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Picking up a Power Mac (very n00bish question)

C

Cam42

macrumors member
Original poster
Okay, my friend is giving me an older powermac, although I'm not sure which model it is.
This will be my first Mac, wondering if it's possible at all to replace the motherboard with something that'll support an intel processor? Like a Core2duo? and still be able to run OSX? Sorry if I'm overlooking something completely stupid, but I'm new to Apple computers
 
No, not really. You'd have to replace pretty much every component in order to get an Intel chip in there.
 
Okay, I looked at another thread and noticed the differences on the insides. heh.
How up-to-date could this machine get? I read that snow leopard isn't going to support the PPC architecture, but what will?
 
Cam42 said:
Okay, I looked at another thread and noticed the differences on the insides. heh.
How up-to-date could this machine get? I read that snow leopard isn't going to support the PPC architecture, but what will?
Click to expand...

Leopard supports pre intel processors. Snow Leopard will not.
 
Cam42 said:
I think it's a G4 model.
Does anyone know if it uses IDE or SATA drives?
Click to expand...

IDE. Max 500 GB.

I've got a "Digital Audio" Power Mac and I've done a fair bit of poking around in it.

RAM is SDRAM, I've popped in some DDR2 (a type of SDRAM), and that works fine.
 
Although I'm very new to Macs, I am nowhere near unexperienced in hardware and taking apart/putting together computers. I'll probably max this thing out (hardware wise) in a few days.
 
Well, good luck to you, mate. There's a bunch of PowerMac upgrades, but a lot of them are really picky. A lot of upgrades require compliance in hardware.

The best thing you can do is start with your model identifier, and go from there. :apple: to "About this Mac" to "More Info" and "model identifier" should be on the first page you see. Then using MacTracker, you can probably figure out the actual model name (Yikes, MDD, etc).
 
I should probably revise my last statement. The maximum size for an IDE HDD is 500 GB.

The maximum drive size in any PowerMac before the Quicksilver 2002 is 128 GB. You can get around this by getting a new ATA controller. If it is a white/silver, then it is a QS, but not necessarily a QS 2002. Anything that is blue, is before the QS. Find your model identifier and use MacTracker to figure out what you've got.
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
IDE. Max 500 GB.

I've got a "Digital Audio" Power Mac and I've done a fair bit of poking around in it.

RAM is SDRAM, I've popped in some DDR2 (a type of SDRAM), and that works fine.
Click to expand...

I have an MDD G4 and I have a 750GB IDE drive in there, along with a 500GB and a 320GB. Makes a great server for media/DNS/a few other random things.
 
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