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Apple Businesses

Overclocking Your iBook to 600MHz 136

Posted by timothy from the clashing-paradigms dept.
Cryptnotic writes: "The guys at Accelerate Your Mac have figured out how to modify the motherboard on the recent Apple iBooks to get them to run at 600MHz with a 100MHz bus speed. There are benchmarks comparing the OC'd iBook to some regular Apple desktop machines. However, what I am wondering most is how this overclocked G3 compares to the much more expensive Apple G4 Powerbook and if it makes it worth voiding the warranty." Remember, not recommended for your iBook.
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Overclocking Your iBook to 600MHz More

Overclocking Your iBook to 600MHz

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  • Apple, marketing and processor crippling. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by irn_bru ( 209849 ) on Monday October 08, 2001 @08:41AM (#2401507)
    The G3 has been around for ages. It has long been suspected that the speeds chosen for use in iMac and iBooks are conditioned more my marketing factors then technological limitations, particularly the 66mhz system bus. Basically, IBM can clock them faster the Motorola can clock G4s, but it is unacceptable to have a faster chip in the cheaper machines (Altivec excepted).

    The 3-5 degree raise in temperature seems entirely within the engineering limitations of the machine and I have to say that this mod looks very enticing indeed.

    • Re:Apple, marketing and processor crippling. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Monday October 08, 2001 @03:37PM (#2403172)
      According to IBM's datasheets on the 750CX and CXe (the iBook uses a 750CX IIRC) they can use up to a 10x multiplier and a 133MHz memory bus. Theoretically IBM could spit out 1.3GHz G3s if it ever needed to. The problem with mere speed bumps on the PowerPC line is EOL concerns. The G3 750 and previous models had 60x pins and thus were compatible with older systems but the 750CX has none of these and is only compatible with more up to date systems. Thus making G3 chips for the system upgrade folks like Sonnet wouldn't bring in good returns for either company since the upgrades would only work on relatively new systems where a fair percentage of chip upgrades go into EOL Apple products. IBM, Mot, and Apple all need to keep their eyes on the future too. The G4 is able with little modification to use 64-bit instructions and a 128-bit memory bus width. The G5 will have that stuff by default so most likely Apple's going to go full fledged 64-bit Weapon X style (10.2 supposedly will come in 32 and 64-bit flavourings while >2 will be 64 bit only). That'd mean keeping the older G4 around for the low end systems and going with the G5 in the high end systems or so I surmise. I don't really see it as processor crippling but more like Apple has a much better sense of where their processors are going and what is happening with them. They're much more involved than the PC OEMs that just buy crates of whatever Intel happens to be making at a particular time. It's too bad no one will pick up the G3 to ramp the speed up to super fast levels. I really like that chip.

  • New iBooks (Score:2, Interesting)

    by martij2 ( 521967 )
    Someone finaly makes the iBook better, and what happens, the new iBooks are getting ready to be released... http://www.macosrumors.com/
    • The TiBook will be revised before the iBook (ICEBook).
    • Nah. Most of their speculation was based on dwindling worldwide supply, but that's since been attributed to a typhoon in Taiwan.

      • Re:New iBooks (Score:2, Insightful)

        by nob ( 244898 )
        Yeah, and everyone who's been holding off on an Apple (including me) until OS 10.1 was released just bought them. I live in Michigan, and had a small delay in my shipment too. Apple told me it was due to unforseen demand. (Who couldn't have forseen this though?)

  • g4 vs ibook - first impressions. (Score:3, Funny)

    by freq ( 15128 ) on Monday October 08, 2001 @08:51AM (#2401523) Homepage
    i just got a g4-powerbook last week (my very first mac, and first notebook computer) i was looking at the ibook seriously until i actually looked at it, sat down and played with it for a while. The deciding factor for me wasn't speed, it was the screen! the ibook is just too small, and the screen is huge on the g4. (okay its pretty fast too) but compared to my desktop 1ghz athalon i'd say its pretty comparable. was it worth the extra 700 bucks? hell yeah. i'll have this g4 for a long-ass time.

    I got an airport card and a cheap-o linksys base station and i can post from the crapper now! im serious! i can sit and take a 5 hour crap while posting to slashdot on one battery! this was a minor selling point for me, but a selling point nevertheless.

    ps. i'm not pooping as i type this...
    • It's weird. I was going through the same mental debate as yourself (purchasing iBook or Ti), and I ended up with the iBook. The deciding factor?

