Maximum MacBook RAM, Booting PowerPC Macs from USB, Eudora 8 'Different', and More

• Maximum MacBook & MacBook Pro RAM
• USB Booting for PowerPC Macs
• Eudora 8 Seems to Be Different
• Time to Replace My 1.33 GHz PowerBook?
• Newer iPods Incompatible with Panther?

Maximum MacBook & MacBook Pro RAM

From Jackie:

Hi, Charles. I have a MacBook Pro 1.83 and a MacBook from April 2007.

One vendor told me that the MacBook took 3 GB of RAM. The Apple site said 2 GB. I now have 512 MB x 2. I wanted to upgrade to the max. Apple specs say 2 GB; can it take an extra 1 GB? Seems like I did that with my old Pismo.

I replaced the 512 x 2 with the 2 GB and 1 GB that the vendor sent. However, this evening, less than 24 hours after installing it, it had a kernel panic. I shut it down and tried several times to reboot. It wouldn't fully boot. I'm not sure if it's because of the extra memory or defective memory.

I was wishing I could upgrade my MBP with an additional 1 GB too. But after this I guess I had better hold off.

Thanks.
Jackie

Hi Jackie,

It hasn't always been necessary to take Apple's official RAM support specs as gospel. For example, the PowerBook Pismo only officially supports up to 512 MB of RAM, but they work just fine with up to 1 GB.

However, it seems that the limit for Core Duo MacBooks and MacBook Pros like yours really is 2 GB.

According to Other World Computing, who I have found generally reliable on minimum system requirement specs,you need a Core 2 Duo unit to support 3 GB or 4 GB of RAM

You can check it out at <http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/MacBook/DDR2/> and <http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/MacBook/Pro/DDR2/>.

Charles

USB Booting for PowerPC Macs

From Chris:

Hello, there.

I was just reading the latest mailbag and ran across Tiger Installing woes.

Where you said that PowerPC Macs cannot boot from USB, I have to differ.

My 7-year-old iBook has a shot internal CD drive, and it boots just fine of my external USB 2.0 DVD writer. (Which is a La Cie, if I recall correctly.) But it only does that with Tiger (10.4.6 possibly, because that's my version.) It refuses point blank with Jaguar and kernel panics with Panther; I thought I would let you know.

Speaking of Tiger CDs and install woes, my own set of Tiger CDs are behaving strangely. The first disc of my set is actually degrading.

There is an unreadable sector on the CD, which is almost flawless; it has no scratches or apparent damages, no blemishes. No nothing, and yet each time I try to reinstall Tiger using it, I get a error during verification of the install disc and get a 'failed install please reboot.' message at the end of disc 1.

I had to copy the contents to my hard drive and copy it to a CD to make it usable. First I thought this was just my PowerPC G5 iMac, because my iBook installs from it just fine .

Yet my Intel iMac balks at it as well. (A recent copy failed to verify, and indeed the PPC G5 iMac refused to install that, or the original for that matter completely. I had to use the earlier back up to bail myself out.)

Any ideas what this could be?

Regards
Chris

Hi Chris,

I spoke too conclusively about the USB booting issue. While it's not as dependable as booting from FireWire drives and often requires some tweaking, it is possible according to various reports, although not something I would want to say can be counted on to work.

For more discussion of this topic, see:

• http://www.macworld.com/article/45102/2005/06/usbharddrives.html
• http://www.ehmac.ca/anything-mac/40972-can-intel-macs-boot-usb.html
• http://rentzsch.com/tidbits/intelbasedMacBootIncompatibility
• http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20061017084322177

If your Tiger install disk(s) (guess you have the optional CD set) are deteriorating, that would likely be your problem in getting installs to work. My Tiger install DVD was still in great shape the last time I used it, but that was nearly a year ago.

Charles

Charles,

An Intel based Mac will only let you install OS X on a GUID-partitioned drive, but that can then be cloned to an APM-partitioned drive.

Chris K.

Thanks for the info, Chris.

Charles

Eudora 8 Seems to Be Different

From John:

Hi Charles,

I came across your blog/page and wonder if you experienced the issue I am dealing with.

I've used Eudora for years on my PC (last version used was 6.0.1.1 paid mode) and really liked it. The other day I just downloaded Eudora (8.0.0b3) for my new Mac (iMac 24" running Mac OS X version 10.5).

There seem to be some differences, but most perplexing is that there are no alert sounds for new mail or anything else in Eudora. I do hear sound from my Mac, so sound seems "on".

Did you experience this and do you have any ideas?

John

Hi John,

"There seem to be some differences" - that is a rip-roaring understatement!

Eudora 8 is not really Eudora, but rather Mozilla.org's Open Source email client Thunderbird with a Eudora-like (sort of) interface pasted on. I hope it will improve, but I dislike Thunderbird and am not optimistic.

However, for the Eudora experience you know and love, you can still download Eudora 6.2.4 for Mac, which was the last Mac release, although it is no longer supported by Qualcomm.

However Qualcomm has posted a compatibility note for the no-longer-being-developed Eudora email client and Mac OS X 10.5.2 Leopard. Note that this applies only to Eudora 6, and not "Eudora" 8.

