Laptops repairing a powerbook G4 - is it worth it?

[tracerbullet]

So basically, an American friend I know has gifted me his 17-inch Apple Powerbook G4. The catch is this: it's broken and repairing it requires me to cough up quite a bit of cash. He's given it to me saying, "if you can fix it, you can keep it. If you can't, then throw it!" Apparently he had a fight with his wife and threw the laptop in frustration. The 17" screen is damaged beyond repair, the ram's acting up. The DVD drive is hiccuping and I suspect the hard drive's damaged as well. How do I know? on the rare occasion that the notebook does manage to boot, I can only see half of OS on the screen. the other half is mostly black or erratically goes on a psychedelic trip with iridescent colours and grossly 'stretched' visuals.

Now as I mentioned, it's a 17" Powerbook G4 with a 1.67 GHz processor and 256 MB of ram. It's out of warranty and giving it to Apple for servicing is going to be a hell of a costly affair. Why? Because when this friend of mine gave it to Apple at Bangalore for servicing, they suggested he trash it and instead pick up a new one. That's because (according to Apple), placing a new 17-inch panel will itself cost around 30,000 to 40,000 bucks. So that's what he did - he bought the new 17-inch Macbook Pro for 1.5 odd lakhs. Oh these americans and their affluence...

So I gave it to Prime ABGB for their opinion. Gulbir's a good guy and I've known him for quite some time and he's done a lot of repairs on notebooks that are out of warranty. Prime's had it for about two weeks now and, this morning, gave me this estimate:

1. Replacement 17-inch panel (Apple Original apparently) - 17,000 Rs

2. Repairs to the hard drive, optical drive and motherboard - 1,500 odd bucks.

3. I'd probably like to add a 512MB or 1GB stick as well - 2,000 - 3,000 Rs I should think.

So fixing the whole thing will set me back by roughly 20,000 bucks. What I get to keep is a super-sexy Apple 17-inch Powerbook G4 with a 1.67GHz processor, 1 GB ram, and the works.

Is it worth it?

 

[superczar]

^^No

10char

Never bet your money on a wheezing old horse....

all the more truer when it comes to computers

You'll spend this 20K, then you'll realize the battery is giving up the ghost...or something or the other is about toi die

Also,

Repairs to the hard drive, optical drive and motherboard - 1500 odd

Sounds funny...

You already know you can't repair HDDs and repairing optical drives is pointless...that means replacing them which = ~5-6 K and not 1.5K

Now IMHO, no point spending 20-25 K on an highly outdated G4 (hell, even the G5 was out befor Apple moved to Intel) which will sputter running OS X

and of course, Be prepared to wait for an eternity to even load up iphoto , and running garage tunes would be pointless....

If you are very keen to use the machine, here is what I'd have done....

since you say it boots up once in a while, the mobo and proccy are working...

I'd rather open it up, look around on the mobo for loose connections, reseat the DIMMs and the proccy , and then :

connect it to a spare 2.5" HDD (borrow for testing if you don't have one) , hook it up to a desktop monitor and fire it up to see if it works

If it does, borrow/buy a 512 RAM stick, plug it in and see if the machine performance is worth plonking the money

If not, run it as a desktop Mac and use the remaining 20-25 odd K + say another 10K to get a Core Duo Dell 14"

 

[Anish]

I'm not too sure, but I don't think that 1.67 Ghz processor will run even Tiger. Useless imho

 

[tracerbullet]

(hell, even the G5 was out befor Apple moved to Intel) which will sputter running OS X and of course, Be prepared to wait for an eternity to even load up iphoto , and running garage tunes would be pointless...

I'm not too sure, but I don't think that 1.67 Ghz processor will run even Tiger. Useless imho

Not true at all. No offence but, you guys are talking through your hats!

The G4 processor was the last processor used on the mac notebooks and mac minis made by Apple. the G5 processors only appeared on Apple's iMacs and Powermacs i.e. Apple's desktop PCs. This is because they were too power hungry and had heating issues. So, the G4 is a good, powerful processor capable of running not only Tiger but even the up and coming Leopard. By the way, my sister's ibook G3 with a 667 MHz G3 processor and 256 MB ram runs mac OS X 10.3.9 Panther perfectly smooth.

And here's Apple's requirements for Tiger:

* Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor

* Built-in FireWire

* DVD drive for installation

* 256MB of RAM

* 3GB of available hard disk space (4GB if you install the developer tools)

The new Apple panel comes with a 6-month warranty and I don't have 40,000 to 50,000 Rs to invest in a notebook. So either I get this repaired and have a good mobile notebook for surfing, chatting, and travelling or have nothing at all.