      The screen.

      For me the iBook screen is brighter and clearer, while the Ti screen is bigger, it appears to be a little on the washed out side. The iBook's small footprint also helped.

      But hell, years down the road I'll probably get the Ti.

      // Jay
    • I'm planning to get a Apple laptop soon. And after seeing both in real life. I've decided to go for the iBook. Funnyly enough, because of the screen. The G4 screen is bigger. But when compared to the iBook, the iBook's sceen is so much crisper because of the higher res (DPI, not amount of pixels), the PowerBook IMHO, looked a bit to pixilated at at max res. Wonder if the next PowerBook will have 1290x960 (or whatever). instead of the 1152x756.

      Only thing about the iBook is that it's slower than the PowerBook. But then again...way cheaper.
      Decisions decisions...

      • Personally, in an effort on my part to reduce eye strain, I went for the Ti. The iBook's screen really should have been set to a default of 800*600 or 832*624 or something 1024*768 makes the icons/text just tiny. Well, that was what I thought, at least.

  • NOT recommended! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bud ( 1705 ) on Monday October 08, 2001 @08:51AM (#2401525)
    I performed the 600/350 modification to my iBook three weeks ago and IT DID NOT SUCCEED. When I had assembled the iBook again it wouldn't boot up. So I had to open the case again and move the resistors back. Luckily it works again. :-) Sturdy little bastard... Considering the amount of time I spent on planning and double-checking the mods, I can only assume that there are errors on the web page. I did the mods by hand, soldering very carefully and checking the result with a multimeter afterwards.

    Another note: It's impossible to open the case without making ugly marks. You need at least three hands and several thin but nonflexible steel blades. Having done it twice (once for modding and once for demodding), I'm considering opening it once more in order to file down the ugly edges -- and repaint the inside in ultramarine blue. :-)

    The only positive thing is that I now know how to replace the optical drive and hard disk. 10GB doesn't really cut it nowadays... I would really like one of those 48GB drives.

    That's my 0.02 euro. And... if someone actually succeeds in performing the 600/350 mod, please let me know exactly what resistors you moved. :) Pleeeease!

    --Bud

  • ...will be a G4. The iBook is a good machine, don't get me wrong. A buddy of mine just bought it for a cheap OS X machine. When I have the $$ to spend on a new machine, I'll first get a kicking G4 desktop and then get a G4 laptop or better (might have the G5 by that time). Why buy something that's not the latest greatest? I've always had this theory on buying computers (it works better on people mostly unlike us that can't upgrade their own computer). Buy the most RAM you can afford, even if the quantity seems very unreasonable at the time because you'll need it down the road. Buy the fastest machine you can afford (or get the one just out of your budget and wait a month to save up the extra $$ to get it) because it would be the fastest for long. That little bit of speed down the road may be a lot in your mind and make you feel better about your purchase. That said, an iBook is a good machine. It wouldn't be my first pick but it's still a damned good machine. I thought the Cube was too. Guess it didn't make the cuts. My $.02.

    • Re:My Mac laptop (Score:4, Interesting)

      by hattig ( 47930 ) on Monday October 08, 2001 @09:15AM (#2401555) Journal
      Why buy something that's not the latest greatest?

      Because the latest and greatest costs a whole lotta money, whilst 10% slower is half the price?

      Buy the most RAM you can afford

      Agreed.

      Buy the fastest machine you can afford

      Disagreed. Buy the fastest machine that will handle your needs for today and the next year. After that time even the most modernest of machines today will look like it was made by Ug the caveman anyway - lets not spend too much money on it!

      The iBook is a great buy for students and for general portable work. However, I am still doing fine with a PII 266MHz laptop (HP Omnibook 4100) and feel no need to upgrade it yet (still running Win 95 and Office 97 [and Linux]). Hardware only needs upgrading when you buy the latest software for marginal benefits!

      Remember - RAM, HD and CPUs will be even cheaper in a year's time. By buying cheap (but sensibly, don't buy an out-of-date platform like KT133 or i815!) you can buy cheap again in a years time and double the performance of your system (then sell the replaced parts on eBay). Whatever, always buy the best motherboard possible! That is the most important part of the computer.

