iBook G3

[Sludgedragon]

Got burned out trying to ressemble my Pismo, so I took a Lombard on my long trip. It worked great, without giving me a bit of trouble, but it became a big weight to carry around and I had to switch PC cards in and out of it. So I have just bought myself a nice iBook G3 600, I believe late 2001. Just $129.99 plus $22.00 shipping. It's now running 10.3.9. I put in the Airport card I had bought for the Pismo, and eventually I will increase the RAM from the current 256, but that can wait.

Interestingly, when I check on MacStumbler, I get a much higher signal number for all visible wifi networks than with the Lombards or Pismo. Mine, in the same room, is now 110 and blue, when the best it would do in a Lombard is like 60 or 70 and green. Is it the bigger antenna in the lid? or just a younger, stronger machine?

I also noticed that when I was installing updates to take it from 10.3.3 to 10.3.9, the wrist rest over the hard drive got plenty warm, about as hot as the outside of a cup of coffee. Is that normal for these? I also looked up how to replace with a bigger hard drive, and it looks like you have to just about take the whole thing apart, so I guess I'll stay with the 20 GB for now! The only problem so far has been that I tried to network it with the iMac G5 by Ethernet and they didn't see each other, although the same cable connected my Lombard to the iMac just fine. Will have to look into that one.

 

[tmtomh]

The older G3 iBooks are like tanks - I think they're great.

Getting hot on the wrist rest over the HD is, unfortunately, very common for these machines.

If you upgrade the HD, not only will you get more room and probably faster speed, you may very well also get a quieter and cooler running drive (owing to the fact that a 20GB or larger drive is probably a more recent drive than the original).

These iBooks are a bit of a PIA to crack open, but once you've done it once it's much easier thereafter. The biggest things to watch out for are: (a) don't lose the two little battery compartment springs when you're doing the disassembly, and ( B) when you're prying the bottom casing off, be very careful not to damage the screen latch button and mechanism.

Good luck!

M

 

[Christopher]

And be careful of the trackpad cable.

I hate my IceBook. Very Junky, I actually just swapped hard drives to use my Pismo again.

 

[Temetka]

Wanna get rid of it?