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built2crawl · Nov 28, 2003, 01:25 PM

I purchased a used Powerbook G4/400 and upgraded the ram to 1gig and upgraded from os9 to osx panther. My system seems to be pretty slow compared to my pc p3 1ghz with 512k of ram. Is the g4/400 supposed to be slower?

My xbench results average ranged from 52-53.

Also, when surfing the web with the airport card, it's very slow compared to my pc. The powerbook is using an airport card and the pc is also connected to the net with a wireless card. My dsl service is 1.5down and 768up.

Is there anything I can do to speed things up?

I'm very happy with the mac and will never purchase another pc again.

Thanks in Advance.

Olorin · Nov 28, 2003, 05:14 PM

Well a 400Mhz G4 is not going to set any records... we have a 450mhz Cube running 10.2.8 and it is kind of slow. However, the 450mhz G4 does internet and email just fine. It has trouble playing new games and stuff. I would think that the 400mhz G4 you have should be fine for basic needs...

anaphora68 · Nov 28, 2003, 09:24 PM

I have to agree. The 400Mhz G4 is by no means a barn-burner, but it will do most basic tasks.

ae86_16v · Nov 28, 2003, 10:26 PM

Originally posted by built2crawl:

Is there anything I can do to speed things up?

Thanks in Advance.

Actually that was my first Macs too. Then I upgraded to the Ti800 and now the new G4/1.25GHz. I was unimpress w/ the speed too. I ran it mostly under OS9 so everything was pretty snappy. I did try to run it under OS X (10.2.x).

You could do a few things, for example like turn off everything that you aren't using. There is a program called "ShadowsKiller" or something like that from Unsanity (www.unsanity.com) that kills the shadows from Windows. That should speed things up. Turn off other animation features in OS X would help.

RAM isn't your problem, as a matter of fact you probably don't even know 1GB of ram. Remember, RAM only makes your computer faster if you are using it. Go under Application/Utilities/Activity Monitor to see how much ram you are using.

You might also want to invest in a faster, that will significantly speed things up.

Then again, you might you wanna use that money towards a faster PowerBook.

Let us know if you have any other questions. Free feel to email me as well.

Goodluck and Welcome to MacNN.

built2crawl · Nov 29, 2003, 01:38 AM

Thanks for the advice guys. I've actually decided to purchase a new 15" albook and 17" imac after the holidays. Using Panther has me hooked on macs!! I've never had one problem with the g4/400 compared to my pc's. My pc's crashed every other day.