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jktwice

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 16, 2025
95
44
Hello,

I have a PMG4 in dire need of a new CPU seemingly. Whenever it boots it claims external cache failure and oftentimes reports an incorrect cpu speed, and most of the time it doesn't boot into OpenFirmware even. RAM has cleared many a Hardware Tests and nothing has pinged as faulty. So I put the machine aside until today when I noticed an eBay listing for a FastMac upgrade card for a couple hundred bucks.

Before I commit to such a replacement, I have heard that someone does 2GHz CPU repairs/units but they're only on the 68kMLA forums. Has anyone dealt with them before and do they still do repairs? Are there other options out there?
 
Hello,

I have a PMG4 in dire need of a new CPU seemingly. Whenever it boots it claims external cache failure and oftentimes reports an incorrect cpu speed, and most of the time it doesn't boot into OpenFirmware even. RAM has cleared many a Hardware Tests and nothing has pinged as faulty. So I put the machine aside until today when I noticed an eBay listing for a FastMac upgrade card for a couple hundred bucks.

Before I commit to such a replacement, I have heard that someone does 2GHz CPU repairs/units but they're only on the 68kMLA forums. Has anyone dealt with them before and do they still do repairs? Are there other options out there?
What kind of PowerMac G4? The factory CPU cards are usually available on eBay. I'm pretty sure I have a big box with like 20 CPU cards, they're either for an MDD or a QS I'll have to dig them out and see. I've been meaning to sell them eventually. They're all OEM Apple cards.

If you are looking for an actual upgrade, the 3rd party upgrade cards are really expensive and pretty rare. Unless you get lucky, it's best to just get the top spec of whatever card Apple shipped in that model. IE, if you have a FW400 single 867MHz MDD you can put in the card from the later FW800 dual 1.42GHz model that they sold.
 
What kind of PowerMac G4? The factory CPU cards are usually available on eBay. I'm pretty sure I have a big box with like 20 CPU cards, they're either for an MDD or a QS I'll have to dig them out and see. I've been meaning to sell them eventually. They're all OEM Apple cards.

If you are looking for an actual upgrade, the 3rd party upgrade cards are really expensive and pretty rare. Unless you get lucky, it's best to just get the top spec of whatever card Apple shipped in that model. IE, if you have a FW400 single 867MHz MDD you can put in the card from the later FW800 dual 1.42GHz model that they sold.
I have a QS 2002 with a dual 1GHz cpu.

I guess I could just drop some cash on a 867MHz card and call it a done deal. I really just need to run some specific software that requires pci cards
 
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