[subego]

<http://www.technowarehousellc.com/g4upforslloi.html>

Isn't this what we've all been waiting for?

Any speculation how they got around the engineering problems no one else could?

Who wants to guinea-pig?

[mrmister]

Not me, though I am interested to hear how it goes for folks.

[pliny]

Turnaround time is 10 days , you have to take out your Mobo and ship it to them, and then put it back in. $500, hmm, seems a bit high.

[ChadC]

$500... it shows as $299 on their website... Would also like to see how it turns out... Been waiting for this for a looooong time,

ChadC

[dampeoples]

Looks like a cool idea, but it also looks like my 700MHz isn't upgradeable. I also don't think it would speed my machine up, G4 or not, but who knows.

[pliny]

Huh i must a read it wrong, $299 is MUCH better and maybe doable.

[subego]

Originally posted by pliny:
you have to take out your Mobo and ship it to them

Well that solves that...

Question #2: How toasty does it get?

[ChadC]

Good call subego, never even thought of that one... Hmmmmmmmmmmmm... gonna go upstairs and talk to my buddy who is a software engineer for quicktime core audio.


-Chad

[pliny]

Originally posted by subego:
Well that solves that...

What do you mean? This shouldn't be too much of a concern, they provide directions and everything apparently, it's what'd you have to do to upgrade any processor, the only thing is the turn around time, they say 10 days at the latest. I'd need my trusty grape in that time.

Question #2: How toasty does it get? [/B][/QUOTE]

Hmm, another good question, maybe we should send them some email, they're supposed to be pretty good about getting back to people.

Performance wise their site suggests 2x+ the performance, no doubt partly due to the way bigger cache. Wonder if Altivec would work, heck it must!

[subego]

Originally posted by pliny:
What do you mean?

Sorry. T'wasn't very clear.

I meant that solves the engineering hurdle that kept upgrades from having been released until now... I mean, there sure wasn't lack of a market.

As to whether I want one... Hmmm.

When I first read the headline, an 800MHz G3 popped into my head as exactly what I needed. A 500MHz G4 seems kind of weird.

If you run the kind of programs that benefit from a G4, you've already upgraded to a different computer... about a year ago. You sold your iMac, or put it in the bedroom (raises hand). What does it do in the bedroom?

Simple stuff: iApps. Music server. Light gaming, P2P.

I would take 400 more MHz over AltiVec in a jiffy.

[Dex13]

What about the video card?

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by pliny:
What do you mean? This shouldn't be too much of a concern, they provide directions and everything apparently, it's what'd you have to do to upgrade any processor,

Not really. The iMac's processor is soldered to the motherboard, that's why you need to send it in for them to replace it. Most processors are in ZIF sockets and are easy to swap.

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by subego:
Well that solves that...

Question #2: How toasty does it get?

I imagine the reason they used a 500 MHz G4 was because of the heat. I first thought they should offer something much more powerful, but when you think about the heat issue, it kinda makes sense.

Edit: Corrected post, changed to 500 MHz. Thanks Joe.

[joe]

Originally posted by bradoesch:
I imagine the reason they used a 400 MHz G4 was because of the heat. I first thought they should offer something much more powerful, but when you think about the heat issue, it kinda makes sense.

Actually, it's a 500MHz G4. Not sure how much heat that would generate in an iMac case. But it worked fine in my Cube without a fan. Worst case, you'd need one of those small cpu heatsink/fan combos. But if they're downclocking the 7410 (533Mhz), those actually ran cooler than the 7400 (350-500Mhz) G4s anyway.

I sold my 500Mhz slot load iMac a while back but am totally psyched that they're offering this type of upgrade! I hope they're successful and can offer similar upgrades for other "non-upgradable" Macs in the future! Having gone from a 500Mhz G3 to a 500Mhz G4 I can assure you that it makes one helluva difference for a lot of programs - not to mention Jag. Naturally I'd like to see them offer faster G4s at some point. But you can't beat the $299 price. PowerLogix and Gigadesigns were offerent an 800Mhz G4 upgrade for the same price without any L3 cache. Considering how much more effort is involved in this slot load upgrade and the full meg of L3 - it's a real bargain IMHO. If I still had my slot load iMac you can bet the mobo would be on it's way to a G4!.......joe

[pliny]

This seems like a good deal to me too my only concern is the transport of the mobo and the sorta sensitive work involved. They're going to unsolder, I guess, the processor, then resolder a new one, then ship it back? That seems like several places where damage could occur. Not to mention removing it in the first place and putting it all back, which I've never done before.

