Panther on Lombard - RAM upgrade question

I currently have 256 MB of RAM on my venerable G3 Lombard 333. I am running OS X 10.3.9. My performance seems to have degraded rather dramatically from what I recall, but maybe it's the apps .... NeoOffice (the Aqua-friendly version of Open Office (free but BLOATED)), and several X-Windows based apps.

I'm trying to spend my $$$ as appropriately as possible (I don't have the $2000+ that the kids with their college loan money are spending on their gaming rigs in the "What should I buy" forum). I can get an upgrade to 512MB for ~$100. Will I notice a significant difference in performance?

Other thoughts on tweaking performance of this old Powerbook?

Thanks in advance,

David

 

I don't know much about older macs, but I know for normal PCs, RAM is the best and cheapest upgrade. 256 isn't much. I would definently try to plug in between 512 and 1 gig of additional ram. You sould see an improvement.

 

Hollownail, Thanks for the quick reply. The Lombard was originally designed to max out at 256MB Through improvements in RAM technology, they were able to bump the ceiling to 512MB, but that's it. I'm just wondering if that's enough for 10.3.9.

 

Well, RAM is pretty much the only thing you can upgrade... Can't you get 1GB for $100? OS X is pretty RAM-hungry as you may know. Have not used NeoOffice but most people say it is bloated as you do. And X apps probably put another burden on the system by loading both X and a different set of libraries... apart from buying more RAM, try profiling your apps for memory usage and try and use some alternatives (i.e., use NeoOffice only for converting, and do the actual editing in another app; or use OpenOffice if you must use X apps anyway). Can't the G3 run Tiger? Astoundlingly people report newer versions of OS X to run faster on older machines, given enough RAM.
Selling both laptops and getting a macbook is out of the question I assume?

 

Even with a RAM upgrade you may not really be happy with the performance. Here is a very good article from lowendmac.com:
http://lowendmac.com/misc/06/1002.html
They talk all about the Lombard and even what to upgrade. Apparently there is a reasonably price processor upgrade available that you may want to think about. Good luck! Let us know how it goes!

 

Wooky, Thx, but I doubt I'd get very much for my old machines. It's a nice thought, but .....

 

cahsmonee,

Good article. Thanks.

 

Just read Cashmonee's article, indeed it can't run Tiger nor get past 512MB... a pity. But my reasoning is that if you can get US$200 on each old notebook, plus the US$100 you'd spend on RAM, you'd have US$500. I guess you can buy a second-hand Macbook for US$800 (since refurbs can be had for US$900). Or maybe an iBook G4, maybe US$700 for a 1GHz model? I just don't think the CPU upgrade at US$250 is worthy, specially since you should also buy more RAM. Anyway, good luck. I've seen you've run Ubuntu, perhaps running a trimmed down linux distro is a better idea.

::EDIT:: According to this, you can find iBooks G4 12" in the US$500-600 range:
http://lowendmac.com/ibook/ideals.html

 

Good suggestions ... I might go the Ubuntu route again. It WAS faster, but a lot of stuff didn't work (Flash, some java apps, etc.) Still, for basic stuff, it might work.