'New' Quicksilver 2002, help needed...

[iNeko]

I just picked up a gorgeous (albeit heavy!) Quicksilver 2002, from a very generous person who had just replaced it with a newer machine. I've had to put a harddrive in it (a 30gb IDE was all I had) and now I'm a bit perplexed by the display...

It has both an ADC (I think, it looks like DVI, but it's oval) and a VGA socket in the back (I think it has a Geforce 4MX in it), however, my TV uses VGA input and my spare LCD display is DVI - I've tried the VGA connector in the VGA socket, but I get no display (I get that lovely deep chime, but nothing on the display) Am I going to need an ADC adapter?

Also, having used Intel based macs only, is there anything I should be aware of, using a PowerPC one? Thanks for any help you guys can give on this

 

[iNeko]

I tried the VGA once more and it worked! It's come up with the ? folder (which I was expecting) so I'm now going to try my Leopard disc (family license) on it and see how far I get!

 

[CWallace]

Yes it should have both an ADC and VGA port. My 867MHz has a GeForce2 MX400.

As long as the CPU clockspeed on your unit is 867MHz or higher, Leopard will install.

 

[iNeko]

it's a 933mhz G4 (at least that's what it says on the box)

However, I've just had it open (to try various harddrives, the Leopard installer seems to keep failing at about 10%...) and it has an OWC heat spreader on the processor... The guy said it had "some upgrades" but if it has a new processor, this might be more of a machine than I was expecting...

if only I could get Mac OS installed so I could find out!

 

[CWallace]

You noted you have a family-pack version of Leopard, so I take it this is the retail edition?

You cannot use a restore OS CD from another type of computer.

If you have the full retail edition, use Disk Utility to wipe any existing partitions, create a new one, and then verify it. There might be some defective sectors on the drive.

 

[iNeko]

I've tried three harddrives so far (found a couple of IBM Deskstars laying about) but they all seem to fail...

The family pack is retail, yes, I've used it to upgrade both an intel mini and a macbook pro - however the G4 seems to be having issues. I've tried zeroing the drives, repartitioning and it's a no-go. When searching the forums I did see something about there being an issue with 3rd party RAM and the G4 has at least 1gb in it (all the slots are full, so I'm guessing two 256mb cards and one 512mb one...) - maybe I should try taking out a couple of sticks and having another go?

 

[iNeko]

I noticed a scratch on my leopard disc, used some iPod scratch remover, and awesome, installed first time.

The machine, is a 2002 Quicksilver with an OWC 1.47ghz G4 upgrade, 1gb of RAM and a 64mb Geforce 4MX. Not bad for free, I am very thankful to the guy I got it off, it seems like it's going to be a fantastic machine - even if it did take me 5/6 hours to get it working!

 

[CWallace]

Excellent. Enjoy!

 

[Firefly2002]

Nice. Congrats on your free Mac

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

FREE is always good, enjoy !

Now if you would max da ram to 1.5Gb & put a real video card in it, you would notice a significant performance boost

 

[iNeko]

more ram, a graphics card and a USB 2.0 card are on the list at the moment - I'm also going to grab an ADC adapter as using the VGA socket doesn't seem to work every time...

Any recommendations for a decent, yet cheap graphics card?

 

[velocityg4]

The cheap way is to flash a card yourself. Since you can get PC Radeon 9800', X800's and GeForce 6800's for dirt cheap. Otherwise I do not think there are any really cheap options to beat out the 64MB GeForce 4.
The Mac Elite should give you most of the info you need.
For more help check the strangedogs forums. You will need to register to view.

For the USB card just get a cheap generic PC one from Newegg most should work in Mac OS X. As long as they work with generic drivers.
This one is $8 and customer reviews show it works on a Mac.

Since you said you have a few hard drives you could string two together in RAID 0 for more performance.

Have fun with the free Mac.

 

[reberto]

For the USB card just get a cheap generic PC one from Newegg most should work in Mac OS X. As long as they work with generic drivers.
This one is $8 and customer reviews show it works on a Mac.

Something is wrong with his review, and I call BS on it and wouldn't trust it. He says it didn't fix his problem even when he installed it into his Mac Pro. Problem is, the Mac Pro ONLY has PCI-E slots (no PCI slots at all) and that card is PCI.

 

[camomac]

For the USB card just get a cheap generic PC one from Newegg most should work in Mac OS X. As long as they work with generic drivers.
This one is $8 and customer reviews show it works on a Mac.

Any USB PCI card with the NEC chipset works just fine. I use a SIIG, works great! (NO drivers needed)