In order for Macintosh Eudora to work well under OS X 10.5.x 'Leopard', you need to turn off the use of specific sounds in Eudora. These are the sounds Eudora plays when you get new mail or Eudora needs your attention, or are played by Filters. The sounds that are problematic are the ones that contain 'Eudora' in their name as they were created using a sound synthesizer that Leopard does not support. To disable or change the sounds used in Eudora, do the following:

Turn off or change the 'New Mail' and "Attention" sounds:

• Open Eudora->Preferences and select the 'Getting Attention' panel
• In the 'Sounds' section, for both 'New mail sound' and 'Attention sound', select a sound OTHER than one that has 'Eudora' in its name (i.e. NOT 'Eudora Attention', 'Eudora New Mail' nor 'Eudora Short Warning')
• Click OK to the close the Preferences

Turn off sounds triggered by filters:

• Open Window->Filters
• Look through all your filters for filters that have a 'Play Sound' action.
• Select a sound that does NOT have 'Eudora' in its name, or disable sounds all together by selecting 'None' from the action popup menu.

I've done this, and it does seem to improve Eudora performance in Leopard somewhat.

You can check it out at <http://www.eudora.com/download/>.

Looking ahead, I think a new email client project announced by Infinity Data Systems called Odysseus may hold more promise as a real Eudora successor that will be truer to the Eudora tradition and experience than nominal Eudora 8.

Infinity Data Systems says: "We have always felt that Eudora was a best-of-breed email application for both platforms, Mac OS X and Windows. Easily one of the oldest email applications, it still offers features either not found in competing applications or, if found, not implemented as elegantly."

You can look in at this forum for updates. In the meantime, try Eudora 6.2.4.

Charles

Time to Replace My 1.33 GHz PowerBook?

From Allen:

Hi Charles,

I just read your article comparing Pixelmator and Photoshop Elements. I'm still using Elements 3.0; it's probably time for an upgrade.

What caught my eye was the fact you are using a 1.33 GHz PowerBook. That's what I'm using. I've read about the rumored new crop of MacBook Pros in June with the new Intel chips. That's got me thinking about what to do with my current PowerBook. Are you retiring yours anytime soon? I'm still running Tiger on it with 768 MB of RAM. I'm concerned the hard drive will take a plunge, although it hasn't made any unusual noises yet.

Sincerely,
Allen

Hi Allen,

Elements 3 is still a great program, although I found the enhanced Lighting & Shadows correcting capability in version 4 well worth that upgrade. Elements 6 is even better.

Since the MacBook Pro received a major upgrade to Penryn CPUs two weeks ago, I'm exceedingly doubtful that we'll see another upgrade in June. My guess would be October or November, which is a customary time for attention to the portable lineup. Looking farther forward, there are new Intel mobile CPUs coming, but I think we'll be with Penryn for most of the rest of this year at least.

Eventually, there will have to be a major form factor change for the Pros, and I'm expecting thinner, a la the MacBook Air only (hopefully) not that extreme.

I'm planning to get an Intel 'Book as soon as I can scrape up the funds - probably an entry level MacBook the way things are going, but I don't intend on retiring this 1.33 GHz PowerBook 17" anytime soon. I really don't find that it cramps my style in terms of power. The only problem is that I need to be able to review software that is beginning to be released as Macintel only.

In my experience, hard drives are pretty reliable. I've been on the Mac for 16 years and have had just two hard drive failures - both on brand new drives with only a few hours on them - obviously manufacturing defects on those particular units.

The drive in my PowerBook (80 GB) is getting full, but it's still quiet and seems in fine fettle.

Charles

Re: Tiger Install Woes

From Meg following up on Tiger Install Woes:

Thanks so much for getting back to me. Too late. Decided to get the internal SuperDrive replaced. Already had the drive, had just been hesitant about doing it. So when this problem started and I was getting nowhere, I found a repair person. He came installed the internal drive, and 4 hours later we didn't have a bootable machine. It would get to the initial screen with the Apple logo and hang.

He took it back to his shop, and when he brought it back, it would do nothing. So today I'm off to a certified Apple repair shop and paying $60 to have the machine diagnosed. Have a hunch the motherboard is blown and I've lost my machine. Thank you for the tips, may need them another time. I really appreciate you contacting me.

Meg

Didn't get this mailed 2 days ago, update - my logic board is toast. End of problem.

Hi Meg,

Sorry to hear about the mobo meltdown. Serious hardware issues are always the wild card with these sorts of malfunctions. I happens, although thankfully not a lot (except for rare bad designs like the G3 iBook's mobo). Even then, my (now my wife's) G3 iBook is in its sixth year with nary a hiccup of trouble.

In such instances, your cheapest remedy is to replace with another machine of the same type, and use the oldie for a parts mule.

Wegener Media has 800 MHz G4 iMacs for $379, and Baucom Computers has iMac G4 1 GHz 15" with SuperDrive for $475.

Best,
Charles

Newer iPods Incompatible with Panther?

From David:

Hi Charles,

Longtime reader, rare corresponder.

I have a question I've never seen addressed on Low End Mac. I'll admit to not having seen everything.

Many of the newer iPods state in their specifications that they need Tiger or newer, i.e. 10.4.x.

Is that an unbendable rule? I mean, the new color version of the iPod shuffle states the Tiger requirement, so apparently the older colors that state Panther minimum requirements have had more than their color changed.

I can see that there might indeed be internal changes made to the new classic and nano iPods that would make them possibly require a newer OS than my Video 5G and my nano 2G.

But even then, have any of your readers out there had luck synching these newer iPods to Panther, provided the latest iTunes and QuickTime are onboard?

Thanks,
David

Hi David,

I haven't had any personal experience with this issue. Perhaps some of our readers will be able to shed some light.

Just speculating, but I don't imagine that it would hurt to try connecting a recent iPod to a Panther machine to see whether there is some major incompatibility, or if it's just that certain features requiring Tiger or better are not supported.

Charles

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