IBook Ram

I have an older iBook G3 800MHz which is slowly dying, and a friend of mine has an iBook G3 500MHz (which his mother uses for internet & email), is it possible to swap ram out of my dying laptop and into his? Or are the ram types incompatible? Next what is the highest level of OS 10 that I can install on the G3 500Mhz?

+is it possible to swap ram out of my dying laptop and into his?+
Yes.
+what is the highest level of OS 10 that I can install on the G3 500Mhz?+
Theoretically, it is within Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) minimum system requirements if the RAM is upgraded sufficiently.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1514?viewlocale=en_US
However, if it has the usual 10 GB hard drive that came on the 500 MHz model, you may find it rather cramped. The 500 MHz iBook came with Mac OS 9 as its default operating system. OS X is a bit ravenous when it comes to hard drive space.

Similar Messages

Using ibook ram in my powerbook?

I recently purchased a used 15" PB G4 400 mhz with 640 mb ram.
I have taken steps to maximize performance given the low mhz. My wife will be using it for email, itunes, word processing and possibly some photo viewing (no photoshop or anything like that).
I have upgraded to 10.4.11 (which I believe to be the highest I can go) so I simply want a little more speed.
Anyway, I also have an old G4 12" ibook that needs a new hard drive. I am curious of if I can use any of the ram from that for the powerbook.
Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.
Unfortunately I don't know much about the insides of the ibook and besides installing airports cards in both, I haven't opened these up much before.

Thanks a lot. Now I just need to know what I CAN get. I'm finding online that the 400 mhz often isn't listed when compatibility is mentioned.
Based on what I put for specs, can I just get another 512mb stick to match the other? Will that max me out? What is the max?
Thanks again!
John

Blueberry ibook RAM & Apple docs

I also have an original blueberry ibook and would like to upgrade the RAM. However, there seems to be two conflicting pieces of information on Apple's web site:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14870
The first listing for an ibook (about half way down the page) says PC66 up to 288MB.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302333
The listing for the original ibook (at the bottom of the page says this model can also use PC100 memory, such as M9089G/A - 512MB
I have read some of the other postings which suggest the first doc is incorrect and that it will take 512MB. Please help and confirm.
Having upgraded the RAM I intend to also upgrade from Mac OS 9.2.2 to 10.3.9. Does anyone know if the 366MHz processor will handle this?
Thank you

You can find the firmware version by running Apple System Profiler and looking in the ROM field (I believe that is the name I haven't used OS 9 in a long time).
PC100 will operate at 66 MHz which is the clock speed of the iBook. Therefore you can use PC100.
A lot of PC133 will also operate at 66 MHz. Therefore you can use PC133. But some PC133 devices will not operate at 66 MHz. That is why you need to buy the RAM from someone who offers a lifetime warranty.

IBook, Ram and the fan...

I recently purchased 512 MB of Ram for my ibook and, after I had installed it, on startup, the screen goes blank and the fan runs - that is until I turn it off by holding in the power button. I have had this problem before, but never so consistently. The problem has happened twice before, both times necessitating repair, but neither was brought on by a clear event. Occaisionally it will boot up and work for a few minutes, but then the screen will go blank and the fan will start up again. It now works without the memory in. Any suggestions or pointers? Much thanks.
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

I answered this one myself - apple sold me the wrong memory. I exchanged a box of PC 2700 for PC 2100 but they gave me a mismarked package of 2700.

IBook RAM unrecognized - how much gold showing?

Hi, I know this is a question you've probably answered, and I've seen plenty of posts here about RAM not being recognized, but after installing a 512 MB 266DDR PC2100 SODIMM into the RAM slot, how much gold should you see? I can't tell from the picture in the install instructions. I think I've pushed pretty hard and it's lying flat with the clips holding it in place, but I can still see about 1-1/2mm of gold sticking out. Do I need to ram it in further?
It's driving me nuts - have reseated it umpteen times and reset the PRAM and still see that gold. I don't want to break something. Out of warranty and (duh!) don't have the Applecare Extended warranty.
Thanks!

Stupid of me - I solved my own problem.
I just reseated it again and this time used both thumbs (not my fingertips) and pushed super hard and this time I heard a loud click. When fully seated, it still has about 1/2mm of gold showing, but now it works. I guess the arthritic twinge at the base of my thumbs is worth it not to feel even stupider taking it to a service tech and watching them do the same thing. I had no idea it would be such a tight fit, the clips seemed to be holding it in firmly. Thanks anyway for letting me vent - hope this helps someone!

Please help me to clear out my RAM......I don't know how!