Also check this link out: Apple Matters | Ask Apple Matters: Leopard on a PowerBook G4

Question by: Jackd

Hi to all

just wanting to ask if anyone knows whether or not os x leopard would run on a year old powerbook g4. i currently have panther installed. i wanted to upgrade to tiger ages ago but never got round to doing it. now that i hear leopard is coming out next year i just want to wait for that.

My PowerBook G4 specs are as follows:

1.2 (i think) GHz processor 
256mb RAM

I’m not sure what graphics card comes with it.

Any help would be appreciated. I can’t really afford to upgrade my laptop just yet.

Jack

Answer by: Frozencold

I’d love to help you Jack, I am 99.9% sure that your Mac will work with Leopard, since Leopard still supports G3 Macs. Although you may want to consider adding more ram. I would recommend using a minimum of 512mb of ram. Good Luck!

Answer by: Aaron Wright

Jackd,

As Frozencold mentions, Leopard is still going to support G3 processors, so there’s no reason why your G4 wouldn’t work.

I’d definitely consider upgrading your RAM if possible though. 256 doesn’t quite cut Tiger, let alone Leopard.

Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger tech spec page suggests using the following for Tiger (Minimum):

Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor 
Built-in FireWire 
DVD drive for installation 
256MB of RAM 
3GB of available hard disk space (4GB if you install the developer tools).

Leopard should be fine with some more RAM, but I wouldn’t expect it to be lightning quick unfortunately.

 

[superczar]

Apple's requirements for Tiger

* Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor

* Built-in FireWire

* DVD drive for installation

* 256MB of RAM

* 3GB of available hard disk space (4GB if you install the developer tools)

MS recommended for Vista

* 800 MHz processor and 512 MB of system memory

* 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space

* Support for Super VGA graphics

* CD-ROM drive

See a connection

I sometimes use Tiger on a old G4 at mmy office for some graphics related requirements....and oh boy, is it a pain!

The new Apple panel comes with a 6-month warranty and I don't have 40,000 to 50,000 Rs to invest in a notebook. So either I get this repaired and have a good mobile notebook for surfing, chatting, and travelling or have nothing at all.

a 17" powerbook is definitley not mobile to start with...

Like I said before, don't plonk your money into something that you may end up regretting later

Instead, connect it to a desktop monitor and check if it works to your liking

You may noyt have 40K to invest ina notebook, but if you are willing to spend 20-25K in repairing this, you are like 10 K short of a decent notebook....

You plonk the money on this, and you have nada

By the way, my sister's ibook G3 with a 667 MHz G3 processor and 256 MB ram runs mac OS X 10.3.9 Panther perfectly smooth.

TB, you bad-bad boy, c'mon and accept that's n exaggeration :bleh:

the 667 G3 will run Panther , yes

Smoothly...no way!

 

[tracerbullet]

TB, you bad-bad boy, c'mon and accept that's n exaggeration :bleh: the 667 G3 will run Panther , yes

Smoothly...no way!

Okay no lies; its runs Panther yes. If I had to make a comparison, it'd be like running XP on a 1.4 GHz P3/P4 with 256 MB ram. Now this Powerbook is a 1.67 G4 and I'll be bumping up the RAM to a gig. At any rate, the OS is the smallest of issues and this notebook already has Panther preloaded which runs perfectly smooth. No exaggerations here, promise But tell me this. You have a mac mini right? Is it G4-based or Core Solo/Duo? And I'm guessing it has Tiger loaded. How does it perform?

Instead, connect it to a desktop monitor and check if it works to your liking

You may noyt have 40K to invest ina notebook, but if you are willing to spend 20-25K in repairing this, you are like 10 K short of a decent notebook...

That was the first thing I did when I got it. Like I said, it starts half of the time and random beeps at others. I'm guessing this was a ram issue. Maybe a stick was dislodged by the impact or something. Because the guys at Prime's service centre have verified that the Ram's all right.

So any, I connected it via DVI to my LCD monitor and it loads okay (whenever it decides to boot up i.e.). The optical drive reads DVDs fine. I haven't tried writing any discs though. About the hard drive, I think there's an issue because it makes a lot of noise and various files simply failed to get copied. I got the 'file could not be accessed error'.

Also, I tried desperately to open up the notebook on my own. unfortunately it seems Apple requires some sort of proprietary screwdrivers to open up the notebook. The head is similar to a phillips screw head but lacks depth. Not even one of my 20-piece screwdriver set fit! Naturally, I gave up.

