[Elderloc]

Does anyone know hwere I can get an upgrade for this system? I heard from someone on here you can replace the mother board. Is this true?

I have a G4 500 but I want to use this 5215 for Internet. So my Girlfriend won't screw up my G4. I would like to be able to run os/9 on it.

There are not specific upgrades for the 5215CD, although the design of the case would probably allow you to swap the logic board for that of a 5300, 5400, or 5500 logic board. Good luck finding one though... these are all rather recent computer models (last coupld of years), and you generally need to swap dead or otherwise disabled boards of the same model when you buy a logic board online.

I have a 5215 myself. I feel you pain when it comes to going online with the machine. I've relegated mine to use as a backup server after my parents bought an iMac to replace it.

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-Eliott Wolfe
Winnetka, Calif

[Elderloc]

Is there any limit to the size of the IDE hard drive that I can put into it? Also I assume I can put a 52x + CD-Rom in or does Apple have some weird restrictions on this?

there shouldn't be a limit to the size of the drive you can put in it. I just put a 20.5 GB drive into mine and it works very well. You can put a faster CD-ROM drive in, although I'd save you money. The CD-ROM drive is SCSI in the 5200 series and the IDE bus is only capable of one channel (no slaves here), so you'd have to get a SCSI CD drive. That can get expensive if you want to get anything new or fast.

It's a royal pain to replace the CD drive in your machine too. You'll need to take the whole front face off, and that requires a Mac cracker screw driver (18" shaft with Torx 12 bit).

If you're looking to max out your memory, memoryx.net has some very good prices on older Mac memory.

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-Eliott Wolfe
Winnetka, Calif

[Elderloc]

The CD-Rom is an IDE and the face plate comes right off it. All I had to do was pres down a little plastic peace to get the drive to slide out. This whole sytem is IDE.
Apple did not have a Slave/Master IDE setup back then?

I want to get a 5500 board for this system but with the core change it looks like it would be easier to buy an Imac. The core is $200 and the board is $149

[Elderloc]

Also I already have two 32meg Simms in it so it is maxed out. I would like to run Os/9 on this baby has anyone tried it??

IDE CD-ROM drive huh? That's intresting. for **** and giggles, could you tell me when exactly your machine was manufactured (it's on a lable on the back of the machine).

More power to you if it's IDE. The drives are much cheaper. However, running from pure Apple logic here, I would guess that if your system has two IDE devices it probably also has two IDE channels. Just one of those Apple things...

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-Eliott Wolfe
Winnetka, Calif

[Elderloc]

It may be SCSI I see in Apple DB that it is listed that way. I didn't look at it that good when I removed it there was a card slot adapter on the back of the drive to make it connect to the interface board. I'll pull it appart later today.

I'm gonna try to get IE 5 to run on it. I tried you my girlfriend messing up my G4.

Don't misplace that adapter card that plugs into the ribbon port on the back of the CD drive. I 'misplaced' mine for a little while when I took our 5215 apart and when I looked into priceing for that part I suddenly had the urge to reopen the lost and find case.

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Eliott Wolfe
Winnetka, Calif

[Elderloc]

Is there anyway to upgrade this puppy to OS 9.04??

[MacOS761]

Okay... I don't know how fast a 5215 is, but I have a 5200/75 LC, and it's running OS 8.5. The thing is dog slow. Your only hardware upgrade is a motherboard swap (either a 5400 or 5500 will work). I plan to bring mine's OS back down to 8.1, unless 8.6 speeds it up somewhat. I still have to try that. Overall, I would suggest an 8.x OS - otherwise the machine will run too slow.

[MacNZ]

Firstly, you can get 64mb SIMM"s for a total of 128Mb in a 5215, its just that Apple doesn't support this configuration. I haven't heard of many people having tested this much but you can actually get it in the darn thing. Maybe it's worth a go.
As others said, any size IDE drive should be fine. Mine had a 9Gb drive which worked ok.
I seriously suggest not using OS9 because it will simply use to many system resources, you might not need it anyway.
A logic board for a later system might be hard to find but worth a look. I mean some of the later 5400, 5500 series systems were pretty speedy, good enough forn mucking round on the internet. I would go look for a parts depot or look around second hand mac stores. You'll hafta bargain a bit to get a fair price if you find anything.
Good luck.

I would not recommend 9.04, or anything past 8.1 for that matter on the Performa 5200 series (that includes the LC's). I have 8.6 on mine and I'm going to downgrade to 8.1 because of speed issues.

Yes, you could put 128MB of memory into a 5200, but you will not cure the fundamental speed problems associated with this series of computers. Explanation:

When Apple designed this computer, much like when they designed the PowerBook 5300, they cut corners and attempted to use as many components as possible from the previous generation computers these new machines were replacing. In this case, the 5200 series (and 6200 slimline models) 'borrowed' quite a few components from the previous Performa/Quadra/LC 630 series. In essence, Apple merely graphed a PowerPC processor onto a purely 68k logic board, utilizing several new bridge chips that would allow the older 68k controller chips to communicate with the newer PowerPC 603 chip. As a result of this, memory access is horribly impaired on the 5200 series, and performance in some respects is worse than that on the 68k machines these PowerPC models were to replace. Many of these issues were corrected in the Performa/LC 5300 and 5400 models, so such a logic board update would be incredibly beneficial (if you can find one cheap enough to justify it upgrade).


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Eliott Wolfe
Winnetka, Calif

[Elderloc]

I have seen many of these board from places like Macresq but they want an exchange to get one.

I think $479 is steep for a 180mhz machine. That's 279 for board and $200 corecharge.

I guess untill I can find one on ebay I'lll be stuck at 7.5.1.

any one know where I could get 8.0 or higher?? I only have 7.5.1 and 9.04 os I can find a copy anywhere

If you haven't already, check out Shrevesystems.com. They have lots of upgrade stuff, and I think they carry older system software releases pretty cheap (probably $20 for System 8 or 8.1)

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Eliott Wolfe
Winnetka, Calif