PowerMac G4 Find! What to do?

[TC_GoldRush]

Missing HDD and RAM. Powers on but cannot boot.

Do I restore this beauty or make this G4 into a modern gaming rig? Would require some light metal work and slight altercation to some of the internal plastics and rear of the case.

Case itself is in great condition, plastics are still clear and NOT yellowed! No cracks, either.

Got it for $2 at a thrift store.

 

[Bigwaff]

Me jealous.

 

[Project Alice]

View attachment 2490050View attachment 2490051

Missing HDD and RAM. Powers on but cannot boot.

Do I restore this beauty or make this G4 into a modern gaming rig? Would require some light metal work and slight altercation to some of the internal plastics and rear of the case.

Case itself is in great condition, plastics are still clear and NOT yellowed! No cracks, either.

Got it for $2 at a thrift store.

Please do not turn this into a "modern gaming rig".
Of course it won't boot, it needs RAM. No computer can boot without RAM.

Firstly, remove that PRAM battery, its going to be dead anyway and they tend to leak. Put some RAM in it, find an IDE HDD or a SATA adapter (personally, I use a PCI SATA card for most of my G4 towers).

This appears to be a DA (digital audio) G4. 1.5GB RAM max. You'll have to look at the back to see which CPU it has, but its probably a dual 533MHz.

 

[TC_GoldRush]

Please do not turn this into a "modern gaming rig".
Of course it won't boot, it needs RAM. No computer can boot without RAM.

Firstly, remove that PRAM battery, its going to be dead anyway and they tend to leak. Put some RAM in it, find an IDE HDD or a SATA adapter (personally, I use a PCI SATA card for most of my G4 towers).

This appears to be a DA (digital audio) G4. 1.5GB RAM max. You'll have to look at the back to see which CPU it has, but its probably a dual 533MHz.

Im no stranger to PowerPCs, I have a few iBooks lying around and an iMac G3 (Graphite). I have never toyed around with a PowerMac tower! even if I where to fully restore, this would serve no purpose. It is a 1999/2000 Machine and would not be capable of running anything other than Appleworks or maybe light web-browsing with TenFourFox.

 

[weckart]

Im no stranger to PowerPCs, I have a few iBooks lying around and an iMac G3 (Graphite). I have never toyed around with a PowerMac tower! even if I where to fully restore, this would serve no purpose. It is a 1999/2000 Machine and would not be capable of running anything other than Appleworks or maybe light web-browsing with TenFourFox.

Well, it might serve some purpose. Because it's a desktop you can put in a graphics card your notebooks could only dream about. That opens things up to some retro gaming. As a workhorse or daily driver, not so much.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I’d restore it. Yes, it’s not terribly functional as a modern pc but that is the same story with your imac and iBooks and why you have those around still is assuredly not because they still serve some beastly, modern purpose. I’d wager the same reason that you still have those around is why you spent $3 and brought this orphan home.

So have fun and restore it. You could also part it out but there’s alot of that on eBay already. I think a restore & build up would be more fun & satisfying.

Plus the street cred & play.

 

[rampancy]

Im no stranger to PowerPCs, I have a few iBooks lying around and an iMac G3 (Graphite). I have never toyed around with a PowerMac tower! even if I where to fully restore, this would serve no purpose. It is a 1999/2000 Machine and would not be capable of running anything other than Appleworks or maybe light web-browsing with TenFourFox.

I daily drove a 450 Mhz Sawtooth for years as a retro computing machine; as a retro gaming rig, it's simply awesome. There's a lot of fantastic games that got left behind during the Classic-OS X transition, and with a good graphics card (my favorite was a Radeon 9000 from an upgraded MDD, a machine like yours would be perfect for running them.

Plus it's simply a fun project to see what you can do with it. In addition to stuffing full of RAM and hard drives, you could try finding an Airport-compatible 802.11b/g PCI card for it, or some additional USB/Firewire PCI expansion cards.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Or you could do something like This