PowerBook Mystique Mailbag - November 22, 2005
by Charles W. Moore
Pismo 550 MHz G4 7410 LE Motorola processor by Daystar
For faster Pismo: memory + HD or Daystar?
A wondering mind ... can a Pismo video card be updated ??????
Hard Drive in New iBooks
Pismo 550 MHz G4 7410 LE Motorola processor by Daystar
From Lisa
Hello Charles,
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your article commemorating the five-year anniversary of Apple's release of the PowerBook G3 2000 "Pismo" on PowerBookCentral.com. I recently acquired one myself and would be very interested in upgrading to the processor you mention. Are you still satisfied with its performance and, if so, could you please explain briefly how you proceeded to replace the original processor (you did so yourself or found a specialist shop to do it for you). Also, I did not succeed in locating this item on the Daystar website. What is the approximate price?
Kind regards,
Lisa
Hi Lisa;
Glad you enjoyed the article.
Yes, I am still very satisfied with the performance of my Pismo with the Daystar 550 MHz G4 processor upgrade. It has extended the useful service life of that wonderful PowerBook by at least two years, and I will soon be starting year three. I have had zero problems, and can recommend the upgrade unreservedly.
I send my PowerBook to DayStar to have the upgrade installed, which was the only mode available at the time, although the company has since added a do it yourself version at a somewhat lower price. it's not a particularly difficult job to install it, and doesn't require any major disassembly of the computer, but sending the computer in may be a preferable choice for those who are not comfortable tinkering.
Here is the link to the DayStar Pismo product page
The price list is here:
The price for the Pismo upgrade is $289.00
You can contact DayStar for complete details.
Charles
http://daystar-tech.com/msrp/index.html
From John Farris
Hi, Charles
I love your articles about the Pismo. I find them very helpful and I appreciate your enthusiasm for the machine I love.
I'm planning to put a few bucks into accelerating my 500 MHz Pismo soon. Currently it has 512 Mb of RAM and a stock 12 Gb, 4200 RPM hard drive. Here's my question: which is more cost effective-- spending $400 on a Daystar G4 upgrade, or spending roughly $300 for 1Gb of RAM and a 40 Gb, 5400 RPM Western Digital drive. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to do both.
Looking forward to your thoughts.
Thanks.
John Farris
Hi John;
Tough question.
First RAM: my rule of thumb is that it pretty hard to have too much RAM if you're running OS X, although the 512 MB you have should be adequate for decent performance if you don't keep a lot of really RAM-hungry applications open at the same time. 512 MB is more than enough for almost anything you would want to do in OS 9. Consequently, subject to the above qualifications, I would say that you're not likely to realize a major speed increase from upgrading RAM.
Hard drive: frankly, I was a bit disappointed in the degree of performance increase I realized when such from a 20 gigabyte 4200-RPM hard drive to a 40 gigabyte, 5400 RPM unit with eight megabytes of buffer cache. The new drive is snappier, but it's not a dramatic speed increase in performance, at least for the type of computing I do.
Processor upgrade: this modification will definitely give you the biggest performance boost, even if you stay with the 12 MB, 4200 RPM hard drive. Current price for the 550 MAChSpeed G4 PISMO CPU upgrade w/ 1 MB, 250 MHz Cache is $289.00:
Fastmac can put you in a G4/500 Upgrade for $239.95 or a G4/550 Upgrade for $289.95: http://www.fastmac.com/products/processors/pismo.php
Wegener Media sells G4/550mhz Upgrades for Pismo for $199.00 (install yourself, core return required) or $239 installed (You ship your Powerbook in).
So the processor upgrade alternative is not quite as expensive as you are anticipating, and if you have to choose among your various hotrodding options, it's the one I recommend from personal experience.
Charles
http://daystar-tech.com/msrp/index.html
http://www.wegenermedia.com/pg4550.htm
A wondering mind ... can a Pismo video card be updated ??????
From Pauline Silberman
Hello ,
Thank you, I just read your article "The PowerBook Mystique , The Pismo Turns Five" in powerbookcentral.com's column ; it's the best thorough overview I read ont the Internet on how powerful and unique piece of artistry the Pismo
I have a Pismo myself which I love and cherish with passion. I recently upgraded it to a 550 MHz G4 ZIF CPU using Daystar company. They did a great job. I then, bravely, switched the built in 20GB drive to an 80 GB drive and the machine is now flying.
Now here is the question: I have a LCD Apple display and DVI to ADC converter. Can one replace the RAGE 128 video card in the Pismo to a Video card that would accept a LCD Apple display? I am sure that by asking this question you can gauge my ignorance related to video cards issue but maybe the answer is straight forward, like a yes or no.
I thank you in advance for your answer,
A Pismo lover,
Pauline Silberman
Hi Ms. Silberman;
It's always great to hear from another Pismo fan. As you probably noted in the article, my own Pismo also has a Daystar 550 MHz G4 upgrade, with which I am very pleased after 22 months use.
There have been rumors and reports since last spring the day start is working on a the hell upgrade for the Pismo, but there have been no official announcements, and they have been very busy lately with other product development like the 1.92 MHz I Mac and aluminum PowerBook upgrades.
There is one another solution for getting video power to run external monitors.
The VillageTronic VTBook PC Card adapter contains a Trident XP2 graphics chip and 32 MB of 266MHz DDR Memory and supports DVI and Apple ADC displays up to 23" and 1920x1200 in 32 bit colors. ADC compatibility (through a DVI-to-ADC adapter not included) means that you can connect the Apple ADC TFT Displays to your PowerBook. VTBook offers a full digital DVI display connector, as well as the traditional VGA connector.
Note well that VTBook will not change any specs of your internal video. Only an external display connected to the VTBook beneficts from it. Drivers version 1.6.2 are compatible with OS X 10.4 Tiger, with the exception of 3D acceleration that won't load (and won't give any problems).
The price is pretty steep: about $249.00, and they're available from CDW - Mac Warehouse, Mac Mall, Small Dog Electronics, and PC Mall.
For more information, visit:
Charles
http://www.villagetronic.com/
Re: A wondering mind ... can a Pismo video card be updated ??????
From Pauline Silberman
I thank you so much for this thorough piece of information related to the vtbook PC Card. It's is exactly what i was looking for. You made me a very happy!
We need people like you to educate us, the lay people, on this unbelievable maze of ever changing world of hardware. have a great Thanksgiving,
Pauline Silberman
Hi Ms. Silberman;
I'm delighted that the information was helpful.
My pleasure. :-)
I'm in Canada, where we celebrated Thanksgiving back on October 10, but wishing you and all my American readers a great one.
Charles
From Scott Newman
Charles,
In your "Soup up an iBook" article from today, you note the following...
"Note also that even the latest 12-inch PowerBook comes with only a 5400 RPM hard drive."
I've read other commentators who say the same thing; however, on the Apple spec page for the new iBooks, its says that even the BTO hard drives for iBooks are still 4200rpm.
That's still a pretty good speed bump when comparing new 12" iBooks to the 12" Powerbooks with 5400rpm drives. In my experience, there's a bigger performance increase when going from 4200rpm to 5400rpm than when going from 5400 to 7200.
Like your stuff.
Scott Newman
Hi Scott;
Thanks!
I never intended to imply that the iBooks had 5400 RPM HDs as well, but I can see how readers could have drawn that inference. Sloppy phrasology on my part.
I've amended the sentence for better clarity.
I did notice a modest performance increase when I upgraded from a 4300 RPM drive to a 5400 RPM unit in my Pismo PowerBook.
Charles
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