Powerbook G4

ishamy

ishamy

ishamy

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All this talk of the Retina MBP's is getting me down, so I'm going old school again...

Got myself a minted Powerbook G4 1.67GHz 15" for nothing so well delighted with it. However I need to get it kitted out, Power supply, HDD, RAM and an OS.

I have a post in the wanted section for this as well as the 2007 MPB 2.4GHz 17" I also want to get fitted, so if anyone has them items or can help me acquire them give us a message.

Back to the G4, what exact specs of the above do I need, RAM wise is it DDR? I'm looking at trying to get a copy of OSX Leopard, I am seeing there are install/restore disks on Ebay for like £10-15 but also there is the 'retail' version for like £100, which would I need? HDD drive is Sata I think?

Thanks for your help guys!
 
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You'd need the retail Leopard disk to install on G4, which used to be quite expensive... Not sure if it is now. Could probably find a Tiger disk for ultra cheap though...
Easiest way for memory is to check, most are DDR but I think there was a DDR2 model available?
The HDD on my sisters was IDE, not sure if there were any with SATA.

It was alright for basic things once upped the memory to 2gb, but it failed badly at Youtube. There were a lot of apps that are no longer supported on PPC.
 
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Thanks both for your replies, DDR2 should be easy enough to get DDR I think will be a bit expensive, if I get time tonight I'll open her up and see what the insides are like :D

I have found that an app called mactubes(?) should cover the youtube issue. It really is only going to be used for net surfing and DVD's and to be just a cool thing to look at :D
 
I've not used my PowerBook G4 in a long time, but I'd certainly reiterate that its a painfully slow machine these days. As Emlyn says, even YouTube will struggle... mine certainly did and last time I used it was two years ago now! Obviously future OS have been Intel only and given that its been a few iterations now, legacy apps aren't being made anymore.

One thing to watch out for is the RAM slots on the logic board. 15'inch PowerBooks were notorious for one of the slots dying and then the entire board would need replacing. Mine did.
 
That's a good point, at the end of it's days, one of the ram slots died on the machine.
With 1gb of ram, the thing was painful.

Alright for web browsing / light office work, not much else though!

On a plus point, the screens on them are actually still quite nice quality compared to some of the low end rubbish you get these days.
 
Thanks for your input guys! Not sounding great about the RAM port dying but will see what happens. At this point in time I got hold of some DDR2 but unfortunately it looks like I need DDR instead. Will be taking apart my wife's old Dell Insipron to see what's in that, so should get RAM and an HDD. Also possibly getting a Leopard PPC disk to get installed.

Only other thing (that I know of) left is a Powerblock/charger. I have spent the last hour looking for this thing with no luck. Don't really want to spend more than £20 on it and most of them are going for silly prices.

I began looking at the 'cheap alternatives' on Ebay also with no luck, as they all mostly have a compatibility list for what they will work with but my model is missing from the list on all of them

This is what details I got after entering my serial in Powerbook Spec and lists the model being Apple PowerBook G4 1.67 15" (Al) 15-Inch 1.67/1.5 - M9677LL/A - PowerBook5,6 - A1106 - 2029. The lists I have looked at do not have 'M9677' in them.

Anyone got any ideas on where I can get one (Genuine or not) within the UK?
 
The speed bump on the ole Powerbook G4 meant that it took more juice. However, with an 80 watt supply (from recollection) you'll be fine. The chinese "knock offs" that I used in the past were pretty good solid bricks and not too big either. They should be available on ebay for about 15-20 quid a pop (if they're still available)
 
She's alive! :D

I got the original power supply for the G4 and trawled through around 50 old laptops at work and for 2x 512 sticks of DDR to put in it, fired it up and the HDD was still in there with the OS on it! I am well chuffed about that!

Downsides though, the screen flickers every so often (possible backlight failure or inverter) although since getting it up and running yesterday it has seemed to calm down (hasn't been on in over 4 years I'm sure) Also first time fired up it showed 1gb RAM, crashed then only 512, reseated and got 1gb then back to 512 so possibly 1 of the RAM sockets is on the way out.

Either way chuffed to bits! Now to figure out how to use it! Will post a pic or two later tonight maybe!

Thanks for all your help guys.... I will be back!
 
Gutted! Think the backlight has just packed in :( black screen, apple logo on the back has died and you can see the faint outline on the screen of the Desktop.

So new screen then? Would I need the inverter to go with it?
 
Well looked into it further and signs lead to the inverter going on it. So order me one tonight for £6, better to start there than pay £50 for an LCD that I might not need, now to wait for it to come in the post! :(
 
The power supplies on the PowerBooks were annoying as well. The old connector (pre-magsafe) can be damaged quite easily. Plus they tend to die as well, I went through three of them.
 
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