Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with iBook

Can you swap one apple power adapter attachment for another older one?

ndicecco — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:13:47 -0800

Is it safe to swap the power adapter attachment between an iBook G4 and an intel MacBook? Please bear with me, because I'm not sure of the proper terminology: my girlfriend has an intel-based MacBook (2 or 3 years old - from just after the switch to intel). She was unplugging her power cord and the casing came off the power adapter attachment... I'm referring specifically to the piece that can be swapped out for a longer cable (if this is still unclear, let me know).

I have a seemingly identical piece from my old iBook G4 - both say "2.5A 12.5V-" on the bottom. The piece fits perfectly, but is it safe to use? Will it void her applecare? She's going to call them tomorrow to see if they will replace the piece, but I don't see why they would. She still has the long cable, but she would prefer not to carry around the extra weight.

weird shipping label

puckish — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:37:06 -0800

Going through old stuff, I found a box for an old Ibook that had a weird handwritten shipping label from "I.S. 339 School Of Communication Technology." Google says it's a performing arts school in the Bronx. What gives? It's possible that I had it sent in for repairs and Apple outsourced it. It's been years since I looked at the box. Any idea why my computer might have gone through these folks?

I need iTunes in my life but it won't install properly.

fantine — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 10:37:27 -0800

How can I get this dangnabit iTunes download to work? OK folks, I was trying to upgrade to iTunes 9 and have run into a snag.

I'm working on an iBook G4, OS 10.4.11. I was running the update and it failed to install properly because I didn't have enough memory at the time (I was running multiple programs and my computer had been on a for a while). Now I cannot open iTunes because the version I have is "corrupted." So, I re-downloaded the installer after freeing up more memory (I'm now working with about 2 GB).

When I open the mounted file thing, all I see is the itunes.mpkg as a blank file; it doesn't look like an open box, just a blank sheet of paper. When I click on it, I get the error message "The destination folder 'iTunes 9" is on a locked volume. Please select another volume destination." Then I get a box to "select a folder to expand the archive in." I selected desktop, and get "An error occurred attempting to expand 'iTunes 9.' A file was specified where a folder was required."

This sort of thing has happened to me before, and the IT guy told me that my computer had lost the ability to associate that .mpkg with a certain program. I have no idea how he got back that ability though.

If someone could please offer some insight into how I can get iTunes re-installed, or even revert back to an older version, that would be great.

the mp3s breathe shitty.

tylerfulltilt — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:55:56 -0800

okay, how did I screw up all my mp3's? I recently backed up the hard drive on my iBook G4. 1.2 ghz. 1meg ram. I go to pull all my mp3's back over to my iBook after installing a new hard drive and there's lots of problems.

First, all of a sudden there's a lot of duplicate tracks where there weren't any before. And on some of the tracks that have duplicates the songs won't play all the way.

For example, I have the song "Ocean Breathes Salty" by Modest Mouse. When I try to play this song, it'll play to about 3 seconds in and then stop. Ditto for it's duplicate track.

I've checked the files in preview, and in preview, there's a skip and a pause in playing at the same point as in iTunes.

however...

After that skip and pause the song will keep playing. So I'm guessing that certain of my mp3's were corrupted when I backed them up somehow. Does this sound like what's going on? What can I do to fix the problem?

I'm running Tiger 10.4.11. I'm running iTunes 8.

Simple Mac/PC Network

rossination — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:57:06 -0800

I have an old iBook G4 (Tiger) that I would like to use as a low-budget "media server". I'd like to set it up with an external hard drive so that our other two computers (laptop running Vista and netbook running XP) can access its files over our wireless network. I'm pretty clueless with networking stuff, but I'm able to set up a workgroup so that I can view the iBook's files from the PCs. I'm not able to get to the external hard drives, though. I thought I'd be able to put aliases to these drives in the iBook's home directory and navigate over to it, but that didn't work.

The hard drive is currently formatted for Mac OS, which I understand isn't readable by a PC without a program like MacDrive. If I reformatted the drive as FAT32 (or bought a copy of MacDrive), would I be able to access files from one of the Windows computers?

