What is best upgrade for a powerbook G4?

March 24, 2006 3:08 PM

I would like to upgrade my old 15" G4 powerbook laptop 400 Mhz. I would like to get more speed out of it. I have maxxed the ram out and installed a faster access HDD. What else can I do? Motherboard? Recommendations?
posted by fox_terrier_guy to computers & internet (7 comments total)

it might be possible to overclock the cpu on this model to 500Mhz, but that's about it. i had success overclocking the system bus of my 1st-gen white iBook G3, which really improved things, but i doubt that trick would work on this machine.

link
posted by joeblough at 3:21 PM on March 24, 2006

Sell it on EBay and buy a newer machine.

Seriously, you will be surprised at how much you can get for your old TiBook, and how little upgrades will improve its performance.
posted by b1tr0t at 3:21 PM on March 24, 2006

Put on eBay and buy a faster one of your choice. Seriously.
posted by cillit bang at 3:23 PM on March 24, 2006

there were CPU upgrades - on that vintage machine, you'd end up with a 500MHz processor. (there's a 1.2GHz one Sonnet makes but you have to have the last-model TiBook to get it.) you may be able to do a motherboard swap, but any of the interesting ones would have a DVI port on them so you'd have to change out the case too (which means you'd have a newer laptop with an old screen and all that). so... yeah, sell it and buy something faster.
posted by mrg at 3:31 PM on March 24, 2006

yeah actually i agree with the above as well, its much easier to just sell it and get a new one, unless you are insane like me and enjoy tearing computers apart.
posted by joeblough at 3:43 PM on March 24, 2006

What else can I do?

Run OS 9.
posted by weston at 6:28 PM on March 24, 2006

What else can you do? Be happy with the machine you've got. My old G4 tower runs at 450 Mhz and is humming along with the latest version of OS X at my parents house. Though it was starting to show signs of age, it's still capable of running all the applications I need to run - Photoshop, Deck (audio editing software), etc.
posted by aladfar at 11:15 PM on March 24, 2006