I am trying to install a new version of photoshop and it says I need at least 1GB of RAM or more before I can - I've checked my 'about this mac' bit and it says I have 768MB DDR SDRAM.
What do I do to give me more memory space?
Thank you for any help - I'm depserate to road-test my new Photoshop!!
Laura

Hi Laura,
Call OWC here:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/iBooks-PowerBooks/G4-iBook/
You'll need to put a 1 GB RAM stick in your machine to replace the 512 that's there now. It's under the keyboard and they can supply instructions or look here:
http://www.faqintosh.com/risorse/en/guides/hw/ibook/ram/
Richard
Message was edited by: spudnuty

G4 iBook Hard Drive

Hi, I've not been a full on user of Mac for long so be gentle. So far I've upgraded my iBooks RAM to 640MB but it's only got a 30 gig hard drive. Can someone tell me what type of drive it uses and what the biggest one is I can put in.
Cheers

You should find a 2.5" ATA-6 hard drive that is no taller than 9.5mm. There are 2.5" notebook drives that are 12.5mm tall. These may be less expensive but they're too big to fit inside your iBook. As paramed suggested, Other World Computing is a reputable vendor. They have a selection of that should be compatible. Be aware, that replacing the hard drive in an iBook is not a simple task. If you still have some of your AppleCare Protection Plan remaining and you want to do it yourself, I would wait until you're not covered any more because you will void the warranty by replacing the drive. There are vendors who will replace the drive for you and maintain your warranty.
-Doug

My ibook keeps telling me to shut down

i have an ibook g4 which ive had for about 4 years, and starting just recently a gray screen will pop up telling me to shut down. The screen is gray with a large power button watermark in the background, It says "you need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or press the restart button". it is then repeated in 3 different languages. Once I have restarted my computer a window pops up saying " the computer was restarted after mac OS X quite unexpectedly, click report to see more details or send a report to apple. If i click on report nothing happens, it only lets me click ok. This happens very frequently and usually when im online, but not all the time.
Is there anything I can do to fix this problem from happening?

Try shutting off Airport and connecting to your router via Ethernet for a while. Does this help?
What you're seeing is a Kernel Panic; these are often caused by hardware issues. With the iBooks, RAM and the Airport card are two of the most common culprits.
~Lyssa

512MB vs 768MB RAM for Internet Browsing

I've got a new (closeout) 1Ghz iBook w/ the standard 256MB RAM soldered in. I have one free RAM slot. It will be running 10.4. Usually my motto is the more RAM the better, but I'm not so sure in this instance:
This iBook is SOLELY going to be used as an Internet terminal and nothing more. (I have a PM and PB for my main computing needs).
A 256MB stick of RAM (which will give me 512MB RAM total) is $23 shipped. A 512MB stick is $56. I'd really like to put as little $ in this machine as possible given its limited purpose, so I'm wondering if I'll actually see any benefit from the extra 256MB RAM that a 512MB stick would give me. Any opinions on this?

No. The only RAM your iBook can handle is PC2100/2700 DDR SO-DIMMs. A regular DIMM will not fit. DDR2 RAM will not work.
Additionally, iBook RAM must be unbuffered, non-ECC, 2.5v., CAS 2.5 or better.

Plz help me with your wisdom

Ok so a few days ago I bought two untested iBooks labeled as g4's but ended up being g3's some questions
1 how hard are they to kill. (do you think they are DOA??)
2 how long do the hard drives last and do you think I will have to replace them soon
3 only one of the computers has ram (not really a question but [ if I do upgrade what ram card should I get])
4 both computers do NOT have airport cards can I get wireless another way?
5 both of them look kinda different. One has a clear shell around the screen and the other is solid white and the keyboard look different. One is clear white and the other is almost a solid white does that mean anything?
6 one of them the disk drive door (the thing that pops open) dosent stay closed why?
7 what programs can I run on these?
8 if I get a external hard drive....what size and kind do I get?
9 if they have a operating system what is the best to update too?
10 both battery's are dead...(power wise--I am still waiting for a charger to come in). Will the iBook g4 battery fit because I have heard good things about it compared to the g3 battery
11 can I connect my iPod touch 4g to it?
12 if I need a new keyboard will a g4 keyboard work?
13 for the Bluetooth to work do I need a airport card?
14 is the computer going to be slow?
15 I payed around $31 for both did I get ripped off?
I am sorry about the long post
If you need pictures plz tell me