 

[superczar]

http://www.fastfixdirect.co.uk/images/homepage/Screw_head_drive_types.jpg

check if it is type d from the link above

 

[tracerbullet]

Also, abhi, don't forget that this is a 17" APPLE machine. The cheapest 17-inch windows-based notebooks start at minumum 80,000. Apple 17" macbook pros cost 1.3 lakh and onward.

So it's big and perfect for reading, surfing etc. and believe it, at one inch thick, it's quite portable.

The reason I'm thinking of spending this sort of money at all, is because it's a Mac. And I love macs. I know I can get a cheaper laptop for 35k but it'd have to be a scrawny 14-inch windows XP based machine, which I wouldn't be using for gaming or photo/video editing. I'm a writer and writing is my job. A 17-inch screen would be ideal for me.

check if it is type d from the link above

Not type d - I have the whole type d set. It's regular b or c but minus the depth. So my phillips type b/c screw driver can't 'penetrate'

 

[tracerbullet]

Mods Please Delete This Post.

 

[superczar]

Also, abhi, don't forget that this is a 17" APPLE machine. The cheapest 17-inch windows-based notebooks start at minumum 80,000. Apple 17" macbook pros cost 1.3 lakh and onward.

So it's big and perfect for reading, surfing etc. and believe it, at one inch thick, it's quite portable.

The reason I'm thinking of spending this sort of money at all, is because it's a Mac. And I love macs. I know I can get a cheaper laptop for 35k but it'd have to be a scrawny 14-inch windows XP based machine, which I wouldn't be using for gaming or photo/video editing. I'm a writer and writing is my job. A 17-inch screen would be ideal for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by superczar View Post

check if it is type d from the link above

Not type d - I have the whole type d set. It's regular b or c but minus the depth. So my phillips type b/c screw driver can't 'penetrate'

hey , don't forget a working 17" G3 macbook can be had for around 25K in the used market (though not in India as Macs really don't have much of a market here)

I know the point aboveis useless but i mentioned it anyway....rateher to point out that this too is similalry a useless arg:

Also, abhi, don't forget that this is a 17" APPLE machine. The cheapest 17-inch windows-based notebooks start at minumum 80,000. Apple 17" macbook pros cost 1.3 lakh and onward.

Frankly, a notebook above 14" ceases to be a notebook....ask renegade...he is seriously contemplating getting my 13.3" notebook coz his 15.4" is too much of a pain to lug around...

17"ers are in no way portable....

Spending that kind of money on a end-of-lifecycle machine, that too a 17" is in no way justified IMHO

You wanna write and get a lot of real estate, get a 14" with a 1440X900 resolution (Ask Mohit if he is happy with his purchase )

I have either owned or possessed (through office) nearly every notebook size there is ....

17", 15.4, 14.1, 13.3, 12.1, and even a 10"er

just a couple of things I have observerd:

- A big screen size comes in handly only for movies, for any work task, it's the screen resolution and not the size that matters

- the portability of a notebook decreases exponentially with the screen size...a 14.1" and 15.4" may not sound very different in terms of screen size but the real world portability difference is huge

- I know you travel quite a bit..a 17" machine should be a BIG No-No on your list

- My personal fav is 12.1", for most people, it is 14.1"

And in then end (and coming back to the point), I'll really Really not recommend spending anything over 10 K on that old a machine....you may get it fixed for now, something else would go awry in the next 3 months...not to forget the constant pain of working on a slow machine

 

[memories_dv]

Okay. I was gonna tell you to junk it, and use its tv out and use it as a media center xvid-movie-watching-on-tv machine. But then you had me at "im a writer, its my job, i can do it on the go with this"!

So go ahead get it fixed, but im sure you will have to replace the hdd..esp if the laptop was ON when thrown by the crazy-woman/wife. Do you really think its worth investing 25-30k? It just might be, for you. Or else salvage the parts and sell them off for some $$ !

And since i have no other way of getting your attention - WHEN THE FCUK ARE YOU TAKING YOUR TYs/RWs ???

 

[Vij]

Dude, you still havnt found out why your friend gave it to you free :bleh:

 

[tracerbullet]

Dude, you still havnt found out why your friend gave it to you free :bleh:

Well, he's american, he's ric,h and he didn't want to bother waiting around until it got fixed. So he picked up a new macbook pro for 1.4 lakhs.

Well, If wasn't clear enough, I CAN'T DO THAT. Either I get this fixed, or do nothing.

Most of the other people I've spoken to, except for Czar, are pretty much for it. What I think I'm going to do for now is: spend the odd 2-3 grand and get the hard drive, optical drive and logic board 'repaired'. then I'll test it for a couple of days at home and work with an LCD monitor. If it seems stable and everything feels all right, I think I'll go ahead with the screen replacement.

