So I have this new Pismo and its a little sluggish. It will probably be fine for my wife, but I need some help. Its got 512mb ram and 400mhz. I was wondering what settings I could use in Panther to speed it up a bit. Thanks. -maestro
I recently got a 400mhz pismo with 384mb of ram and a slow, 6GB hdd drive. I run Tiger on it and i use it for basic work, like web surfing, word procesing and some light web development. I just started a mission to make this computer as fast as possible for this type of work. This is what ive done so far.
- I disabled dashboard to free some ram - I removed all printer drivers and localization in OSX to get some more disk space (I just gor a new 40gb hdd. They are very cheap and performance boost from faster hdd is huge. Its also nice to have all your data in one place.). - I removed font smoothing. It is uglier, but you get used to it and scrolling is MUCH faster. Safari is now actualy plesat to surf with even on large sites. - I used TinkerTool to disable some gfx effects like gennie effect, dock animation etc. - I boosted keyboard repeat speed an mouse tracking speed. You can do that in system preferences under "Keyboard and mouse". When i first read that tip i didnt even want to try it because it sounded stupid to me, but in fact it helps alot in general snappines. - I used Aticcelerator II to overclock gfx card (cpu 140mhz / ram 120, maybe i can go even higher). I also boosted cache speed from 160mhz to 200mhz (it should go up to 267mhz in pismos but mine is crashing with that settings. Not much improvement there, but better something than nothing).
Thats about it. I also tried shadowkiller to remove shadows but performance boost wasnt that big and i find shadows useful. Im also experimenting with themes to remove transparency, but dont want to change the system too much since i like the way OSX looks. Not a big performance boost either...Aqua stays.
The only benchmark i used is a "let 1k windows bloom" proggy that opens and closes 1000 windows. You can find it on google. I managed to get the results around 35 seconds with these settings, even few seconds less with shadowkiller. Thats is more than 100% improvement over stock Pismo 400. In real world my computer is now not only usable but very plesant to work with and OSX still looks very nice.
I hope that helps
Other than that i just finished repacking my dead battery with new 2000mah cells so i should get 5, 6 hours of battery life (on my first charge cycle i got more than 3 hours). Im also planing to install internal bluetooth and internal airport card
You repacked your own battery! You must do a mod guide! I knew that was a possiblity, but with the dangers of explosions, it always turned me off. My battery is dead also, so this may be a mod I will try. You have some interesting ideas here, and for that I givea karma point. When money permits I do plan a HD upgrade first, then I hope to test some cpu upgrades coming up in the near future for this site.
This is not my guide, i found it on google and followed it step by step. I know there is a lot of talk about exploding li-ion cell and stuff, but i didnt think it was that hard to do. You cant really blow up anything if you are careful and dont short the cells The hardest part is putting everything back together, since there is NO place in there. Even if you use slightly bigger wires it can be a problem
Anyway, li-ion cells were $70 with shiping. For you guys in US it should be under 50 bucks.
As for cpu upgrades. I want a G4 badly I cant watch hi-res movies on 400mhz g3 and i have to convert them to iPod format on my PC. Even a 500mhz G3 swap OCed to 550 wont be much better im affraid. But $300 is 2x more than i paid for my pismo and i dont want to spend that much.
Great, that will save me some cash. I hope to get around to it soon. Ill post how it went. If you do decide to get a G4 for you Pismo, a comparison article on replacements should help. I should be able to get started on it yet this month. -maestro
I think someone's answered this before, but just to check, am I right in thinking you can't accellerate a G4 to a G5 can you in the way you can a G3 to a G4?
What's the average delay time in people making accellerator cards for old computers?
Eg I've seen a company that will let you turn an old Performa into a G3 with their card, but they obviously haven't tried making cards to speed up G4s yet... just wondering how many years I'd theoretically need to leave it. :-)
I think the 64-bit nature of the G5 makes it too tricky. The G5 would probably have to run as 32 bit. Not sure thats even possible. G5 clock speeds aren't much better than the G4 desktop upgrades currently available so there's little point in bothering I guess.
A G5 card probably wont be made. Its time has passed unfortunately. Did I say that out loud?! A G5 for a PowerMac G3/4 will never be made either. You can get a G4 xlr8tor from many different companies at speeds from 450 to 2000mhz. Try http://www.fastmac.com or http://www.macsales.com.
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