April 5, 1999
by Stephen Hildreth
Editor-in-Chief

The new PowerBook G3's, and their upcoming replacements, are wonderful machines. But what if the size of your wallet doesn't allow you the freedom of purchasing one of these new rigs? Consider upgrading your existing laptop - many of your existing PowerBook's components can be upgraded. From the 100 to the G3, there are steps you can take to enhance your computing experience. Beware, however, that some of these upgrades are expensive and may not make sense economically. In some cases, you may be better off replacing your existing 'Book with a new or newer one.

CPU Upgrades
Upgrading your CPU is the most logical upgrade, since nearly everyone wants a faster computer. The processor in the PowerBook G3 cannot be upgraded, nor can the processor in the 3400 (at least without swapping out the entire motherboard, which you can technically do with the 233, 266, and 300 MHz G3's). But for owners of 1400's and 2400's, you're in luck - you can upgrade your processor with G3 power. Vimage makes G3 upgrades for the 1400 and 2400, ranging from a 233MHz G3 upgrade for the 1400 ($499) to a 320MHz G3 upgrade for the 2400 ($999). Newer Technology also makes G3 upgrades for the 1400, including 216MHz (discontinued), 233MHz, and 250MHz G3's. Finally, Newer made a 183MHz 603e upgrade for the 1400, yielding about a 20% increase in speed over the 133MHz model. Any of the processors listed above can be readily found on the open market, new or used.

Owners of older PowerBooks aren't in luck when it comes to new CPU upgrades. Instead, you'll have to troll newsgroups and classified ads for used upgrades. Unfortunately, many of these upgrades won't get you the kind of speed increase that a G3 processor provides for a 1400 or 2400. Newer made 183MHz 603e upgrades for the 500 series 'Books, and Apple made a 100MHz PPC upgrade for the 500 series and Duo 280-280c. Apple claimed to make a 100MHz PPC upgrade for all Duos, including the 210, but this upgrade is either nonexistent or very hard to find. Apple did, however, offer an 040 upgrade for the Duo 250 and 270c. The 190 and 190cs could be upgraded with a 100MHz 603e PPC processor from Apple, bringing it to the same speed as the 5300. It's possible, but difficult, to find these upgrades on the used market. However, you're more likely to find them in a PowerBook that someone is trying to sell.

Digital Eclipse, Dynamic Engineering (831-336-8891), and Bottom Line Distribution made clock boosts for the 100, 100 series, and Duo back in the early- to mid-90's. Some of these boosted PowerBooks may be on the market today. Most of these boosts revolved around increasing the processor speed from 16MHz to 25MHz, 25MHz to 33MHz, or 33MHz to 37-40MHz, resulting in a 20-40 percent speed improvement, depending on the model. Dynamic also offered a 33MHz upgrade for the 520 and 520c which included a floating-point unit. There were no PPC upgrades for the 100 series.

RAM Upgrades
You can never have enough RAM, and this is especially true these days with bloated software and operating systems. Check out our PowerBook specifications page to see the minimum and maximum RAM allotted in every PowerBook, then max out the RAM in your rig. RAM is cheap these days, so this is one of the more affordable upgrade paths. If you have a 1400 or newer, then upgrade to at least 64MB. If you have an older PowerBook, then max out the RAM and use RAM Doubler to make up the difference.

Hard Drive Upgrades
PowerBook hard drives are subdivided into two categories: SCSI and IDE drives. Starting with the 5300/190 series, 150, and Duo 2300, Apple began using IDE drives instead of SCSI drives. As of this writing, you can upgrade SCSI hard drives to 2.1GB with a drive from MCE PowerBook Products. This is actually an IDE drive with a special miniature IDE-SCSI adapter which allows you to use the drive as a SCSI drive. They make IDE drives as large as 14GB, depending on which PowerBook model you want to put the drive into. In general, these drives are faster than the standard Apple drives and consume slightly less power.

Modem Upgrades
Global Village made a 28.8k internal modem for the 100 series PowerBooks, and some vendors still have this model in stock. See our PowerBook Dealers page for a list of vendors. For the 500 series, you're stuck with the internal 19.2k modem unless you can find the rare PC card cage which accepts anything up to the latest 56k modems. 5300/190 and x400 users have their choice of PC card modems up to and beyond 56k. G3 users are apparently stuck with their internal 56k modems unless they want to use a PC card modem instead.

Screen Upgrades
For the PowerBook 520, 520c, and 540, Apple offered upgrades to the color active-matrix screen used in the 540c. At the time, this was a $2200 upgrade (!). When the 5300/190 series debuted, Apple offered upgrades to the color active-matrix screen of the 5300c for about $1000. There have been no screen upgrades available for any other PowerBook. Today, some vendors, like MacResQ, sell screens from many PowerBook models, and it's theoretically possible to upgrade, say, a 1400cs (passive-matrix) to a 1400c (active-matrix).

Odds and Ends
If you have a 100 series PowerBook, you can get heavier-duty AC adapters. Apple shipped 24w AC adapters (M5652) with the 165c and 180c, replacing the older 15w (M5140) and 19w (M5651) models. The 24w adapter will charge a PowerBook faster than the 15w or 19w models and was common in mail order catalogs like MacMall. The exception to this rule are the 100 and 150 models which should use 15w or 17w adapters.

The Duo's keyboard can be upgraded. Apple shipped five different keyboards for the Duos, from A to E, with each model getting progressively better. Some vendors, like MacResQ or The PowerBook Guy, may carry newer replacement keyboards.

Digital Eclipse added 68882 FPUs to the PowerBook 140, 145, 160, and 165. Sonnet Technologies put FPUs on PDS cards which could fit in the left-side drive bay of the 500 series PowerBooks.

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