PowerBook Model:

PowerBook (M7630) A.K.A. Pismo or Pizmo.
Began: 2/15/2000. Terminated: 1/9/2001

Original Price: $2,499 (400 mhz/64mb ram/6 GB) and $3,499 for the 500 mhz/128 ram/12 GB model

Above: Rare Pismo model with Rainbow Apple Logo.

Specs

• PowerPC® 750 G3 at 400 or 500 mhz
• FPU & PMMU integrated
• Memory: 64MB (400 MHz) or 128MB (500 MHz): two sockets (PC100 SO-DIMM). RAM sizes come in 32, 64, 128, 256 or 512 mb chips. Min speed 100 mhz/10ns. Expandable to 1 GB using two PC100 3.3 volt unbuffered low-power 144-pin 100 MHz SO-DIMMs.
• L1 cache: 64K, L2 cache: 1 MB backside @ 5:2
• Data path: 64 bit @ 100 mhz bus speed
• Ports/inputs/outputs: 1 Type I or Type II PC Card slot (card bus compliant), 10/100 baseT Ethernet, built in V.90 fax modem (56k), 1 s-video port, 2 usb ports, 2 firewire ports, 1 IRDA wireless data transfer window (400 mbps), VGA input, DVD/CD-ROM standard, 1 built in plain talk mic, 16-bit CD quality sound in/out
• Shipped with an ATA 8, 12 or 18 GB HD - a DVD (6x)/CD-ROM(24x)
• 14.1" Active matrix screen (8mb VRAM - ATI Rage Mobility 128 2D/3D 2x AGP bus), 24-bit 1024x768 screen resolution displaying millions of colors
• Electrical: 45 watts max, 1.2 Amps, 153.9 BTU per hour, 100-240 volts and a 50 hr Lithium Ion battery (soft power)
• ROM: 4 MB NewWorld
• Gestalt ID: N/A
• 6.1 Ibs or 5.7 lbs with weight saving device installed @ 10.4 H x 12.7 W x 1.7 D
• OS 9.0.2 through to X supported*

*According to Apple Computers Inc.® Earlier and /or later operating systems may be supported.

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Can I upgrade the processor?
2. How large of a hard drive will the PowerBook G3 Series hold?
3. What other upgrade options to I have?
4. What is the most functional and effiecient OS to run on the Pismo?
5. Any defects?
6. Buying advice.

1. Processor Upgrades?

Yes. PowerLogix makes a G4 500 mhz (7410) upgrade card with 1 mb of L2 cache at $299. The processor must be soildered onto the motherboard and thus the computer being upgraded must be sent to PowerLogix for the procedure. PowerLogix also has a BlueChip G3 900 mhz upgrade card available for the Pismo/Pizmo with 512k L2 cache running at chip speed! Benchmark tests are revealing that it is clobbering the G4 500 MHz Bluechip. Click here for more info on the G3 900 MHz by PowerLogix. Furthermore, Newer Technology offers a 7410 PowerPC® 500 mhz G4 processor with Alti-vec processing - 1 mb L2 cache running at 2.5:1 (200MHz) on systems originally equipped with a G3/400 Processor and running at 2:1 (250MHz) on systems originally equipped with a G3/500 Processor ($299). Click here to see an in depth review of the G4 Pismo upgrade.

Lastly, you could overclock the chip, but I do not recommend it. Click here to find out how.

2. HD Upgrades?

One can easily upgrade the PowerBook G3's HD to a larger ATA/IDE drive, and a faster one too (5400 rpm or maybe a 7200 rpm drive). Any 2.5" x <=12.7 mm drive will work. One nice thing about having a large hard drive is you can use your PowerBook as a backup for files or even a server. Check OWC for HD upgrades. I suggest a 5400 or faster HD with lots of cache (8 MB would be desirable). With a drive such as the latter, you will experience a marked performance increase compared to the stock 4200 rpm drives that shipped with the PowerBook G3's. IBM Travelstars are the going trend in laptop HD's. Click here for detailed instructions on how to upgrade the HD.

VST Expansion Bay HD: VST makes HD's for the PowerBook G3's expansion bay. The casings house large HD's that are "swappable" (i.e. standard IDE/ATA laptop HD's can be installed in the VST casing, resulting in expandable HD capacity). These drives are both bootable and hot swappable. Also, the the VST expansion bay HD takes advantage of DMA (direct memory access) for faster data transfers.

See the PC Card section and Expansion Bay section for more storage options.

3. Other upgrade options?

Max out the physical RAM. Try The PowerBook Guy or check RamSeeker for all your RAM needs to find RAM for your PowerBook. The PowerBook G3 can house up to 1 GB of RAM with 2 PC100 3.3 volt unbuffered low-power 144-pin 100 MHz SO-DIMMs. Click here for detailed instructions on how to upgrade the RAM.

