Swapping G4 processors in a Sawtooth PowerMac

[gotohamish]

Hi

I had a G4 500 Sawtooth tower that I've upgraded with a GigaDesigns G4 1.25Ghz (overclocked to 1.3Ghz) - which means my original 500Htz processor is in a box. If I were to cheaply pic up another Sawtooth (say, the 350Htz one), would it just be a processor swap to make the 350-->500?

I assume the machines are identical, except the processor? Where does the cache live?

[barkmonster]

I'd do a search on xlr8yourmac to confirm if the clockspeed is set by the cpu module or by jumpers on the motherboard. I might mean that putting a 500Mhz cpu on a G4 motherboard that came with a 350Mhz cpu only runs it at the slower speed without making alterations somehow. Then again, it's probably perfectly simple.

The L2 cache is on the cpu module with the cpu itself.

[gotohamish]

Originally posted by barkmonster
I'd do a search on xlr8yourmac to confirm if the clockspeed is set by the cpu module or by jumpers on the motherboard. I might mean that putting a 500Mhz cpu on a G4 motherboard that came with a 350Mhz cpu only runs it at the slower speed without making alterations somehow. Then again, it's probably perfectly simple.

The L2 cache is on the cpu module with the cpu itself.

Thanks for that - I'm still wondering why I'd need another G4 though - more curious about being well informed when/if I sell my 500Htz processor card.

[barkmonster]

Thanks for that - I'm still wondering why I'd need another G4 though - more curious about being well informed when/if I sell my 500Htz processor card.

I must have worded that wrongly, sorry.

What I meant was, If I had a 350Mhz G4 and you sold me a cpu card out of a 500Mhz G4, It might only run at 350Mhz in my G4 if the clockspeed is set using jumpers on the motherboard rather than the cpu card itself.

Seeing as all CPU upgrades have jumpers on the cpu card, I'd assume the apple cpu card works in much the same way.

[WannabeSQ]

Your swap will work fine. I think barkmonster is talking about swapping an Apple CPU from a 133mhz bus machine to a 100mhz bus machine, but this is not that case. And, not all cpu upgrades have jumpers, only the Giga Designs ones do. The others require solder to overclock.

I think if you were taking say a 533 mhz processor from a 133mhz bus machine and put it in a 100mhz bus machine, it would run much slower, unless you changed the resistors.

[GeeYouEye]

One small problem. I think the 350MHz wasn't Sawtooth, but Yikes! (PCI Graphics), and it had a ZIF-style socket not found on Sawtooth and later. IOW, you'd have to get a 400 MHz G4 to swap it with.

[gotohamish]

Thanks for all your help and comments - anyone after a 500 CPU card?

[Flickta]

Originally posted by GeeYouEye
One small problem. I think the 350MHz wasn't Sawtooth, but Yikes! (PCI Graphics), and it had a ZIF-style socket not found on Sawtooth and later. IOW, you'd have to get a 400 MHz G4 to swap it with.

There was a Sawtooth (AGP Graphics) 350 MHz. And somewhere... here still is :)