Anybody ever changed out RAM on an iBook G4?
So I bought me some RAM, the biggest chip I could - 500-something, I believe. Anyway anybody done this, and want to give me instructions? It can't be that hard. The only instructions said to go to crucial's tech support pages and look from there, but I'm feeling lazy and don't really want to surf and sift from there...anybody wanna tell me?
COMPLETELY unimpressed. What next?
Well, I tried Crucial's RAM chip, and I can say it sucked donkey balls. I swapped out my existing 256MB chip for a 512, and actually found the machine to be much, MUCH slower!!! I'd mentioned hoping to avoid/lose the 'beachball of death', and I found I got it much more often. It was particularly noticeable switching between different tabs on firefox, but also when going from app to app (firefox to iChat, to iTunes, etc). Also I've found iTunes to be such a show-stopper anymore I can't run it while running anything else - if I want to listen to tunes, I have to jack my ipod into the speaker cord instead, or the computer ends up completely crippled. Anyway I was so dissatisfied with the new chip that I swapped both chips out again, and now things are back to 'normal'. I just can't run iTunes all that long or it locks itself up, permanent beachball that even a Force Quit can't get to shut down - only way to get rid of it is to manually reset the computer by holding down the power button.
Oh, and I also noticed that while my computer is 'docked' (plugged in and resting on one of those 'iCurve' stands), if I lose power, then the battery won't keep the computer on - it'll shut down along with the wall outlet. WTF?!?
Look, I know I need a new computer - this is an 800mHz iBook G4. It'll be 4 years old this xmas. I'm just hoping to nurse it just a bit further, and thought doing stuff like putting double the RAM in it might be a help. Anything I can do?