Ohmsford

Hey guys, my activity on the forums has dwindled down to pretty much zip in the last 6 months or so. Well, as I couldn't make myself bite the bullet on a new apple desktop, I just let me eyes peeled for one used, and after just casually browsing a few online places one popped up for what I figure to be a decent deal. I snapped up a Powermac G4 Quicksilver, 733mhz, 1.5gb of ram, 40gb hard drive, OS X 10.3, Geforce 2 etc.

As I come from a pc hardware background, I was skeptical i was going to get Leopard to run well on this machine, but I powered on through, just to see what kind of damage I could do.

Problem #1, DVD Drive in this beast was messed. Would read some single layer DVD's, wouldn't read other single layer dvd's, and could not read any Dual Layer DVD's. Instead of going through the gruelling process of stripping down a leopard image I created to get it in a Single layer dvd (which would have needed me to install Tiger to do, Panther couldn't do it), I snapped up a dual layer burner for $25 bones, popped it in (without taking any account of what is mac compatible). DVD worked great, read leopard no problem, got it installed with leopardassist. I am having some issues with burning right now though, we'll see if I can get it ironed out.

Problem #2, Ram is reported as 2x Dimms of PC100 and 1x Dimm of PC133. Apparently this is just a problem with OS X and powermac G4's, and OS 9 would report it fine. Have not confirmed this.

Problem #3, USB 1.1. I have a USB 2.0 PCI card coming in off ebay, we'll pop that in so my external drive can be of some use. 1.1 speeds are terrible. It took me less time to figure out how to network my Dell with this Powermac and send a 200meg file then it did to transfer those 200megs onto the powermac. How did we survive like.....6 years ago?!

Problem #4, the big one, Slow as molasses in january. We are talking scrolling webpages is slow. Minimizing windows was jerky and slow. Just terrible Performance. Resolution, spend some cake, some scrilla, some green on much needed upgrades. Couple clicks on ebay, and two weeks later I am rolling with a Dual 800mhz PowerPC G4 CPU, and a Geforce 4 Ti. Put the Dual CPU in first, ran it for a while. Better performance, but not spectacular. I could noticeably tell that windows were opening faster, and getting tasks done quicker. But all the visual jerkiness was still there (including webpage scrolling). Now the Geforce 4 Ti is in, and it is purring like a kitten. No hiccups, fast as can be, and I couldn't be happier.

Now to power through and see what kind of trouble I can get into. I just had to share with some people that might give a hoot.

Reveeen

1) I am having some issues with burning right now though

The "preferred" DVD burner seems to be a Sony, the quick fix is using Toast as your burning program.

2) Ram is reported as 2x Dimms of PC100 and 1x Dimm of PC133

Verify your ram, I have no troubles here.

3) I have a USB 2.0 PCI card coming in off ebay

Good luck with that, if what you bought has a VIA controller you will be messing with drivers, and crossing your fingers. You want a card with a NEC controller, easiest source: Belkin, used they run about $15 locally, plug and play, though not as fast as using the firewire ports.

4) Slow as molasses in january.

As you found out you need both core image, and quartz extreme support (video wise). I flashed a GF6200 here.

Ohmsford

It is actually a Belkin I snapped up, so I'm hoping that I won't run into any problems. I would have opted for using the firewire, but all my sh*t is USB, external hard drive, ipod, camera, wireless mouse.

rb42

Quote: ((2) Ram is reported as 2x Dimms of PC100 and 1x Dimm of PC133

Verify your ram, I have no troubles here.))

I have a problem with the 2x Dimms of PC100 Ram this computer has a 133 mhz bus and needs 133 mhz ram.

Check it out on : apple-history.com

Regards

__________________
Mac Pro 2006:1.86Ghz / 8 core/8GRam
Mac G4 2001: 2X500Mhz/2GRam
MacMini Intel 2008:1.83 Core 2 Duo/4GRam
MacBook 2009: 2.0Ghz 13.3/Aluminum/4GRam