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PowerPC Macbook needs OS re-install - Guides on how to do this?

R

RaiderJ

Diamond Member
The wife's laptop is an older PPC Macbook and is running very slow. Seems to me that it'd be time for an OS re-install! Those are useful even on a Mac, right?

Can someone point me in the direction of a good guide or instructions on how to reinstall the OS? Do I just download the OS discs and go, or do I need drivers and such beforehand in order to get an internet connection?

For upgrades, does a RAM bump make any difference? Should it be done before or after the OS install?
 
No drivers.. just the OS install disc.

Put the DVD in the drive, and double click the Setup icon when the disc loads. That should restart you into the install.

Once there, just follow the steps. There will be one that will ask you which drive you want to put it on, and in the bottom right of that pane you will see a button for "Customize", I believe.. Click that, and choose an "Archive and Install". This will keep all of your wife's documents on the drive, but install like a brand new install of OS X.

Then you can just pull over what you want from the base drive/Previous Install (or something like that).

I'm not sure OS X benefits as much from fresh installs as Windows does. I've done numerous ones just to clean files off my system, but I've never noticed it be faster once I've done that. I've gotten space back from just random files that I had forgotten about.. but never really gained any speed/stability.. like I used to with Windows XP.

RAM does help. I think that you get the most benefit at 2GB on OS X. Doesn't matter when you put the RAM in. Depending on the version of Mac it is though, I would check to make sure it supports more RAM than it has. I think some of the PPC Macs only supported a max of 1.5 GB, but I'm not sure which versions.
 
Originally posted by: Kmax82
Originally posted by: Tyranicus
For the record, there were no PPC MacBooks.
Click to expand...

Heh.. right.. Powerbooks.. 🙂
Click to expand...

ditto on that. and Powerbook sounds infinitely cooler and better than "Macbook" or "Macbook Pro."

regarding a new install of OSX, what version of OSX are you using now? 10.3 (panther), 10.4 (tiger), or 10.5 (leopard)? although i'm using leopard on my 5-year old 12" powerbook, i find that there is definitely a performance hit compared to tiger especially since 1.25 gb is the maximum memory possible on my machine. if you can go without some of the features of leopard, your best performance will still be on tiger. also, i think fresh installs benefit most if you had "upgraded" from a previous version (eg. installed leopard over tiger, instead of doing a fresh install of leopard). while i don't know how much DDR sodimms cost these days, if possible, you should definitely upgrade to the max amount (i think 4gb on 15" or 17" powerbooks and 1.25gb for 12"). also, you should check to see if your hard drive is failing. after several years, my hard drive was not passing SMART tests and replacing the hard drive seemed to help.
 
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