Also (less importantly), I'm not able to get to the Windows computers from the Mac. I've gone through some online tutorials but they seem mainly focused on PC/PC networks or Mac/Mac networks, and/or they assume that I'm running Leopard.

I thought that this would be pretty easy to Google a solution to, but so far I'm stuck.

Speed up my G4 browsing

lemonfridge — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:16:37 -0800

Why is my iBook G4 so painfully crappy at browsing the net, and can I make it better? I have a iBook G4 (1.2Ghz, 768Mb RAM, Mac OS X 10.5.6)

I keep it around purely for browsing the net without having to boot up my desktop. It's great on most sites, but anything with flash video on it and the performance goes down the pan. YouTube videos drop to 1fps, scrolling goes all laggy, and sometimes the HDD seems to go nuts and make everything even worse for 10min or so - and Ive no idea why.

How can I make improve this? I browse with FireFox and I don't want to switch browsers if I can help it as I have synced bookmarks and things like Adblock.

iBook shuts down when I don't want it to!

rossination — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:02:31 -0800

Is my aging iBook about to die? (power management problems inside?) Whenever I put my iBook (4 years old) to sleep and/or close the lid, it shuts off completely. Google suggested a PMU reset, which I did (I think -- although I guess I have no way of verifying that I did this correctly), and I still have the problem. I replaced the battery about 4 months ago with a 3rd party battery -- could this be part of the problem?

What does this mean? Is this thing about to die? Is there anything I can do to pull another year or 2 out of it, other than backing up religiously?

Re-purposing laptops: I want more than a picture frame.

alexherder — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:30:15 -0800

When it comes to re-purposing old laptops, it seems like the only option people really talk about is to turn it into a picture frame. There's got to be more that an old iBook can do... right? My girlfriend has a 5-year old iBook G4 running OS 10.3 (Panther) which has simply outlived its usefulness as an every day, primary computer. It's got 256mb RAM and a small-ish hard drive but can't handle Office, iTunes, or Firefox (let alone any 2 of those at once) without breaking out the color-wheel-of-death.

I bought her a new MacBook last month which she loves but she is refusing to get rid of her old iBook. I have a slightly newer (about 4-years old) iBook of my own that I am selling on eBay but she is not interested in parting with her "old friend." I don't understand her need to hold onto this old laptop, nor do I seek to dissuade her of the notion. I asked her if we could possibly try to figure out some way to re-purpose it rather than let it sit on a shelf gathering dust and she agreed, now the question is, what to do with it?

I've seen threads about this in a number of places (including here and on lifehacker) but it always seems to come down to file server or picture frame. Our house has a server (Ubuntu 8.04, reasonably speedy) and we have no need for a digital picture frame. I was thinking about using it as a firewall (but it only has one NIC) or as a thin client but I'm not sure where to start. I used to run Ubuntu PPC on my old iBook but kept running into issues due to the x86 vs PPC architecture. The other idea I had was as a "kitchen" computer for recipes and watching TV/streaming radio while cooking, but we already use her new MacBook to do this and that seems to work fine.

In the end, I think we've got enough computers in our house, but she wants to keep this one. So... I turn to you, dear readers. What possible use can we squeeze out of my girlfriend's "old friend"??

My computer is having some difficulties.

Brachiosaurus — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:16:26 -0800

Is my iBook G4 dying? The most pressing problem is that, while working on it, without the power cord, the computer will abruptly turn off, with no warning. It can even be when the battery indicator on the top of the screen isn't even that low, maybe a quarter left. Afterwards I can just plug it in and turn it back on with no problems. This is happening more and more regularly.

The next biggest problem is that the front (closest to me) left corner gets super hot sometimes. I'm guessing that this is hard drive. I've backed up my data recently but I should probably again- maybe right after I'm done typing this.

Also, the wires within the power adapter may be starting to fray. It isn't too touchy but to keep the indicator light illuminated I have to keep it still. Also the box thingy that goes to the wall will get really, really hot while it's charging- but not if it's just plugged in. I don't know if it's always done this.

