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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > Recommended upgrades?

Recommended upgrades?
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MadanKnightRyukendo
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Mar 17, 2008, 12:44 PM
 
In the next few days I'll likely be bidding on a PowerMac G4 on eBay, with the following specs:

400 Mhz G4
256 MB RAM
DVD-ROM
AGP 16MB ATI Rage 128pro Graphics Card
40 GB Hard Drive
OSX 10.2

Now, I'll likely get this really cheap, so I'll be able to spend a little more money on possible upgrades. What are the cheapest, most recommended upgrades to do on this? I'm going to be on a limited upgrade budget, so I can't go too crazy.

"Listen, I don't do warning shots: From start to end, it's completely a climax. Say your prayers."
     
Big Mac
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Mar 17, 2008, 01:00 PM
 
RAM, hard drive.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
sek929
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Mar 17, 2008, 01:14 PM
 
Max out the RAM, add a second HD, and if you have enough left over get a DVD-RW.
     
MadanKnightRyukendo  (op)
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Mar 17, 2008, 01:18 PM
 
I'm rather ignorant about PowerMacs. What would be the max RAM for it (and the speed), and what kind of hard drive?

"Listen, I don't do warning shots: From start to end, it's completely a climax. Say your prayers."
     
Big Mac
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Mar 17, 2008, 01:51 PM
 
There are three DIMM slots that take PC133 (or perhaps 100) DIMMs. The drives are PATA/IDE.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
toobiloo
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Mar 17, 2008, 07:12 PM
 
My G4 400 AGP maxes out at 2 gb of ram in 4 slots. I've got a 128mb and 256 mb stick left over I'd sell you cheap, i just pulled them out last week, they work fine.

- Tobias
     
TravisReynolds
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Mar 18, 2008, 12:51 AM
 
well definitely get a bigger HD and more ram

and upgrade the OS, or re install so the computer is as good as new
From the one, and Only Travis Reynolds. You stay classy San Diego
     
MichiganRich
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Mar 18, 2008, 07:17 PM
 
Expensive and slow RAM, slow system bus, no big drive support (128 gig max), slow video bus and antique video card. You guys can argue as much as you want but you know it's true.

Why waste money on an 8 year old machine?
     
eggman
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Mar 18, 2008, 07:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by MichiganRich View Post
Expensive and slow RAM, slow system bus, no big drive support (128 gig max), slow video bus and antique video card. You guys can argue as much as you want but you know it's true.

Why waste money on an 8 year old machine?
I agree. I just gave one of these to our local Computer Recycler.

My wife had been using it... and now she's got a used - but good condition - 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo MacBook, and loves it. It's like a whole new world opened up for her. She can actually play YouTube videos.
     
MacPro8Core
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Mar 19, 2008, 02:18 AM
 
I don't know if I would say the older Powermac's are useless. I have a 500 mhz G4 and it runs pretty good. I mean its nothing compared to a newer Mac but for basic internet surfing, it works just fine. Hey, its still faster than my 2 year old Windows PC.... thats says a lot to me.
     
P
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Mar 19, 2008, 11:39 AM
 
They're not useless - it's just that their price (especially after upgrades) does not correspond to their value. Apple's lack of a bargain basement computer has created a sort of twilight zone for people who want a Mac for $250 and don't understand how slow the old models are compared to the new.

Even if you can't tell by most of the people in this forum, the G4 was never a very impressive CPU. The G3 had a few things going for it, with its low latency design and good (for its time) integer performance. The G5 was a floating point monster and would have been an absolute screamer with an L2 cache of any reasonable size. The G4 also had one feature - good vector processing - but nowhere near the bandwidth to make use of it, and it was comparably weaker in all other areas.
     
OreoCookie
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Mar 19, 2008, 12:39 PM
 
Forget about getting a G4, unless it's already upgraded. No matter what the price, IMO it's not financially worth it. Get a Mac mini instead, it'll run circles around that machine.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
SierraDragon
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Mar 21, 2008, 03:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by MadanKnightRyukendo View Post
In the next few days I'll likely be bidding on a PowerMac G4... ...What are the cheapest, most recommended upgrades to do on this? I'm going to be on a limited upgrade budget...
What P and Oreo said. Don't waste any money buying and upgrading such an old box. Buy a Mini. For best value buy a refurbished Mini. Even a used Mini would be far preferable to any G4 tower.

The fact that some folks still use G4s (including me until last week) has no bearing on whether or not a purchase of a G4 tower makes sense. It does not.

Good luck!