RAM Disk: Load the operating system onto a Ram disk (bootable) to increase both the speed and efficiency of your PowerBook.  It also results in longer battery life, as the hard drive is not constantly spinning.  Check the help section within your Operating System for instructions on setting up a RAM Disk. RAM disks are particularly important to have in case your computer crashes. Upon restart, it will boot from the RAM Disk and you can diagnose problems with the HD from there, provided you included both a system folder and a copy of Norton Disk Doctor on it.

Add a Compact Flash Card: Compact flash cards are used in order for owners of digital camera’s to load their files onto their computers. However, as these cards insert into the pcmcia slot (pc card slot), they can also act as a second hard drive (when formatted as a mac volume). Flash cards come in sizes of 6 MB to 1 GB and higher. 128 MB card goes for about $50US. Also, Compact flash cards, acting like a hard drive in your computer, can be used to increase the amount of available ram that your computer has (using VM). In addition, store a system folder on it and boot from it (when formatted as a mac volume).
The benefits of the latter are silent operation, longer battery life (no hard drive spinning) and a faster computer. (Please note, with the speed of newer laptop hard drives reaching 7200 rpm’s, a flash card might actually slow the computer down. However, on older laptops, this is not the case, as the original hard drives in these machines are significantly slower than the newer, faster drives). You will need: (1) Compact Flash Card (2) A PC card slot or USB (3) An adapter for the Compact Flash Card if necessary. Flash card speeds peak at about 4.2 Mbps and write at about 2.2 Mbps. Make sure to get one of the faster cards.
 
Battery Information: Please note: Lombard and Pismo batteries are interchangeable. Replace the battery via BTI. Need more power on the road? Buy that second battery from BTI and install it in the expansion bay, giving you two batteries to work with. Further, buy more batteries as spares or try an external 7.2 volt NiCad battery pack (approx 5 hours running time under heavy usage). Try Lind to purchase one. Want even more portable power or don’t want to use a battery? A solar panel solution called the “Sun Catcher Professional” made by Power Quest might work. You must have your PB plugged in to boot, however.

If you are having battery troubles (i.e. battery does not hold a charge or is losing power), your ac adapter is not recognized or your computer does not wake from sleep, and the like, try the following method first to remedy the problem:

Reset the Power Manager:

1. If the computer is on, turn it off.
2. Press and release the reset button on the rear of the computer. The reset button is located between the external video and modem (RJ-11) ports.
3. Wait 5 seconds.
4. Press the Power button to restart the PowerBook computer.

Note: When you reset the power manager, wait at least 5 seconds before pressing the power button to start up the computer. If you do not wait at least 5 seconds, the reset procedure may fail. (If you suspect that the reset procedure has failed, press and release the reset button again and wait 5 seconds before pressing the Power button.)

Expansion Bay Options: (1) BURN DVD's! with the MCE DVD R/RW Superdrive (1x DVD R/RW - bootable) (1) MCE Xcarét Pro 2000 16x10x24x Expansion Bay CDRW Drive. (2) MCE Xcarét Pro 2000 8x8x8x24 Expansion Bay DVD/CDRW Combo Drive. (3) MCE Xcarét Pro - 99 Expansion Bay Hard Drive (20GB - 60 GB Sizes). (4) MCE Xcarét Pro - 99 Expansion Bay Hard Drive Kit (add HD). Below is a picture of the MCE expansion bay HD for Lombard or Pismo.

(4) MCE Portable AC Power Adapter (see picture below)

Check MCE for to purchase the latter products.

(5) VST Zip drives (100 MB/250 MB zip disks) or SuperDrives which can read 1.44 floppies and 120 MB super disks (see picture below of zip drive that reads 100 or 250 MB zip disks).

PC Card Slot (PCMCIA): Ethernet cards and modem cards will work as well as a compact flash card (see above). The PC Card Slot's on the PowerBook G3's are CardBus compliant (32-bit data path capable). Thus, firewire cards, USB cards, SCSI cards (Pismo does not support SCSI disk mode) and video cards are compatible.

More HD Uprgade options via PC Card slot: One can add a PC card that accepts external HD's. Just obtain an enclosure for a HD or a complete external HD compatible with a PC Card HD acceptor, plug in the HD, and you are ready to go. Alternatively, you can buy PC Card HD's (Type III) with a Type II-III adapter.

Add Zoomed Video: To add Zoomed video, you will need the correct PC Card. Look for them at OWC. The appropriate software is free from Apple.

Add Wireless: Click here to find out how you can get your PowerBook wirelessly connected to a wireless network for web surfing, wireless file transfer, and more. Also, the Pismo is ready for an Airport card and will work with an Apple airport station or equivalent product.