The only other problem is that four keys no longer work on the keyboard thanks to my cat spilling a martini on the computer about 2 years ago. I should have replaced it then because I can do it myself and I've heard that the replacement keyboard would only be about 50$. All of the letters still work (though I imagine that it would be funny if I had to avoid words with certain letters) and only one of the keys that I tend to use has been effected. I called Apple to ask them once but they said they don't sell just the keyboard.

So I'm looking at about 300 in replacement parts (outside of the hot hard drive problem, 'cause I don't know what that's about) and I'm thinking that even if I repair these and the thing lasts 8 months my utility per dollar wouldn't improve that much because I'm spending 20% of the cost to get another ~15% of life from it.

I choose 8 months because it would be awesome if I could get this thing to last until I finish school in Dec.

So it sounds like I should just replace it but I don't think I'd be able to swing that for another 2 or so months and I kind of need it (what I mean by need is that my roommate lets me use his spiffy iMac but having a laptop [and my own computer] improves my productivity).

So I guess my questions are, can this thing last 2-3 months without putting money into it? 8+ months without repairs? 8+ month with the repairs listed above? And how much would a new 100gb HD cost? Has anyone had this battery problem before? I know that none of you can predict the future but I just need some reasonable advice.

Fixing the display on a G4 iBook

penguinliz — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:27:00 -0800

The display on my iBook G4 is dying. Have I diagnosed the problem correctly, and is it worth trying to fix? The display on my 3 year old G4 iBook is starting to go. The backlight turns off when the screen is at certain angles, sometimes opening and closing the screen a few times will fix it but it is slowly getting worse. Googling suggests this is a problem with the inverter cable slowly breaking as it gets trapped in the screen hinges - does that sound right?

Google also suggests I can change the inverter cable myself, but it is incredibly fiddly. Has anyone got any first-hand experience with this? Is the worst-case scenario that I don't fix the screen, or could I easily break things further while trying to change the inverter cable? I am reasonably competent with desktop PCs, but I've never tried fiddling with the insides of my laptop, and if there's a good chance I'll break the whole machine I will leave it alone and keep it for use with an external monitor.

Is this iBook toast?

clockwork — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:55:16 -0800

The hard drive in my girlfriend's iBook (12" G4 late 2004) died, or at least that's what I think happened. I want to cover all my bases and I need a little advice on best practices. A few months ago it would make a gnarly clicking sound, but only intermittently. We backed up all her data, figuring that the hard drive was going to fail pretty soon, but the clicking went away and everything was fine until this week when it seemed like it was running a little hot and then went totally catatonic.

After it first died, Disk Utility (running from OSX install discs) couldn't even see the drive and Apple Hardware Test returned a variety of Mass Storage "2STF" errors. After it cooled down, Disk Utility was able to see the drive, but it didn't return any errors and it passed the first Hardware Test but failed every subsequent time I ran it. I have been able to boot from the drive when the computer is totally cold, but I've never left it running for very long. I'm a little puzzled by the symptoms. I would expect the hard drive to stop working altogether.

Did I miss any totally obvious fixes? or troubleshooting steps that might indicate something other than the hard drive?

She would rather spend $65 on a new hard drive than $1k for a new MacBook. And while I have a vested interest in taking the thing apart, I don't want let my impulse to fiddle about inside the thing color my thinking about the problem itself. Thanks.

I can't read my book.

tylerfulltilt — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:44:08 -0800

Is my g4 iBook forked? I've had this machine for awhile now. It's a g4 iBook, 1ghz processor, 1gig of ram, bluetooth, wifi. And today it started acting up.

I can power it on. It will go to the dark gray screen, then it will go to the light gray screen with the dark grey apple in the middle. Then the little processing wheel will come up beneath it, the little "Hang on I'm thinking" wheel that pulses in a circle. Then a different screen comes up that tells me my computer needs to be restarted.

I've powered off and back on at least twenty different times to no avail. The computer will never fully boot up because it always thinks it needs to be restarted. I've tried taking out the battery and re inserting it. I've also tried running without the battery solely on ac power. None of that worked. I've tried the aboce in combination with holding the 4 bottom left keys and that didn't work either.

