Macopinion

The Road Warrior Mailbag - March 5, 2007

New Macbook
A Year With Big Al - Buzzing noise
A Year With Big Al - I Can't Agree With You More
A Year With Big Al - Hard Drive
A Year With Big Al - Memory Flush

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New Macbook

From R

Hello Charles,

I am contemplating getting a new MacBook, and actually you were quite helpful when I purchased my last iBook about 3 years ago. I ended up getting a G4 800mhz ibook, and it served me well with a couple of hiccups, had a couple of problems with the powercord, and also the mousepad, but overall not bad. So now I am contemplating upgrading to the new MacBooks to take advantage of the Intel chips, and the capability to run Vista as well.

Do you have any sense on whether or not there is a significant speedbump in upgrading the RAM from 1GB to 2GB? Right now I am contemplating two "deals".

Refurbished MacBook 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo - White - ($1099 through Apple refurbished) 13.3-inch glossy widescreen display
1280 x 800 resolution
1GB memory (2x512MB SODIMMs)
80GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive
SuperDrive (DVD?RW/CD-RW)

New MacBook 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo - White ($1025 after rebate through Amazon) + $200 2GB RAM upgrade) 13.3-inch glossy widescreen display
1280 x 800 resolution
512MB memory (2x256MB SODIMMs)
60GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive
Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)

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Hi R;

Glad ti hear that the iBook worked out for you. I still like mine.

If you're planning on running Windows using BootCamp or Parallels I would definitely recommend maxing out the RAM to 2 GB.

Even with this 1.33 GHz PowerBook and not running anything in emulation, I have 1.5 GB of RAM and wish I had gone to 2 GB. With the Intel machines, the old adage that you can never have too much memory is more true than ever.

Between the two machines you're considering, I personally would go with the slower clock speed and 2 GB of RAM. The processor speed difference is not going to be that significant, but the RAM capacity will be. I can live without a DVD-burner, since I have that capability in other machines, but that consideration may be important to you.

Of course, the ideal would be the 2.0 GHz unit with a RAM upgrade to 2 GB.

Charles

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A Year With Big Al - Buzzing noise

From Christoph Trusch

Hello Charles W. Moore,

I just read your article on macopinon.com. Since I have no use for OS-9-incapable Intel Macs I bought a 15' PowerBook G4 1.3 GHz (1 GB ram) recently as a replacement for my 12' iBook G3 800 (48 months old, 100% reliable), and I can tell you that I had pretty much the exact same experiences as you did. It's just a great machine - most noticeable differences compared to the iBook are screen real estate (even on the 15' screen), screen brightness(!), and speed (not just .8 vs 1.3 GHz, but the G4 with Altivec gives me e.g. more than 10x the AAC encoding performance in iTunes).

I also get a faint buzzing noise from under the right-hand side of the keyboard (this seems to common with AlBooks), but only if I set the processor performance to "highest" in Energy Saver, and it vanishes a) when the power cord is unplugged (even if "Battery Power" performance is also set to "highest"), and b) when the computer has high processor load. I usually have performance set to "automatic", so it doesn't bother me. I run 10.3.9, and I'd be interested in what other readers have to say about this noise.

Best regards,
Christoph Trusch

PS: I also upgraded my internet connection from 56k to 4000-DLS a few months ago, and I can tell you that *this* will make any computer fly in comparison, and much more so than any processor upgrade! Have you considered a Satellite connection?

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Hi Christoph;

They really are great, aren't they?

After a few days uptime on the new OS 10.4.8 install, the "noise" is back, alas. It's somewhat reassuring to hear that this is not a unique problem to this computer.

I tried changing the power optimization settings, but the noise stays at all settings on this machine with OS 10.4.8.

I have indeed considered satellite Internet, but I simply can't justify (or afford) the astronomical cost of what's available here. I wrote about it in this article

Charles

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A Year With Big Al - I Can't Agree With You More

From Marc Cantlin

Having just replaced my 15 in PowerBook with the lovely 17 inch MacBook Pro, I can't agree with you more. In the two weeks I have had this machine, it has quickly become my favorite one. Ever.

