Memory / RAM upgrade

Not a computer guru by any means but I just went through this with a 1.67ghz G4 PB 15" with a crashed hard drive. To make your PB as fast as possible you will need to-

- upgrade your HD, the only large ATA drives currently available, I believe, are from Western Digital, their 320gb drive is available through Amazon for about $90. Other vendors sell the drive as well.

- install two 1gb modules in the RAM slots, I prefer memory from Crucial but there are other good brands available.

- go to ifixit.com for excellent instructions on how to do both of these mods. The RAM is easy, the HD is more complicated and you should go through the ifixit instructions to see if you are comfortable tearing into your computer to that degree BEFORE you buy a HD.

I can't say if this is all you can do to speed up your PB or if it would be a better use of your $$ to get a newer computer, like one with an Intel processor, but I believe that these two mods will give you the most speed bang for your buck.

Good Luck!

The modifications Dave has suggested (more RAM and a bigger, faster hard drive) are indeed the only upgrades you can apply to your Powerbook. If you can't afford a newer machine (new or used), those upgrades might be worthwhile as ways to prolong the usefulness of your PB as much as possible. You probably won't see any dramatic improvement in speed, though, unless you're in the habit of running several RAM-hungry applications simultaneously.