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Patsfan1978 · Aug 17, 2006, 10:49 PM

Hi everyone. Im new here but not to Mac.
Im currently using a Wallstreet G3 Powerbook. OLD SCHOOL! I know. Its got an 80gig Seagate drive, and wireless card, courtesy of my mate in England!

I have also owned an iBook G3 333mhz, and an iBook G3 600.
I last owned a Powerbook G4 550. I had to sell it due to money problems at the time. I loved that machine.

Anyway, Im stuck on an XP box right now for anything needed power or speed.... and I HATE it.

So my funds are really limited. I got a 733 Quicksilver, 40gig HD, 256mb Ram,CDRW drive,Fresh install of Panther.. Im going to up the with a 512mb stick ASAP. Im going to max it to 1.5gigs of RAM as soon as I can. Im also going to install Tiger on it as well.

I got it for $250 on Ebay. Its in really good shape from the pics and description.

I know this QS isnt the fastest Powermac, but my G4 550 PB worked fine for me. So Im guessing this machine will be fine as well. I do mostly web browsing, Aim, Yahoo etc, iTunes,iMovie for small little home movie clips. The occasional DVD backup and conversion to Divx etc. Legal back up might I add. Will this machine serve me well for these things? I think it will.

Thanks for any help and advice.
Nice forums here!

discotronic · Aug 17, 2006, 11:06 PM

Add a DVD burner and make sure your hard drive is a 7200RPM drive and you should be set for what you are doing. You can always add a SATA PCI card and a SATA hard drive later for a little extra speed.

Oozinator · Aug 17, 2006, 11:25 PM

I'd bump the graphics card up to a 9600 at least. They're cheap, and core image compatible. CPU upgrades can be found on ebay...

Good luck!

Captain Curt · Aug 18, 2006, 04:43 AM

I have been real happy with a cost effective upgrade of installing a USB 2.0 pci card. You may want to consider that if you get a printer or a scanner. Also, if you don't get to Tiger right away, you may want to wait and see if Leopard will run on your Mac. OSX operating systems in the past have worked well on older Macs.

siflippant · Aug 18, 2006, 05:16 AM

Hey man...

good to have you on these boards again. Like most ppl will tell you, max out your RAM, add a 7200rpm HD and later on a DVD-R/RW optical drive... doesn't have to be in that order, but the memory is the most important I feel with OS X being like a woman with money... no matter how much it has, it's never enough!

Go here to check out memory prices:

Memory upgrades, graphics cards, flash media, and usb storage at Crucial.com

Newegg.com - Buy Computer Parts, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras, and Electronics

I'm sure if you Google, you'll find a few more

For what you need, a Quicksilver will do the job... and by adding a beefier graphics card you will be able to have core image on such effects as Dashboard, Expose etc in Tiger upwards... your machine should be fine with Leopard, but you will need to have the DVD optical installed by then unless you use the firewire mode from an external drive or laptop to mount the disc image...

Your m8 in England sounds like a cool guy... keep that laptop man unless you need to give it away for a special reason... although I doubt that will happen for years yet! LOL!

Patsfan1978 · Aug 18, 2006, 09:00 AM

WOW! Strong post!!!

Thanks for all the info everyone! Just to not have to be on XP anymore makes me smile.

Oozinator · Aug 18, 2006, 10:20 AM

if you have any quesitions about upgrading, just ask. My QS is pimped to the n'th degree.... now I ran out of room to upgrade.

Goldfinger · Aug 20, 2006, 05:41 PM

I have a question about Quicksilvers in general. I want to sell my PowerBook 867 as I don't need the portability anymore. Some guy is willing to trade his 867mhz QS + 15" Apple LCD for it. Is there anything special I should check ? How loud is a QS ? Easily silenceable with better fans ?

What costs am I looking at when it comes to upgrades ? I want a minimum spec GFX card for QE and CoreVideo etc. a gig of RAM extra (it has 512 right now) and that's about it.

Patsfan1978 · Aug 20, 2006, 07:55 PM

I know 512mb of Ram from Crucial for my machine is about $85 or so. Your machine probably would use the same ram.
As for that video card Im not sure. I have seen 64mb cards on Ebay for the G4's pretty cheap. Around $65 or so. I saw onc 256 ATI card for $95 shipped.
Pioneer SuperDrive is $32 or so from Newegg. I have been looking at upgrades all day. LOL!

Good luck with your deal. If you dont need portability desktops are always a good choice IMO. Im home all the time so I went with a desktop myself.

Hope this helps.

zerostar · Aug 20, 2006, 11:23 PM

I just upgraded a work machine (Quicksilver 733) with an SATA card and a Maxtor MaxLine III Hard drive, the machine is noticeably faster and boots in no time at all.

