iBook G3 and Tiger

Hello,

The system requirements for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger states that your computer must have at least 256 MB of RAM. I recommend upgrading the RAM on your iBook G3, but that decision is up to you.

I wish you the best of luck and feel free to ask more questions.

With the standard 10 GB hard drive that came on a 2001 iBook, I don't recommend installing Tiger, even with a RAM upgrade. You can do it, but whether it is desirable is another matter.

If you don't care about using iTunes or iPhoto, and all you want to use it for is internet browsing and e-mail, you can maybe squeak by with Tiger, but I believe you will see optimal performance with Panther (OS X 10.3). Upgrade the RAM with a 512 MB RAM module if you want to upgrade the OS. If you want to do anything more than internet browsing and e-mail, upgrade the hard drive, too, to 40 GB or more.

Usually, it makes more sense to buy a newer computer than to spend nearly as much money on upgrading an older one with a new OS, more RAM, and bigger hard drive.

Answer: yes! I found it faster than 10.3, it looks better, has more toys, but HD space vanished. I cleaned out a lot of languages and other unnecessary files to get more HD space. I already had 512MB of RAM.

Jonathan

What is your hard drive space? I have 40 gig hard drive/900 mhz/ 128 mb internal ram and a 256 mb card and tiger runs fine.

Most of the G3 Dual USB iBooks from 2001 came with 10 GB hard drives.

Some of the Late 2001 models came with 15 GB hard drives, and a very few special-build ones came with 20 GB hard drives.

Tiger is just too cramped on a small hard drive. I wouldn't even put it on the 30 GB hard drive of my 800 MHz iBook G3. When I decided I wanted Tiger, I upgraded to an iBook G4 with a 60 GB hard drive.

Now, your 900 MHz G3 with its 40 GB hard drive runs Tiger just fine, I'm sure. But, even then, if you're going to do much with iTunes, iPhoto, or iMovie (especially), you are going to run into a problem with hard drive space. After all, some iPods are now shipping with 80 GB hard drives!

How much hard drive space does Tiger require? On a 30gb iBook G3, how much space would be left after installing?

It's not exactly how much hard drive it takes to install Tiger that's a problem. By choosing a Custom installation and choosing not to install foreign languages, fonts, and printer drivers you don't need, it takes very little hard drive space (probably less than 3 GB). However, depending upon how you use your computer, it can take a very large amount of hard drive space to run with Tiger (or even, to a somewhat lesser extent, with Panther).

Maximizing the RAM can help, but even with a 30 GB hard drive, I left my 800 MHz iBook G3 in Panther and when I decided I HAD to have OS X 10.4, I headed for eBay and bought an iBook G4 with a 60 GB hard drive to accommodate Tiger.

I just didn't want to risk cramping my hard drive.

With the standard 10 GB hard drive that came on a
2001 iBook, I don't recommend installing Tiger, even
with a RAM upgrade. You can do it, but whether it is
desirable is another matter.

If you don't care about using iTunes or iPhoto, and
all you want to use it for is internet browsing and
e-mail, you can maybe squeak by with Tiger, but I
believe you will see optimal performance with Panther
(OS X 10.3). Upgrade the RAM with a 512 MB RAM module
if you want to upgrade the OS. If you want to do
anything more than internet browsing and e-mail,
upgrade the hard drive, too, to 40 GB or more.

Usually, it makes more sense to buy a newer computer
than to spend nearly as much money on upgrading an
older one with a new OS, more RAM, and bigger hard
drive.

I have a question,If you were able to find a cheap hd and ram upgrade from ordering someplace couldn't you theoretically have less than 200.00 in an upgrade If you do it yourself? i ask only because I seriously think that I could just find the parts on ebay from someone who a.maybe upgraded from a 80gig to a 120 gig and have this drive that gets put on ebay,there is a guy on now that always has all kinds of stuff for macs and also has a store in texas,vernon computer source i think he is.

Apple does not consider the hard drive in an iBook to be a customer-installable part. It's not an easy thing to do.

Check out the procedure, and see if you think you are up to it:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/50.12.0.html
http://www.powerbooktech.com/knowledge,name-Hard-Drive,type-6.htm

Apple does not consider the hard drive in an iBook to
be a customer-installable part. It's not an easy
thing to do.

Check out the procedure, and see if you think you are
up to it:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/50.12.0.html
http://www.powerbooktech.com/knowledge,name-Hard-Drive
,type-6.htm

I have a G3 ibook, 800mhz, with 10.4.8 running fine. I don't do a lot of itunes or imovie, but so far, it's sufficient for my needs. I have a 30GB harddrive, and currently have over 20GB free space. So my 10GB is full of photos, tunes and office files. I use NeoOffice on an almost daily basis and while it's slow to load, using it isn't a slow process.

Now....I do plan to change out the tray-load optical cd drive and replace it with a slot-load combo drive. Any comments on how easy/difficult that would be? I have looked at the site you recommended. It seems overwhelming to myself, but DH thinks he can do it (he's more into tinkering than I am).


G3 ibook 12" 800mhz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Make sure in the System Profiler that burning is supported on your iBook before going to the trouble of changing out the drive.

Why not go for a tray-loading combo drive instead? It will be a better fit for the iBook.

It's a daunting procedure (as you've seen) which I wouldn't want to try. I would recommend backing up your files in case anything goes wrong.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/iBook-G3-12-Inch/Optical-Drive

I'm glad you're getting along okay with Tiger, but I still don't recommend it for a G3. You can't see all the benefits of Tiger with anything short of a G4 processor, anyway, and I just didn't want to ask it of my iBook G3 800 MHz.

Obviously, your experience (and many others) shows that it is possible, but I decided that it was not what I wanted for my iBook G3 800 MHz, which had been back for the logic board repair three times. Considering that, I kind of baby mine. (And there was also the fact that I only have about 11 GB free on mine's hard drive.)

Make sure in the System Profiler that burning is
supported on your iBook before going to the trouble
of changing out the drive.

In my System Profiler, it just states a burning device was not detected. Where do I check to see if it's truly supported?

Why not go for a tray-loading combo drive instead? It
will be a better fit for the iBook.

I thought a slot-load would be a better upgrade, more durable and such. And I thought I read somewhere that the tray-loading drives were more susceptible to tray damage.

But....I'm now rethinking this whole optical drive upload. We just recently got a router setup and can network the two Macs together. And DH has a cd/dvd burner in his PC (but it does work in his Mac as well). If we can network mine and his together, I just might leave my ibook alone. Burn over the network, rather than go through the effort of dismantling my ibook and taking the chance of encountering problems.

Obviously, your experience (and many others) shows
that it is possible, but I decided that it was not
what I wanted for my iBook G3 800 MHz, which had been
back for the logic board repair three times.

How did your logic board die? What do I look out for with my own? Will it just 'up and die' on me one day, or will it go slowly? To me, this cost me a lot of money, more than I wanted to spend at the time, but wanted to get as much Mac as I could for my $$. I don't want to do something to overload it.

Carla

G3 ibook 12" 800mhz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

If they go, it has been my experience that it is sudden.

On mine, all of a sudden there were sparkly horizontal lines on the right side of the display and then it froze. It did this on two of the failures.

If it hasn't happened to yours by now, it probably won't. You can minimize the chance by never picking it up by the left front corner alone. If you're picking it up in your left hand (as I often do mine), pick it up in the center, under the trackpad. The theory is that picking it up by the left front corner alone can cause enough flex in the case to break the solder on the graphics chip on the logic board, and that's what causes the failure.