My mom's Powerbook G4 is super slow

[Q]

My mom's Powerbook G4 recently has gone down the crapper. She just uses it for internet so if I can fix this we will not need to buy a new laptop.

It's basically terrible, really slow. Is there a way I can just erase everything to factory defaults or whatever to start over again?

 

[secretanchitman]

yep! use the cd that came with her powerbook, or get a retail copy of leopard. if you get leopard, dont worry, it works with G4-G5 comps as well as ones with intel inside. osx actually gives you choices before reinstalling - erase the hd and start over, save your current files and put them in a new folder, and save your current files and after reinstalling osx, have it put back all your files! i think there is one more option but im not too sure.

hope that helps!

 

[Q]

I got the G4 used, so I don't have the CD. What can I do?

 

[BriGy86]

You could download an install Onyx and see if those utilities work
http://www.apple.com/downloads...sk_utilities/onyx.html

You may have to search for an earlier version since you have a G4.

as for the disks since it is a Mac it has a licence. You may be able to request new disks from apple for a fee of course. otherwise you can get 10.5 if the computer supports it.
http://store.apple.com/us/prod...1NDAzOA&mco=MzgzMjcyOA

 

[HappyJack96]

Have enough RAM? Running out of disk space?
Low RAM & disk space would slow VM down to a crawl.
Ever do any kind of disk/system maintenance?
I regularly use this shareware program: Cocktail
It cost $ but has a free trial version that may help you now.
Their is another way (free) also, but try Cocktail first.
ALWAYS backup important data before ANY maintenance!
Hope this helps!

Russell

 

[HappyJack96]

"Their" should read: THERE
Which is FREEware called: AppleJack
Not a GUI app, nor feature rich as Cocktail.
Only cleans Cache/Temp Files & Repairs Permissions,
but that is usually all you need for regular maintenance.
Cocktail is easy & I felt it worth $ (used to cost less). Try free trial!

Russell

 

[Azeroth101]

Originally posted by: Quintox
I got the G4 used, so I don't have the CD. What can I do?

easy, get a pc

 

[James Bond]

Originally posted by: Azeroth101

Originally posted by: Quintox
I got the G4 used, so I don't have the CD. What can I do?

easy, get a pc

Uhh, ban.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: James Bond

Originally posted by: Azeroth101

Originally posted by: Quintox
I got the G4 used, so I don't have the CD. What can I do?

easy, get a pc

Uhh, ban.

Oh dude, don't feed the troll

OP, as others have pointed out, you might want to try and secure a disk from Apple since it would have come with the media, or check the specs and see if it will work with Leopard. If you are around 1GHz you might want to stick with Tiger (or whatever it came with) because that will still get the job done. If 10.3 (Panther) is on there, you might want to try to upgrade to 10.4 (Tiger) since that will be more secure and support more third party software.

As for the recommendations for Onyx and whatnot... Those could work, and are a free way to try and get the system back up to snuff, but at the end of the day, even OS X can get slow for whatever reason and a clean install really is the best way to take care of that.

 

[Parasitic]

Originally posted by: Quintox
I got the G4 used, so I don't have the CD. What can I do?

You won't be able to order replacement disks from Apple without an original proof of purchase, so I guess your best chance is to try eBay or less legitimately, bittorrent. Well, I guess you can argue that since by owning a G4 your computer should be technically licensed for whatever version of OSX that came originally installed on your system and BT'ing the same version is technically ok...

And did you try programs like MainMenu (routine system maintenance stuff), XSlimmer (strips off unused code from binaries), or Monolingual (removes excessive language resources)? Those should theoretically provide some relief and disk space, and help OSX run slightly faster.

Finally, what about a RAM upgrade? That is always cheap and usually very effective.

 

[MovingTarget]

Heh, same thing with my iBook G4. The standard answers like more ram helps, but you do have to keep in mind that the G4 is a pretty old chip by today's standards.

 

[JKing106]

What are the specs? Processor speed, amount of RAM, etc? If it's a 1.2, or 1.4 with a gig of RAM, it would still be usuable to browse the net. It would just need to be wiped. If it's lower than those specs, sell it for parts on Ebay.