[gto47]

This company has devised an interesting concept, but I am very skeptical for several reasons.

1. Removal of the processor from the motherboard and its replacement is nearly physically impossible (at least when done by hand). In such a procedure, I believe it absolutely impossible to have a 100% success rate.

2. If the procedure was somehow made feasable, which would most likely involve very elaborate machinery, would the systems operated on continue to function with stability? The amount of space between the terminals on the processor and the motherboard is minimal, and is only achieved through precision manufacturing. With today's advanced manufacturing techniques, there is still a very high failure rate of electronic components and the nature of this process would provide elevated risk. How can we expect a process like this to be reliable? Even if the process worked, how could we be sure that with such factors as heat, electricity, or simply a slight impact sustained by the iMac chassis, that the added hardware would continue to function properly?

3. The process is further complicated by the fact that initial g3 and the g4 to be added to the board are not of congruent physical dimensions, and more importantly do not utilize the same pin positioning or voltage. An adapter of some sort would need to be devised, making the potential for the procedure to fail even greater.

Admittedly, this would be a very cool upgrade. I'm not saying that it is impossible, this may indeed be an excellent innovaton. But until my concerns are alleviated, I won't be be mailing them my iMac's logic board.

[pliny]

gto47, you should email them your concerns and see what they say, and then post your correspondence here. Could you do that?

[joe]

Originally posted by pliny:
This seems like a good deal to me too my only concern is the transport of the mobo and the sorta sensitive work involved. They're going to unsolder, I guess, the processor, then resolder a new one, then ship it back? That seems like several places where damage could occur. Not to mention removing it in the first place and putting it all back, which I've never done before.

Transport shouldn't be a problem. I send/receive circuit boards often in my job. Technowarehouse states that they will include a proper shipping box and anti-static bag in the kit they send.

You're right, there is more risk involved than swapping a cpu module like for the Towers. But this isn't anything new either. There is specialized equipment available to swap these types of chips (surface mount BGA).

I'm not sure what's involved in removing the iMac mobo as I never removed mine. Technowarehouse claims to include illustrated instructions to remove and install the board. So it shouldn't be too hard to put the connectors and mounting screws back in the right location. If you review their instructions and are hesistant to do the swap, you could check with a local computer shop (PC or Mac) and have them do it for you. I'd bet good money the reason Technowarehouse doesn't offer to do the actual mobo swap is the cost of shipping an item as heavy as the CRT iMac both ways......joe

[rmnelson]

The shipping box from technowarehouse arrived this afternoon. I have replaced the hard drive on my DVSE a couple of times, so most of the disassembly is familiar. The pictures in the instruction manual are photocopied, and not of the highest quality, but the instructions are clear. I think the trick with disassembly is to not drop any of the screws into the depths. In the past I have started them out and then got a grip on them with a surgical clamp, then backed them out the rest of the way.

I ship tomorrow, and then we shall see.

[CreepDogg]

Well, I just bit as well. Placed the order tonight. I've also cracked the unit open - I've also installed a HARMONi in my Bondi iMac (this one's for the DV SE...), so I'm accustomed to disassembling iMacs. I guess I'm Apple's worst nightmare in that I've been upgrading my unupgradeable iMacs!

Hopefully this'll mean I'll get a couple more years out of this baby - I'd rather do that and delay a new machine purchase if possible, until there's a machine with some truly compelling differences. The only other thing I'm waiting for is a faster, cheaper (than US$450) SuperDrive upgrade.

I'll let you all know how mine goes.

[pliny]

Good luck you two! (Just kidding. Be sure to let us know how well it works, etc.)

I hate the dropping screws thing too.

Benchmarks, benchmarks, benchmarks. You guys gotta run some tests over at X bench when you get your Macs back.

[AliP]

Shame they don't do it for my G3 600, and they don't ship to the UK
KRO
Ali P

[Peder Rice]

This has certainly got to pave the way for the FP iMacs. If they can unsolder a processor (which one can guess they are doing), then why not the FP iMac?

However, what if they are merely selling new motherboards and selling the old one?

[joe]

Originally posted by Peder Rice:
This has certainly got to pave the way for the FP iMacs. If they can unsolder a processor (which one can guess they are doing), then why not the FP iMac?

