An Introduction and buy advice needed!

[SlCKB0Y]

Hi Guys,

A bit of an introduction: In the late 90's and early 2000's I was pretty much exclusively a Linux/BSD person but became really intrigued with the idea of OS X. I ended up getting a G4 iBook and I kept that for a few years before selling it and going back to Linux but at the time I bought the iBook, I was totally torn between getting the laptop, and getting a G4 Powermac.

In fact, ever since that day, I've always wanted one.

Yesterday I ended up getting a dual 1.25Ghz FW800 and i've installed Leopard on it but intend on doing some cheap upgrades.

I intend on upgrading the RAM, graphics card and adding a SATA card and USB2 card.

What I need is a little buying advice.

RAM: I know Macs can be fussy with RAM but i saw this cheap RAM on eBay which seems to have the correct specs:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Low-Dens...49341439?pt=AU_Components&hash=item416fd89dff

SATA Card: My reading in this forum suggests that I can buy any old generic SIL3112 based card and flash it to work with a Mac including boot volumes. Is this correct? Are there any other chipsets this works with?

The graphics card and the USB2 card I have no idea about. I know that id like all the Leopard effects/translucency to work if possible.

Any comments or suggestions?

 

[128keaton]

Hi Guys,

A bit of an introduction: In the late 90's and early 2000's I was pretty much exclusively a Linux/BSD person but became really intrigued with the idea of OS X. I ended up getting a G4 iBook and I kept that for a few years before selling it and going back to Linux but at the time I bought the iBook, I was totally torn between getting the laptop, and getting a G4 Powermac.

In fact, ever since that day, I've always wanted one.

Yesterday I ended up getting a dual 1.25Ghz FW800 and i've installed Leopard on it but intend on doing some cheap upgrades.

I intend on upgrading the RAM, graphics card and adding a SATA card and USB2 card.

What I need is a little buying advice.

RAM: I know Macs can be fussy with RAM but i saw this cheap RAM on eBay which seems to have the correct specs:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Low-Dens...49341439?pt=AU_Components&hash=item416fd89dff

SATA Card: My reading in this forum suggests that I can buy any old generic SIL3112 based card and flash it to work with a Mac including boot volumes. Is this correct? Are there any other chipsets this works with?

The graphics card and the USB2 card I have no idea about. I know that id like all the Leopard effects/translucency to work if possible.

Any comments or suggestions?

As long as the Ram matches the appropriate specs, you should be fine. Yes, macs are fussy, they just want the numbers to match.

 

[bunnspecial]

Look for a USB card with an NEC chipset, and it should work fine.

As for the translucency effects, you need a card which supports core image to do this. There was one BTO option for the MDD G4s which supports Core Image-the Radeon 9700-but these are exceptionally uncommon.

The simple and(relatively)inexpensive way to get Core Image on a G4 is to modify a G5 Radeon 9600 XT by taping over/disabling pins 3 and 11 on the back of the card. These can be had for around $30 on Ebay.

A slightly more involved, but possibly less expensive route is to locate the PC equivalent of one of the core image supporting G5 cards and flash them with Mac ROM.

Of the(relatively) easy to find OEM G4 cards, the GeForce4 Ti is the best. It does have 128mb of VRAM, but lacks Core Image support. It's a great OS 9 card, although that doesn't apply to you as your computer can't even run OS 9 natively.

 

[Intell]

Make sure the memory you get is low density.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Make sure the memory you get is low density.

I believe the RAM I linked to in the first post is low density.

Do these Macs only support 4 x 512MB DIMMs? Or can they take 2 x 1GB?

 

[Intell]

Some MDD's can take two 1GB sticks. Others, mostly the first generation of them, refuse to read 1GB sticks and will only work with 512MB sticks. Other times, it's completely dependent on the memory stick itself and how the computer reacts to it.

 

[Altemose]

I purchased this Belkin USB card and used it in both a G4 and G5 without issue under both Tiger and Leopard.

 

[PowerMac G4 MDD]

I would look up your exact model of PowerMac (try everymac.com) and see what RAM type it takes. And rather than typing in "PowerMac G4 RAM" on eBay, copy and paste the exact model number for the RAM, into the search bar. I was able to get 6GB cheaply for my PowerMac G5 by finding identical RAM that had been taken from an old Windows PC, rather than some chump robbing people with 1GB of "PowerMac G5 RAM SHIP FROM USA" for like $25.

Note that your PowerMac can accept a maximum of 2GB of RAM (I believe 1GB max per slot, so don't get a 2GB stick).

----------

I believe the RAM I linked to in the first post is low density.

Do these Macs only support 4 x 512MB DIMMs? Or can they take 2 x 1GB?

I have the model of MDD that came right before the FW800 model, and it can take two 1GB of sticks; yours should be fine. However, if you can find 4 x 512MB sticks for a cheaper price, I am sure that would be fine as well.

 

[bunnspecial]

I had some PC-2100 1gb sticks that I couldn't find a use for anywhere. I ended up putting them in my base model(dual 1ghz) Firewire 800, which uses PC-2100 rather than PC-2700 like the higher spec models.

The memory works fine in that computer, up to the maximum of 2gb.