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

So I got 2 G4 PowerMacs

alexanderasher

alexanderasher

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 13, 2014
73
4
... For 50 dollars. Now what? I wanna upgrade them a bit, but what all should I do to them? I haven't gotten a chance to hook them up or anything yet as I lack a keyboard and mouse for them, but here's the apparent specs.

Power PC 400mhz 1m/cashe
64MB 10GB hard drive
HD/DVD -ROM

Power PC 450mhz 1m/cashe
120MB 20GB hard drive
HD/DVD -ROM and a zip drive

Any tips on what to do with these? I might gut the weaker one and build a PC in it, but I'm not sure.
 
Any random USB kbd/mouse should do the job.

Another thing you could do is to open the door and check wether the GFX-card if PCI or AGP.

If it's PCI you basicly have a factory upgraded G3 PowerMac in litlle less fancy clothing.

If they are proper AGP PowerMacG4s you can upgrade them up to 2x1.8GHz and some fairly descent GFX (R300 based Radeon or similar aged NVidia).

Edit:
If it's AGP you could also give Morphos a spin, but remember that the ATI-Rage is only partly supported.
 
Last edited:
Arent the USB ports on them 1.1 though? I don't have any that could work with them. Then comes the whole issue of a monitor.
 
You could plug in an USB3 HD in there and it would (should) still work (at 1.1 speeds offcourse).

All KBD/mice are still USB1(.1) except the ones that contain an USB2 hub (but these are still 1.1 on the KBD part).
 
The 450 is likely to be the AGP model, the 400 a PCI. I have those two models at work.

Particularly in the case of the 450 you have lots of options.

RAM, 2GB
CPU card. There are dual cpu processor cards out there (Sonnet, Powerlogix, Giga Designs) up to 2.0Ghz. Depending on what you can find and how you can manage heat.
SATA. You can buy a PC SATA card for around $10 and use a PC to flash it to Mac. Then you can use SATA II drives. Faster than FW400.
USB 2.0. There are USB 2.0 PCI cards out there, some like mine, are a combo card of 2 FW400 ports and two USB 2.0 ports.
Video. There are a number of later PCI/AGP Nvidia/Radeon cards that will work in these machines. Some G5 video cards can be altered as well which gives you even better access and some PC only cards (as I will be doing soon) can be flashed to Mac.

It all depends on how much you have or wish to invest in to the machine that determines how valuable or worthless the Mac is to you.

See the Mac in my signature. It began life as a 733mhz (single) G4 with stock ram and 40GB hard drive. Currently I'm driving three monitors with it with the capability to expand to 5 and it has less room for ram than your two G4s.
 
Last edited:
If you get bored you could run Tiger on them for the lol or make one of them a file server with a PCI SATA card upgrades and stuff.

To add on about graphics cards: The G5 FX5200 and Radeon 9600 should both be able to work with taped pins. You can use the same SATA card that is in a guide to flash it for a Mac, I have a B&W and it worked fine in there so the early G4's should be fine as well. Then of course USB 2.0 cards are available and work well.
 
Last edited:
eyoungren said:
The 450 is likely to be the AGP model, the 400 a PCI. I have those two models at work.

Particularly in the case of the 400 you have lots of options.

RAM, 2GB
CPU card. There are dual cpu processor cards out there (Sonnet, Powerlogix, Giga Designs) up to 2.0Ghz. Depending on what you can find and how you can manage heat..............
Click to expand...

I somehow think you mixed something up here and wanted to say that those upgrades are available for AGP Powermacs.
 
Bug-Creator said:
I somehow think you mixed something up here and wanted to say that those upgrades are available for AGP Powermacs.
Click to expand...
OOOPS! Yes, you are right. I went back and fixed it! I mean the 450, not the 400. Thanks for pointing that out!
 
First things first, and that's the operating system. Both machines power up to the OS missing graphic (Folder with a ? on it) and that's something I'm gonna need to fix. I'll assume I'm gonna need a disk drive for it, now.

Also, I don't plan on turning these into main computers. I have a desktop and a macbook already, I mainly bought these because of the price. 50 for two is pretty cheap if you think about it. Like I said before, the idea of gutting one and turning it into a hackintosh or pc is pretty appealing, though they both look like they need a good wipedown.

But one I would like to turn into a spare computer or guest computer, I guess, or maybe a fileserver. It all depends, really. Being able to use it on Tiger would be pretty awesome though, as I've always had a liking towards Tiger.

EDIT: I should mention, both have disk loading drives, so maybe I just need to put together a tiger install disk at some point.
 
I'd say both payed about twice the market value (serious !) unless the market overthere is so much different....
 
robertdsc said:
I spent $45 for two MDDs through Craigslist. /snicker :D
Click to expand...
I paid $50 and three iBook G3s for my Quicksilver! ;)

But I also got the display, Apple Pro Speakers, one of the old style keyboards and mouse and it came with a 1.2Ghz Sonnet upgrade.

I'm not a big fan of the iBook so getting rid of the three I had to someone who really wanted them was a good deal for me.
 
eyoungren said:
I paid $50 and three iBook G3s for my Quicksilver! ;)

But I also got the display, Apple Pro Speakers, one of the old style keyboards and mouse and it came with a 1.2Ghz Sonnet upgrade.

I'm not a big fan of the iBook so getting rid of the three I had to someone who really wanted them was a good deal for me.
Click to expand...

Damn! That was a good deal! I love the Apple Pro Keyboard!
 
So, with this (Or, these, but one is definitely being turned into a case at this point since it includes the bare minimum of parts) being my first PowerPC computer (Outside of a classroom, at least) I feel the need to catalog and ask open questions in this thread, if that's okay with everyone.

Only legal OS I can get is a copy of Panther from my video production teacher, but that's fine for now. I'm looking into downloads but haven't found any that are particularly safe. I also need to buy a mouse for the machine, but I have a keyboard that should work.

Only issue thing is, both give a simillar issue. I'm not sure if it's my monitor or if the graphics card is dying, but when I boot up, I see lines on the screen. Picture related (Also ignore my mess of a desk, please.)

I'll be replacing the graphics card so even if it is an issue with that, it's almost a nonissue at this point.
 
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