G3 Ibook
900 MHz PowerPC G3
640 MB SDRAM

OS 10.3.9

I bought this thing refurbished.. It was cheap, I am cheap, I break things, I'm happy.. mostly.

The only issues I have run into are with internet. Random pages closing, youtube stream with a lot of hiccups etc.. This led me to want to update my browser and quicktime etc. I think somewhere down the line something told me my OS wouldn't support the upgrade..

OS 10.3.9 is loaded but I dont have software/license. Should I (can I) buy and load a new/better OS? If so which one for this comp?

Also ram? Can I go more and what is the best way to do that?

My goals for this machine are simple and clean performance. I use it for web-browsing and Word. Nothing else. That being said I want the best performance possible...

I am going to uppgrade eventually but I would like to keep this thing going because I need a machine that I can risk getting thrashed.

Thanks

You can upgrade to 10.4.x, but you would need to purchase that, it's not a free download or anything. Also what kind of optical drive is it? If it can't read DVD's you'll have to try and find the installer that's on 5 CD's instead of 1 DVD. That would let you run the latest browsers which will help the internet experience. I've noticed that some things are starting to not work well or at all under 10.3.9 for some internet stuff.

640M of RAM is the max it can take, that is a limiting factor on performance, open too many apps at once and it will be using a lot of virtual memory (hard disk) instead of real RAM. You'll be able to run Word, check email, run a web browser, view most video etc with it though. Youtube should be fine, but higher resolution streaming video like from hulu.com may get choppy, sometimes letting the whole video load before playing helps, or downloading it to the computer may help.

Welcome to the forums.

I don't know where to see what kind of optical drive it is, but I have watched a dvd on the machine so I guess that answers that.

I can budget buying the OS if what I suspected (and you said) is true.

So just look for the latest (or only) 10.4 but NOT 10.5?


Thanks for the help.

10.5 won't install on it. Well it will but you need to jump through hoops, and some things may not function correctly. Not for the notsosmart user. More of a power user thing.

Due to the speed of the machine I can't guarantee 10.4 will cure all your internet slow downs and glitches, but it will cure most and will make the experience better.

Make sure you get the retail install disks. Most install discs that are on ebay for example are specific to other machines and will not work on yours.