-Allen Wicks
     
G4Quicksilver
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Mar 22, 2008, 03:48 AM
 
Ive been on a PM G4 for 6 years now, its slowness is driving me nuts these days and i cant wait to save up the $ to get a Mac Pro, like the above post's say, do yourself a big favor and get something newer, hell that way if you get some new apps you can actually use them on the newer machine, not the case with these older ppc chips.
Powermac G4 Quicksilver 2002 800 mhz single / Eizo ColorEdge CE240W 24" / Burly 5 bay PM Enclosure filled with Seagate Barracuda 7200.11's
     
galenea
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Mar 22, 2008, 12:00 PM
 
What exactly will this machine be used for? I think that would help guide the discussion toward whether this machine is really worth the money you're about to invest, and/or would facilitate discussion about alternatives that may suit your needs better.
     
MadanKnightRyukendo  (op)
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Mar 22, 2008, 08:11 PM
 
Mostly web surfing, school work, some occasional fiction writing, and listening to music. That's it. I'm not like a lot of you who apparently need to have amazingly powerful computers. The games I play, if any at all? Starcraft and Diablo 2. That's it, as I'm more of a console gamer. I don't do a lot of high stress stuff on my computers.

Not to mention I'm on a very limited budget right now, and therefore can't afford to run out and buy a C2D MB or anything of the sort.

"Listen, I don't do warning shots: From start to end, it's completely a climax. Say your prayers."
     
idykenano
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Mar 22, 2008, 09:51 PM
 
1) I'm a college student.
2) I'm a programmer, web surfer, formal report writer, emailer, chatter, and occasionally I play Civ II (yes, classic 9), Warcraft II (again, classic 9), and pocket tanks (10.4).
3) My G4 450mhz serves me just fine. I have it upgraded to 1.25gb of ram, the minimum I suggest is 1gb due to the slowwww system bus and processor speed. However, my 8 year old machine does real well (I purchased it about a year ago and love it)

4) On a budget, Sawtooths are a great idea. At the right price. They're real heavy so the shipping is expensive, but they shouldn't be sold at "bare bones" like that for much more than $50.
5) Try your local craigslist and pick one up someone has already souped up for $200.
6) I put a dvd burner into my G4 and besides for burning dvd's of files, the processor is too slow to process movie files and burn them to dvd's (ie iDVD and iMovie).
7) For lots of storage space, remove the zip drive below the dvdrom and put another large hard drive under it. This allows you to have 2 drives of up to 128gb. The Sawtooths have the "large drive capacity" ceiling common in older macs. (This can be surpassed by a SATA pci card).
8) One of my favorite additions to my sawtooth is a usb 2.0 pci card that adds 5 ports to the back for my goodies.

Think long, and choose based on your needs.
     
MichiganRich
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Mar 23, 2008, 10:24 PM
 
I don't need an amazingly powerful computer, I just stress the importance of value. You mention your budget, how much are you planning to spend on the old one? How much are you going to spend on upgrades?
     
imitchellg5
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Mar 23, 2008, 11:47 PM
 
The thing is, I bought a 533 MHz Digital Audio G4 last year with the intention of slowly modernizing it since I couldn't afford a mini in one fell swoop. It was a huge mistake. I've put almost $500 into it on top of the $150 I got it for, and most of that is just replacing things that went wrong with it. It's an old machine, and you can't expect it to last forever.
However: I would love to get a cube and max it out and drop a ton of upgrades in it. But that's a bit different.
     
MadanKnightRyukendo  (op)
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Mar 24, 2008, 12:20 AM
 
Originally Posted by MichiganRich View Post
I don't need an amazingly powerful computer, I just stress the importance of value. You mention your budget, how much are you planning to spend on the old one? How much are you going to spend on upgrades?
Well, I only payed about $75 for it, which included shipping. The main thing I anticipate upgrading to begin with is the memory. For the time being, a 40 GB hard drive is all I need, as that's all my laptop has, and I've never really had a storage issue with that. And with the relatively slow speed of the memory, I therefore don't see myself paying much at all for that. In the end, I don't think upgrades would hurt me so badly as I'm not intending to go crazy. I'm not completely dumb. I know that this isn't going to be anywhere close to top of the line.

As far as anything external (monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc), I don't anticipate paying much of anything, if anything at all for that, as I can simply use the monitor from the dead family PC, and I have several keyboards and mice lying around, so not much on that end.

I'd also like to throw out that I'm not looking for this to be a long-term use computer. It's only something temporary.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, provided the components haven't been compromised in any way, I could probably transplant some parts from our old PC into this. I'm sure I could at least reuse the hard drive.
( Last edited by MadanKnightRyukendo; Mar 24, 2008 at 12:35 AM. )

"Listen, I don't do warning shots: From start to end, it's completely a climax. Say your prayers."
     
DrBoar
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Mar 27, 2008, 10:32 AM
 
Transplant from old PC (Pentium II, III and even early P4) PC 100 or PC 133 memory sticks, IDE disk
The biggest limitation is the slow CPU, something like
OWC Mercury Extreme [email protected] with 2MB L3 C... (MEG42M1200) at OWC
will make is so much more pleasant. I upgraded the graphic card to a ATI 8500 and RAM to 1 GB it was still slow, the CPU made a huge difference.
     
   
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