My Powerbook 12" takeapart, upgrade & pics

Giaguara

Giaguara

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This was done a few months back, but just seems to fit to this area too well. ::angel::

So, I have a Rev. B 12" Powerbook. It was 12", 40 GB, 512 MB RAM, Combo drive before.
We took it apart home (me & Dorn), and now it's 12" (surprise), 80 GB (5400 rpm), 1,25 GB RAM, and Superdrive.



More pics of it

It was fun to do and see what's inside. I liked my Powerbook before, and now I like it even more. Of course the new ones are cool, I want one, but then I don't really need to upgrade, especially since I'm using a nice amount of Mac desktops at the moment as well. (More of those later). My bf has taken apart about all different models of Apple laptops (and desktops too for that matter), but still it took nearly 1,5 hours to take stuff apart and put them back on working. And then more time to partition the new hard drive, and install OS X and bring data over.

I have still the old hard drive in daily use. He got a firewire case for portable drives from Fry's for about 20-25$, and it is really nice now. In the sense that it's small, not mucch bigger than an iPod, and it holds 40 GB of anywhint with me. So many times the hard drive is on my backpack, for bringing data over. And I don't need to put too much data on any of the iPods that way, so those can concentrate on music now.
 
Awesome. I love seeing people upgrading their Macs... I had Planned on doing something similar to my Mac mini, giving it a speedy 7200 RPM drive then using a firewire enclosure. But I'll wait on that ::ha::

Nice stuff, enjoyed the pictures.
 
Hmm.. 7200 rpm on a mini would become quite hot.
I can feel the difference in heat (more hot) and battery life (30 min less) wit hteh 5400 rpm instead of the old (was it 420??). But overall, a lot more space and RAM and superdrive = nice.

Once we do more takeaparts, I'll post pics for those too. ;)
 
I don't see too much difference in battery life with my 7.2K RPM drive. I get about 15 minutes less battery life, and that's something that I can live with :).
 
Giaguara said:
Hmm.. 7200 rpm on a mini would become quite hot.
I can feel the difference in heat (more hot) and battery life (30 min less) wit hteh 5400 rpm instead of the old (was it 420??). But overall, a lot more space and RAM and superdrive = nice.

Once we do more takeaparts, I'll post pics for those too. ;)
Click to expand...

I would like to know how much the parts to upgrade the PB cost you.
 
EDIT: Took out nonsense estimates :). You'll get all the nice upgrades for about $450 from OWC.
 
Weell ... can't answer the price question really. I know what the list price for ordering the Apple SuperDrive is, but we'll have to ask Dorn for details (and I don't think he wants to give those out, since it was sort of christmas present/activity... :)
 
Giaguara said:
Hmm.. 7200 rpm on a mini would become quite hot.
Click to expand...

true in most cases but hitachi makes a great low power, low heat drive thats 7200rpm with 8mb buffer. in some cases these days you can have the best of both worlds..
 
Sorry, but dont know price since it was a give internally from someone who needed some desktop RAM (hands feeding others etc).

Most upgrades aren't that hard if you

a. read the service instructions
b. remember that no matter what, you're never going to get the cables/tape/foil looking like it did when you started :)
c. use good tools (like a nice micro-bit set or something, makes the difference)

and honestly, i've been taking them apart since the Mac Portable... so I may be a bit biased... yea I do own a Blackbird in pieces too heh... need to fix one day :)

regards
 
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