Is it worth it to fix my iBook G4 or Macbook?

I have an iBook G4 that I bought used 3 years ago for 300.00. Recently it started with the "kernal panic" stuff and I took it to a guy who fixes Macs. He determined the cause to be the logic board and quote is 250.00. Then my son gave me his non-working Macbook for an estimate (late 2006) and it was diagnosed with needing a new hard drive, optical drive, and battery, for 600.00. I really don't know if these are good/fair estimates, so I'm hoping someone can give me some feedback.
Thanks!
Karin

veggie,
>Before I gave it to him tho, it said I had no Airport (which I did coz it was wireless) and by then it wouldn't boot without the panic grey box, unless I started it in safe mode, then eventually it would error.
So that sounds like an Airport Card faillure. Either shut Airport off or pull the card. If that solves the problem then you saved $250.
>I had to use the ethernet to connect.
Would it panic while you were doing that?
>Maybe I should just have the guy just fix the HD for now.
That's a possibility. When I've repaired these in Chicago I was hard pressed to charge more than $150 for a new hard drive and reinstall.
>My son said nothing about the cd not working, but I guess that was out too.
Well maybe but not necessary for a reinstall if you have a FireWire external.
> As for the battery, it was turned off for months so if it's connected to the ac adapter, will it charge back up??
It should. Depends on the overall age of the machine.
What I didn't like about your "Mac Guy" was the gouging on the MB repair and not trying the iBook without Airport. Hard drive problems have also been known to cause these panics.
As to the speed of these machines I use an 1.2 GHz 14" G4 iBook every day but only for e-mail and surfing. I'm the Technology Specialist at a charter school and maintain 60 PCs and a few Macs. I find the iBook much easier to diagnose Ethernet or wireless problems on the network. So upshot is it's a solid working machine as far as I'm concerned. I was totally jealous of my Son's year old Mac Book Pro however. Screen brightness and streaming videos all the time. Not sure about the choice of Heavy Metal.
Richard

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Hi,
I have a few areas that I would like to know how the iBook and the Macbook compare.
The iBook would be the 14 inch 1.42 G4 processor and the Macbook would be the new "middle priced" one.
1. Which one gets hotter? How much hotter?
2. How do the fans compare? Do they make about the same amount of noise?
3. How do the cases compare? Does one seem "tougher" than the other?
4. How do the keyboards compare?
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http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=30612
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I bought my iBook 12" G4 mid 2005 as a HS graduation present for college, I knew that they had problems with the power cables so when the first one that came with the laptop broke I forked over the $80 and got a new one. I had it maybe a month and now the power adaptor IN the laptop won't receive any power from the cable, therefore not charging the battery. I tried the PMU restart thing but that obviously didn't work and I know it isn't the new cable because the light still turns orange, so I was wondering...
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iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4)
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4)
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4)

Can you get to an Apple Store? Or an authorized repair store? A good place to start would be to see if you can get a free estimate. If your computer is working well otherwise, it's probably worth a little money to fix it. Did you get Applecare? If so, the repair should be free.
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Looking for advice on fixing my Ibook