      And now I see that Slashdot has messed up again and everything gets me onto the front page without a login. I mean, none of the Slashdot bugs are being fixed at all, and they have had plenty of time since the release of 2.2...

      • i agree with this method. buy not the fastest thing. but a few steps down, the most mhz for $ ratio. you'll pay about 50-60% of the top of the line and get about 90% of the performance.
    • Why stop there? If you're certain that you're going to buy nothing buy the best when you eventually get some money, why not figure on getting a ruggedized P4 laptop with one of those phat 1600x1280 displays? I'm sure you can get one for about $7000. And maybe for your desktop you should get a Sun 450 with 4 processors for $30,000 or so.

      Some of us have to live in the here and now and actually buy things we can afford. And a well-equipped iBook sells for over $1200 less than a similarly equipped and warrantied Powerbook G4. Yep, a G3 is a good 35% slower than a G4 for heavy Photoshop lifting, and yeah, an iBook can't drive two monitors--or even one high-res one. But if you don't need those things, spending an amount that can cover a mortgage payment or 4 car payments or a 5-day Caribbean vacation for two's worth of money on a "phatter" laptop comes down to personal choice.

      A lot of graphics and video professionals need the power of a G4 laptop, and some don't have the luxury of getting both a desktop and a laptop. But an extra $1200 simply for the "cool toy" factor of a laptop that will likely be dead or useless in 3 years or less? Count me out.
  • Anyone going apple with be into media. And unless you are encoding media, which I doubt you will be donig with an iBook, you will not need mode CPU power. They are powerful enough. (But when is enough enough... search me.)

    Mostly the big bottleneck on iBooks would be bus, memory and HD throughput, since it's primary use is still MM playback. And most games rely more and more on the GFX card's processing power.

    The final and most important problem is heat generation on a notebook, leading to other problems like short battery life. Once again these are not good traits for that applications that this iBook excels at.

    Rather chuck a couple of Durons in a SMP PC.

    My 0.02
    • Mostly the big bottleneck on iBooks would be bus, memory and HD throughput, since it's primary use is still MM playback. And most games rely more and more on the GFX card's processing power.

      Did you read the article? Frame rates when up 33% in some games! Sounds like a nice hack for those not planning on upgrading any time soon. The best would be soldering on a little module that let you flip a switch or two to go from 350 Mhz to 600 Mhz (and between).
      • 33% seems a lot for such a relatively small change... they must be purely reliant on CPU.

        I only play FPS games with a GeForce 2 GTS... upgrading my motherboard to 266 FSB and 266 DDR ram did more tham my upgrade from an 700 Athlon to 1.4 GHz Athlon.

        But then I'm a bit out of touch with the latest in Apple tech.
        • 33% seems a lot for such a relatively small change... they must be purely reliant on CPU.

          Well they are overclocking it by changing the front side bus. So the data bus speed is improved quite a bit. I have numerous Celerons (couple of 366 Mhz @ 550 Mhz, two 566 Mhz @ 850 Mhz) that have a 66 Mhz front side bus overlocked to run at 100 Mhz front side bus. The performance is very close to the equivalent P3 - maybe a 100 - 150 Mhz less power. Just raising the front side bus has a huge affect on everything... Of course these days I'd just buy a Duron or Athlon - much better bang per $.

          I only play FPS games with a GeForce 2 GTS... upgrading my motherboard to 266 FSB and 266 DDR ram did more tham my upgrade from an 700 Athlon to 1.4 GHz Athlon.

          Doh! Then you already know what I'm talking about above. DDR ram is a huge improvement alone...

          But then I'm a bit out of touch with the latest in Apple tech.

          Me too... I'd love to have an inexpensive G3/G4 desktop that could run OS X. Perhaps I'll have to settle by finding someone else who has one so I can just drool over it a bit :).
          • I've had some problems with the latest GeForce MX-400 chips when the FSB is being overclocked...

            If only I knew more of the iBook's architecture, but, depending on the tolerances of some of the internal components, overclocking the FSB may also give problems...

            (I love dabbling in old technology as well, I've got an Amiga 1200 and Apple powerbook amoungst my toys... hence my respect for the Motorolla line.)

            But nothing beats the FPS of PCs nowadays, keeping in mind that Macs are WAY too expensive in third-world countries like mine... -sniff-
            ;)
      • Actually this would be excellent.
        With PC overclocking, there are stores which *guarantee* that a chip (usual Duron) can hit xxxxMHZ and have all the pins etc. soldered in.

