[Eric_Henao]

Hey everyone.
I'm looking for info. (duh.) Got this S900 200mhz and I'm thinking of upgrading both the processor, adding more HD's and putting in a cd-burner...

1.) How critical is the type of ram that I have in here important to the type of G3/G4 upgrade card? I know the G4 limits the number of PCI slots I'll get to use...

2.) For CD-rom burning...Should I go ahead and get a USB/Firewire card and then get a firewire CD-rom burner OR get a SCSI Burner? (I'd prefer to get an internal)

3.) HD's - I supposed I could get teh USB/firewire card, I could also add HD's space more cheaply with getting the firewire HD'
s, but is there any consern or limitations with doing this? WIll I be able to boot from the firewire drives?


Oh yeah, I'm running 9.1 and running with 280 megs of RAM.

If there is already a archive with this info... just point the way. Thanks...


Eric

[buchrob]

Originally posted by Eric_Henao:
<STRONG>Hey everyone.
I'm looking for info. (duh.) Got this S900 200mhz and I'm thinking of upgrading both the processor, adding more HD's and putting in a cd-burner...

1.) How critical is the type of ram that I have in here important to the type of G3/G4 upgrade card? I know the G4 limits the number of PCI slots I'll get to use...

2.) For CD-rom burning...Should I go ahead and get a USB/Firewire card and then get a firewire CD-rom burner OR get a SCSI Burner? (I'd prefer to get an internal)

3.) HD's - I supposed I could get teh USB/firewire card, I could also add HD's space more cheaply with getting the firewire HD'
s, but is there any consern or limitations with doing this? WIll I be able to boot from the firewire drives?


Oh yeah, I'm running 9.1 and running with 280 megs of RAM.

If there is already a archive with this info... just point the way. Thanks...


Eric</STRONG>

Get rid of the TwinTurbo video card that was built-in immediately. Caused no end of problems with the 3 Umax machines I owned at one point. Apart from this flaw, the 900 is an excellent machine. Will take extra drives, RAM, easily.

The built-in SCSI IBM or Micropolis drives may be suspect, but it costs very little to replace a 2 gig drive nowadays.

Very spacious chassis for adding lots of goodies. You can probably swap your CD reader for a CD-RW, but check xlr8yourmac.com first for bootable compatibility list. If you want to keep the original CD reader, go for an internal burner.

Firewire and USB cards don't tend to travel too well back in time. (Almost any forum lists lots of problems with these set-ups). For sure you won't be able to boot from external Firewire BUT you are better protected as a long-term investment with an external firewire drive. When you win the lotto and spring for the dual 1 gig G4, you can just plug and play. A potential alternative: ATA card and drive(s) which would become portable when you upgrade, and also let you slap in a cheap IDE CD burner.

G3 will be a better bang-for-the-buck in terms of processor upgrades because the limiting factor will still be bus speed.

Good luck.

Good luck.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

I have a UMAX s900/180 upgraded to a G3/500.

For a basic performance benchmark: I used to use an original B&W G3/400 at work, and my s900 with the G3/500 card is nearly identical in performance at most tasks. The upgrade was well worth it.

Bushrob has good advice not to go with a G4 over a G3 upgrade... I'll second that. I don't think you'll get much if any noticeable difference with a G4 on the s900's old 51mhz system bus.

512 Megs of original RAM plus 16 soldered on the board- no problems there.

Not sure what problems anyone ever had with the old Twin Turbo cards, but my UMAX has 2 of them for dual monitors and still works without a hitch. Just make sure you have drivers for it-- I'm still using the last driver update with OS 9.1 without a single problem of any sort.

As for hard drives and CD burners... as buchrob suggested, the best most cost effective way to go is add a ATA card. Then load it up with cheap, huge capacity IDE drives and any decent Mac compatible IDE CD-RW. (I recommend those made by LiteON- one of the most under rated makes out there... low cost, high quality.)

My s900 is stuffed with both SCSI and ATA drives, original SCSI CD-ROM and a LiteON 16x IDE burner. Still using the original 2 gig IBM SCSI hard drive the machine came with. (Wow, 2 whole gigs!)

Go ahead and add Firewire and USB if you want it. It all works fine with my s900. No problems what-so-ever with either since day one- and I bought cheap, no-name branded cards of both.

Hopefully your s900 will take upgrades as painlessly as mine does... mine has always taken whatever I throw at it, with scarecely a hiccup! Exactly why it's still around... still a great machine!