How durable an iBook is depends greatly on how it is used and how much care is taken in its use.
Rule of thumb is a hard drive gets rather "iffy" after three years if the iBook is used a great deal. If only used occasionally, the hard drive can last much longer.
Here is the link to the iBook RAM guide:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2206?viewlocale=en_US
Original AirPort Cards (used and/or refurbished) are available at reasonable prices if you would rather use an original AirPort Card than a dongle.
All parts are not interchangeable (one's logic board won't work in the other).
An iBook G4 keyboard will NOT work with an iBook G3.
Most iBooks are 12-inch, but some are 14-inch. If one is a 12-inch, and the other is a 14-inch, then about the only thing that is interchangeable is the charging adapter.
An iBook G4 battery will work in an iBook G3 (Dual USB) as long you be sure to order a 12-inch battery for a 12-inch iBook or a 14-inch battery for a 14-inch iBook. No matter what you've heard, in the case of a battery for an iBook, size does matter.
is the computer going to be slow?
"Slow" is a relative term. It depends on what you are comparing it to. It's not going to win any prizes for speed at this point, since it's over ten years old. Comparatively small (and old) hard drives, slower processors, and limitations on RAM all serve to slow down these little old iBooks.
YouTube can be problematic, since it didn't exist when these iBooks first came on the market. Macology's tutorial may help:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2436156
I have found these tips for YouTube to be helpful as well:
Sometimes Firefox works better than other browsers for viewing YouTube videos.
Find the YouTube video you would like to view in Firefox.
Restart the iBook. (This clears the RAM, so the total RAM is available for viewing YouTube clips.)
Launch Firefox (and don't have any other applications running).
Go to History in the menu bar. Click on the YouTube video you want to view from History.
Use the Stop button on the YouTube player, and allow the video to load completely (watch the red progress bar fill up) before trying to view the video.

Big PDF Handling: Acrobat vs. Preview

I had the occasion to help out at the polls today. A coworker had a G4 iBook and a data CD with all the registered voters in our county on it, including name, address, precinct numbers, voting location, and birthdate. There were about 400,000 voters on the PDF file contained on this CD. We used it to determine if voters were on the master registration list and also to find out a voter's precinct number and voting place if he came in with just an ID and no voter registration card.
Anyway, my coworker only had Preview on his iBook, no Acrobat. Preview handled the big PDF but scrolling sometimes got brutally slow with lots of beachballing. We tried using the search feature in Preview and also Spotlight but had little success with that.
My question, would Acrobat have been as good, a little better, or way better to use if he had had it on his iBook? What else could we have done to improve our handling of the PDF?
P.S. We did drag the PDF off of the CD to the Desktop so that we were working from the HD and not the optical drive.
Thanks,
Steve M.

HI Steve,
"Preview handled the big PDF but scrolling sometimes got brutally slow with lots of beachballing. We tried using the search feature in Preview and also Spotlight but had little success with that."
Much of this depends on the size of the CD file, if there was sufficient hard disk space on the iBook, RAM, and if the owner of the iBook has performed any maintenance. If you saw the beach ball just viewing text in a PDF file, I'm more inclined to think that it was the iBook causing the slow down, rather then whether or not it was viewed with Adobe Acrobat or the Mac's Preview.
I use both Preview and Acrobat on my 60GB iBookG4, but I keep a lean machine plus I do maintenance weekly. Both Preview and Acrobat function as they should without the beachball syndrome..
Carolyn
Message was edited by: Carolyn Samit

Free RAM - a dif in iBook performance between 25M and 1G?

Hi...I keep several programs running on my iBook 1.33 with 768 onboard. Activity Monitor shows that at its lowest, my free RAM dips to around 25 or so megs when I'm streaming video from a news site.
My question is whether or not there is a difference in the Book's performance when I have 25 megs of free RAM....or 500 megs? Or being "in the green" means that there is simply enough...being "greener" won't make a difference...
I know that more is always better, but I'd like to know if more is necessary.
The answer will determine whether or not I switch out the 512 for a 1G.
I'd appreciate any feedback...Thanx!