        Can any Mac people out there help with such a place?? Or is modifying Mr Job's machines like sacrilege for the one-button communite??? :)

        Regards,

        Po

    • The iBooks performance is not *that* bad. I knwo from experience that you most likely have a very small amount of RAM and that is where you true complaints come from. The iBooks do *not* get *that* hot, so I am also wondering where you complaints about that particular situation are truly stemming from. A couple of cheap Durons and an MP motherboard to support those chips, along with the new case/power supply you are going to have to purchase along with the DDR RAM for the MB is *not* going to be cheap whatsoever, especially in your country. Plus add your DVD drive, and DVD decoder card, plus the proper Video Card to your *cheap* PC and you have just successfully spent a ton of money, especially in your country.
      The iBook is a beautiful machine, with the Powerbook being the pinnacle of laptops. If you do not wish to purchase an Apple product, then don't post comments dismissing Apple because you purchased a cheap, underpowered version of an iBook and then post complaints about it. I know personally that my iBook runs *exceptionally* well for all of my needs, including gaming. Yeah, it does not carry a mobile version of the nVidia G-Force or ATI Radeon chipsets (yet) but if you are truly, and I mean *truly* interested in FPS, then why are you using a laptop anyways? Go and buy yourself a dual PPC Apple desktop and throw a G-Force card in it. Load OSX and have yourself a Quake party. But, don't just go around posting and bitching, please when your intended uses for a machine apparently are more than what you purchased. Apple iBook are beautiful machines and as of yet, my iBook has never, ever caused me any problems, inculding heat, power usage, graphics performance, or any other such problem you and other bitch about constantly.
      • When I said "Not that useful" I meant not that useful to overclock, since it's already sufficient.

        When I said it became hot, I meant heat disipation that would primarily degrade battery life. (Which is practically the main most important thing in a notebook PC)

        And finally: Supply and demand is the main reason why they are not so popular... during one of the large FPS LAN tourneys there were perhaps one Mac in about 400 entrants. Macs are an odity... they are for exclusive users. (Anything from the USA in particular is practically unaffordable...)

        Apple iBook 366 (Indigo)

        366MHz Power PC G3
        10GB Ultra ATA
        64MB RAM
        CD ROM Drive

        17,899.99

        Wheras:

        440+ Multimedia Notebook
        With Internal 24X CD-ROM 8,435.00
        64MB SDRAM DIMM 126.00
        MHM2100AT 10GB HDD 931.00
        Intel® Celeron(TM) 900 700

        Working out to under 12,000.00

        Hmmm.. and considernig the average high-income person's salary before taxes is about 8,000.00.
        This would be quite an investment.
        (You pay about 2,500 for rent and 1,500 for car and 800 for insurance and 800 for food)
        Leaving you about 500 per month to pay the notebook... you may actually own it before it becomes a meuseum piece.

        Now take into account the pitiful availability of software, and the abysmal availability of technical support in a third world country. BAM!

        Not to mention the total lack of jobs in anything un-microsoft related. (I'm a unix programmer.. it's tough.)

        Now, take into account that I still drool over the iBook and still think Macs are GREAT!
        :)

        So, kind sir, you misunderstand my laments.
    • Nonsense.

      OS X is both CPU and memory bound. Even with sufficient memory, it is a bit sluggish. A more powerful processor would help a lot.

      This particular machine is just barely too slow to play DivX movies. A little more memory bandwidth would go a long way.

      Finally, the iBook makes a great Linux laptop. It is incredibly portable, has a very nice battery life (albeit probably a bit less with the mod), and all of the hardware (minus the FireWire port) is supported. I assure you I can find plenty of uses for increased CPU power on a Linux machine. Linux flies on this system already -- with a little more CPU, it would be truly wicked.

      That said, I don't think I'll void my warranty. But as soon as the 1-year warranty has expired, I'll give this a shot.

      -John
  • This was better than your typical 'i changed a few settings in my BIOS' article, although I'm not sure how much I trust [most] macintosh users with a soldering iron on a laptop motherboard.. As for
    the people saying it doesn't make much difference,
    it really does when you consider that you're bumping it up on both the bus and the actual cpu speed.. *slurp*

  • I see in the article they are changing the spec of the CPU from 7.5x66.6MHz (500MHz) to 6.0x100MHz(600MHz). How about leaving the multiplier the same? Will the iBook run at 750MHz? How about 650 or 700MHz?
    • Again, read the article.

