[Matthew Attoe]

I'm just about to take the plunge and order my new 2.5 G5 but have a couple of quick questions. If someone has any info that could help me out, that would be great.

1) Can I swap out the standard optical drive and put in a Pioneer 109 without any problems? I can save £60 by downgrading to standard dvd/cd-rw on the apple store and get a 109 for £50 so as far as I can see, I might as well. Will be using Toast to do all me cd & dvd burning.

2) I want to get the 6800 Ultra video card (the x800 isn't listed in the uk apple store) but I only have a VGA monitor (which is only about 3 months old, as it was a brand-new swap-out unit for a 2.5 year one which died) so will my new G5 come with some sort of dvi-vga converter in the box or is it something extra I will have to buy?

Again, if anyone has any tips they'd be gratefully received.

Thanks,

Matthew

[Big Mac]

Everyone says installing the drive is easy, but you may need to use Patch Burn in order to fully enable the drive. Edit: According to Power Mac Tech Specs DVI to VGA is included, although I assume that is for cards that have DVI rather than ADC.

[OreoCookie]

DVI contains a normal VGA signal and AFAIK Apple includes a DVI-VGA adapter with the PowerMac.

And yes, you can put in a DVD burner. If you just want to burn DVDs with Toast for instance, you can use pretty much any model. If, on the other hand, you want to burn DVDs in the Finder or with -- say -- iDVD, then you have to patch your DVD burner.

Other than that, I think you are good to go.

[Matthew Attoe]

Thanks for the advice... I've done some reading up on the Pioneer 109 and at the moment there seems to be some problems with them, so I think I'll leave that for a while.

When my new G5 arrives, what's the best way to transfer data from my existing G4/350 to the G5 - can I connect the two using firewire or would I have to dabble in basic networking and use an ethernet cable?

Again, many thanks,

Matthew

[macmad]

Originally posted by Matthew Attoe:
When my new G5 arrives, what's the best way to transfer data from my existing G4/350 to the G5 - can I connect the two using firewire or would I have to dabble in basic networking and use an ethernet cable?

Again, many thanks,

Matthew

Get yourself a long Firewire cable (if you don't have one already) and use the assistant which will guide you through the whole process - its very smart!

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by Matthew Attoe:
Thanks for the advice... I've done some reading up on the Pioneer 109 and at the moment there seems to be some problems with them, so I think I'll leave that for a while.

When my new G5 arrives, what's the best way to transfer data from my existing G4/350 to the G5 - can I connect the two using firewire or would I have to dabble in basic networking and use an ethernet cable?

Again, many thanks,

Matthew

Firewire. Apple includes something for transferring stuff over

[Big Mac]

Specifically, the Setup Assistant that appears upon first boot asks if you wish to transfer over from your old Mac to your new one through firewire cable. You connect both Macs, tell it which things to transfer (from a short list of choices) and let it do its magic.

[Matthew Attoe]

That sounds easy enough then, but I'm bound to screw it up somehow and end up having to do it via dvd-rw