That's exactly what my impression was. Apple has seen fit to make their entire product line specifically NON-upgradeable (except for the towers). So what Technowarehouse is really offering here is to upgrade the non-upgradeable!!! I give them a lot of credit for that - and I wish them the very best. Because if they're successful and can make this type of upgrade profitable, they may be able to offer other upgrades. This has the potential to be something big.....joe

[pliny]

Has anybody gotten their iMac back from the upgrade yet?

[CreepDogg]

Got the shipping box and instructions Friday 4/25. I'm sending it in today. Removing the logic board was not that difficult, although I think it will be tricky to replace 2 of the screws. I'm getting a new 80GB Seagate Barracuda HD too, so I SHOULD have a virtually silent G4-based Mac...

I spent the most time trying to get the colored (in my case Graphite) cover off the iMac - never figured out how. I really wanted to clean out the inside - the inside of the cover has gotten rather dusty over time.

I'll keep you posted...

[P]

I'd buy it if they'd put a decent Radeon and 32-64 MB VRAM on it. Just the CPU, however... nah. I'd much rather have a boost from Quartz Extreme than from the few apps that do Altivec.

[PSST]

I also found out back in February that there was a company called Fastmac at www.fastmac.com that was doing the same upgrade, and I gave the info to vmarks, but we never really came to some conclusion if it was legit or even fesible. PAGING DR VMARKS!!!

So that's why I didn't post a notice here in the forums. I don't know enough info to tell everyone, plus I didn't want to ruin someone's iMac.

I'll raise a glass to all of the iMac owners who are have the CAHONES and are BRAVE enough to do this. You are one of kind....

After all I'm sure no one here wants a KENTUCKY FRIED iMac!!! EXTRA CRISPY GOODNESS!!!

Man, I can help get the picture out of my head of DR. BUNSEN and his assistant BEEKER from the MUPPET SHOW, performing these G4 upgrades on the iMac motherboards!

NAH, just kidding!

I hope this works, and is a HUGE success.

Umm Huge plug...I have a pristine fully upgraded and tricked out iMac DVSE if anyone wants to buy a replacement iMac IN CASE something goes wrong...

PSST

[PSST]

Hey everybody,

I saw this FAQ on the page for the G4 upgrade. It may be old news, but I wanted everyone to know about it.

http://lib1.store.vip.sc5.yahoo.com/.../itechfaq.html

I actually feel better about the upgrade.... But still CHECK OUT MY ABOVE POST!

Peace.

PSST

[CreepDogg]

Yeah - even though I did it, I'm still a little wary of how well this might work. I figure, for me, though, the worst case scenario is that my iMac is fried - which (of course ) would mean that TechnoWarehouse would refund my money - and I'd be looking at a new flat panel iMac which has been tempting anyway.

I would prefer the upgraded iMac though - since it's in my bedroom I appreciate its total silence! Best case scenario is that this extends the life of my DV iMac by 2-3 years.

Not that I already haven't had some bad luck - the day I sent in the logic board, the A/V board (I think) on my bondi blue iMac decided to give up - so at the moment both my computers are incapacitated. The bondi is in the capable hands of the mac genius at the local Apple store. So it will be all the sweeter when I get the G4 upgraded iMac back...

[ChadC]

just some food for thought... since it is the general consensus that this company is soldering the new chip in the old logic board, could it eventually be possible for a company to buy used (or even new) logic boards, solder in the chip and then sell that set and leave it to the user to install? is this possible?

-Chad

[rmnelson]

I installed my upgraded mobo this afternoon. Very high quality work; I couldn't tell the new solder work from the old. Temps running the same as before. xbench score 45.42. Three PRAM zaps needed to get it running without freezes and crashes. Running fine now for four hours.

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by rmnelson:
I installed my upgraded mobo this afternoon. Very high quality work; I couldn't tell the new solder work from the old. Temps running the same as before. xbench score 45.42. Three PRAM zaps needed to get it running without freezes and crashes. Running fine now for four hours.

Hrm, my 400 MHz iMac DV just got a score of 41.97. That's with a whole bunch of apps running too.

[ChadC]

quick question..... what are normal benchmarks for the G3 400 mhz DV's

thanx

Chad

[PSST]

Here you go ChadC,

I found this on xlr8yourmac.com:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/iMacDV/index3.html

It has the benchmarks for an iMac DV SE on this page.
I think the results are from MACBENCH 5.0.