      The author states that he tried 6.5*100 (650Mhz CPU 100 Mhz bus), but it was unstable.

      I would therefore venture to assume that 7.5*100 wouldn't work either.
      Of course, that was his CPU. Someone else posted that 600/100 didn't work for them, someone else might find that perhaps 7.5*10 does work for them, but that is somewhat of a stretch. Of course, the guy who didn't get 6.5*10 working could have had problems elsewhere with the system bus @100MHz

  • More information (Score:2, Informative)

    by madcowherd ( 473162 )
    This mod's been out there for quite some time, long enough for others to have performed it. As the one poster said, It didn't work for him. I've been looking on some forums (can't remember which, macworld??) but a few others have tried this, one initially had success but it was unstable sometimes, one didn't have success at all. But according to both you can still change the bus speed to 100Mhz, you'll have to switch the multiplier down to 5. Never the less the instructions are correct!

    I've been looking into this because I've been wanting an ibook myself, I want to play with OSX.

    For another poster that mentioned the heat issue, this is also in the article. Turns out he added a thin aluminum plate and made it cooler than before.

    madcowherd

  • Titanium Chef (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ukab the Great ( 87152 ) on Monday October 08, 2001 @10:13AM (#2401726)
    You know, if you overclock the all-metal PowerBook G4 to a fast enough speed, put a piece of cheese in between two pieces of bread, and slam it shut between the lid and the handrests for about 5 minutes, you could make a really awesome grilled cheese sandwich.
    • "Uh, why does my grilled cheese look like a waffle on one side? And why does it say 'QWERTYASDF' on it?"
    • I've got a 500MHz Titanium G4 - standard clock speed heats up the corner where the power button and AC connecter is located gets more than "mighty toasty"!


      To be completely honest, I don't see how an overclocked Tibook would be usable. The keyboard at that corner would likely melt from the excessive heat. You wouldn't have to worry about the warranty, you'd have to be sure to carry a fire extinguisher along with your notebook!

      • If that's the corner that the battery's on, I'd recommend checking if it's what's heating up. A warm battery, although it gets less power loss, is a sign of a dying battery.

        I don't think the Tibooks suffer from memory effects, but this might be one of those times to call the Apple Store. [they've got some little desk there, with a hotline to engineers to ask questions]

        Heat can also be generated from other malfunctioning parts, such as a power supply, etc. Basically, if you think something's wrong with it, get it checked out while it's still under warrenty. [I did the same with a car, and even though they weren't able to figure out just why it was flaky, they were able to recreate the problem, and record that it was happening while I was still within my warrenty period, and would continue to look into the problem without charge after the warrenty had expired.]

        A friend who had a sporatic issue with a old 1x0 [150?] series Powerbook finally had it looked at so many times that they sent him a 520, as his machine wasn't made any more, but it was still under warrenty. I know it was a few years ago, but it's possible that something similar could happen today, as you could be bad for PR.

  • Successful mod done. (Score:5, Informative)

    by pinkpineapple ( 173261 ) on Monday October 08, 2001 @10:16AM (#2401737) Homepage
    The article on xlr8yourmac.com is quite old, so I am quite surprise about the big fuzz that it generates today on '/.'.

    I applied the mod about a month ago, when I decided to invest into a decent and not too expensive Linux laptop. I was quite happy with the speed of the machine, but heard from a friend of mine who knew someone at Apple who told her that the machine was originally designed for 100MHz mem bus. The only thing that required Apple to move back to 66MHz was to be able to give the machine a four hour battery run as the marketing brochures showing these figures were already printing when the tests were being ran (!)

    With this in mind, I just overclocked the memory bus of the machine, because I believe that it is the main bottleneck for my application of the iBook: basically watching a DVD, playing MP3 files with iTunes (great player by the way) and being able to type a report for my boss at the same time. Yes, I can do that, but the laptop had some troubles keeping up ;-)

    There are a few catches though. Part of the RAM is located on the motherboard (64MB or 128MB depending on the model you get) and the memory controller would need to be reprogrammed in theory. Not doing so can will cause some RAM not to function properly and that could be the reason for the mod not to succeed. The other problem is having the speed bus directly encoded in the OpenFirmware ROM (kinda like a BIOS thing on PC.) You can patch the value by adding an extra Forth patch in non-volatile RAM, so it's ok. This is required for some OS to calibrate properly. In my case, that didn't matter because the CPU bus was the same.

