Q: Pb G4 Aluminum: SSD install how-to, RAM and OS 10.5 question
Hi,
I've bought a Macbook Pro 15" Retina last year, and my old Powerbook was gathering dust since then. So, mostly for fun, I decided to install an SSD and I am really surprised by the results. It's the 1.5 GHz G4, and it has only 1Gb of RAM, but it's almost like a new computer, I'll probably start using it again around the house. The graphics card still shows its age, full screen youtube videos will stutter, but everything else is really smooth and quick.
In case you'd like to do something like that with your Powerbook, you'll need a 1.8" Micro-SATA SSD instead of a standard 2.5" SATA SSD. This is because you need some free space to fit your adapter (Micro SATA to IDE) into the space where the original 2.5" HDD was located. I got this adapter from ebay, btw. Once the new SSD plus the adapter is installed, there's still some room left, this needs to be filled so that the SSD won't move and damage the adapter and connector cable if you carry around the powerbook. I haven't found good filler material yet, suggestions are welcome. I guess the material needs to be resistant to heat, it can get pretty warm in there.
Here are my questions:
- My Powerbook is one of those which had a defective memory slot, and I failed to bring it in during the extended warranty period, which means it has only one working RAM memory slot. Since the OS could work with 2 G of RAM (if both slots were working), could I use a single 2 Gigabyte RAM module? Or is it limited to 1 Gb per slot?
- Temperature: After resetting the NVRAM and SMC, the fans hardly ever start spinning now (before they were spinning as soon as I opened a web browser, now I need to watch a youtube video in double-size format for quite a while before they start). Interesting fact, it needed the reset (SMC?), before that they just kept spinning like before. BUT...the SSD gets pretty warm, or probably even hot, since I can feel how warm the trackpad gets, and the SSD doesn't even touch it. I'm sure there's a lot of "data-traffic" with just 1Gb of real memory, but I was using it for a few days with a 2.5" SSD (without closing it, just for testing purposes), and I didn't notice such high temperatures. Do Micro-SSDs get hotter than normal ones? I guess they have a built in mechanism that shuts it down when they get too hot? Will it die soon if it gets very hot all the time?
- MacOS: I don't remember why, but I never upgraded my Powerbook to 10.5, so I don't know if it's even compatible with 10.5. Is it? And can I still get 10.5?
Other than that, I'm pretty happy with my old Powerbook right now. At startup, it takes a little time until it finds the startup disk (I guess that's because of the SATA to IDE adapter), but once it has found it, everything's so fast and silent, it was really worth it.
Powerbook G4 15" (&iBook G3 300MHz), Mac OS X (10.4.11), null
Posted on Aug 22, 2015 1:11 PM