[Lightstar]

I've had my 14 inch 1.2 ghz iBook for about 2 years now - and ideally I would love to go get an iMac or a MacBook, but I figure it would be better, and cheaper, to just upgrade my iBook. But I have a few questions...

Some how (don't ask me how), I was able to keep the included 256 RAM without increasing it. But I'm realizing how it's really time to upgrade that. My parent's iMac G4 800 mhz runs faster than my iBook, it has 512 RAM. I would love to upgrade to 1 GB RAM, but I'm thinking for just going for the 512 for now. Do you think the 512 will let me see the performance I want? Now my iBook is just for daily use. Last 2 years it was for school, but I graduated and I won't be writing any more papers on it. Also, does anybody know of good stores that are reliable for RAM? I was looking at Ram Seeker, but not sure which stores are best. Or are there any affordable actual stores I could go to? Would Fry's have what I'm looking for? (I live in the Seattle area if that helps at all)

My battery has gone out, so I'll be going and buying a new battery this week. So there's another upgrade for it. I'll just be going to the Apple Store and getting that - unless anybody knows of other reliable places to get one.

I'm also curious about a "clicking" noise my iBook has been making a lot. If I ever have too many things going on and something is try to load, my computer will start to "click" and become very slow. The noise seems to come down from the left of the trackpad. Not sure what's up with that... Any advice?

And last, but not least, I would love to get my iBook looking new again. Need to clean it up and make it look white again. Any ideas?

So this post ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would. Thanks in advance for your help!

[Cucucachoo]

yes you will see a huge increase of preformance with a memory upgrade. If you can afford it I would max it out, the more the better. As far as where to get the memory, I cant be of any help. I'm a brave MOFO and bought a 512 stick off eBay for 25 bucks shipped. But thats a gamble I don't mind taking. I would go with someplace that you trust in the end.

The clicking noise sounds like its coming from your hard drive. The lower left corner by the track pad is where the HD is located. I have replace both the HD's in my iBooks and its not a simple job. It can be done but its a process. It's something I would suggest researching before taking on the job. Also, I found both HD's (one a 60gig and the other 80gig) on eBay for under 100 bucks shipped. Again a gamble.

And for the cleaning question, I have no ideal. I've been trying to find something myself.

[mBurns]

For cleaning the iBook, I would go with iKlear.

[chefpastry]

OS X loves memory. I always tell people to get as much memory as they can afford.

The clicking that you hear is probably from the hard drive. In the past, I've found it to be a prelude of bad things... YMMV