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G4 Upgrades

A

AtmChm

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 6, 2010
138
0
WI
I'm thinking about upgrading a G4 Gigabit Ethernet doing the following:

I've got a Powerlogix dual 1.5 GHz 7447a cpu card I could use to replace the dual 450 GHz cpu. However, I don't have a fan for that since it was originally a Cube upgrade card, and it came with a base fan for the Cube. So, for heat sink, I assume I could NOT use the heatsink from the dual 450, since there is no fan for that. Should I see if I can get a heatsink/fan from OWC?

I've got an Adaptec SCSI card, but no SCSI drives. Should I get a SCSI drive if I want HDD's beyond the 2 you can have with the 'on-board' IDE controller, or should I think about getting a SATA card for use with SATA drives? If I do get a SATA card, will I still be limited to 128 GB for a partition? Is there an advantage to SATA card/drives over the stock IDE?

Thanks for input!
 
You should definitely get an SATA card... SCSI is a pain from what I understand, plus it's more expensive, harder to find... etc. It's also likely your SCSI card is rather old, probably peaking at 40 or 80 MB/s; you'll be able to run faster drives with an SATA card.

No, you won't be limited to 128 GB with an SATA card. No worries =)

Not entirely sure what to say about the CPU.. but assuming it's even compatible, no... you really couldn't use that heatsink; it's far too small. What you could do is eBay the cube card and then ebay a card specifically for your machine, perhaps with a net loss of $0. :)
 
MacSince1990 said:
You should definitely get an SATA card... SCSI is a pain from what I understand, plus it's more expensive, harder to find... etc. It's also likely your SCSI card is rather old, probably peaking at 40 or 80 MB/s; you'll be able to run faster drives with an SATA card.

No, you won't be limited to 128 GB with an SATA card. No worries =)

Not entirely sure what to say about the CPU.. but assuming it's even compatible, no... you really couldn't use that heatsink; it's far too small. What you could do is eBay the cube card and then ebay a card specifically for your machine, perhaps with a net loss of $0. :)
Click to expand...
Can you boot from the SATA drive, or do you have to boot from the IDE drive? In other words, can I just eliminate the IDE drives and replace with one large SATA?
 
666sheep said:
The answer is yes, but it depends on the particular card. Some are non bootable, such as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132017, some are bootable http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816122003 or http://firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1s2/
Click to expand...

This. Be careful which you choose if booting is important. However, I don't see why you wouldn't want to keep your old drive in there... I personally never feel particularly safe without at least two drives, usually three makes me happy.
 
MacSince1990 said:
This. Be careful which you choose if booting is important. However, I don't see why you wouldn't want to keep your old drive in there... I personally never feel particularly safe without at least two drives, usually three makes me happy.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I could do with 2 drives, but I've got at least two spare SATA drives at the moment - one 150 GB and one 640 GB, so I'm not at a loss for HDDs. I certainly could keep at least one IDE drive in there, but I'm assuming there is a speed advantage using the SATA drives, so I would want to use a SATA drive to boot and for regular use? Is that a correct observation?
 
AtmChm said:
Yeah, I could do with 2 drives, but I've got at least two spare SATA drives at the moment - one 150 GB and one 640 GB, so I'm not at a loss for HDDs. I certainly could keep at least one IDE drive in there, but I'm assuming there is a speed advantage using the SATA drives, so I would want to use a SATA drive to boot and for regular use? Is that a correct observation?
Click to expand...

It's not quite that simple, but in this case it's probably safe to say your fastest drive is the 640 GB SATA. SATA won't speed up a drive, but it will allow a fast drive to run faster than it would if it were connected to, say, an ATA/66 interface.

If your ATA drive is, say, 400 GB, it'll be faster than the 150 GB SATA, and probably slower than the 640 GB SATA (depending on platter densities and RPM ratings). So you'd probably want to keep the 400, add the 640, and either leave the 150 GB behind or put it in, too.

However if it's an original ATA drive that came with the computer... maybe 60 GB, it'll be slower than both.
 
MacSince1990 said:
It's not quite that simple, but in this case it's probably safe to say your fastest drive is the 640 GB SATA. SATA won't speed up a drive, but it will allow a fast drive to run faster than it would if it were connected to, say, an ATA/66 interface.

If your ATA drive is, say, 400 GB, it'll be faster than the 150 GB SATA, and probably slower than the 640 GB SATA (depending on platter densities and RPM ratings). So you'd probably want to keep the 400, add the 640, and either leave the 150 GB behind or put it in, too.

However if it's an original ATA drive that came with the computer... maybe 60 GB, it'll be slower than both.
Click to expand...
All the drives I have are 7200 RPM, if that makes any difference. The 150 GB SATA is a Seagate from a Powermac G5 that died, the 640 GB SATA is a spare from a 2009 Mac Pro that was upgraded.

Right now I have two ATA drives in the G4, an 80 GB (whose make I can't remember), a 30 GB IBM drive, and a 60 GB SCSI. I'll probably pull the SCSI since it has the slowest response of the three.
 
Well.. unless the SCSI is 5400 RPM (and you said they were all 7.2K), it should be faster than the 30 GB IBM. That is, unless you have it on an old 20 MB/s SCSI connection.

Anyway, the 150 and 640 GB will be the fastest.
 
AtmChm said:
...

I've got a Powerlogix dual 1.5 GHz 7447a cpu card I could use to replace the dual 450 GHz cpu. However, I don't have a fan for that since it was originally a Cube upgrade card, and it came with a base fan for the Cube. ...
Click to expand...
This will not work. Processor daughtercards are fairly specific to a particular line of Macs. The accelerator card for the Cube is mechanically and electronically incompatible with the your Power Macintosh G4 (Gigabit Ethernet) Medusa2's processor card slot.

Take a look at the Cube processor upgrade form factor:
plg4cube47800.jpg


Now ponder the Medusa2 processor upgrade form factor:
picture.php

in single processor form and

picture.php


in dual processor form. The Cube processor card will not work in your Medusa2.
 
MacSince1990 said:
Well.. unless the SCSI is 5400 RPM (and you said they were all 7.2K), it should be faster than the 30 GB IBM. That is, unless you have it on an old 20 MB/s SCSI connection.

Anyway, the 150 and 640 GB will be the fastest.
Click to expand...
Just checked the model number of the SCSI drive on google. It's a Seagate Cheetah, which is apparently 10,000 RPM, however, it's definitely slower read/write than the other drives, so it must be my old controller. Looks like that is an ATTO,ExpressPCIProUL3D, which is a SCSI-2. Could not find information on that card. Anyway, I assume it's not worth buying a SCSI PCI card just to run the old SCSI drive, right?
 
4JNA said:
correct. SCSI is dead. go with SATA if you are going to spend any money, as it's cheaper faster and better.
Click to expand...

This is unfortunately true. While it may have been a very expensive drive when it was made (I'd bet around $400+), it's still going to be considerably slower than the 640 GB drive, and probably even the 150.

It's worth trying to sell on eBay though, you might get a little for it.
 
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