Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

PowerMac G4 933 tweaks??

B

brojohnson

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 12, 2002
16
0
NJ
Greetings all,
I just received my Power G4 933 (which I truely love). I order it stock only. I notice it ran like a old dog. So I added 512mb of RAM to the existing 256mb (I also upgraded to the newest release of OS X). It gave it a little speed bump but if classic kicks in boy do it drag some. Also when I boot into OS 9 it runs slow. So I added a 20 gig Hard Drive and installed OS 9 on it. When I boot into that HD, my G4 is screaming with speed. So I figure that a clean install will produce a better running box.
So to get to my point my quesition is would it be better for me to reinstall the a Bare OS X on the 60gig and OS 9 on the 20 then add all my apps, instead of using the factory installation. Also I need to bump up the memory to 1.5gig. Being a long time Linux and Solaris users I know some daemons can hog resources, but nothing more memory couldn't fix.
:confused:
James
 
What are you comparing it to that it runs 'like a old dog'?????

If you are intent on doing clean installs of the operating systems, do custom and don't bother with all the other languages (ones you won't use/need). That will slim it down more then a little bit.

Boot into 9 and check for updates of both software and firmware. Install all of them.

Don't bother partitioning the booting/master drive, keep OS 9 and OSX on the same partition.

If you want to use the 20GB, use it to store files and set it as a second scratch disk for applications that use them. Make sure that you have virtual memory disabled under 9.

You also might want to consider picking up some third party utilities. I know, from experience, that a complete wipe, reinstall of the OS and then applications will need the utilities to optimize performance. DiskWarrior 2 will fix a lot of things, TechToolPro will fix others/more and then I use Speed Disk to optimize the drive. DO NOT install ANY of them onto your system. Boot from the cd and run them from that. Installing the utilities has cause more problems then I care to get into (and in Norton's case, has actually caused crashes left and right). There is a reason they make the cd's bootable.
 
Personally I think that having OSX and Classic on the same partition is a bad idea, all machines I have done with with have had problems so now I always put them on different partitions.

Ensign
 
I have had the complete opposite for me. I have every system that is running OS X with each drive as a single partition, and both OS's on the same drive. Both of my home Mac's are setup this way, as is my work system. We even had a couple of G4's set up a few months back for file transfers that were running OS X. All of them had a single partitioned drive, and none gave me any problems because of this.

I don't know how you set yours up, but mine works.
 
i find the best arrangement is to have two os9s. one that you use in osx for classic mode and one that you boot into. osx likes having its classic os9 on the same partition. so i have one partition with os9 to boot into with all my normal extensions, and i have another partition with osx and the classic os9 which has only the barebones extensions (classic cant use most of the extsenions since osx controls most system wide functions such as video, internet, etc). you want to remove extraneous extensions from any os. extra extensions slow the boot time and slow the system after t is running. so go through both your classic and os9 systems and disable any control panels, extensions, contextual menus, and control strip modules that you wont be using. a good utility to tell you what all the little extensions are is ExtensionsOverload which can be found at version tracker.

this is the kind of info i provide on my website. im always telling people how to optimize their system either in performance or aestetics.
 
If your put OS9 and OSX on different Partitions of the same Drive, follow the instructions about install OSX in the first 8GB. I know it says thats only for the Beige G3s, but I had Apple Reinstall my Systems, and they Partioned my 20GB in my Ti 500. I had it about 2.5 months and I was on the brink of having a cascade failure. I reformated (Make sure to do it a least 3 times) ad reinstalled OSX then OS9 and It runs like a dream. Even Faster than a friends 667. If you partion the drive make sure to use the first 8GB or Reinstall OSX before OS9.

TEG

____________________________________
-Macintosh, the computer for the creative individual-
 
When I get my new hard drive for my TiBook (500) I am seriously thinking about ONLY installing OS X, no OS 9 at all. Not even for Classic mode. If the software doesn't run on OS X, I won't install and use it. Just about everything that I have runs on OSX natively, so it wouldn't be too much of a switch for me. I just need to wait a little longer before I get the 60GB IBM drive.
 
Alpha: that is probably the best plan if one can afford to drop 9. why have it around if you dont need it?

My next computer definitely wont have os9 on it. for now i like mozilla in 9 much better than x so i do my web browsing in 9. and i cant burn in osx or watch quicktime movies. so i am still very dependant on 9, but this will change if i have a new computer.
 
AmbitiousLemon, why can't you burn in X?? I do it with Toast Titanium all the time.

I tried mozilla a few days ago, the most recent version that I could download (why are they beta???) and it crashed within a few minutes. I just wanted to use some of the menu items that were listed and BAM, gone. I have never had that happen in either IE 5.1 or Netscape under OS X. The only good thing, was it didn't bring down my system at all (THANK you OSX:D).

Right now, I use OS X about 98-99% of the time. At least on my own laptop. At work, there are a few applications that I need to use that only run under OS 9, so I boot into that normally.

I also watch movies, both Quicktime and from DVD's under OS X. I am thinking about getting the pro version of Quicktime, I just haven't yet. I will probably do that soon too.

