Tiger on iBook G3 Dual USB 2001

jan dvorakjan dvorak
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
My wife has an iBook G3 500 MHz, with 384 MB RAM and a 10 GB drive. Currently, 10.3.8 is on it.



She uses her computer mostly for writing, emails, web, and the occasional iPhoto (has about 500 pictures in her library) and some iTunes (iLife 05 versions - especially iPhoto brought a noticeable improvement).



I am thinking on putting Tiger on her machine and I am wondering what the opinion here is regarding RAM. Would taking out the 256 MB RAM chip and putting in a 512 MB one make for noticeable speed improvement (in other words: would it be a good investment? :-)



Also, if I would go for it, what would I do with the then spare 256 MB RAM? Is that an item one can sell easily?



Thanks in advance for any opinion and advice.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    kingofsomewherehotkingofsomewherehot Posts: 4,180member
    Tiger will run fine ... I installed it on an older ibook (466 G3).



    Ram will make a noticeable diff in iPhoto, maybe not in Mail and Safari... you may notice an overall slight speed increase in the OS with more ram.



    You'll be able to eBay it easy enough, just not for lots of $$ .... keep in mind that a NEW 256 RAM can be had for $29 with rebates ... well, maybe $39 for notebook ram.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    geekdreamsgeekdreams Posts: 280member
    RAM is always a good investment, but I would suggest holding off on Tiger for a while, at least until 10.4.2 or so.



    I installed it on my iBook G4 (800Mhz, 1GB RAM) and felt it was actually slower than 10.3.9. To be fair, I did an "upgrade", not an "erase and install" which might have been part of the problem. I dunno. But from my experience 10.3.9 was a great, stable release and Tiger just felt slow and buggy.



    I'm keeping Tiger on my Mac mini (1.42Ghz, 1GB RAM) because it runs much better on here and I'm willing to roll with the punches (bug-wise) for the added features it brings. But for my iBook, I've reverted back to 10.3.9 and I'm happy with it there.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    adamclarkadamclark Posts: 20member
    Well I did an erase, install & migration on my iBook G4 12" which has 768MB RAM, and I have the same trouble. Tiger is VERY slow on my machine compared to Panther. I'm seeing the spinning beachball far too often...



    Does anyone know if there's any chance that this may be helped by a future update, or is this the price I pay for buying the bottom of the range Mac?



    Adam



    Quote:

    Originally posted by geekdreams

    RAM is always a good investment, but I would suggest holding off on Tiger for a while, at least until 10.4.2 or so.



    I installed it on my iBook G4 (800Mhz, 1GB RAM) and felt it was actually slower than 10.3.9. To be fair, I did an "upgrade", not an "erase and install" which might have been part of the problem. I dunno. But from my experience 10.3.9 was a great, stable release and Tiger just felt slow and buggy.



    I'm keeping Tiger on my Mac mini (1.42Ghz, 1GB RAM) because it runs much better on here and I'm willing to roll with the punches (bug-wise) for the added features it brings. But for my iBook, I've reverted back to 10.3.9 and I'm happy with it there.



  • Reply 4 of 6
    jan dvorakjan dvorak Posts: 38member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by adamclark

    Well I did an erase, install & migration on my iBook G4 12" which has 768MB RAM, and I have the same trouble. Tiger is VERY slow on my machine compared to Panther. I'm seeing the spinning beachball far too often...



    Does anyone know if there's any chance that this may be helped by a future update, or is this the price I pay for buying the bottom of the range Mac?



    Well, I put Tiger on my iBook (G4 12" 1GHz 768 MB RAM), and I don't find it slow - it appears faster than 10.3.8 that was on it before.

    I did do a squeaky clean install (Tiger & all apps) on it and then put only my documents back on it. Works fine.



    And "bottom of the range Mac"? I would consider KingOfSomewhereHot's iBook G3 466 MHz more of a "bottom of a range" machine than a 1.2 GHz G4 (presumably that's what you have) - unless you're talking excessive Photoshop use and the like…

    You guys are spoilt…
  • Reply 5 of 6
    retrograderetrograde Posts: 503member
    From the description you give I can tell you that I was in the exact same predicament: iBook 500 with 384MB RAM. I was also concerned that I would need to upgrade to a 512MB stick in order to get the same speed I was experiencing in Panther. But I decided to hold off upgrading the RAM until I installed Tiger, just to see what the difference was in real terms (ie. using the same hardware).



    I am happy to say, and much to my surprise, the iBook feels faster and "snappier" overall to me without having to change any hardware at all. As a result I have decided to hold off buying more RAM until later. I admit that I do not use iPhoto so cannot comment on that but the other uses described all feel quicker and smoother to me. And this is with a regular "upgrade" install.



    My advice: install Tiger right away and enjoy the new features as well as the added speed. I'm sure RAM would make some difference (and perhaps a large difference to iPhoto use?) but would it make that much of a difference? Save the money for a future iBook upgrade instead.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    jan dvorakjan dvorak Posts: 38member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Retrograde

    I am happy to say, and much to my surprise, the iBook feels faster and "snappier" overall to me without having to change any hardware at all.



    Good! Good to know…



    Quote:

    I'm sure RAM would make some difference (and perhaps a large difference to iPhoto use?) but would it make that much of a difference? Save the money for a future iBook upgrade instead.



    Well, my wife's "old" iBook was my gift to her for Christmas 2001 - but mind you, at that time this iBook cost the equivalent of 4 average monthly salaries here in the Czech Republic… So, she has to stick with it… but for what she needs to do, it (still) works fine.



    The "upgrade" path would be for her to get my current iBook, which I bought about a year ago (until then, I occasionally used her iBook - didn't have my own Mac then), but only if I'd decide that I need to upgrade my machine. Currently, I don't see the need to - but if Apple comes with an "iBook G5" (which arguably I don't see happening - I think eventually it might be a "G4+", one of these dual core or whatever it is Freescale-currently-in-development-processors) and the price-performance ratio is tempting (tempting means: it needs to cost around US$ 1'000 and offer substantial performance increase over my current iBook G4 1GHz), then it might happen. Until then, things will stay as they are - besides, wife is happy with her iBook (likes it better than mine - because she likes the "ice"-look better than the "clinical" white… ).



    Thank you all for your opinions!
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