I’ve been thinking about adding memory to the PowerBook for a while now, and for various other reasons we ended up at Fry’s last night. I figured, we’re here anyway, why not at least price the RAM?
Well, here’s a big fragging “Why Not:” I couldn’t remember the exact specs required. There was, however, a chart listing various laptop models, and the employees could look up requirements by model in the computer. The problem there was that I knew it as “the new 12″ PowerBook G4,” not as “Model A1010,” so they ended up (as near as I can tell) pulling up the specs for last year’s PowerBook (the 1 GHz instead of the 1.33 GHz). Naturally, the two models use different kinds of RAM.
When we got home last night, I cracked open the manual to compare the specs. Tonight, I waded through the Fry’s return line, and this time I brought the manual along — as I’d intended to do in the first place.
Everything went smoothly except for one glitch. The memory slot is covered by a panel with four size #0 Phillips head screws. I do have a size #0 screwdriver, and three of the screws came out easily. One of them refused to move, and the head ended up getting stripped somewhat. Eventually I was able to get it.
So, now the laptop has gone from having the smallest amount of memory at 256 MB (barring the ancient Mac clone in the closet) to having the most memory of all our computers at 1.25 GB.
Hey, I have a Model A1010 too! 🙂
Ideally a shop should be able to tell what you’ve got based on when you bought it.
E.g. I didn’t used to know which exact 12″ powerbook I had, but it turns out there was only 1 being sold in October 2003 when I bought mine — so my Apple Store was able to figure it out without my straining to recall the clock speed, port config, model number, or any other unique identifier. Fry’s should get on that!
tai
[…] problem with the PowerBook has been confirmed to be the RAM upgrade I put in back in 2004. It hummed along fine for 3½ years, but I guess it finally went bad with the laptop getting so […]