My New 15" PB

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Just came home from the Apple Store Cambridgeside with my new toy. Picked up a 15" Powerbook, and a 20 gig iPod. I walked in with the full intention of getting the combo drive model, but as in most cases, my self control went out the window and I walked out with the Superdrive model. I was going to add an airport card anyway (school is mostly wireless) so that seemed just enough justification to splurge a little since it comes standard on the Superdrive model.



Anyway, my reason for posting (besides the little bit of gloating in me) is a question about RAM. I stuck with the stock 512, but was wondering if bumping it up to a full gig would make any kind of noticable difference in performance. If I do up the RAM, is this the kind of task that I could undertake myself? I've put lots of RAM in lots of desktop systems, but never a laptop. Scary for me to try it or not?



I'll be using music software quite a bit (can't wait to try out Garageband, it could make my life a lot easier) as well as the usual e-mail, Word, Web type stuff. Lots of recording, editing and burning is in my future.



Anyway, I'm already falling hard for my new Book as well as the iPod. I should have done this months ago.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    leonisleonis Posts: 3,427member
    1) OS X requires LOTS of RAM. The OS alone requires at least 200MB to run smooth



    2) More RAM = Ability to launch more apps



    3) PowerBook's Hard Drive is slower than desktop drive



    4) More RAM = Less paging to Hard Drive = Fewer lags
  • Reply 2 of 8
    Ditto on everything Leonis said. Also, to answer your question about installing the RAM yourself, go for it. Its super easy. Should be some instructions that came w/ you PB for installing more memory. Don't be a wimp
  • Reply 3 of 8
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by trailmaster308

    Ditto on everything Leonis said. Also, to answer your question about installing the RAM yourself, go for it. Its super easy. Should be some instructions that came w/ you PB for installing more memory. Don't be a wimp



    What about the lower slot? Is that user-accessible?
  • Reply 4 of 8
    How much ram do you guys have? And how many expansion bays are on the 15in. ? Is it financially feasibly to purchase 1gig on one chip? If so where do you guys recommend buying from?



    Sh0e
  • Reply 5 of 8
    Nah, but you could just pop out the easy one on the bottom ( i assume the 15' is like my 12') and put a 512 in to take you to 768 mb like I did or buy a 1g module if you have the money.
  • Reply 6 of 8
    Thanks for the help so far guys. I'll try not to be a "wimp" and do it myself. The PB came preinstalled with a 256 chip in each of the two slots. Kind of sucks that they didn't use one 512 and leave the other empty, but that's the way it goes.



    Anyway, any use for these two 256 chips if I bump it on up? Any eBay value? Even getting a little something for them would be better than having them end up at the bottom of a drawer.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    naderbynaderby Posts: 131member
    I got the same machine, figured it was cheaper to just pull the 2 256 sticks and replace with 2 512's. I'll keep the original for when I sell the machine in the future and flog the 2 512's.



    Oh, and I do feel the benefit going up to 1GB RAM.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Corkurk



    Anyway, any use for these two 256 chips if I bump it on up? Any eBay value? Even getting a little something for them would be better than having them end up at the bottom of a drawer.




    not too much value, really. probably could get a very few bucks, but it wasnt worth the ebay hassle so i just decided to give mine to a buddy who had an open slot in his new PB. truthfully, i didnt notice too big of a difference going from 512 to 768mb ram in the 1.25 PB15. btw, i got the extra ram from Crucial.
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