[Black Kerouac]

I can't bring myself to get rid of my G4. I run Leopard on it now, and it's kind of sluggish. I don't really want to run a different OS on it because of compatibility issues between it and my Macbook Pro. I use Final Cut Pro and it makes you update files to the newer version. I also run a lot of Adobe CS3, and typical internet stuff, downloading music, movies, etc... No gaming.

What, if anything, can i do to make my G4 quicker? Would a video card upgrade help?

Here are the specs:

Power Mac G4
Dual 1GHz
1.25 GB (I know I need to up this to 2GB)
80 GB ATA HD
250 GB SATA HD (thru adapter)
ATI Radeon 9000 Pro (AGP, 64MB VRAM)
20 inch Apple Cinema Display
Firewire 400, USB 1.0
Combo Drive

Thanks for your help!

[Big Mac]

1. More RAM
2. Faster hard drive (if yours is more than half full it will be slower than a newer, more spacious drive)
3. Fresh OS X installation
4. G5s are pretty cheap!
5. There's no number five. . .

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by Black Kerouac 

Would a video card upgrade help?

According to this, yes. It is a very expensive option, though. You could spend way less money by getting an internal DVD burner and an internal PCI USB2 card which may be more worth, but that's up to your needs. So far I would max out the RAM which is not expensive.

Then I guess your boot disk is the SATA model, right?.

Needless to say most people would agree to spend next-to-zero on such an old computer (even an used toy-looking Mac mini would demolish it) but my single 1,25 GHz MDD while not being 'speed racer' fast is still OK for certain purposes.

[Black Kerouac]

thanks for all the help!

Will booting from the SATA disc make a difference even though its going thru a PCI card?

My main drive is pretty full though, so I know I need to fix that, and I'll definitely max out the RAM.

[angelmb]

I was pondering about if adding SATA to my MDD would make it faster but was told it would be slightly fast, well, around 30% faster which you may welcome… but truth be told, hard disk speed was not my main concern as it was noise levels, so I ended not 'upgrading' the to SATA.

I wonder if you can boot from SATA, I guess you may tell us which the card maker is, so other people could give you advice or check the maker's website just in case it has some info about OS X being bootable from it.

[Black Kerouac]

This is the card I'm using: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816150014

I just read all the negative comments to the right, but it was simple to install and I haven't experienced any problems with it. As far as the modest speed boost with SATA....we had a Dell server at work...the RAID array failed but the HDs were fine. They came out, installed two new drives and never asked for the old ones back, so I got two 250GB SATA drives free. That's the only reason I went with the SATA card.

[angelmb]

I guess if it proves to be bootable someone would advice you to use those two 250GB hard disks and -maybe- set up them as RAID 0, 1… or whatever is best suitable for your needs. If it wasn't possible to boot up the Mac from SATA, I guess you may use the ATA 80 GB hard disk as bootable and still use the SATA to storage most of the stuff, but I am not going further than here cause I am not the one who master this kind of tech stuff and besides that I suspect that is how your hard disks behave right now.

It seems that SIIG has (or had) another PCI SATA card marketed as Mac compatible, which may mean nothing given yours works flawlessly… in before of knowing if it is bootable or not.

I have tried to look for info here but nothing shown up.

Worst case scenario?, you may end needing this one from sonnet.

[DrBoar]

there are sligtlly more sane GPU options http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/applem...Q_fromZQQ_mdoZ out there. The nvidia 6200 is the cheapest with core. I have a sawtooth that first got a ATI 8500 and then a Gigadesign 1.2 GHz G4. And later a SATA card , a USB card and 1.5 GB RAM but now it is really no way to justify any upgrades anymore on a nonintel Mac