As some of you all may know, I love G4 towers and have been working on completing a collection of them(the Yikes! continues to elude me).
Collecting aside, I still use my computers, and one of my most heavily used is a dual 1ghz Quicksilver. While this computer serves my needs well, it has its problems. Probably the biggest is that because it was originally a "low end" 800mhz 2002 model, I've never been able to access the L3 cache.
Even so, I've dumped a lot of time and effort into upgrading this G4. In addition to a 120 and 160gb to triple boot Leopard, Tiger, and OS 9(although no longer OS 9 due to video card issues), I've populated nearly all the expansion slots. I have a Motorola wireless card that functions as an Airport Extreme card, a SCSI card(to run my slide scanner), a USB 2.0/FW400 card, and a modified Radeon 9600XT. The computer fulfills my needs, but I've always felt that the lack of an L3 cache is holding it back.
Just a little while ago, I bought a "real" dual 1ghz on the marketplace here. It's pretty much in stock configuration other than maxed RAM and a Radeon 9000, but already has a SCSI card installed from the factory as well as dual 80gb drives.
When this computer arrives, it is effectively going to replace my current Dual 1ghz system-the WiFi, USB, and video cards are going directly in it. I'd initially planned to also just transplant the hard drives directly, but am probably going to take the chance to "clean things up" a little bit. I have a WD Blue 500gb IDE drive that's currently unused, and will likely partition and clone my current Leopard and Tiger installs onto that drive. I'll then take a refurbished 160gb WD I bought recently(I bought a couple of them because the price was cheap) and split that up for shared storage between the two OSs as well as a scratch disk(I have to run my scanner in Tiger, while my Photoshop install is only good in Leopard).
This system may also get the flashed FireGL X3(assuming I can get it successfully flashed), which should really beef up the performance. I did have some concerns about losing ADC support, but now that I have an external ADC power supply that's doing nothing, that's no longer a concern.
Once that's done, the real fun can begin.
I'm planning on taking the current heavily used QS2002 back to its stock 800mhz. I still like the QS2002 computers(for their native big drive support) and will try to find a use for it. I have a lot of attachment to this computer, and have done a lot of work on it, so don't plan on it going anywhere.
I have a mostly unused Dual 800mhz, and will probably drop the dual 1gz into it-since the dual 800 also has 1mb L3/processor, I'm hoping that the L3 cache on the 1ghz will work in it. Again, no real plans for that, but I'll try to find something.
Finally, that leaves me with a dual 800mhz card. I have an empty QS case back in my closet that's cosmetically nice. It may or may not have a logic board and/or PSU(I don't recall) but not much else and definitely not a processor. I also had cosmetically beat up one that I parted out a while ago. It too was missing the processor, but did have a logic board and PSU(optical drives are, of course, no big deal). I ended up recycling the case, but not before I'd stripped every internal part that could be removed, as well as every plastic cosmetic panel on the outside that was undamaged.
Between the good case, parts from the other system, and the dual 800mhz card that I have, I should be able to put together another good working system.
The last one is probably the most unsure, but at a minimum that should leave me with 3 working systems. That's not counting the two other Quicksilvers that I gave away to(what I hope are) budding PPC enthusiasts.
The Quicksilver remains my favorite G4 case design, so I'm just happy to have a fairly representative cross section of the different models.
If I ever get a Yikes!, I need to line all the G4s up for a "family portrait." Maybe I'll do it even without that one, as I do have a G4-upgraded B&W that's close enough to a Yike!
Doing a quick count, at the moment-on hand-I have the following Powermac G4s
Sawtooth(450mhz)
2x Cubes(450mhz)
GigE(dual 500mhz)
2x Digital Audio(both 533mhz)
733mhz Quicksilver(soon to be given away)
Quicksilver(dual 800)
Quicksilver 2002(dual 1ghz)
MDD(867mhz)
2x MDD(dual 1ghz)
MDD 2003(single 1.25)
MDD FW800(dual 1ghz)
Plus, as I mentioned, the B&W that now has a 450mhz G4...
