Anyone ever upgrade an Apple iBook (laptop)?

BTW it is a 2002. I am kind of disappointed that Apple.com doesn't say much about their older versions. Not everyone can afford their new expensive laptops (and ipads).

Last Edited by Pa resident1 on 06/01/2012 06:55 PM

I wish you luck. I believe you can upgrade the RAM and hard drive only, and not only could you do this yourself, but Apple will overcharge for inferior RAM (and tack on a service fee).

Both the hard drive and two RAM chips are easily removed and swapped out. Most computer stores have Apple RAM you can get right off the shelves, and ANY 2.5" laptop hard drive will work in your iBook.

However, I believe Apple does not allow you to upgrade the processor or video card. And the iBook will only recognize up to 1gb of RAM anyway, so you might already be maxed out.

Oh, and you can also get new batteries, obviously.

Easiest way to upgrade any Apple computer is by installing LINUX MINT

Won't run past Tiger, I don't think.

You're 2 OS's behind the times already.


Find a practical use for it and let it fulfill that need.

...a nice place mat or an oil drip tray for under your car.

If you think you can upgrade / speed up that laptop in any substantial way you are kidding yourself.

OP could drop it off a cliff

let me guess that you are selling them????????

I've done the work myself with help from ifixit.com. What do you want to upgrade?

Memory is easy, anything else is going to require cracking open the case, which is a pain (read: expensive). With laptops, everything is integrated onto one circuit board, CPU, graphics card, everything. You can't "upgrade" the CPU without replacing the logic board, which will set you back almost the price of a new iBook.

Look at increasing RAM, maybe changing the hard drive if it is 10 years old.

Thanks for the info. It is actually a 2003 so that makes it 9 years old.

We just thought we could upgrade the memory and OS enough that our daughter could use it to cruise the net. But what we found out is anything before 2006 is not upgradable enough :(. So that means upgrading it a step up isn't really worth it as the OS and Safari would not be powerful enough to handle certain web pages. It is a shame, when we brought it home from the auction it turned on, and then almost immediately this iBook detected and logged onto our wireless internet (I was very impressed with that).

Any how, it works just fine playing dvd movies so daughter can use it to do that.

Last Edited by Pa resident1 on 08/25/2012 06:44 PM

No I don't sell computers. We did contact the Apple repair shop, and they told us we would be better buying a used one (newer than 2006) than investing the money in trying to upgrade this one.

Yes I found out. :(

Again, it's useful as a DVD player.

she should still be able to look at web pages!!! get her on GLP!!!!

I really like the ibook G4 series with the 1.42Ghz chipset.

You can put more ram in it, and run an SSD. It can run quite fast like this depending on what you want to do with it.

Its also POSSIBLE to unsolder the video chipset and upgrade it to the one used in some powerbooks, but this takes ninja level soldering skills.