Does anyone have idea how to fix this?
If my Laptop is forked is there anyway I can salvage the data on the hard drive?

What fun things can I do with my old iBook Clamshell?

gonzo_ID — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 05:34:30 -0800

I've got a iBook G3(i think) blueberry clamshell which can just about handle running photoshop 4 and appleworks on it. think it has OS 8 on it too. The battery is pretty much shot on it and so only runs off the mains power supply. Currently it is sitting on my shelf doing nothing. Give me some fun / interesting / unusual ideas with what I could do with it. The more creative the better.

Okay, so plate spring on vocals only?

Cantdosleepy — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:22:48 -0800

Please help get my old iBook to be as fast as possible! Hey all,

I've had an iBook G4 14" 1.42GHz for a few years now (bought it about a month before they switched to Intel chips). I haven't treated it super-kindly (the day-to-day account is also the admin account, since I didn't realise you were meant to make yourself a limited user account; I've installed and uninstalled all sorts of software of varying quality; and I've made it a bittorrent packhorse for days at a time) and the battery was on the point of dying. I recently put a new battery in, and now that I'm not permanently tethered to the wall I'm enthused about fixing the machine up to get it as fast as possible.

I've been using the DAW Reaper for a few months now and like it a lot. Unfortunately my computer isn't fast enough to do any audio effects work - every channel has to be clean or the program judders and overloads.

My goal for this project is to be able to use Reaper and Reason ReWired together for recording sketches in my bedroom. Nothing too ambitious - I'm not talking about running bitcrunchers, choruses and delays on dozens of channels - I'd just like the ability to use panning, compression and reverb on four or five tracks to make things sit nicely together.

So how do I squeeze out the speed? Will reinstalling the OS help? I've already got the maximum amount of RAM that this computer will hold. What processes run in the background that I don't need? Does the Quicksilver launcher eat up a lot of memory (I currently use it)? Would installing Leopard be a bunch faster, or would that money be better spent elsewhere? Can I tell the computer to prioritise one program at the expense of others? Should I set up a separate user account for recording that has almost everything disabled that isn't needed for ReapsonWire?

Aside from music making I'll be using this machine to cruise the internet, watch '.avi' files and write bits and pieces - so nothing too demanding.

Any and all tips considered. Thanks!

Help me recover data from an old iBook HDD

saraswati — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:38:51 -0800

How can I recover data from an iBook (G4) HDD using my new Intel-based MacBook? A few years ago I had an iBook G4 that died of a logic board failure. The HDD, as far as I know, is still intact. I have a MacBook now and would really like to retrieve some things that I never backed up from that old drive. What's the easiest way for me to do this myself? Are there any external enclosures I could use that would just work with an iBook drive right out of the box? Thanks!

WiFi to router, but no further?

cameradv — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:55:47 -0800

My daughter has an iBook G4, running OSX 10.5 (Leopard). She's in Argentina, and having issues with the wireless connection. I need a little MetaFilter brain power: She can connect to the router in her apartment (she rents a room), and she can access 192.168.1.1, and gets router login prompt. But she can't get out to the Internet. She put OpenDNS IP addresses in the DNS entries for the wireless card.

She has limited control over the hardware in her apartment. It appears to be a Dlink DWL 800 AP plugged into a Tenda TEH800S switch, with a Zyxtel 645 Prestige ADSL modem connected too.

Other people in her apartment allegedly can get out via wireless. And there's no indication that there's any WEP or WPA protection. the AP is set to channel 6.

Rain rain go away, although this game is moderately fun to play

Your Time Machine Sucks — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:29:06 -0800

Awesome but slightly rambunctious 8th grade class going on a school trip to the country. Rain is possible. Possibility of ultra-rare recreational computer access is likely to be a highly compelling reward for good behavior. The kids speak German. With all of these givens, what non-crack-like game should I install on the beater iBook G3 12" running 10.4 that I'm sending the teacher off with? Disclaimers: there is already a no-tech primary rain strategy involving books, indoor sports, board games, the lost art of conversation, etc. For those folks who feel that every second of a trip out of the city should be technology-free, I think the goal here is that nearly all of the seconds should be technology-free, but only a newbie teacher wouldn't keep an ace in the hole on a weeklong trip. For those folks who feel that every second of kid technology exposure should be educational, I'm mostly setting up the computer so the kids can take and store photos and blog their trip if they get antsy, [see last clause of previous sentence]. Just write me privately if you're bothered by the underlying premise, that's totally fine and I won't bite.

