I just picked up a 12" iBook G3 900 for US $450, and it only has 256MB of RAM installed in it. I know that the first 128MB of RAM is soldered onto the logic board, and Apple says that the SO-DIMM slot will only accept up to 512MB sticks. My question is; has anybody here installed a stick with more than 512MB on it, and if so, what were the results? Was the memory addressed? Did the computer even start up without incident?
'Just trying to avoid re-inventing the wheel before I drop the cash on an SO-DIMM.
Thanks everyone!
-ian
There's no such animal as a non-DDR SO-DIMM bigger then 512MB, so... anyone installing a larger SO-DIMM in a G3 iBook would by definition of had profoundly negative results.
(Among other things they would of suffered severe damage to the motherboard, not because of the capacity of the chips but because they would of had to physically mangle the socket to fit the differently-keyed DIMM in there in the first place.)
--Peace
Well that would make sense, then.
Thanks!
And, I must say that 640MB in my G3 600 makes it run nicely. A faster HDD would help things along, but overall I can't recall doing anything much that caused large swapping to disk. The machine imported video from my FW miniDV cam just fine, so the throughput of the system with 640mb is probably just great for most things you'd put a G3 through.
I use a nicely slapped together(literally- I built it from dead machines and bought new case panels so it looked nice :-p) iBook 500 as my work-home 'bridge' computer, with 640MB in it- with my standard 8-10 applications running, it's a very responsive machine. I can see no reason to *want* to go beyond this amount of memory. Even with the sluggish iBook G4-standard 30GB hard drive.
This is on OS 10.4 though, using an older(therefore slower) version of OS X could yield entirely different results.
Hi everybody
I join the topic cause I have a problem upgrading my RAM. I have a Ibook G3 600 Mhz and a couple of days ago I installed a 256 Mo sodimm chip.
The problem is that the computer doesn't recognise it, so it still work with 128 Mo.
The chip is new, correctly fitted and I bought it in a store.
Hope someone can help me.
A friend recently gave me a 500MHz iBook. It's the first generation, with a 10GB HD and 64MB soldered onboard RAM. It also has a 256MB SO-DIMM installed, for a total of 320MB.
Anyway, with only 320MB RAM, it still runs Tiger just fine. YMMV of course.
Matt
Is it a PC100 or PC133 SODIMM? If it's PC66 it won't work. Did you buy it because it was rated for Apple? Did you check the timing specs? Do you have any other machine to test it on?
It is a PC 133 and I have no other machine to test it on.
I bought it in a store specialized in apple, but they have no tech support besides monday. I might go there tomorrow, but it closes early in the afternoon and I got to work. So I try to cope it on my own.
Would PC133 actually work? And it's been years since I've had to worry about if the RAM was CL2 or CL3. Which one does OS X need? I just want to slap a stick of 640MB into this thing. Any manufacturers I should avoid?
Cheers,
—ian
Hey there,
I have an ibook g3 600 with 128mb of ram soldered into place. I've just purchased a stick of 256 SO-DIMM 144pin pc133 stuff from ebay. It's on its way here, but from reading a couple of these posts i'm worried that pc133 wont work, should I have gotten pc100?
Anyhow, if anyone could fill me in that would be awesome, thanks.
-Anthony
If it is quality RAM it should run fine at the slower PC-100 speed. Some PC-133 RAM has trouble slowing down, and can cause various failures. I've not tried any PC-133 RAM in my iBook, as the first upgrade I did was to max out with a 512MB PC-100 SO-DIMM.
Well i hope this pc133 works out for me. About a week after it arrives I'm going to Japan to teach english, haha and I suppose i could find some stuff over there if I practice up on my Japanese.
Has anyone here ever tried putting pc133 into an ibook g3? more specifically ibook g3 600?
I guess I'll have to wait and find out.. i'll be sure to post the results for anyone else pondering the same answer.
-Anthony
So after looking around on apple.com, i've noted that pc133 so-dimm can be used on an ibook g3 600 and the other ones in similarity.
I found this page
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302333
It gives a rough description of what kind of ram each gen of ibook uses. However, i bet there are some difficulties regardless when using different qualities of ram and what not.
Anyhow, I hope that helps someone.
-Anthony
I installed it the other day, it works fine.
really boosts performance too
Hey guys I installed 256MB pc133 SO-dimm on my ibook g3 the website taht was posted from the apple store listed the 512mb stick as the only one to use for my model, does this mean 256 will not work on my ibook? Has anyone else tried this. Maybe I am doing something wrong when i install it , but the mac just wont read it. I purchased the ibook at a pawn shop and i was trying to remove the firmware protection on it , which someone told me would happen if i upgraded the ram. Any help would be appreciated I also dont have the admin password, But i can get in to the ibook through a seperate account.
Thanks
-david