G4 skin transplant?

[Kentuckienne]

Just wondering: I love the G4 PPC. Stylish, big 17" screen, sleek aluminum case ... but instead of replacing it outright, is there a way to do a complete transfusion? Install a new motherboard, memory, SSD, etc. to make it a new machine? Has anyone else done this? Would I have to replace the screen internals along with the board?

 

[eyoungren]

Just wondering: I love the G4 PPC. Stylish, big 17" screen, sleek aluminum case ... but instead of replacing it outright, is there a way to do a complete transfusion? Install a new motherboard, memory, SSD, etc. to make it a new machine? Has anyone else done this? Would I have to replace the screen internals along with the board?

It's been done. It's possible, but most of the stuff I see for that is on other sites. Particularly those that are modder sites.

Note, there was NO aluminum PowerMac G4s. Everyone of them was plastic. So, if your Mac is aluminum, you have a G5.

 

[ihuman:D]

17" screen and aluminium case? You mean an Intel iMac?

 

[eyoungren]

17" screen and aluminium case? You mean an Intel iMac?

Hmmm, maybe he means PowerBook?

 

[ihuman:D]

Hmmm, maybe he means PowerBook?

Never thought of that. Lol.

 

[Kentuckienne]

Doh!

I did mean PowerBook. Got PowerBook and PPC conflated in my brain. If it were a tower, would be no question - I'd ditch it. It's the form factor of the laptop that I love.

 

[eyoungren]

I did mean PowerBook. Got PowerBook and PPC conflated in my brain. If it were a tower, would be no question - I'd ditch it. It's the form factor of the laptop that I love.

Ahhhhh!

Kindred spirit. I have the 1.0Ghz 17" and the 1.67Ghz HD-DLSD 17".

Unfortunately, my 1.0Ghz died a couple of weeks ago. I'll replace the logicboard when I can get to it. My other one has a dying hard drive and is giving me death signs from the CPU though so we'll see how long it lasts. That'll be another logicboard if it goes.

No big deal. I've replaced just about ever major component on the 1.0Ghz Mac. Love the 17"s! They are the first models of Mac I ever wanted. Nothing else attracted me until then.

 

[goMac]

I did mean PowerBook. Got PowerBook and PPC conflated in my brain. If it were a tower, would be no question - I'd ditch it. It's the form factor of the laptop that I love.

If it's a laptop, probably no chance of a transplant.

They did make many Intel laptops with the exact same form factor though!

 

[Kentuckienne]

eyoungren, you have me bracketed. It's a 1.5 GHz machine. I did lose the hard drive a couple of months ago, but I got enough warning via bad backups to get a new one installed in time. OWC - or is it Macsales - had one for so cheap I couldn't pass it up, and there was an excellent tutorial online. Couple hours at the kitchen table and it was good to go.

At this point I guess I'll just let it run out the clock to see how long it can live. I'm starting to call it Byron, after the immortal light bulb in Gravity's Rainbow.