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rnmac · Oct 3, 2006, 03:40 PM

My daughter's boyfriend at college needs a laptop to run garageband on but doesn't have much money. Could an old clamshell run garageband? How about a Pismo? Just looking for an inexpensive solution. Thanks.

jamil5454 · Oct 3, 2006, 03:54 PM

Both of those would be horrible for Garageband. A G4 would speed things up considerably, and a G5 (or Intel processor) will perform very well for Garagebband.

Your best bet is to get a used iBook or TiBook for GarageBand, but if I were you I'd just save up a little more and go for a MacBook.

bowwowman · Oct 3, 2006, 04:04 PM

not happenin........Garageband (and most of the other iLife apps) require a G4/733+ CPU to run, + a dvd drive to install (dvd was BTO only on the clamshells)

and even if they would install on a G3, they would run slow as crap anyways

He needs to be looking for a more recent iBook G4 or Powerbook G4, with at least 512mb of ram & OS X 10.4 (also required for iLife apps)

gooser · Oct 3, 2006, 04:22 PM

please make mine the third strike.

brokenjago · Oct 3, 2006, 04:24 PM

Yeah, you're probably gonna have to go with an iBook G4 at the earliest, and personally I'd really go for a MacBook.

rnmac · Oct 3, 2006, 04:31 PM

Thanks for the replies everyone. I knew I was reaching for the stars but had to ask anyway.

I do have a G4 AL 867mhz Powerbook with 640 of RAM and 10.4.7 he could use. Would that work fairly well?

brokenjago · Oct 3, 2006, 05:33 PM

It should be sufficient. You're not going to get too much out of it, but it should run fairly wellish.

DmbShn41 · Oct 4, 2006, 12:54 AM

Man this is going to sound stupid, so I'll just throw it out there. I have a 366 Graphite Clamshell, but currently have three bids on the 466 model. Currently, I have the standard 6 GB HD, 128 MB RAM, and running Panther. No issues whatsoever. Got a great copy of iLife '04, and with the assistance of an External DVD Drive, installed GarageBand just to play with it. It works, not superior, but works. The 366 limits you as far as GarageBand due to no internal DVD, or no FireWire, or no audio input, but with a 466, upgraded HD and RAM, I wouldn't see an issue with it. But like most said, you can get a decent used iBook on eBay for $250-$375. And with minimal upgrades, $150 or less, you could upgrade the HD and RAM. Again, better off going with a G4 and up. The Clammy runs everything else from iLife '04 decent, and it makes a great photo/music/web browsing computer, thats about it.

gooser · Oct 4, 2006, 01:26 AM

so you've decided to upgrade to a 466. i hope you like it. i do mine. will you put your 120g hard drive in it? a word of slight caution: very modern software will drag a bit. damn these are nice machines.

DmbShn41 · Oct 5, 2006, 12:48 AM

Gooser,
I've decided cautiously to get a 466. My friend bought a "466" on eBay, and ended up being a plain old graphite 366. So I am going to upgrade this 366 I'm on now and give it to my brother. He just got out of the military and needs something to stay in contact with his buddies. I already put the 120GB in it, and I have a 512MB stick sitting on my desk. I installed the HD last week and I'm too burnt out to even pop the keyboard up and drop it in. 3 1/2 hours to do the hard drive! When the 466 shows up it will get a kick with Panther, 160GB HD if I can find the link again, 512MB, and plugged to the External DVD Burner so I can put out my new first album via GarageBand. Sorry to go off topic.

Rnmac, hopefully you find what you're looking for. Friends of mine use GarageBand on their white iBooks all the time, and as long as you're not running iTunes, GarageBand, Safari, iMovie and iPhoto at the same time, you won't crash, just as my friend did and lost his new track updates, and 2 hour work on our album cover that he didn't save..

Any questions ask gooser cause he's the MacPimp

Spidey79 · Oct 5, 2006, 01:19 AM

well if you are really looking for an ibook, i am seeling mine. Sorry to announce it here, but it seems like a good place. My model is a 12 inch g-4 1.2 ghz with 768 mb of ram. It has the 30 gig hd, it is in excellent condition. I bought apple care for it, so I would be willing to sell it for about $600 plus an incase sleeve. I will put pics. it has the airport card and I do have the original box. If you request pics, I will put them up on e-bay.. thanks!! I can also include the adapter that allows you to connect to a tv through the yellow rca or s-video btw, i am selling it because, i need to upgrade to a new laptop to run final cut pro...

gooser · Oct 5, 2006, 02:16 AM

Yo DmbShn41: sounds like you need to back away from your project for awhile, but keep us posted. i know you will.

ChasingApple · Oct 5, 2006, 05:56 PM

I also have iLife 04, 05, and 06 and I can vouch for iLife 04 running just fine on the Clamshell. Garageband wants memory, lots of memory. Since the max memory a Clamshell can use is 576MB, you can actually do some good stuff in Garageband, run multiple streams, and produce some good stuff. iLife 05 and 06 need more because Apple no longer optimizes recent softwares for the older hardware, their new policy seems to be "make the software uber feature rich and powerful, but force people to have to buy the newest hardware to be able to use it", rather then the old way they used to think, "optimize the hell out of every app and OS so that guy that bought that apple computer 3 years ago still is happy."

Apple updates hardware so damn often now that the poor guy from a few years ago is struggling just to be able to use todays apps. *shrugs* oh well.

gooser · Oct 5, 2006, 11:54 PM

simply put (and what this entire thread has been about) if you have an older machine, run older software. or at least not the newest software.