MrCheeto
Suspended
Wow! That'd be so impressive...
if Snow Leopard and its software was compatible with IBM's architectures.
XD XD XD
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Speeding up my G4
- Thread starter Hughm
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Wow! That'd be so impressive...
if Snow Leopard and its software was compatible with IBM's architectures.
XD XD XD
I did some asking around here in Vancouver (at an Apple store, among other places), and I think that zen.state has the most balanced and effective solution to the issue. A faster HD and a bit more RAM.
zen.state
macrumors 68020
I am certainly a fan of reducing minimal gains and prefer to use a balanced approach to hardware.
It seems like you have an MDD tower? Has a mirror on the front and is the only G4 tower that could take 2x DVD drives in the front. If so you should consider buying a dual 1.25 or 1.42 CPU card for MDD on ebay. About $100-130. It would just be a simple plug and play upgrade and would increase CPU performance overall by at least 60%.
zen.state
macrumors 68020
He has a single 1.25GHz. All the 1.25 (single or dual) are the 167MHz bus. As are the dual 1.0GHz and dual 1.42GHz. I gave the advice knowing that.
The only MDD's that ever had the 133MHz bus were the dual 867 and single 1GHz. All the rest have 167MHz. I used to own both a dual 867 and dual 1.42 so I know what i'm talking about.
CubeHacker
macrumors 65816
You can upgrade the hard drive and RAM all you want, but they aren't going to help your slow USB transfers in the slightest. If thats your main priority, a $20 USB 2.0 card will do you better than anything else you can do to that system.
More RAM *might* make your system more responsive, but only if you are running low on RAM to begin with for whatever apps you are working with.
A faster hard drive might make your apps load anywhere from 10-50% faster, but they won't help transfer speeds to your iPod/iPhone, nor will it help photoshop renders or video encodes go quicker.
for ipod/iphone transfers a usb2 card should be your priority, if you have ever transferred a large amount of data using usb 1 you will know what a painful experience it is
zen.state
macrumors 68020
My internet connection at home is actually about twice the speed of USB 1.1. All I use the USB ports on my tower for is my keyboard and mouse as that is all they're suitable for.
MacHamster68
macrumors 68040
no snow leopard . but who needs that anyway , it does not run on ppc macs anyway , but debian is running on power7 and in my opinion is a better alternative to snow leo , as it runs on everything with a processor inside even on my mac mini debian runs flawless i have debian on a second partition , and when i boot it looks like osx leopard(steve jobs would have to look twice to find the difference ) , but runs much better on a ppc Mac 😉
MrCheeto
Suspended
Oh boy! If only I could play my favorite video games on it 🙁
This 4th sounded like such fun, until somebody forgot the matches.
I just remembered the whole EFI thing. I'd rather let Apple take care of the compatibility. Too bad, though. The plastic PowerMacs always looked more stunning.
This 4th sounded like such fun, until somebody forgot the matches.
I just remembered the whole EFI thing. I'd rather let Apple take care of the compatibility. Too bad, though. The plastic PowerMacs always looked more stunning.
666sheep
macrumors 68040
There is no problem to change bus speed from 133 to 167 MHz in MDD. Only one resistor. I've done it a lot.
To run 1.42 DP you will need better cooling than single 1.25 has. Best will be copper heatsink from 1.42 DP or at least additional fan (with stock 1.25 heasink).
zen.state
macrumors 68020
MacHamster68
macrumors 68040
best to go straight to the dual 1.42 doughtercard , i mean the price difference on ebay is marginal if you can get a daughtercard on ebay
but be wary of people selling their cards after failed attempts of overclocking or playing around with quiet fans until they roasted the processors ,
if you are not sure better get them from some online shop who might sell them a bit more pricey ,but most times they offer a warranty
because a not working one is not worth a penny 😉
but be wary of people selling their cards after failed attempts of overclocking or playing around with quiet fans until they roasted the processors ,
if you are not sure better get them from some online shop who might sell them a bit more pricey ,but most times they offer a warranty
because a not working one is not worth a penny 😉
Boy! This is a great community! Thanks for all the advice, guys/gals.