I need to do my taxes before I make any additional computer/technology purchases. That way, if I have to pay the IRSS money, I have it. If I am getting anything back, then that money is going into the computer. If I have any left, then the rest goes into the Harley :D.
 
Alpha: I cant burn because i have a firewire burner and dont have built in firewire ports. i have a pc card firewire port, and osx doesnt support the pc card slot.

i also have a wireless card in my pc card slot that osx doesnt support, but some third party developers wrote some drivers for it so now i can use airport in osx.

i cant view quicktime movies in osx because its too slow on my computer. the movies are all glitchy in osx even at their standard size. in os9 i like having them large or full screen and in millions of colors. osx cant do any of that on my machine.

this is why i said my next computer will change all this. my next computer will have builtin firewire so no problem there and it will be much faster so i assume i can watch quicktime full screen in millions of colors with no problem.

also im not buying until apple does some major bug fixes to osx, no use paying for a new computer with a os that feels like its beta.

mozilla does daily builds, so you might have gotten a bad build. mozilla is the most stable browser ive used, but it depends on what build you download. mozilla in os9 is amazing. very fast. in osx its still faster than all the competition but not as fast as in os9. also when you file bug reports you see changes fast (too bad apple wasnt like this). id encourag you to try a newer build of mozilla and if it crashes send the bug report to mozilla, its probably a problem with your computer if every build crashes, but maybe filing the bug report will help out in the long run.
 
From what I saw the other night, mozilla looks identical to Netscape 6.2x...

I like the visuals of IE better, but that is my PERSONAL choice.

I will go and see if there is a newer version for mozilla and give it another chance though.

Sorry to hear that you have such and old/slow system. I will be waiting until at least MWNY before buying a new tower. It all depends on what gets announced then. If they put out the G5's then I will wait a few months to get real world reactions to them and then decide. I am being more cautious in my next tower purchase. I don't want to have happen again what happened last time. I picked up my G4 tower less then a month before they announced the dual processor models... argh.
 
Mozilla and Netscape6.x are basically the same thing, you are right. The netscape versions just adds bunch of aol stuff that bogs it down and makes it slower and less stable (can you imagine aol/timewarner doing sucha thing?).

slow/old :( i guess so. its only two years old, but osx did a very good job at making all computers that are not brand spanking new obsolete. i have 512mb of ram and its never enough for osx, crazyness.

i too am waiting for the right moment to jump into a new tower. since i have a computer now that fills my needs sufficiently i can wait as long as i like. im prepared to wait at least 2 years. i am waiting for faster airport, firewire2, 64 bit, faster bus, larger harddrives. i think i can expect all of this in the next two years (hopefully sooner). i never buy first generation though so i hope apple gets the g5 out soon so i can buy its descendant in a few years.

i had a similiar thing happen to me with my powerbook. i had to buy right when i did. so i bought one and next month the ibook came out. and a month or two later the new powerbook came out. my computer model was the last one made without airport and firewire. also i bought a warranty from fry's and when my computer broke fry's told me they chose not to honor the warranty and to sue them if i wanted something done. so i was out $300 for thw warranty and $700 for the repair. Oh and the people who repaired it and charged be the $700 fried the harddrive, modem, and cdrom in the process. I eventually took the machine to my friend at apple who works on the Design Group in Cupertino. Next day all better.
 
That is why I got the Apple care policy on my TiBook. If anything goes wrong with the hardware, Apple will fix it for free. If possible, someone can come to me to repair it. I will get that for my next tower. Good security, even if you never need it.
 
OS 9&X on the same partition

A note I would make is that disk first aid+OS9 chews through OSX files like they were made out of coarse gravel,causing disk verification to take 5 to 10+? minutes on a ghz machine,after an OS9 force restart.
I keep them on seperate partitions.Classic mode sucks anyways!
 
i had osx and os 9 on separate partitions which worked fine, except i had a hard time finding files when using an os 9 native app in osx. for example if i had a psd file on my osx desktop and i tried to search for it within photoshop, it would either list my desktop as empty, or i wouldn't even be able to find the desktop.

i ended up having to move all my work to the os 9 partition. you might be thinking i could always drag to the toolbar at the bottom, but that's kinda beside the point.
 
swap

If you want to increase proformance you may want to make a deditacted swap partion for OS X. Give 512MB to a gig if you have the dirve space. When OS X boots up it goes out and finds swap space. This can help lead to disk fragmentation and other problems. I hear that you will see proformance boost from it. Some guy wrote up some instructions on how to do it and why. if you want a copy... let me know. I can email it to you. I have not done it my self due to the fact that i can afford to rebuild my disk right now.

-evildead
 
evil: the dedicated swap partition works wonder if the swap is on a separate drive. that way one drive is always poised to write and read from VM. its a lil different with one HD, still worth it in my opinion, but some have said that it didnt make much of a difference. i think its wort it just to cut down on fragmentation.

when i first tried it i had to use the command line. it was a little nerve racking since you can seriously screw things up.

now someone wrote a little freeware app called swapcop . this is a great litle app that uses a gui interface to allow you to choose a dedicated swap drive. made it very easy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back