 

[superczar]

Well, he's american, he's ric,h and he didn't want to bother waiting around until it got fixed.

No, no offence to anyone here, but it's because it's an end-of-lifecycle system on which spending anything over 5-10K is not justified....

But instead of throwing it away, if he gets to score a few brownie points with you, so be it

Apple or no-Apple, it;s pointless spending 25 K on an end of lifecycle product...

Spend the odd 2-3 grand and get the hard drive, optical drive and logic board 'repaired'. then I'll test it for a couple of days at home and work with an LCD monitor.

This part is fine....use it as a d/l rig or whatever

just a lil more money will get you a new core duo laptop...and what you would call a scrawny 14-inch windows XP based machine is definitley a much better buy than an old outdated rig

Anyway, it's your money, so eventually your call, ANd since your mind is already made up, go ahead...

But if you are looking for some kind of decision resonance here, that ain't happening

 

[tracerbullet]

Apple or no-Apple, it;s pointless spending 25 K on an end of lifecycle product...

This part is fine....use it as a d/l rig or whatever

just a lil more money will get you a new core duo laptop...and what you would call a scrawny 14-inch windows XP based machine is definitley a much better buy than an old outdated rig

Anyway, it's your money, so eventually your call, ANd since your mind is already made up, go ahead...
But if you are looking for some kind of decision resonance here, that ain't happening

that's true and I appreciate your vehemence Also, I don't intend spending 25k either. the service guys mentioned a new apple 17-inch panel is 17k. That or I could put a second-hand one for 13k - it's my call.

now if I put the second-hand panel in and spend 2,000 on the repairs then it works out to 15,000 bucks. Which is pretty tempting, isn't it?

But like you mentioned, this thread is not about getting support from you guys to make my decision feel better. I just wanted to see your opinions and learn a thing or two.

 

[superczar]

15K would be a fair amount to spend i guess...but I really7 doubt if you'll be able to wrap it up within that

Comp repair guys have a way of pushing up the original estimates by quite a bit....anyway, the fix->run on LCD->replace LCD if stable routine should be a good way for you to assess whether you want to take step 2 or not...

and even if you don't , the m/c can still run as a d/l rig

 

[saumilsingh]

It's definitely worth it if you can get it working at a 100% after all the servicing.
Though if there's any major bodywork damage, then there goes the whole point of owning an Apple laptop, albeit a very cheap one.

 

[true_power]

Anyway, one thing is certain, some explosive members don't know anything about Apple products, yet they claim to be the experts(even if they never used a mac in their life) with comments like 17" G3 laptop, MacOS X 10.4(Tiger) won't run on 1.67Ghz G4s, etc......

I'd say go ahead and repair(if you are confident that it could be done under 20k in india), anyway the price of a supercool sexy 17" lappy is 20k, provided your friend keeps his word.:hap2:

 

[superczar]

Anyway, one thing is certain, some explosive members don't know anything about Apple products, yet they claim to be the experts(even if they never used a mac in their life) with comments like 17" G3 laptop, MacOS X 10.4(Tiger) won't run on 1.67Ghz G4s, etc......

Not sure what prompted that comment True_Power... Care to elaborate?

But let me just tell you this...

Starting something demanding like Garage tunes takes well over 20 seconds on the G3, processing operations within the app take forever, while the same runs as a breeze on the core duo....

Running Tiger on a Core Duo Mac Mini (see my sig) vs running it on a G3 (My usability team uses an iMac G3) is akin to:

- driving a City Vtec vs a Ford Escort

- RUnning Win XP on a PIII- 550 mhz vs a, well , Core Duo

I hope one of the analogies gets across...

 

[tracerbullet]

Okay, an update:

As it turns out, and owing to much silliness on my part - the power G4 is not a 17-incher. It's a 15.2" widescreen which I mistakenly assumed was 17 inches. This changes the estimate as well.

1. The repair costs have now been upped to 5,000 Rs For the hard drive, optical drive, some broken ICs, minor bodywork, and a cracked logic board.
2. The new apple 15.2" panel costs 13,000 Rs

So the total still remains at 18,000. I've gone ahead with the repairs and plan to do stability testing for a couple of days before I do the screen replacement. Also, ebay America sells 15.2 panels for much cheaper (about 100-150$) which is about 4,000 to 6,000 Rs - less than half the cost I've been quoted! So, I'm going to try and have a friend pick up a panel for me and then have it fitted locally.