For the record, my G4 is the MDD running at 1.25 with 1.5 RAM.
Again, the things that bug me are 1) The very slow rate of copying files, both within the system and when I copy music to my iPhone, and 2) operations like file conversion: .api to MPG for burning video, for example.
Running scripts on GIMP can be slow, but I can deal with that.
Otherwise, the old girl opens apps as quickly as I need and I can listen to music with iTunes and do other stuff at the same time quite happily.
So . . . it seems the USB card ought to be the #1 thing, then maybe the drive and another 256 of RAM. Yes?
For the record, my G4 is the MDD running at 1.25 with 1.5 RAM.
Again, the things that bug me are 1) The very slow rate of copying files, both within the system and when I copy music to my iPhone, and 2) operations like file conversion: .api to MPG for burning video, for example.
Running scripts on GIMP can be slow, but I can deal with that.
Otherwise, the old girl opens apps as quickly as I need and I can listen to music with iTunes and do other stuff at the same time quite happily.
So . . . it seems the USB card ought to be the #1 thing, then maybe the drive and another 256 of RAM. Yes?
CubeHacker
macrumors 65816
The $20 USB card will certainly help with your ipod file transfers.
As for your AVI to MPEG conversions, that is 100% CPU controlled. Adding more RAM or a faster hard drive will NOT make that go any faster. Only a faster CPU will help there, and I highly recommend against upgrading the CPU, unless you can find a dual card for next to nothing. An Intel Mini will easily be 10x faster than what you have now for file conversions.
zen.state
macrumors 68020
There are no longer any upgrades made for the MDD anyway. A used MDD dual CPU daughter card is the best fix. My former dual 1.42 MDD fared pretty well at video rips.
A mac mini is not a good solution for someone who has/wants a tower with expandability. Plus it's a bit of a stretch to say an intel mini would be 10x faster at ripping. 4-5x faster tops. I have owned an intel mini before and sold it in favor of my heavily upgraded G4. It was the 1.83GHz C2D. I sold it to pay for my 7448 G4.
DeeGee48
macrumors regular
Related G4 Question
Perhaps some of you have been down this road, so I hope you know the answer. As you can see by my signature I have a G4 tower that's pretty maxed out. But what I want to do now is add a SATA card and two 2TB drives for media. Apple's manual on my machine says it can house two optical drives and up to four HDD's (I have had 4 in it, but now only 3). My question is that since I only have the one optical drive, can I actually have five HDD's by using the second optical bay for the fifth one? Will the OS recognize them? Since it will hold 6 drives total, can I have 5 plus 1, or does it have to be 4 plus 2? Any help appreciated!
Perhaps some of you have been down this road, so I hope you know the answer. As you can see by my signature I have a G4 tower that's pretty maxed out. But what I want to do now is add a SATA card and two 2TB drives for media. Apple's manual on my machine says it can house two optical drives and up to four HDD's (I have had 4 in it, but now only 3). My question is that since I only have the one optical drive, can I actually have five HDD's by using the second optical bay for the fifth one? Will the OS recognize them? Since it will hold 6 drives total, can I have 5 plus 1, or does it have to be 4 plus 2? Any help appreciated!
CubeHacker
macrumors 65816
Generally speaking, a single ATA connector can connect two drives - a master and a slave. Each SATA connector can only connect to one drive. Thus, if you get a SATA PCI card, you need to check to see how many drives it supports.
DeeGee48
macrumors regular
Related G4 Question (2)
The card I'm looking at supports 2 internal and 2 external SATA's. So you're saying then that that's the only thing that determines how many HDD's I can have inside? My machine itself doesn't matter?
The card I'm looking at supports 2 internal and 2 external SATA's. So you're saying then that that's the only thing that determines how many HDD's I can have inside? My machine itself doesn't matter?
MrCheeto
Suspended
If all of the drives are SATA and your card supports the total number of SATA devices you plan to plug into it, then you can lay, velcro, and duct tape drives inside and out as much as you like.