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Lombard + VST zip drive - 2007/05/16 23:11I posted this question at macGurus but I've had minimal replies so I thought I'd see if any of the regulars here know. I recently got my first Powerbook - a Lombard G3/400. Love it . Definitely alongside the Wallstreet and Pismo , the best looking laptop that Apple or anyone else for that matter has designed. It came with 128 mb Ram , a 6G HD and no working battery or charger - just the AC adapter. It has Panther on it but with only 128 mb ram and an old creaking HD , it runs a tad slooow. All I will be using this for is writing Word docs and checking my emails. I have already ordered a 40G 5400RPM Samsung drive and 512 mb Ram. I want to get a few other upgrades for it as well. One thing I like is the fact I can put a second HD in it via a EBM so I will look at getting one of those. Why ? Because I can ! A Powerbook with two HD's in it ! Coooool ! The other thing I want to get is a VST zip drive . Are these OSX compliant or are they OS9 only ? I also want to get a new battery. I've seen that I can get a separate standalone charger or I can get another AC cable that charges the battery while its in the powerbook. Does this generate too much heat inside the Powerbook ? So I'm after a charger , a battery and a VST or other internal zip drive. I'd also like to get another EBM so I can mount the second HD in that as well. Cheers , Stewie
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krowmagnum
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Re:Lombard + VST zip drive - 2007/05/18 01:42I must have missed your post. I have the same Powerbook and it's one of the best Apple made in my humble opinion. And with 512MB of RAM it runs Panther pretty well.
The VST Zip Drives work fine in Panther.
Charging the battery inside the PB does create some heat and a 2nd hard drive will create more heat as well as run the battery down. A faster hard drive will also create more heat.
The external chargers are nice if you have more than one battery, and it keeps the heat down in the laptop while running on AC power.
I just ordered an extended life battery from OWC and I'll post some times next week when I get it. They are expensive but seem to be the best option for going portable for any decent length of time.
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stewieno1
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Re:Lombard + VST zip drive - 2007/05/21 00:13Choice ! Yeah they are good laptops aren't they. I just bought another Lombard off a fellow member at MacTalk Australia for $40 which is in supposedly pretty average condition but if its salvageable I will resurrect it or use it for parts should it be too far gone. I'd still like to get a Pismo one day but they are commanding pretty high prices at the moment. I will pick up some of the add-ons over time except for the Ram which I just received and hopefully another HD soon. The external charger sounds like a good bet too to keep heat down as does a good battery for true portablilty. They sure ain't cheap here in Oz though. I would of thought the modern HD's would have been cooler and quieter even going to a 7200 RPM drive ? I might do a bit more research before I plonk down the hard-earned on one and weigh up noise vs heat. I'm not worried too much about the second HD . I might get one , I might not. It would be cool though ,to say to my PC Laptop toting friends that I have a Mac Laptop that has TWO HD's , does yours ? Ha. Thanks for the info on the VST drive. I had replies to this question from various sources but got conflicting reports. Some said it worked with OSX , others said no - OS9 only. Cheers , Stewie
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krowmagnum
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Re:Lombard + VST zip drive - 2007/05/21 18:30The Pismos's are nice but not that much better than the Lombard so I'll stick to the cheaper model ;-)
One thing I noticed about my Lombard 400 is the heat it puts out. Way more heat than a Wallstreet and more than the 333MHz Lombard I had before the 400MHz model.
That's why I would watch what you add to the Mac that will increase heat. The next upgrade I get for mine will be a larger hard drive and it will be a great old school laptop. But I'll probably stick to a 5400rpm drive because you really won't notice a lot of difference in an older book like the Lombard running on a 66MHz bus.
I got my new battery today but still doing the initial charge so I'll check out how long it lasts later tonight. I'm hoping for at least 4 hours which is better than my Aluminum G4 Powerbook did with a new battery. One of the reasons I sold the G4 Powerbook was becasue I could only get a couple of hours of decent use.
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stewieno1
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Re:Lombard + VST zip drive - 2007/05/21 21:04Hmmm. interesting about the heat your lombard /400 is compared to the other. I've only had mine on for no longer than an hour each time but it doesn't seem very hot at all - warm only , so I would be curious as to why yours is so hot. Fan working , heatsink in place etc ? Does your HD generate most of this heat ? I would seriously look into this to get the temps down otherwise component failure could result. There does seem to be quite a variance in the heat put out by different HD's and it is someting I have looked at well before I buy one. I may just stick with the 5400 RPM drive as well after reading your comment and some others about HD's in Powerbooks. The other thing that I do which came about because of the angle I type on the Powerbook , is to place a 1" thick piece of timber under the rear two feet to lift the back of the keyboard up. It creates a more comfortable angle for typing as well as give the bottom of the case more cooling.It may help yours a bit . A bit low-Tech but it works. Regards the battery life , I will end up getting a new battery at some stage because I need this to be portable and one of the reasons I chose a Lombard or Wallstreet over a newer model is they seem to last way longer on a full charge. As you have found with your TiBook. Cheers , Stewie.
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krowmagnum
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Re:Lombard + VST zip drive - 2007/05/22 21:53The Lombards are notoriously warm and I use mine on my lap which is the only way to use a laptop ;-)
The heat isn't from the drive but from the CPU and board. The Lombard fan does not come on until it gets so hot it could damage the components so it's not really there to keep things cool. Just to keep from frying the CPU. The charging board will put out some heat too but the drives are probably the least of the possible heat issues but why add more.
7200rpm drives are fairly recent additions to new laptops and most have 4300 or 5400rpm drives. Your Lombard isn't fast enough to really get any benefit from a faster drive than a 5400rpm drive.
RAM is the one thing that will make a difference and with 512MB it does help a lot.
I'm getting 3.5 hours of decent use out of the new battery. I bought the Newer Technology NuPower 68 Watt-Hour Lithium-Ion Extended Capacity Battery for PowerBook G3 Lombard from OWC. You can get a higher capacity battery than the one I bought which will set you back about $150.00. Considering the Lombard is only worth about $150 it seems like a bad investment but it can be used in a Pismo too so if I get a Pismo I can still use it.
With laptops, the faster it is the quicker it will eat up battery time. My Aluminum G4 Powerbook didn't last long because of the power consumption to run the G4. The newer Intel books should run longer because the big issue for mobile technology is to keep the power consumption down on the CPU and other components. Batteries are batteries and a new laptop still uses Lithium type batteries so it's best to keep power use down. Apparently power consumption is easier to fix than battery life.
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