Collecting aside, I still use my computers, and one of my most heavily used is a dual 1ghz Quicksilver. While this computer serves my needs well, it has its problems. Probably the biggest is that because it was originally a "low end" 800mhz 2002 model, I've never been able to access the L3 cache.
Even so, I've dumped a lot of time and effort into upgrading this G4. In addition to a 120 and 160gb to triple boot Leopard, Tiger, and OS 9(although no longer OS 9 due to video card issues), I've populated nearly all the expansion slots. I have a Motorola wireless card that functions as an Airport Extreme card, a SCSI card(to run my slide scanner), a USB 2.0/FW400 card, and a modified Radeon 9600XT. The computer fulfills my needs, but I've always felt that the lack of an L3 cache is holding it back.
Just a little while ago, I bought a "real" dual 1ghz on the marketplace here. It's pretty much in stock configuration other than maxed RAM and a Radeon 9000, but already has a SCSI card installed from the factory as well as dual 80gb drives.
When this computer arrives, it is effectively going to replace my current Dual 1ghz system-the WiFi, USB, and video cards are going directly in it. I'd initially planned to also just transplant the hard drives directly, but am probably going to take the chance to "clean things up" a little bit. I have a WD Blue 500gb IDE drive that's currently unused, and will likely partition and clone my current Leopard and Tiger installs onto that drive. I'll then take a refurbished 160gb WD I bought recently(I bought a couple of them because the price was cheap) and split that up for shared storage between the two OSs as well as a scratch disk(I have to run my scanner in Tiger, while my Photoshop install is only good in Leopard).
This system may also get the flashed FireGL X3(assuming I can get it successfully flashed), which should really beef up the performance. I did have some concerns about losing ADC support, but now that I have an external ADC power supply that's doing nothing, that's no longer a concern.
Once that's done, the real fun can begin.
I'm planning on taking the current heavily used QS2002 back to its stock 800mhz. I still like the QS2002 computers(for their native big drive support) and will try to find a use for it. I have a lot of attachment to this computer, and have done a lot of work on it, so don't plan on it going anywhere.
I have a mostly unused Dual 800mhz, and will probably drop the dual 1gz into it-since the dual 800 also has 1mb L3/processor, I'm hoping that the L3 cache on the 1ghz will work in it. Again, no real plans for that, but I'll try to find something.
Finally, that leaves me with a dual 800mhz card. I have an empty QS case back in my closet that's cosmetically nice. It may or may not have a logic board and/or PSU(I don't recall) but not much else and definitely not a processor. I also had cosmetically beat up one that I parted out a while ago. It too was missing the processor, but did have a logic board and PSU(optical drives are, of course, no big deal). I ended up recycling the case, but not before I'd stripped every internal part that could be removed, as well as every plastic cosmetic panel on the outside that was undamaged.
Between the good case, parts from the other system, and the dual 800mhz card that I have, I should be able to put together another good working system.
The last one is probably the most unsure, but at a minimum that should leave me with 3 working systems. That's not counting the two other Quicksilvers that I gave away to(what I hope are) budding PPC enthusiasts.
The Quicksilver remains my favorite G4 case design, so I'm just happy to have a fairly representative cross section of the different models.
If I ever get a Yikes!, I need to line all the G4s up for a "family portrait." Maybe I'll do it even without that one, as I do have a G4-upgraded B&W that's close enough to a Yike!
Doing a quick count, at the moment-on hand-I have the following Powermac G4s
Sawtooth(450mhz)
2x Cubes(450mhz)
GigE(dual 500mhz)
2x Digital Audio(both 533mhz)
733mhz Quicksilver(soon to be given away)
Quicksilver(dual 800)
Quicksilver 2002(dual 1ghz)
MDD(867mhz)
2x MDD(dual 1ghz)
MDD 2003(single 1.25)
MDD FW800(dual 1ghz)
Plus, as I mentioned, the B&W that now has a 450mhz G4...