Hello all,
First post here and it's going to be a long one, so I apologize in advance for that and thank anyone who manages to wade though to give advice. Trying to get as much info into this to hopefully help you help me.
I have an Ibook G4 that was handed down to me in the last year due to my old comp dying. It was working perfectly until approximately one month ago.
The issues started with the original hard drive. Without doing anything new on my computer I started randomly having strange issues with various apps. I rebooted the computer and got the kernel panic message telling me to reboot the computer. I did so and then immediately went to the ?/finder icon screen. After trying Disk utility from the disks that came with the laptop, I just got errors when trying to repair the disk and repair permissions was not even available.
I took my laptop into my local apple store for advice and after they saw what it was doing they told me my hd had failed and offered to happily replace it for somewhere around $200. I happily thanked them for their help and went on my way.
I picked up a western digital 160 gig eide drive and installed it myself without problems. I was able to install the os from the included disks and then upgraded to 10.4 plus all downloaded updates. It worked fine for a couple days and then I decided all was well so started adding music to itunes since I finally have the hd space to add new music to my ipod. After a couple days of use Itunes started giving me errors while changing songs in Itunes and while clicking on any screen other than Itunes. Firefox then started acting strangely so I decided to reboot.
I was unsuccessful at getting fully loaded in again so I booted from the included disk and repaired permissions and disk using disk utility. This fixed the problems temporarily, however itunes was immediately giving me the error messages again. Continue forward a bit and now I get errors in disk utility saying that it failed to repair the disk.
I then gave up and decided to just wipe the drive and start over again. I used the erase the writes 0's over the whole drive which errored out towards the end. I suspected I might just have a bad drive but decided to reboot and just erase (basic quick one), partition, and install the os. That install also failed towards the end of disk one install. Went into best buy where I bought the hdd for advice and they agreed it sounded like a failed hdd too. Bought another one (to return the prior one for a full refund after I swap it out) and install it.
At this point I am getting pretty comfortable to dismantling this laptop so it only takes me around 1.5 hours or so fortunately, however as soon as I got the hd installed and tried to format in disk utility it wouldn't even show up on the screen even though I could hear it spinning. I was suspicious of the hd cable since it just doesn't seem like there is enough of it to make a good connection to the logic board, so I took the bottom of the comp off and just messed with the cable/logic board connection a bit. This was able to get the hd showing up in disk utility.
Got 10.3 and downloads installed because I don't have the 10.4 disk with me right now. Every time the computer rebooted during the update process, it went to the ?/finder icon screen. I had to hold down the power button to shut down and then power back up after which it would boot up fine. Already concerned about what this meant but just went with it.
Due to the issues I haven't tried installing anything else or even using many apps. I downloaded firefox and a couple other dmg's in preparation for upgrading the os in the morning. I moved a couple of those files to my partition successfully but after trying to move a final one the finder locks up. Nothing would load after finder reloaded so I rebooted. Now the computer just goes to the gray screen with the apple on it and a loading circle on the bottom but never gets past it. I also periodically get the kernel panic reboot computer message on this screen as well (not every time though)
My next step for trouble shooting will be trying to pick up a new hd cable, however this may be difficult without access to a computer I can do online ordering on.
Now for some of my thoughts. After all of that and many many hours spent using google and searching these forums I have seen a couple suggestions which could apply. The kernel panic messages could indicate that I am having memory issues, however I just can't see where that would cause files getting corrupted and causing me to have to repair permissions and disk. I can see where the hd cable failing could be causing issues, but I don't understand how that could account for everything when I don't even move the computer and it starts having issues.
I am to the point of desperation with this computer. I want nothing more than to just throw it on the ground and jump on it and maybe introduce it to a sledge hammer, however I just cant fit in purchasing a new computer right now. Paying my local apple store hundreds of dollars to try to fix something they may not even be able to fix also just doesn't seem like a viable option when I feel capable of fixing a large portion of issues myself (more familiar with pc's at this time unfortunately though).
Thanks to any of you out there who make it through this book where I probably give far too much detail. I am open to any advice you have to give to me at this point for where to go from here.

There's the possibility that the new hard drive you purchased has a problem. The only way to really check that is with another computer with no known issues.
Do you need the computer to be portable? If so, pick up a portable enclosure. Otherwise, any enclosure that will house the hard drive would be fine. Get the drive into the enclosure, then install the OS to it. If it runs fine while in the external enclosure, there's some connection inside the machine--possibly the cable--that has failed you. If you still have problems when the drive is in an enclosure, that suggests a problem with some part of the logic board or perhaps the drive itself is faulty.
~Lyssa

Is it worth trying to fix my computer, or should I look into purchasing a new one?

I currently have an aluminum Macbook from late 2008. It has a 250GB hard drive and 2 GB RAM. I'm running OSX version 10.8.2.
Recently my laptop has been running really slowly; programs will often just give me the spinning beach ball when I try to open them, searching for files on the hard drive takes forever. Also, if I close the computer without putting it to sleep and then try to reopen it at any point after that, I get a black screen with the spinning beach ball, and I have to reboot the computer before I can use the computer. Applications frequently crash in the middle of using them and I've lost entire assignments as a result (I know I need to save more often, but it's still annoying that I lose entire applications). It started happening really suddenly, there was really no warning
I'm entirely computer illiterate, and I've gotten varying advice from people I know who are better with computers than I am. Some say to install more RAM and reinstall the the OS, while others say that because the computer is 5 years old, it may be smarter to just go ahead and purchase a new laptop, especially since I will be heavily using my computer next year to write a thesis (various statistics programs, maybe running flash programs/videos for data collection, writing my own programs for data collection and writing the actual paper).
Just in case it matters, my battery only lasts around 30 mins on a full charge, and I have a few dead pixels on my screen.
Any advice you guys can give would be super helpful!
Thanks!

if your issues were a simple RAM and software reinstall - then I would suggest to keep your Macbook and invest a couple of hundred $$$.
but because your battery is toasted - and your screen has some issues - i suggest to get a refurbished Macbook from Apple or get a 2 year old used macbook.
it's not worth spending x amount of $$$ in your macbook because of the dead pixels in your screen.
if your screen was perfect, then i would say spend a couple of hundred $$$ and fix it up.
I still have both my late 2008 Macbook Uni 2GHz and 2.4GHz running perfectly.
Good luck

Is it worth it to fix my iBook G4 or Macbook?

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