Goldfinger · Aug 21, 2006, 04:09 AM

I have another question. That 15" LCD that comes with my machine is an ADC displey (damn Apple with your propietary crap!) now there is this $30 adapter that allows a DVI display to be attached to an ADC video card. But can you use the same adapter to attach an ADC monitor to a DVI video card ? That would work in theory, no ? I would just lose the USB hub on the display, no ? I don't feel like paying $100 to attach a damn LCD.

nJm · Aug 21, 2006, 08:22 AM

Nup the ADC connector gave the Apple LCDs video and power. The cheap DVI adaptor converts the video signal pins into DVI form, but it isn't easy going the other way - need a power adaptor somewhere between the graphics card and monitor.

I've been thinking about picking up a Sawtooth 400mhz, there are heaps on the australian eBay at the moment for AU $89. Base config but easy enough to chuck parts from an old PIII into it. Figured it would be a good iTunes server amongst other things.

Does anyone know if the original ATI Rage 128 supports 16x10 resolutions? I've only got a 19" LCD that does 1440x900.

DrBoar · Aug 21, 2006, 09:00 AM

Does anyone know if the original ATI Rage 128 supports 16x10 resolutions? I've only got a 19" LCD that does 1440x900.

Short mode: No

In extenso: In analog mode it does up to 1920x 1200 and in DVI 1600x1200. For those odd resolutions you are out of luck. I looked up the Apple TIL on the Cube and 1200x1024 and 1600x1200 is supported but not those odd large widescreen 1280x800 is the only wide screen mode supported in ADC. VGA support 1280x960.

discotronic · 11:12 PM

Deleted post. Belongs in own thread.

WizOSX · Aug 21, 2006, 10:17 PM

.....

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

I have a question about Quicksilvers in general. I want to sell my PowerBook 867 as I don't need the portability anymore. Some guy is willing to trade his 867mhz QS + 15" Apple LCD for it. Is there anything special I should check ? How loud is a QS ? Easily silenceable with better fans ?
What costs am I looking at when it comes to upgrades ? I want a minimum spec GFX card for QE and CoreVideo etc. a gig of RAM extra (it has 512 right now) and that's about it.

I bought a QS 867 last fall on eBay. At the time my main Mac was a 1.33ghz PowerBook 12" with 1.25gb of RAM. I'm sitting at the 12" PB right now because I am on the road but when I am at home I always use the QS because it is a quicker machine--not dramatically quicker, but enough so that I prefer to use it. However, it is definitely a noisy machine and probably not easily silenceable although I was able to improve mine a little (check xlr8yourmac for some methods).

Re: the graphics cards, the easiest cards to get that meet your requirements (e.g. ATI 9800) have fans which add to the noise and getting fanless ATI 9600 really require flashed PC cards.

My machine has 1gb of RAM and I would say that's the minimum needed to make the machine feel quick.

Dino-Rider · Aug 22, 2006, 08:18 PM

Wrong on the 9600s. Any Mac 9600 will work, even the G5 ones. You just have to tape off the #3 and #11 pins, as shown here:

Techseekers.net Irelands source for PC news

Sorry for the horrid URL, but it appears the original website is down. Google stores a cached version though. Actually... maybe archive.org has it, let me check...

Techseekers.net Irelands source for PC news

Anyway, it just requires some scotch tape...works great! And totally silent.

WizOSX · Aug 22, 2006, 08:55 PM

.....

Originally Posted by Dino-Rider

Wrong on the 9600s. Any Mac 9600 will work, even the G5 ones.

The G5 9600 cards work on some Quicksilvers, not on others. It seems to be totally unpredictable whether a taped 9600 will work on any particular Quicksilver--there are many threads on this. I bought a G5 9600, taped it properly and have never been able to get it to work. So you are definitely taking a chance if you buy a 9600 card. Even ATI's PC/Mac 9600, which is very expensive, is not guaranteed to work on Quicksilvers--and usually it won't--just check Apple's feedback on that card. It works fine on Mirror Door G4's and Digital Audio's, etc. but rarely on QS's.

Goldfinger · Aug 23, 2006, 08:16 AM

One other queston: does the the QS (2002 model 48bit adressing) support 4 hard drives out of the box ? (+1 optical) Or would I still be forced to buy an extra ATA card ?

Dino-Rider · Aug 23, 2006, 09:21 AM

Originally Posted by WizOSX

.....

The G5 9600 cards work on some Quicksilvers, not on others. It seems to be totally unpredictable whether a taped 9600 will work on any particular Quicksilver--there are many threads on this. I bought a G5 9600, taped it properly and have never been able to get it to work. So you are definitely taking a chance if you buy a 9600 card. Even ATI's PC/Mac 9600, which is very expensive, is not guaranteed to work on Quicksilvers--and usually it won't--just check Apple's feedback on that card. It works fine on Mirror Door G4's and Digital Audio's, etc. but rarely on QS's.

