g3 trouble, help...

I was typing along a few days ago when my screen developed small vertical lines, then the computer locked up. Went to genius bar and said it was logic board starting to fail. He quoted $289 to fix it. Is this a good price? I looked online and found some boards for ~$89. Is this a DIY job or am I better off with them?

Alo, I'd like to upgrade the HD. Right now I have a 12" g3 600 mhz, 20gb ibook. I use it for graphic design, running OSX 10.3.9. The unit runs fine but I know future progams are proably going to need more than what my processor can handle. What can I do to this baby to get more out of it? Or should I take the plunge and get a new one?

How much experience do you have taking apart delicate electronic devices? If you are not good at it, it might be better to let them do it for you. Otherwise it would be cheaper if you do it yourself but it is sort of delicate work.

If you can afford a newer even iBook it would do you much better at a 600Mhz G3 is getting a bit old for Graphic design. Do you use Photoshop? A newer say iBook G4 1.33 would be a lot faster with your design programs and last you a while. If it was me and I had the $$$, I would go with a newer machine. If you can have that one fixed for $289, you could sell it for a bit more and get some $$$ out of it to put toward a new machine.

Good luck in whatever you decide.