Hotrodding The Titanium PowerBook - Plus PowerBook Mystique Mailbag

by Charles W. Moore

For the past couple years, the most popular older PowerBook for hotrodding projects has been the Pismo — aka the PowerBook G3 2000 FireWire. The Pismo is a wonderful computer, and I'm still getting great service from mine, which has been souped up with a RAM upgrade, a 550 MHz G4 processor upgrade from Daystar, a 40 gigabyte, 5400 RPM Toshiba hard drive, a FastMac 8x SuperDrive expansion bay module, and a Miglia FireWire 800 PC Card adapter. Thus tweaked, the old Pismo still provides amazingly satisfactory performance running OS 10.4 Tiger.

However, the Pismos are getting pretty long in the tooth, the newest ones now being more than five years old, which is elderly by any measure of computer service life. Aside from its general solidity and goodness, the big advantage of the Pismo as a hotrodding candidate is that its processor is mounted on a removable daughtercard, which facilitates upgrading, and the removable-device expansion bay. Unfortunately, the fastest G4 chip that is pin-compatible with the Pismo's daughtercard is the 550 MHz unit, which really doesn't cut it any more when the slowest new current Mac is 1.33 GHz.

For a long time, the assumption was that the Pismo would be the end of the road for PowerBook processor upgrades. All subsequent Apple laptops -- both PowerBooks and iBooks, have their CPUs soldered to the motherboard, which, it was thought, would make processor upgrades, while not technically impossible, at least impractical and cost-prohibitive.

But where there is perceived demand, there is often a way. There are an awful lot of Titanium G4 PowerBooks out there. The TiBook had the longest production life of any PowerBook in Apple's history -- 32 months, and it sold well. While it is neither as rugged nor as expandable as the Pismo and other G3 serious PowerBooks, there are still a lot of TiBooks in service, making it theoretically a logical candidate for hotrodding now that it's fallen well behind the current machines in processor performance. At least two upgrade vendors think so.

In 2004, Daystar released the first-ever Titanium PowerBook processor upgrade, for the first and entry-level second-generation TiBooks.

The Daystar XLR8 MAChSpeed G4 TITANIUM upgrade with 1 MB cache and MAChSpeed Control software boosts the Apple PowerBook G4 Titanium (400-550 MHz) speed up to 40% for better graphics, video and games performance.

Available upgrades:
550 MHz (original CPU at 400 MHz or 500 MHz)
667 MHz (original CPU at 550 MHz)

The XLR8 MAChSpeed Titanium PowerBook CPU Upgrade sells for $259.00.

For more information, visit here.
http://4daystar.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=241

Then last year, veteran Mac upgrade supplier Sonnet Technologies unveiled a 1.2 GHz processor upgrade for the 550 MHz and 667 MHz Second generation "Ivory" TiBooks. Why not for the first generation 400 MHz and 500 MHz machines as well?, you might be asking. Well, the reason is that these early editions used a G4 7410 chip, which is not pin-compatible with the 745x chips used in later models, so 500 MHz (or 550 MHz overclocked ) is the maximum ceiling (the same upgrade limitation shared by the Pismo).

The upgrade features a Freescale 7457 G4 processor running at 1.2 GHz, and is equipped with 512K L2 onboard cache (twice the original processor's) running at full processor speed.

Sonnet's 1.2 GHz Titanium makeover can give your PowerBook G4 (Titanium) 550 MHz and 667 MHz (with VGA external monitor port) a new lease on life. Upgraded TiBooks remain completely compatible with your existing hardware, software, RAM, and peripherals, and support Mac OS 9.2 through the latest version of Mac OS X.

While other Sonnet processor upgrades are user-installable, due to the complexity and technical skills required to upgrade a PowerBook G4's processor, Sonnet will send a custom, padded shipping container for your PowerBook, certified by FedEx for shipping and receiving notebook computers.

Sonnet upgrades your PowerBook G4 (Titanium) 550 MHz or 667 MHz (with VGA external monitor port) with a PowerBook G4 logic board upgraded with a G4 processor running at 1.2 GHz G4 with 512K L2 backside cache.

The PowerBook G4 TiBook upgrade service cost is $499.95 plus tax (where applicable) and shipping. It is available exclusively through Sonnet Technologies for customers living within the United States.

For more information about the Sonnet PowerBook G4 TiBook Upgrade service, refer to the Sonnet web site at:

http://www.sonnettech.com/service/tibook/index.html

Does hotrodding a TiBook make sense? As usual, the answer depends on a number of variables, but under certain circumstances I think it can. If you have a TiBook that you like, that's in good condition, and has perhaps had its RAM maxed out and been upgraded with a larger, faster hard drive, then there is a case to be made for upgrading the processor. However, there are some caveats to consider.

First is that you can pick up a refurbished 1.2 GHz or 1.33 GHz G4 iBook with a full Apple warranty and AppleCare eligibility for $700-800, although bear in mind that you will only get 512 MB of RAM (expandable to 1.24 GB or 1.5 GB) and a 4200 RPM hard drive, and of course a 12.1 inch, 1024 x 768 display.

An iBook isn't a PowerBook, and the Titanium machine offers a widescreen display, but unfortunately in the upgradable models only an ATI Mobility Radeon graphics processing unit with 16 MB of video RAM, which may be more of a performance bottleneck in certain instances than processor speed. And while I won't say categorically that TiBook VRAM is "non-upgradable," no upgrades are available or anticipated. The 550 MHz and 667 MHz TiBooks don't support OS X Quartz Extreme or Core Image graphics in OS 10.4 Tiger. Recent iBooks do.

Another is that, as previously noted, the TiBook not be most robust PowerBook Apple has ever made, and it can be prohibitively expensive to repair when certain components break or fail, especially case and screen issues. The upgrade-supported machines are now 4-5 years old. Also, with the release of Intel-based MacBooks, prices of used G4 PowerBooks and iBooks are going to plummet over the next few months, which could make a used aluminum G4 PowerBook a more attractive alternative to hotrodding your TiBook.

That said, if you do proceed, the performance increase you get moving from a 550 MHz or 667 MHz processor to a 1.2 GHz processor will give you an impressive performance boost, and could extend the useful service life of your TiBook by a couple of years, which could be just the ticket to carry you through the turbulence and uncertainty of the early MacIntel era.

PowerBook Mystique Mailbag

Quiet hard drives

Thanks for you article on quiet hard drives for iBooks. I just purchased an older clamshell ibook and the drive is louder than my son's more up-to-date g4 iBook. I've been thinking about switching out the hard drive and will look at the Travelstar and Western Digital drives you mentioned. By the way, what model is the iBook you have that is so quiet?

Also the sound out on the clamshell does not work with a standard stereo headphone jack or jack for a pair of powered speakers. I assumed it was defective even though it cuts out the on-board speaker when I put a jack into it. Then a friend who has fooled with Macs for years said it could be that I need a Mac only jack which he said was longer. At least he said, that's how it used to be on the older PowerBooks and he wasn't sure if it was the case with the Clamshell. Just a hope, I guess but if you have any suggestions, they would be appreciated.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your knowledge with others.

Joe McHugh

Charles

CM