So, Mac-compatible non-system-demanding games which don't specifically require English skills (a few words are fine or even possibly beneficial), ideally which don't have unusually addictive qualities, with bonus points for having a cooperative mode. If you can further suggest something with redeeming virtues, I'd be most indebted. Thanks!

Pimp Mom's clambook!

mdonley — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 21:08:23 -0800

What free/low-cost/simple kinds of things can be done to the clamshell G3 iBook my mom uses for really basic web stuff to make it function better? So mom got this thing from a friend of my teenage brother for, like, a hundred dollars or something. The friend wiped it, installed OS 10.2.8, and handed it over; she started using it. And she loves it! She's never had a computer of her own before. It runs pretty smoothly when she checks her e-mail or reads the news, considering its advanced age: Firefox can have multiple tabs open, starts up pretty quickly, no huge, glaring technical issues - day to day, it does what it says on the box, so to speak.

However (according to her):

- Things are slooooow...not achingly slow, but enough to be frustrating for her. It's got 128 MB of RAM, a 4 GB hard drive, and has a 366 MHz PowerPC processor. Are we doomed, or can we quicken things a bit?

- There's no word processor, so .doc attachments to e-mails aren't readable (as far as we know). Lightweight (but .doc-friendly) apps to solve this? Could the thing run a version of Microsoft Word that wouldn't paralyze it or be incompatible with what's around today?

- Lots of streaming web content doesn't work. She says that videos, audio, that kind of thing have caused problems or just been invisible. This isn't too surprising, but can anything be done? Are there plugins we can get to ameliorate this, or are we hosed?

Any other advice? We're happy to invest some money in this if it keeps it usable for a while. The primary uses of this machine are, again:

1) E-mailing (web-based only - not using Mail, etc.)
2) News reading
3) Pretty light web browsing: buying the odd plane ticket, reading a New Yorker article, looking at a Flickr album, that kind of thing.

Thanks!

Is it my iBook battery or something more sinister?

kmtiszen — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:51:17 -0800

iBook G4 battery is out of juice. Computer won't start up... even when AC adapter is plugged in. Is there something else going on? I'm going to be purchasing a MacBook soon, but I'd first want to unload my old G4. It's about four-years-old and the battery, to my best knowledge, is pretty much kaput. I can't even get the computer to start up when the AC power adapter is plugged in. Is this a symptom of the battery's age or do you think there's some deeper issue here? Could the adapter port be mangled beyond repair?

I'd like to replace the battery before selling... it's still a great machine when it's up and running. But if it's not the battery, I'd rather not go through the hassle and just sell the silly thing for parts.

Any advice is really appreciated!

Thanks!

Resell an ibook: fix it?

The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:09:03 -0800

A question about reselling an ibook g4 with a broken screen. I'm in the market for a new laptop (probably looking at a macbook, yes I will wait until after WWDC), most notably because the screen on my ibook g4 is horribly broken. But here's the question: is it worth it to try and replace the screen before I resell it? I can probably manage this for around $130, but don't know if the resell value will be boosted enough to make it worth my while.

also, what is a fair price to ask for a 14'' ibook g4 running Tiger with a 60g HDD, 512 MB RAM and a 1.42ghz processor? (both with good screen and a bum screen, if possible). I'll most likely be selling on craigslist or ebay.