Sorry dude, you're wrong. Go to strangedogs.com. I had a 9600 in my quicksilver no problem. I'm guessing you just didn't tape the right pins, or tape them correctly.

Dino-Rider · Aug 23, 2006, 09:22 AM

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

One other queston: does the the QS (2002 model 48bit adressing) support 4 hard drives out of the box ? (+1 optical) Or would I still be forced to buy an extra ATA card ?

That's a good question. I think you'd need an ATA card.

Sparksymusic · Aug 23, 2006, 09:48 AM

This is going off on a different tangent, but I have a G4 400 Tower and I'm desparately trying to change the DVD drive to a super drive but I cannot see how to take the unit apart. can anybody offer any advice or know of instructions online??!! I have just spent 2 Hrs going through google listings with no luck.

Dino-Rider · Aug 23, 2006, 10:07 AM

Find a pdf take apart manual.

WizOSX · Aug 23, 2006, 10:51 AM

.....

Originally Posted by Dino-Rider

Sorry dude, you're wrong. Go to strangedogs.com. I had a 9600 in my quicksilver no problem. I'm guessing you just didn't tape the right pins, or tape them correctly.

This was discussed at length at strangedogs.com. The best people there concluded that taped 9600's were a crapshoot. Apple did weird things with AGP timing and voltage on Quicksilvers. And this caused a lot of headache for ATI. If you were successful then you were one of the lucky ones. The following two threads are just two examples of this discussion:

strangedogs.proboards40.com/index.cgi?board=experiments&action=display&thread= 1144904455

strangedogs.proboards40.com/index.cgi?board=Problems&action=print&thread=11142 73305

Dino-Rider · Aug 23, 2006, 11:18 AM

Neither of your links work.

WizOSX · Aug 23, 2006, 11:28 AM

For the first link try:

http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/i...ead=1144904455

WizOSX · Aug 23, 2006, 11:35 AM

For the second link try:

http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/i...ead=1114273305

The title of topic thread is: 9600 pro in a Quicksiver G4.

Dino-Rider · Aug 23, 2006, 12:17 PM

Yeah, the first link is about the RETAIL 9600 that has a PC/Mac bios....the second link is with some dude using a funky connector.

Again, 9600s work. I had one in my quicksilver, and after taping, it worked fine.

WizOSX · Aug 23, 2006, 08:39 PM

.....

Originally Posted by Dino-Rider

the second link is with some dude using a funky connector.

Again, 9600s work. I had one in my quicksilver, and after taping, it worked fine.

No, there is no funky connector—just standard things that everyone uses.

Just because you were one of the lucky ones doesn’t mean it works for most or all people with Quicksilvers. I did a lot of investigating because I bought a G5 9600, taped it properly and it didn’t work. So I read lots on this issue. The best people on strangedogs said that it is pretty much 50-50 whether a G5 9600 will work in any particular Quicksilver. The only guaranteed way to get a 9600 to work in QS is to buy a flashed PC card from someone who will back it up and take it back if it doesn’t work.

Dino-Rider · Aug 23, 2006, 09:56 PM

Whatever dude. Maybe your quicksilver was retarded, but the original techseekers article said it worked fine, mine worked fine, and another guy I know, his worked fine too.

WizOSX · Aug 23, 2006, 10:24 PM

.....

Originally Posted by Dino-Rider

Whatever dude. Maybe your quicksilver was retarded, but the original techseekers article said it worked fine, mine worked fine, and another guy I know, his worked fine too.

What model is your Quicksilver, Dino--733, 867, 933, Dual 1? If you have any tips on how to get my 9600 working I'd appreciate them. I'd love to get that G5 9600 that I bought off the shelf where it is collecting dust.

Dino-Rider · Aug 23, 2006, 11:05 PM

Not sure, it's been heavily upgraded.... right now it's a dual 1.33ghz G4. How would I find the original specs?

WizOSX · Aug 24, 2006, 12:06 AM

.....

Originally Posted by Dino-Rider

How would I find the original specs?

I think there is a sticker on the back of the machine. Trouble is, I am 500 miles away from home right now so I can't look at mine.

macQ · Aug 25, 2006, 07:30 AM

for sparksymusic

the url with great instructions for putting superdrive in a g4
Accelerate Your Mac! - Illustrated Guide to Installing an IDE CDROM/CDRW/DVD ROM in Beige G3/86/9600 and Blue and White G3 or G4 System

discotronic · Aug 25, 2006, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by Dino-Rider

Whatever dude. Maybe your quicksilver was retarded, but the original techseekers article said it worked fine, mine worked fine, and another guy I know, his worked fine too.

I have a Quicksilver 733MHz and a G5 9600 Pro does not work in it even after taping off pins 3 and 11. Some work and some don't.