In those instances where chip RAM is needed (and not in a video-intensive
situation where you can't upgrade VRAM, and regular RAM is not shared)
the chip RAM is faster and more readily is available to priority applications
and the OS X system itself. And Virtual Memory (VM) is slower, due to
the fact that is derived by the computer having to read-write to/from the
internal hard disk drive, and that is a slower and less-direct process.
Another way to speed up a limited upgrade option computer would be to
pay to have (or be brave and suffer any consequences, and DIY) the
internal hard disk drive replaced with a faster spin-rate new drive which
also has a larger buffer - and - more free space. This and the chip RAM
could make the computer act more like a faster model computer. At
least until the hard disk drive gets fragmented and or more than 3/4 full.
There are more than a few things one can do to enhance the performance
of the hard to upgrade iBook G4 (or iMac G4) since you can't change the
CPU or make the system bus work any faster. Bottlenecks aside, a few
items that can be upgraded, along with a regimen of routine maintenance
can help almost any computer not pushed beyond its limits, to work better.
Even with a hard disk drive only 75% full, it can be more sluggish and
waste processing and swap-file cycles (moving data bits as VM to/from
the hard disk drive when taxing the limited resources of the computer)
if the hard disk drive has never seen much maintenance. If you use an
external FireWire enclosed hard disk drive, and learn how to clone the
whole iBook's drive contents over, then be sure the clone-copy can boot
the computer, before proceeding; you could use the disk utility to wipe
the drive and use the zero-overwrite option, totally erasing and then to
reformat the drive again, to clear any low-level issues and defragment
the drive, (plus pull any seldom used saved items off the computer,
to free-up hard disk drive space, for the system to use as swap & VM)
you could also reclaim some of the original illusions of speed now lost.
{As the computer's OS gets more and more parts, updates and also
any application and associated files to sort through, it will run slower;
VM also this adds into the mix, with a fuller and older hard disk drive.}
In reference to: ' replacing an iBook G4's hard disk drive? ' you may wish to
read links here: http://www.applelinks.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/142/
In reference to bootable clones of OS X systems:
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Minor to major background maintenance, preventative, can be helped
through the use of this utility interface tool; it can help the OS X and
your computer generally run a bit better. I use OnyX's 'automation'
selection and also have this utility's preferences set for it to restart
by itself after it runs all of the checkboxed items in this set. For this,
see: Titanium Software - OnyX: http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html
Also, About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions (& 'repair disk' from
the booted installer's version of Disk Utility; research this further.)
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1452
Sometimes, even just repairing those disk permissions can help; and
the OnyX tool can run that, as part of the Automation sequence; but
it should be run more often from D.U. than you'd need to use OnyX.
Troubleshooting permissions issues in OS X (and using Disk Utility)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106712
There is a relationship between RAM, free HDD space as Virtual Memory,
system maintenance, disk drive health, and other interrelated details.
Good luck & happy computing!
edited 2x to add links.

How much RAM can my ibook take?

I have a early ibook G4 800Mhz with 128mb of RAM and i wanted to know how much more ram can i put in it, because its running really slow, i also wanted to know can my ibook take DDR333 PC2700 RAM
thanks
Arhtur

The maximum is 1.25 Gb with the addition of one 1 Gb SODIMM. Choose a reputable vendor who tests and guarantees compatibility with your model Mac.
Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com

How much will more RAM speed up my iBook?

I am looking to upgrade my RAM.
I know that speed is a multi-factor question. I need to know what's important and what pitfalls to avoid.
I have an 12" iBook G4, 1.2GHz, 512 RAM (256 card, 256 internal). I recently installed a 120.0GB Western Digital "Scorpio" 5400RPM 9.5MM SuperSlim Notebook Drive with 8MB Data buffer.
I am choosing between a 512 or 1g RAM upgrade. My questions are:
1) How much will this speed up my computer? 2) Is the 1g really twice as fast? 3) with my specs?
I read a post where some poor cat had upgraded RAM, but didn't feel the difference in iPhoto.
My specs read pc2100 (pc2700 compatible). Will my specific machine work faster with pc2700? Comptick (which has an awesome battery price) has a 1g RAM upgrade for $189, which is pc2100. Apple's $300 1g is pc2700.
What do I need to know about the bus rate so that I don't slow things up there?

1) How much will this speed up my computer?
There is no way we can quantify this for you. It depends on your usage pattern (i.e. what application you use, how many applications open at a time, etc.).
2) Is the 1g really twice as fast?
Most certainly the answer is no. If lack or RAM was causing delays in processing, adding more RAM will alleviate those delays and make your computing experience smoother and more enjoyable. But changing your RAM from 768 MB to 1.256 GB won't double the speed of your iBook.
3) with my specs?
?? What is the question?
I read a post where some poor cat had upgraded RAM, but didn't feel the difference in iPhoto.
For the most part, iPhoto is disk intensive not RAM intensive. Therefore upgrading RAM will only improve certain aspects of iPhoto (such as photo editing).
Will my specific machine work faster with pc2700?
No, the PC2700 will operate at PC2100 speeds.
Current RAM prices from Mac knowledgeable vendors offering lifetime warranties can be found at RamSeeker.com and DealRam.com.
What do I need to know about the bus rate so that I don't slow things up there?
Nothing. Just buy PC2100 or PC2700 RAM and relax.

I replaced my iBook's RAM (256MB) with a 512MB, and it wont start up now!

Hello! I just replaced my existing 256MB RAM with a 512MB of RAM. When I started up my iBook, all that came up was a flashing OS 9 looking folder to the same folder with a question mark on it. What does that mean? Do I have to reflash the P-RAM or something (whatever that means)? I never attempted to replace laptop ram before, so I do not know if I did something wrong, or if I just don't have the right kind of memory. Could someone help me? Thanks!
Just for the record, I think im running OS 10.4.9. Thanks!!!!!

Have you removed the RAM and reseated it? Here is the link to the Apple Knowledge Base article that tells you how to do it:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=111918
If reseating it doesn't help, it could be that the RAM is defective. (This happened twice with RAM I ordered. It was defective from the very start, and the vendor replaced it for me.) Try starting up with the 512 MB module removed and see it it starts up that way.
Please let us know how things go.

IBook Ram

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