    Doing this mod, I ended up using the same number of resistors. I just add to move them around. If you go for another config and end up using less resistors, keep them in a safe place as you never know what is going to happen (some people want to purchase only genuine speed laptops, so you may want to revert the mod if you sell your laptop in the future.)

    I didn't add the extra metal plate as it is described in the article, because I didn't want to create to much pressure on the components or get a bended keyboard (which would have made the keys touch the screen as on the TiBook.) I just added some clear heatsink paste (the one that doesn't get messy.) I never had a heat problem with this machine, before or after the mod, even under Linux. Linux kernel is not really energy savvy on the PowerPC at this time (some bugs and lots of hacks to get the fastest context switch doesn't goes along with good energy saving.)

    The last point I want to cover, is that you need to make sure you are really careful about disassembling and reassembling the unit. Aesthetic is a big thing on this particular brand of machines, so don't mess with it. I used a soft flat spoon (the kind you can find at your supermarket for mixing stuff with soft flat edges) to lever the side of the machine. I also used surgeon gloves during the all operation (no pun) and worked in the kitchen area the only place without carpet in my house. I touched the fridge before putting the gloves to make sure I didn't carry any static. You are never too careful and because this mod voids the warranty you may want to think again before going for it.

    -- PPA
    • marketing the reason? Oh come on, if apple had released their cheapest machine with a 100mhz bus speed it would seriously hurt the sales of their higher end machines.

      Remember that apple has monopoly control over their hardware.
  • I don't know this out of direct expereince, but a fried of mine who has a lot of experience disassembling machines says that it takes a very long time to disassemble the new (2001) iBooks. One site says it takes three hours to do this.

    Since I don't have one, I can't verify this. But it may be worth thinking about if you want to speed up the CPU.

    -- haaz, who has two pretty-easy-to-disassemble (Wall St.) PowerBook G3s.
    • One site says it takes three hours to do this.

      Consider the time/money/effort put into this mod vs the actual time-savings from better performance. I'd dare bet that after spending 5-10 hours doing this mod, that the better performance won't even save > 10 hours over the life of the box.

      any takers?

      mr.

  • Anti Static? (Score:2, Informative)

    by nion ( 19898 )
    Now that all the necessary screws on the bottom have been removed, set the iBook bottom (exposed motherboard) down on a anti static surface (I used a large motherboard anti static bag).

    Um, I'm sorry, but an anti-static BAG is NOT an anti-static surface. The bag is only anti-static when something is placed within it and the bag is sealed. This is a concept known as a Faraday Cage[1]. Placing a component on TOP of an anti-static bag does absolutely nothing.

    I've been guilty of the same thing myself, I hardly ever use any type of grounding/anti-static devices when handling my stuff. But that's me, when playing with my OWN equipment. When you publish a review telling people how to take their computers apart, and then don't use the proper precautions, that's just negligent.

    [1] - A device that is a conductive enclosure that terminates anelectric field on the exterior so that no field exists on the inside of the enclosure.
    • Thats the funny thing about static, is that it comes from 2 nonconducting surfaces rubbing against each other....ie slik and glass......so you actually want to put it on a conducting grounded surface....


  • First off, let me praise Apple for getting much, much better about their
    hardware pricing and getting more competitive. The lower end iBook
    delivers a decent package for something like $1299 US. There are some
    serious challenges that face Apple, and most of it comes from not licensing
    their hardware platform. That argument has been rehashed a million times
    but here are some ways that has hurt them with the iBook.


    • Between Sony, Dell, Toshiba, Compaq, HP, and the other smaller laptop
      vendors out there, there really is a Laptop for everyone- you just have to do
      a lot of research.
    • Conversely, Apple only really has two models with only slight variations
      to deliver 6 different levels of laptops. The cheapest is right now
      $1299 I think, with the more expensive being close to $3300.
    • Laptops are a great revenue source because the manufacturers can re-use
      parts like memory, drives, displays and the like and have far less or no
      competition from generics. Also, some manufacturers have built names
      like value and reliability based on their previous models, helping to justify
      higher (profits) consumer prices.
    • Apple can't really compete with all these other PC vendors unless they hit
      just the right spot in what consumers are looking for in a laptop.
      PC Laptop makers use more of a 'shotgun effect' to get all of them.