Keep up the excellent commentary!

Thanks,
marcout

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Hi Marc;

Thanks for the kind words.

Delighted to hear that the excellent BigAl experience is carying over to the MacBook Pro version. I hope I can find the means to replace this 17" PowerBook with a 17" MacBook Pro when the time comes.

Charles

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A Year With Big Al - Hard Drive

From M

I think going with a faster HD (5400 or 7200) would fix any issues you have with the speed of the machine. I have a 15" (1.33 GHz, 1.5 GB RAM) Powerbook and replaced the stock hard drive with a 5400 after it gave up the ghost and the speed boost was incredible. I have since ventured to open him up again to give him a new Superdrive and I am getting pretty comfortable to working inside an AlBook.

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Hi M;

You're probably right. Actually, I have not really any complaints speed-wise (although faster is always better) with this unit, and I agree that the hard drive is probably the main bottleneck to performance.

I replaced the original 4,200 RPM drive in my Pismo with a 5400 RPM unit, so I know what your'e speaking of.

Charles

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A Year With Big Al - Memory Flush

From Jim

Charles,

Great update (keeping readers informed about your Big Al), thanks. You said:

"I wish OS X had some provision for flushing the swapfile cache and clearing the memory without having to logout or reboot."

I don't think you mentioned it, but will one of the OS X maintenance utilities such as OnyX, etc., do this? Or, do you know of another way of doing this without restarting?

The Word: "soviet86", as in, "I wish the soviet empire had gone away in 1986, earlier would have been better."

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Hi Jim;

I'm no authority on this, but my impression is that it is at least necessary to close all open programs in order to clear the memory. This seems to work best with a reboot. OnyX in any case recommends a reboot after doing its maintenance runs.

For me, it's closing and restarting all the programs (I usually have 15-20 open at any given time that is the biggest pain regards restarts, although the newer browsers that can restore your open session after a restart make it somewhat less tedious.

Charles

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Re: A Year With Big Al

From Jim

Thanks, Charles. Guess I need to restart more often; I typically never shut my Pismo down, neither do my wife and daughter with their iBooks. That is, unless a software update requires it. I remember OnyX doing the restart. Oh well, OS X is not yet quite perfect, but the closest thing to it among what's available.

Love your columns-!!

P.S. I use really OLD macs (Pismo 400 is mine, wife - iBook 800 MHz, daughter - iBook 14" 700 MHz), always trying to squeeze every cent out of what I use; same with cars, trucks, etc. Just too old fashioned, I guess. I remember when things were made to be repaired, not thrown away. I kept a 1983 Oldsmobile too long though. A great car, but finally had spent more in repairs than it was worth, a nephew bought it from me about two years ago, it still goes great! I made a mistake on that one... I consider myself quite cutting-edge in most things hi-tech, but have these lingering old fashioned ways about keeping things, thinking they should last. Anyway, as soon as we can afford it, I think the next Mac will be a MacBook.

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Hi Jim;

I amost never shut down my 'Books entirely, but on my main production machine, I find that I need at least one restart per week, or things get just too slow and flaky to tolerate. The usual limit is when iListen dictation transcription slows to a crawl.

OTOH, on my machines that get relatively light use with only a handful of programs open, I can go for months without a restart. I one time went more than three months uptime with my WallSteet running OS 9.2.2, and that was with a couple of hours use a day. The Pismo (OS 10.3.9) gets restarted about once a month (iListen again).

As for old stuff, my cars are a 1990 Camry and a 1994 Mazda B4000 4x4 pickup. My newest computer is this early 2004 vintage 17" PowerBook, plus the six and a bit year old Pismo and a 700 Mhz iBook in its fifth year of service.

Charles

*** Charles W. Moore

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