler versions.

Next, look how much disk space you have left. I think the 500MHz iBook has a 10 or 20GB drive. If you have no more than about 3 or 4 GB left, time to seriously flush junk from the drive or get a new one. The OS uses disk space for "virtual memory", and it uses several GB of disk space for it. How much depends on lots of factors like how much real memory you have, how many open apps. You can mitigate this issue by not opening lots of apps at one time. If you see lots of hesitation switching between apps or perhaps an app just "stalls" for a few seconds, then this could be a symptom of too little RAM and/or virtual memory disk space. This happens on my PC at work all the time!!

Now a hard drive upgrade is doable, but you must take your iBook apart to do it. There are clear instructions available on the internet. Do a search. I'd bet the Apple store or CompUSA and others can do it for a fee.

bottom line
If you feel compeled buy RAM, buy a new drive, and buy a new OS you might as well buy another computer w/ them already installed; and sell this one. OR just accept what you have and live w/ it until you really can afford a new(er) iBook. The Macintosh experience is WAY better than PC at any speed!

Oh I do have panther, and I got 512 ram upgrade (giving me a decent amount of 640mb ram), I also have a 40gb hard drive which I think for an iBook 500 is a whopping amount. My main question at the end of the day like I have said is will I will be able to run logic?

01-15-2006, 11:49 AM

Originally Posted by fyrman22

You could overclock your iBook with a program called iCook heres an article I found
http://www.swieskowski.net/icook/

just wondering... whould icook make your computer run alot hotter, and maybe burn the processor out faster?