Rescued PowerMac G4 MDD

[WalnutSpice]

Well I just keep finding gold at this recycling centre. Three iBook G3s, my new Core 2 Quad PC, my 486PC and a PowerMac G4 MDD. Whats funny is I was looking at these on ebay literally an hour before I found it.
1GHz G41MB L3 Cache, 768MB DDR RAM, 60GB HDD and a GeForce4 MX 64MB video card. Running Tiger and running amazingly.
I'd like to up the RAM, better video card and add a Sata controller with a WD Blue 80GB HDD.

Also:: If you throw out a working computer, please remember to delete your social security information and etc.

*Edit* - Just upgraded to 1GB and am debating on reseting Tiger to a fresh install or going Leopard..

 

[cw48494]

Very nice find! I actually received an MDD G4 for free a few years back before I knew anything of PPC, I thought it was junk so I tossed it

 

[bunnspecial]

Also:: If you throw out a working computer, please remember to delete you social security information and etc.

Enjoy it! I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with MDDs, but when they are working well they are great running machines.

Unfortunately, yours is going to be a bit handicapped vs. other MDDs by the 133mhz system bus, but at the same time @eyoungren and I both use G4 Quicksilvers regularly and heavily with this same bus speed. A SATA card will definitely perk things up. If you want to go all out, put a flashed ATI FireGL X3 in it(Radeon X800XT) in it.

As for your SSN comment-my Blackbook was bought with a "dead" hard drive which I tried to recover with Disk Warrior just for the heck of it(I use an SSD in the computer now). Disk Warrior rebuilt the directory structure, and I was left with a functional, bootable drive. The computer had belonged to a college professor who had student grades and SSNs stored on the computer.

That hard drive got zeroed immediately. I think it finally died(for good) and got shot(what I do with dead hard drives) but all I can say is the guy had better be happy I bought the computer and not someone else. Selling that computer to me without wiping the drive violated FERPA, and he could have potentially faced serious civil and criminal penalties if the information on it were used incorrectly.

My university is now mandating whole disk encryption on all computers which contain sensitive information(including grades, financials, and research information). It's been a big headache in terms of instrument computers, but I think is overall a good thing-all of my "work computers" now have file vault enabled.