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Upgrade on a G4 power mac

mannyrm

mannyrm

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 5, 2009
65
0
Pennsylvania
Hey guys!

Im right now making an offer on a G4 sawtooth unit.

Im a PC guy but I want to try a Mac out. At this moment I cant afford to buy a spankin' new one, but I sure would love to upgrade a oldie like the G4.

In regards of OS what version can I aspire to. Also I need some tips on the CPU, HDD and Video card.

I know that ram is limited to 2Gb. But my main question is.....is it worth it?

BTW The G4 on the list is a 400 mhz with 512kb, HDD of 20 and a Video card of 128kb

Thx.
 
Powermac G4 upgrades are very expensive - to fully max out your model, you would probably be better off trying to find a Mini for computational use... Its not just the processors, but also faster system buses.

I think here is a good place to find pricing on G4 upgrades. Google helps, too. I think you would also be able to flash the graphics card, but I do not know too much about ATY Rage, etc.

Also, if you do go the G4 route and if you decide to start upgrading, get your model identifier number. Go :apple:->about this mac->more info, and that will give you a model identifier - for instance, my G5 is a PowerMac11,2

You can also nab a nifty program called MacTracker which would do this for you and also display some other handy info on the particular model it runs on.
 
If you want a tower G5s are available at down to 200$. They have much better grafics AGP 8x compared to G4 which typically have AGP 2x.

They would run Leopard which is the best OS X so far released by Apple.
 
mannyrm said:
Hey guys!

Im right now making an offer on a G4 sawtooth unit.

Im a PC guy but I want to try a Mac out. At this moment I cant afford to buy a spankin' new one, but I sure would love to upgrade a oldie like the G4.

In regards of OS what version can I aspire to. Also I need some tips on the CPU, HDD and Video card.

I know that ram is limited to 2Gb. But my main question is.....is it worth it?

BTW The G4 on the list is a 400 mhz with 512kb, HDD of 20 and a Video card of 128kb

Thx.
Click to expand...

Pop in 2 GB of DDR2 RAM (I know it says SDRAM, but DDR2 is a form of that).

I hope you mean MB and not KB. Find a larger HDD. You can probably get one from an old Windows box.

Video card looks good to me.

You can put up to 10.4.11 aka Tiger on it, but that may be a bit slow. Tiger supports most of the latest software, but not for long.

gugucom said:
If you want a tower G5s are available at down to 200$. They have much better grafics AGP 8x compared to G4 which typically have AGP 2x.

They would run Leopard which is the best OS X so far released by Apple.
Click to expand...

Anything above 867 MHz that is a G4 will run Leopard, so a fair bit of G4s will.
 
I woulnd't invest in anything less than 867mhz Quicksilver. Even if you are just wanting to learn OS-X, I can't believe that people try to sell those old Sawtooths anymore... well anything more than $25.

A dual MDD G4 or a G5 would probably be your best bang for bung performance wise if you want to test the waters in OS-X. Try looking locally for a G5 PowerMac for <$300. Even the single 1.6ghz would be enough to test out.

I just don't think you'll get a good enough experience out of OS-X with something that old.
 
Hey Guys


Thx for all the replies, after a series of G4 offers I decided to take this one for $100.


What do you think?

