Power Mac g3 processor upgrade

[lynden]

i have a blue and white g3. it has a slow 400mhz processor and 640mb ram. i would like to upgrade this machine to something i can use for daily tasks. websurfing, music, videos, etc.

what are my options?

i was thinking motherboard and processor from a g4 or g5?

 

[Hrududu]

i have a blue and white g3. it has a slow 400mhz processor and 640mb ram. i would like to upgrade this machine to something i can use for daily tasks. websurfing, music, videos, etc.

what are my options?

i was thinking motherboard and processor from a g4 or g5?

You can install up to a 1GHz G4 in there. Honestly, its not really worth it because the RAM, Bus speed, and other hardware is just so old. Assuming it hasn't been done already, you can overclock it to 450MHz and that will help a lot. Instructions for that can be found here and maxing out the RAM at 1GB is pretty cost effective too. Just find 4 256mb PC133 sticks of RAM for it. A newer and faster hard drive will also speed things up a good bit. You can also get a PCI Radeon 7000 with 32-64mb of VRAM for around $35 or a Radeon 9200 with 128mb for about $90. Just be sure its a Mac PCI card and not an AGP card.

 

[Chaos123x]

I have a upgrade dual processor g4 in mine I think it's 500mhz.

I use it as a decoration.

Going to get it down one day just to see if there is anyway to install Leopard on it, but mine does not support target disk and does not have a DVD drive either, so it may be a huge pain just to try.


Just buy a iMac or MacMini.

It's not worth the money for the upgrade, unless it's just a tinkering hobby of yours.

 

[TrapOx]

Considering your computer is worth about $15, upgrading it is a bad choice.

400mhz is plenty for websurfing, music, etc..
If you want to play videos you'll need a better computer.

 

[disconap]

At this point, the nay-sayers are MOSTLY correct, it isn't worth it for a modernized machine. HOWEVER, if it does everything you need it to and you just want it faster, that's a different story. You could probably upgrade it to a relatively useful daily driver (and certainly a plenty powerful enough media or webserver) for around $100-150.

I have some part for the B/W I'm selling, including a G4 500 (or 550, can't remember) processor upgrade and 256mb RAM sticks. PM me if you're interested.

 

[disconap]

Just buy a iMac or MacMini.

Though I understand this sentiment, especially in the long-term mindset, $599 for a mini or $1199 for an iMac isn't a "just" for a lot of people...

 

[lynden]

i have a dell laptop that i have running on ubuntu. I use it as my daily computer, BUT the video card is integrated into the motherboard and unable to be upgraded . it is a great machine but if anyone is familiar with linux it can be a pain to get programs and external devices to run on and work with linux. one of those being my palm treo 755p and another being any and all software i use for school. i bought this g3 for 50 bucks for the plug and play compatibility and because i despise windows based machines.

i am definitely going to upgrade the RAM to the max supported and hope that helps. I am also going to overclock it one level and try for two levels and see if it will still run stable. i dont want to dump a bunch of money into it and i definitely do not have a thousand dollars to spend on something way better. i just want a decently quick computer that will do what i need it to do with out any hang ups.

so basically, any motherboard combination from a g4 will fit into this case?

example: would this work?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-Mirror-Dr...4|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:0|293:1|294:50


sorry, i am a n00b to this kind of stuff...


also, it has a 80 gig HD @ 7200
and OS 10.3.9

 

[Chaos123x]

Whoa, processor upgrades went way down in price.

I was thinking they were like $300-$500 looks like you can get a 1ghz chip for about $100.

Maybe it will be worth looking into.

But then again a 1ghz G4 is pretty outdated now too.


You just using it for web browsing and Office stuff?

 

[lynden]

web browsing, music downloads, ipod, palm treo, music, would like to be able to say use the internet and listen to music without lags and skips. school work, office tasks, just an all around daily computer. in my laptop i have a 800mhz p4 that can multi task the way i want and it pretty quick with the light load that my OS puts on it...

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

so basically, any motherboard combination from a g4 will fit into this case?

example: would this work?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-Mirror-Drive-Door-Dual-867Mhz-G4-Processor-CPU_W0QQitemZ110339410517QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item110339410517&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A1|294%3A50


sorry, i am a n00b to this kind of stuff...

FYI, that ebay link is for a cpu ONLY, that is NOT a mother board......

And NO, not just any G4 mobo will fit into a B&W case......at least not without some dremel tool work anyways.......

mainly because A) just about every version of the G4 had the ports in different places, and B) the arrangement of the internal components (CPU/Ram/PSU etc) changed from version to version.......hardly any of which was the same as the B&W......

not saying it's impossible, just not a 10 min in & out swap