WHAT TO BUY TO MAX OUT THIS PISMO BRONZE KEYBOARD POWERBOOK

Question

Hi, pls advise what to buy to max out this powerbook and where best to buy upgrades from.
POWERBOOK (FIREWIRE) 3,1
CPU TYPE PowerPC 750 (83.2)
CPU SPEED 400MHz
37GB HARD DRIVE AT THE MOMENT
I want to install an airport card, or would you advise me to get ausb key to access wifi?
also, is it worth trying to upgrade the graphics card current one being an ATY, RAGE M3
CAN I UPGRADE THE CD ROM DRIVE THAT CAN BE REMOVED BY PULLING A LEVER AT THE FRONT?
what about a back up power cord which one would you all recommend?
My plan was to try to put in a 100gb hard drive 7200rpm
an airport card and max the ram to 1gb.
I am a novice in opening up this powerbook, when you remove the cover you see 1 memory module, where is the second located?
Any other tips to increase the speed/power of this powerbook.
I just want to keep it as a spare working machine for business.
Many thanks All
Amin

Answer 1

The USB airport dongles aren't that great, require specialized drivers, which may or may not work, and that model supports the original airport card which looks like:
and can not be purchased at the Apple Store. Several places that sell used and refurbished Macs in England may be able to get you that card. I'd do a search on Google for such places. It supports 802.11b, but not 802.11g or 802.11n speeds, though most WiFi Access points offers 802.11b support.
You can upgrade GPU support via Villagetronic's:
http://www.villagetronic.com/eprvtbook.html
This only offers a better GPU for external displays. The internal will still be the original. You can't upgrade the original GPU directly.
http://www.macsales.com/
http://www.mcetech.com/
and
http://www.macresq.com/
all offer CD-RW and DVD-RW drives for that model. Note though, iDVD, if it does run will run extremely slowly if at all. The oldest Mac that supports iDVD with any reasonable speed is the G4/733 processor PowerMac desktop. And that at 1 hour of video encoded in 2 hours.
The internal hard drive can only be upgrade to 120 GB per partition, and only Parallel ATA, and not SATA. Therefore any internal drive you might be looking for would have to conform to those specs, and I'd only purchase internal drives by Seagate and Western Digital. Note that for higher capacities, 5400 RPM drives are as fast as the 7200 RPM drives that are lower capacities because of the denser track density.
The official RAM limit on the article here:
http://support.apple.com/specs/powerbook/PowerBook_FireWire.html
Should be observed. I would not exceed 512 MB, even though some RAM vendors may say it is possible to do so. Mac OS X is particularly sensitive to the specs of the computer being observed. If you exceed such specs, kernel panics, and heat issues may crop up.
P.S. Please note, avoid using all uppercase. It makes it look like you are shouting, and based on internet net etiquette may be considered rude by some. I'm sure that's not your intention, just thought I'd give you the heads up!