Goodies to Add on: The PowerBook G3 is ready to be furnished with all sorts of peripheral devices and will also support external monitors (dual desktop in addition to video mirroring). 
 
The PowerBook G3 will support external zip drives, scanners, printers, cd-roms, cd-r's, floppy drives, digital cameras, etc. You also have the option of USB and firewire peripherals. Check out MCE or OWC for tons of USB and peripheral products available (i.e. Lacie CD-RW's, Lacie DVD-RW's, External firewire HD's, etc.).

Internet/Networking
 
Add a Faster Internal Ethernet: See the tips section on speeding up browsing to improve the PowerBooks Internet performance (or any mac for that matter). I am not sure, but an ethernet PCI with at 10/100/1000 baseT may be available and compatible (note that the stock ethernet on a PowerBook G3 is 10/100 baseT).
 
Ethernet/Networking:  It is possible to connect the PowerBook G3 to an Ethernet network.  To achieve the latter, try one of the following: (1) Simply use the built-in Ethernet to connect to an Ethernet network or other Ethernet compatible computer. If your Ethernet/modem is not operational (i.e. broken), you have lots of other options to try. (2) Use a pc ethernet card and insert it into one of your PC card bays. Simply connect the ethernet cord to another ethernet equipped mac or ethernet network. (3) Use another macintosh to connect to an Ethernet network and then connect the PowerBook G3 to the latter computer. (4) Connect to another modem equipped computer via the modem cable. (5) use the PowerBook G3 in FireWire Target Disk mode which makes it act like an external HD. Connecting to another Mac is also useful if you want to install software from a CD but your PowerBook lacks a CD-ROM or you lack the software CD-ROM but the software is on another computer. Simply connect to another CD-ROM equipped Mac by trying one of the aforementioned ways , mount the disc image on your PowerBooks desktop (or drag installers over to your desktop), and install the software. Lastly, aiport or wireless LAN's are two other options previously covered that will allow one to connect to a Network to surf the web, share files, send faxes and more.

4. Best OS?

OS 9.2.2 runs very well (super fast) on this machine and I highly recommend it. OS 8.6 is rock solid and fast, which should also be a consideration. Can't decide? Partition your HD if it is large enough and throw on multiple OS' (i.e. One partition with OS 8.6, and the other with OS 9.2.2 and all its features and yet another partition with OS X if you so desire).

Please note: Do not use the Password Security control panel with the Pismo PowerBook or with any PowerBook running Mac OS 9 (see Apple TIL #58612) -- it will render your PowerBook inoperable. The only fix is to put the drive in an older PowerBook, open Password Security, go to Setup, and click the Reset button; then put the drive back in the Pismo.

Essential OS X Information with the Pismo: The Pismo is the best PowerBook G3 for running OS X, particularly Jaguar. Its graphics acceleration and chipset run much better in OS X than all previous graphics chipsets found pre-Pismo PowerBooks. Having used a 400 Mhz Pismo with 512 MB of RAM with OS X, I can attest to the fact that OS X runs very well on this machine. However, to speed up the OS X environment, as the Pismo is not as fast a G4 with 16 MB graphics chips or better (you need at least a 16 MB graphics chip to get the benefits of Quartz Extreme - graphics acceleration code), try some or all of the following:

(1) Get that G4 processor upgrade, it will give you a marked performance increase.

(2) Get a faster HD (7200 rpm)

(3) Max out the RAM

5. Any Defects?

The screen is prone to incurring key impressions because of the tight fit between the screen and the keyboard. This is a common problem and in many cases the keyboard marks do not come off the screen. Some have it worse than others. Solve the problem by buying a keyboard protector here. The Pismo gets extremely hot. Solution, try Road Tools' Cool Pad.As can be seen from the picture, it angles the computer in such a way that enables better heat dissipation, not to mention allowing for more comfortable typing on flat surfaces.

6. Buying Advice.

The Pismo is a great PowerBook G3 machine, with its 100 MHz bus, 400 or 500 MHz G3 processors with 1 MB of L2 cache, 2 built in firewire ports, 2 built in USB ports, standard DVD-ROM, PC Card slot and much more. The 400 MHz model is similar in performance to the 400 MHz Lombard, however the Pismo is a better OS X machine due to its accelerated graphics and the 500 MHz Pismo is significantly faster than the Lombard 333 and 400 MHz models. See Benchmarks below for a visual representation of the Pismo's performance compared to the Lombard. Also, Airport range on a Pismo is better than most of the TiBook models. See BareFeats for benchmark scores with the 400 and 500 MHz TiBook pitted against the Pismo 500 Mhz and upgraded Wallstreet. Based on the testing undergone by BareFeats, the TiBook 400 MHz is about equivalent in speed to a Pismo 500, with the upgraded Wallstreet doing very well as well against the competition.