Power Mac G4 PowerPC. 733 MHz processor. 896 MB SDRAM. 38GB HD.
It works GREAT! i have i plugged in right now.
Comes with working keyboard and mouse, power cord. internal CD writing drive. and a zip drive.
Lots of software and fonts, it belonged to a graphic designer.
Firefox, Safari, Explorer
Adobe CS
Microsoft Office 2004
Toast 6
Fetch, Stuffit, etc...
Here are the specs:
Machine Model: Power Mac G4
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (2.0)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 733 MHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
Memory: 896 MB
Bus Speed: 133 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.2.5f1
DIMM0/J21:
Size: 128 MB
Type: SDRAM
Speed: PC133-333
DIMM1/J22:
Size: 256 MB
Type: SDRAM
Speed: PC133-333
DIMM2/J23:
Size: 512 MB
Type: SDRAM
Speed: PC133-333
GeForce2 MX:
Type: display
Bus: AGP
Display Type: CRT
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 32 MB
Vendor: nVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0110
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 1055
IBM-IC35L040AVER07-0:
Capacity: 38.35 GB
Model: IBM-IC35L040AVER07-0
Revision: ER4OA44A
Serial Number: SXPTXSD7060
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Protocol: ATA
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Internal
OS9 Drivers: Yes
FireWire Bus:
Speed: 400 Mb/sec Speed
AirPort Card Information:
Wireless Card Type: AirPort
Wireless Card Locale: USA
Wireless Card Firmware Version: 9.52
 
I've got that same configuration. This series was called the "Digital Audio" due to a built-in amplifier and is the first before the Quicksilver. The codenames were "Tangent" and "Clockwork."

The ODD is an 8x DVD-RW.

You will be able to run Tiger on this thing no prob. I run PS CS1 on mine and right now it is working as an iTunes server.
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
I've got that same configuration. This series was called the "Digital Audio" due to a built-in amplifier and is the first before the Quicksilver. The codenames were "Tangent" and "Clockwork."

The ODD is an 8x DVD-RW.

You will be able to run Tiger on this thing no prob. I run PS CS1 on mine and right now it is working as an iTunes server.
Click to expand...

So this is not a "quicksilver" then. Is $100 worth it?
 
mannyrm said:
So this is not a "quicksilver" then. Is $100 worth it?
Click to expand...
It could be a Quicksilver, I think it is since you say it has a 40Gb hard drive, and the 733MHz Digital Audio came with a 60Gb drive. The high end Digital Audio G4 had essentially the same specs as the original low end Quicksilver. Which of these two pictures does yours look like? The white one or the grey one? Honestly, it really doesn't matter since they're almost identical in ever way.
 

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Hrududu said:
It could be a Quicksilver, I think it is since you say it has a 40Gb hard drive, and the 733MHz Digital Audio came with a 60Gb drive. The high end Digital Audio G4 had essentially the same specs as the original low end Quicksilver. Which of these two pictures does yours look like? The white one or the grey one? Honestly, it really doesn't matter since they're almost identical in ever way.
Click to expand...

But I'd pay more for a QS with the same specs. It looks better.
 
Well They sent me a pic....And the experts say...?
 

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Thx for all the help guys. Im very thrilled and anxious to have it soon.

I will be posting more often in regards of tips and tricks, thx for all the help.
 
I don't want to be a threadjacker, but I've got a question that fits:

Where (other than eBay) can I get a decent GPU, for less than $100, for my DA?
 
Shake 'n' Bake said:
I don't want to be a threadjacker, but I've got a question that fits:

Where (other than eBay) can I get a decent GPU, for less than $100, for my DA?
Click to expand...
Buy a PC ATI Radeo 9800 Pro and than flash it with a Mac rom. I've done quite a bit of those and you can actually find them for around $25. Best video card for the older G4s for the price IMO.

But good buy OP. The Quicksilvers were actually my favorite G4s. But I'll always love the aluminum G5's more :).
 
OrangeSVTguy said:
Buy a PC ATI Radeo 9800 Pro and than flash it with a Mac rom. I've done quite a bit of those and you can actually find them for around $25. Best video card for the older G4s for the price IMO.
Click to expand...

I'd always wanted to do that, but my only PC with an AGP slot has a bum motherboard.

Any Mac-ready suggestions?
 
OrangeSVTguy said:
You can flash blindly or set up a VNC connection and do screen sharing. View your G4 screen from another Mac/PC to do the flashing so you can see what you are doing.
Click to expand...

I always thought you needed a PC to flash the card because the Mac couldn't figure out the BIOS.

I guess I'll see if I can get one of those cards and a Mac BIOS.
 
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