    I went shopping about a month ago and found the iBooks. I was pleased
    with built-in Airport abilities, along with dual USB and fire wire built in.
    I was attracted by the initial $1299 laptop, and started looking at the nicer
    models. I ended up getting the DVD/CDRW combo and grabbing the Airport
    Card and 256M or RAM. The problem came in that the laptop just didn't
    perform that well. Everyone I talked to about it said the Titanium's were
    better CPU performers, but had problems wit Airport cards, etc. OSX and
    the fiasco surrounding the upgrade path to OSX 10.1 left me quite frustrated.
    Jobs said 10.1 would be out in September 2001, and announced the final release
    date on or around the 23rd and held the retailers from releasing it until the
    29th. Somewhere he seemed to forget how eager everyone was, and when
    criticized about the release date he basically said "the 29th is still
    September    ".


    To cut this babble short, Apple seems to have sacrificed some serious quality
    issues with OSX's performance on current hardware. As much as the Slashdot
    readership might not like it, maybe Apple could learn from Microsoft, whose
    current releases have worked great on current hardware since Windows 3.1.
    In other words, Apple sold me a laptop that crawled with the OS they released.
    I was so disappointed I sold the iBook on EBay for $50 less that I paid for all
    the parts and bought a 700Mhz Dell with 256Mhz of RAM, a 20 Gig drive, and a 32
    Meg GeForce 2 video card and DVD Rom drive (a refurbished laptop) for $300
    less than the iBook    .


    Apple has good products, but they need to focus more on business that on
    aesthetics.




    • I have an iBook and my experience was pretty much the same as yours. I started to doubt whether or not I made a good decision when I bought it.

      I'm not a long time mac fan but I'm being won over. 10.1 is much faster. The difference is huge. You might have a different opinion if you had waited a little longer. Now I have a beautiful unix machine for a decent price. Even my wife likes this thing.
    • There are some serious challenges that face Apple, and most of it comes from not licensing
      their hardware platform.

      Whether that is true or not is up for discussion, but the fact is licensing the hardware would (and did) create a whole slew of new problems. Apple and the Mac are both in far better strategic position today than they were when the cloners where around.

      Yes, IBM allowed clones, and everybody lived happily ever after. That doesn't mean that this can be applied to other platforms with guaranteed success. In fact, the hardware/software integration is one of the key differentiating factors between x86 and Macs. This has a number of advantages, virtually all relating directly to user experience.

      Apple seems to have sacrificed some serious quality issues with OSX's performance on current hardware.

      This hasn't been my experience. OS X 10.1 zips right along on my sister's iBook G3/500 w/ 128MB. 10.0.4 did not provide satisfactory performance on the same hardware, mainly due to swapping. Have you actually run 10.1 on the iBook, or only 10.0.x?

      the parts and bought a 700Mhz Dell with 256Mhz of RAM, a 20 Gig drive, and a 32
      Meg GeForce 2 video card and DVD Rom drive (a refurbished laptop) for $300
      less than the iBook

      Dell and Apple have totally different business models. Dell mainly assembles parts and sells at low margins. They don't really develop products in the same sense that Apple does. If Apple adopted Dell's business model, there would be no Mac OS X, no iMovie, no FireWire, no Darwin, etc.

      - Scott

  • heat (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jish ( 80046 ) on Monday October 08, 2001 @03:15PM (#2403041)
    Suddenly a more acceptable reason to say:

    I have a strange burning sensation in my crotch...

    --
    Josh
    • Funny, but...
      Read things before you post: "Temps prior to the mod were 40C MAX. After the overclock, they increased to 43C MAX. With the addition of a thin aluminum plate to the top of the chipset and CPU (adding pressure between these chips and the stock heat plate) I was able to get max temps down to 37C, lower than what they were prior to the mod. "
  • I have a couple of laptops and probably would never overclock them even if I can. I am more interested in battery battery hours.
    • If you would have read the article you would have noticed him saying "Battery life at 600/100 is about 15-30 minutes less than 500/66 ...and when the speed is switched down to the 350/100 setting, I get better battery life than I did at 400/66."
      IMHO 15-30 minutes isn't much to lose for a power gain like that.
  • your g3 turns into apple-sauce
  • As a former Apple authorized service technician, I'd like to point out that while the warnings and such are nice (and an article that includes soldering wouldn't seem complete without it), you'd be hard pressed to find any authorized service center that would even notice the solders he was making.

