Apple iBook G4

[iMac600]

Worth upgrading the memory though if it is 512Mb. Mine shipped with 512Mb and was 'OK' - upped it to 1Gb recently and it now flies with 10.4

It turned out to have 768mb. 256mb onboard with a 512mb DDR stick in the slot.

Paws, mostly older midrange ones. I had the pleasure of working on a ThinkPad 600E and another model (700mhz processor) which i'm not entirely sure of. Can't remember the model number and I never managed to make it boot.

 

[paws]

I aks because I've two T20s (one that's my main workhorse) and briefly had two T40s (until I returned them to the seller for a refund I never got - Chris Michael of Coventry, you are a bastard, a liar and no better than a petty thief), and I've found the all to be very decent to service. As far as PC laptops go, I don't think it gets much better than an IBM T-series. You can take them apart with one screwdriver, nothing's hidden or hard to work out. And of course (excepting the T40 models with the same ATI graphics chip that have the exact same issues as the iBooks!) they are incredibly reliable. I also very much like the UltraBay and the PCMCIA slots, when compared to the iBooks.

I recently took the HD out of a dead iBook and I hope I never, ever have to open one again, much less put it back together and hope it works! Why all the different kinds of screws? I don't understand it.

 

[wood_e]

I had my dad's G3 iBook 900 running with only a cardboard shim... it was an ugly solution but it worked for a year until he got rid of it.

 

[techfury90]

I aks because I've two T20s (one that's my main workhorse) and briefly had two T40s (until I returned them to the seller for a refund I never got - Chris Michael of Coventry, you are a bastard, a liar and no better than a petty thief), and I've found the all to be very decent to service. As far as PC laptops go, I don't think it gets much better than an IBM T-series. You can take them apart with one screwdriver, nothing's hidden or hard to work out. And of course (excepting the T40 models with the same ATI graphics chip that have the exact same issues as the iBooks!) they are incredibly reliable. I also very much like the UltraBay and the PCMCIA slots, when compared to the iBooks.
I recently took the HD out of a dead iBook and I hope I never, ever have to open one again, much less put it back together and hope it works! Why all the different kinds of screws? I don't understand it.

Yeah, my X61 was like that too...

 

[Franklinstein]

The iBook G4s are good machines. I bought my end-of-the-line 1.42GHz 14" in 2004 and it hasn't let me down. I've got its RAM maxed to 1.5GB and am upgrading the hard drive to 120GB as soon as the drive shows up.

But yeah, the failure on those things is usually related to cracked solder joints in some of the little SOIC-packaged devices in the power section. It's not hard to repair, so long as you're handy with a soldering iron. Markedly easier and a virtually guaranteed repair, unlike home repair attempts of failed GPUs (or other BGA devices).

But good score. It's amazing what you can get for free when you know the right people. I got this 500MHz PowerBook G4 for free (in addition to a 400MHz model and a stack of questionable parts for some newer 1GHz 15"ers), and once I gave it a new HD and used a fair amount of JB Weld epoxy on the display to fix the broken hinge (in addition to the NGE mod), it works fine. The battery only has about 80 cycles, too.

 

[iamdigitalman]

My icebook was a totally awesome machine. Light and fast, I could take it anywhere. Sadly, the video port died, so the other night, I ripped the motherboard out, and put in another board (also 500mhz, 66mhz bus, and 64mb logicboard ram). It worked, but something was up with the video port, it would keep popping up and coming out. I thought I could deal with it, put it all together, and used it for 30 minutes. the video kept flickering off, and gently shaking it brought it back for a few minutes, and it did it again. Eventually I got frustrated with this setup, turned it off, opened it up, and dug out my airport card, RAM, and HDD, and put them all back in my pismo. The icebook is now sitting in a pile for recycling, battery and all. I literally ripped the upper shield off to get to the HD (did not want to remove the dozen screws), and I broke part of the magnesium frame. I also did not want to deal with the 66mhz bus, which is too slow for me. 100mhz or more. It really does make a difference.

Right now I have my sights set on a 1.33ghz 12" iBook G4. Hope I get it, because this pismo is on it's very last legs. (no I don't want an aluminum 12" because Have heard they are very flimsy and they don't hold as much RAM.)

-digital

 

[Christopher]

I took off my icebook's LCD altogether. It's now a desktop.

 

[iamdigitalman]

actually, I got a second icebook (where I got the logic board from), and had the screen section totally dismantled. I took the metal shield out of it, and am keeping it because it is a perfect stencil for the apple logo, plus it looks really cool.

I had hopes of turning that into a wifi mac OS 9 powered digital picture frame, but since I upgraded to WPA, I can't do that (OS 9 can't do WPA, only WEP).

-digital

 

[iMac600]

For the record, I tried iTunes 8 on it. The installer first told me 10.4.9 was required. Even after I hacked up the installer, it was hesitant to even copy the data on to the drive.

iTunes 7.7 is the very peak for 10.3.9 by the looks of it.

After a discharge and full recharge, Mac OS X is reporting a battery life of 6 Hours, 17 Minutes. I know for a fact that's overly optimistic, especially since OS X quickly changed its tone to say 3 Hours, 30 Minutes.

Sorry to sound like i'm bragging but after nothing but crappy machines all my life (from my 386 in 1997 to my Yikes G4 this year) to even crappier laptops (386 in 2005 to 700mhz Celery this year) I am so pleased to finally have a nice machine that works, and actually works well in every way.

 

[iamdigitalman]

it's ok man, I understand. I am still stuck back in the G3 age here, and would at least like a late model G4 'book or macbook of some flavor, but finances are zilch right now.

-digital