Thinking Of Getting A G4 iBook Or PowerBook

Brian Puccio — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:06:42 -0800

I've currently got a HP Mini-Note 2133 running Ubuntu. I was going to take a stab at installing OS X on it this coming weekend when I realized I could get a 12" iBook or PowerBook G4 for roughly the same price and it would still be small enough I wouldn't mind carrying it around with me all the time and it would run OS X with no hassle. I'd keep my MacPro as my primary workstation that I use for image editing and such, this would just be for email and for surfing the web on the go. If I get a G4 era laptop and install Leopard on it (want to use Back to My Mac after I roll my own dot mac) will I have any issues? I've only recently become a Mac user after years on Linux, so I never used a PPC-based system. Will application like Camino, Mail, Adium, etc all run with no problems? This is what the universal binary thing is all about, right? Anything else I should be aware of? Any tips or tricks for slimming down 10.5 to make it run better on the older hardware? Thanks!

Can I switch iBook power cords, white brick vs. yoyo style?

HuronBob — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:12:39 -0800

Can I use a powercord from an older ibook on a newer ibook if the output voltage and amps are the same? My daughter has an ibook with a broken cord (right at the plug, no room to solder it), it's the white brick style. I've got a spare power cord from an older iBook, the round yoyo style. Plug ends are identical, the plug fits fine, both are 24v, 1.875 a output.

Tell me, is this a no brainer that it will work just fine, or am I going to fry her iBook?

Preventative Maintenance on a 14" G4 iBook

rossination — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:32:29 -0800

Preventative care for potential video/screen issues on an aging iBook? I have a 3 year old G4 iBook that I'd like to get another 1 or 2 years out of, at least. Other than a very low battery, it's working just fine, except for some scary things that I'm getting with the screen sometimes.

When I close the laptop, about 30% of the time the screen will go mostly blue (I think it's blue -- I don't have it in front of me) for a second, then return to normal. It looks as if one of the colors (R/G/B) is temporarily giving out, and then fuzzing back into place. I am assuming that this has something to do with the connection from the computer to the screen, as it only happens when I'm moving the lid.

Is there anything I can do right now, other than be extra-careful with it, to try to keep this from breaking sooner than I'd like? Any advice from owners of older mac portables is appreciated.

Help! My Leopard is changing its spots!

annabellee — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:12:35 -0800

My iBook G4 is possessed! Please help perform an exorcism. Suddenly many things are wrong with my iBook G4 running Leopard. There is a white box over the right-hand side of my menubar, and Spotlight, Airport, clock, and all my startup items (Quicksilver, WeatherDock, MenuCalendarClock) are gone.

I can't open many applications that might help (including Disk Utility, Finder Help, System Preferences). I cannot open Mail, but I am indeed online as I can open Firefox and Fetch and use them. I tried inserting the Leopard Disk and reinstalling, but I can't run the install program. I repaired permissions in single user mode (startup with Command-S, run fsck) and my hard drive seems to be fine.

I plugged in my backup drive and tried to restore from Time Machine. I get the Time Machine interface, but I can't click on any past backup windows.

When I place the mouse cursor over the white rectangle on the menubar, I get the beach ball. I am unable to shut down or logout without doing a hard restart. I can't get to System Preferences to create a new user to see if it's particular to my login.

Please help. I know Leopard requires more memory than I have, but I have been running it since release with next to no problems.

What to do with an old iBook and iPod?

methylsalicylate — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 08:00:13 -0800

What to do with an old iBook and iPod? The iPod is an original 5GB model, FireWire only, and still has good battery life. iBook is one of those non-G4 white ones, has had a battery replacement, and the DVD drive doesn't work (I use an external LaCie drive but otherwise everything is hunky dory).

I bought a new MacBook to cope with work needs and a new iPod because the old one is too big to take running. I hate throwing things away. I think recycling is dangerous, inefficient and in terms of the people who handle doing it, only borderline ethical. I've seen this page and have no problems being hands-on with hardware. Unfortunately the only option there I would consider is making a new external hard drive, but couldn't I do something with the iPod to make it suitable for essential backups and do something better with the iBook instead? Keep in mind I'm in the north of England before suggesting places to donate it. I lead a reasonably stripped-down life and use no computer other than a laptop so have no desire for a second laptop running linux or working as a home server or whatever. Ditto a digital photo thingy. Any ideas?