    Apple system repairs are done at the module level (one of the reasons it is so expensive) -- if the system doesn't start up, and you've got power from the a/c adapter, you're going to get a new logic board (unless they are doing whole-unit replacement, which is fairly common nowadays). In anycase, nobody is peering over your logic board to see that resistor R237 has been incorrectly connected to R233. The new one comes in, the old one goes in a static bag, and back to Apple via Airborne.

    Not to say it won't happen that you'll get "caught" -- but it's pretty damned unlikely.
  • It's impossible to say "this processor is x amount better than that processor" in Apple machines. They've used a total of about 6 or 7 variants throughout the years. Lemme go through them.

    Motorola PPC 750 - first G3 processor. Integer performance is 20% better than the PPC 604e. fpu performance is 5% worse.

    I think there was a PPC 760. Low power version of the 750.

    IBM 750CX - IBM's G3 processor. 256k onchip L2 cache. That's pretty much all I know about it. I think there's a CXe version, but I know nothing of it.

    Motorola PPC 7400 - first G4. fpu was improved a bit from Motorola PPC 750 as well as first processor to have altivec.

    PPC 7410 - low power version of the 7400. This is what's in Tibooks.

    PPC 7440 - Low power version of the PPC 7450. Not in any of Apple's computers (yet).

    PPC 7450 - increased pipeline from 4 stages to 7. 256k on-chip L2 cache. Support for up to 2 megs of L3 cache. Added integer and altivec units. Altivec can now processor 2 instructions at the same time. The design is expected to top out at 1ghz.

    PPC 8500 - originally called the PPC 7500, but changed for probably marketing reasons. This is the G5. First total revamp of the PPC processor design since it was first introduced in 1994. 64 bit processor with full 32 bit compadibility at full speed. Rumor has it that they're pretty stable at 1.2ghz and up until you reach 2ghz. Another rumor is that the design is expected to top out at 4-5ghz.

    As far as performance, the 750 and 7400 are almost dead even if altivec is not in use.

    IBM's G3 and the PPC 7450 are for the most part dead even in practice, but if things were optimized for the 7450 it would be 1.5x faster. I think the 750CX does integers 20% faster than the 7450. This is assuming that altivec is not in use.

    If whatever you're doing does use altivec, the G4 wins everytime. it really depends on what you're doing that determines how much of a speedbump you get. The lowest number I've seen is a 40% speed increase. That number can be drastically higher. Some technical document of altivec showed that a single instruction put through it went 10x faster. Not that it does much for real world performance, but it does show altivec's potential.

    In MacOS 9 and older, nothing really used Altivec, so you wouldn't see too much of a difference between a G3 and a G4. There's less than 20 apps that use it. In OS 9, there is hardly any difference in speed from my 300mhz G3 and my friend's dual 450 simply because OS 9 doesn't really take advantage of altivec nor dual processors.

    In MacOS X you will see a very noticeable difference because it uses altivec a lot. I don't have it, so I can't really comment on the speed of it personally, but from what other people are saying, it's highly recommended that you have a G4.

    • "I think there was a PPC 760. Low power version of the 750." I think that one was the 755. My Yosemite G3 450 has a 750L, overclocked (with extreme ease) to 550Mhz. My Sawtooth dual 450 is fitted with a pair of 7400s, and my Mystic 733 with the somewhat disappointing 7450. Roll on G5! I want to see Apple back on top!
  • I would like to get an iBook, but I need to test web sites on Windows. Does anyone know if it there is any way to run/emulate Windows on an iBook?
  • I've just finished putting my iBook back together and am pleased to report that it's running very nicely indeed at 600Mhz w/100Mhz system bus. The components were smaller than I expected and even after trying hard to keep track of the screws I still have 2 leftovers.. oh and the battery's foot that I pried off before I realised only 3 of the feet were hiding screws. I'm installing 10.1 and Photoshop 6.0.1 which I won today at a 10.1 launch BBQ here in Sydney :P

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