I hope this helps out.

PSST

[vmarks]

Instead of comparing xbench scores for the overall score, compare the processor only scores.

different hard drives, video chips, ram installed, etc., all make a difference to the overall score that is adding too many variables. Just tell us the processor scores from the original to upgrade.

[pliny]

yeah, x bench processor from the g3, and then the xbench processor score with the g4.

[CreepDogg]

Just got my logic board back today. Everything looks OK - but I can't install for a couple of days (employers can be so unreasonably demanding! have to go to work! ) Also got a new HD - and am going to clean install 10.2 on that, so it will be a bit of time to get it up and running.

The process has gone well, but you'll be disappointed if you like information - I would have liked to get e-mails when they sent the box, received the board, and shipped the board - but nothing. If this works well, that will be my only gripe.

[rmnelson]

xbench test after upgrade:

CPU Test 38.95
GCD Recursion 46.50
Floating Point Basic 57.06
AltiVec Basic 19.54
Floating Point Library 80.07

[subego]

For Comparison...

Stock 400MHz DVse

GCD Recursion: 39.66
Floating Point Basic: 35.02
Floating Point Library: 63.61

Looks like rmnelson got a boost

[joe]

Any chance of some real world benchmarks (games, video, rendering, etc) before and after? Also, any observations of GUI performance in OSX (no diff, big diff, etc). thanx.......joe

[CreepDogg]

Hmmmmm...so, installed the motherboard. Also installed a new hard drive and did a complete clean install of Jaguar - all software updates, etc. System runs - but seems highly unstable - system freezes and kernel panics all over the place. Kernel panics are different each time.

I've zapped the PRAM (I think) several times (cmd-opt-p-r), but still have issues. I'm not ready to say there's something wrong with the motherboard - maybe I'll boot into 9 and see if that's stable - but am looking for other ideas. Suggestions on how to isolate?

When it runs - I haven't run benchmarks or done anything of consequence due to the stability issues, but it's chock full of 25%-more-MHz-altivecy-cachey-speedy-goodness. Scrolling in windows is instantaneous - makes my PowerMate fun to use! So - if I can get it stabilized I will be VERY happy with the result.

[pliny]

I'd take the ram out and put it back in. Sounds crazy right? Check all the connectors.

There's now a 900 mhz g3 upgrade from powerlogix. $349 incldues fedex shipping. Whooheeo!

[Peder Rice]

Originally posted by pliny:
I'd take the ram out and put it back in. Sounds crazy right? Check all the connectors.

There's now a 900 mhz g3 upgrade from powerlogix. $349 incldues fedex shipping. Whooheeo!

I just saw this, and wow!

My little iMac will once again be acceptably fast.

[pliny]

I just wonder how stable the upgraded systems are. creepdogg's having trouble and rmnelson had some pram issues, no biggie there--I wonder how their systems are doing? Any updates guys?

[rmnelson]

After installation I had numerous kernel panics and system freezes. There never seemed to be a consistent theme; they happened all the time. The upgrade ran perfectly in OS9, but in OS X it was a nightmare. The 256 memory chip that came with the computer seemed to be causing some problems, so I replaced both chips with 512 chips; the freezes and panics continued.

The contact area between the G4 and the heat sink had troubled me when I first took the computer apart. The G4 and the mobo must be mounted perfectly to make good contact, and I couldn't tell with everything put together whether or not we had good contact. I bought some thermal grease and applied it to the sink and the chip. No improvement.

During this process, I had numerous telephone conversations with Jack Putnam at Technowarehouse. We agreed that heat was a concern. Jack shipped a new mobo with a bit of rubberized conductive material attached to the G4 to enhance the contact with the heat sink. This solved the problem instantly! Jack told me that they would include the pad on all subsequent mobos.

I have now been running for a week without any problems. The speed increases are truly amazing. The upgrade is a dramatic improvement to an already great computer. Support from Technowarehouse was excellent. I wish they had resolved the heat problem before I bought the upgrade, but they worked hard to fix my problems.

Powerlogix announced their G3/900 upgrade for slot loaders after I ordered my G4. I note on their website that the heat sink is replaced as part of that upgrade. Since I use X exclusively, the G4 is still the best choice for me. I am happy with the results.