Power Mac G4 Upgrades

Mycatisbigfoot · Oct 5th, 2009, 07:26 AM

Hey Guys,
I am not planing on upgrading to a mac pro just yet.

I Have a agp power mac g4 And I am looking to upgrade this old beast. as it has surved me well, But I think its time for an upgrade.

I am planing on upgrading this...
Ram to 2GB (512 Mb x4 Chips)
6TB of HDD (1.5TB HD X4)
Sata Card (4 ports pci)
Dvd Super drive (Any Ide drive)
New Graphics card (I have not got a clue on this)
Usb 2.0 4 Port card
4 Sata power plugs
2 Power splitters
New CPU (What one would be the best?)
Black Used Zip drive (If I can find because the white on in this mac is ulgy)
A new Screen maybe
Pram Batt, I forgot this one
Do you think this would be a good upgrade?
When I am done using this mac for photo shop and what not its going to be a server running 10.4 server.

krs · Oct 5th, 2009, 09:14 AM

Have you figured out how much that is going to cost you?
Especially the parts that you can't reuse elsewhere.
And you will still be left with a Mac with no future.

I have a G4 AGP myself that I still use every day.
But I upgraded the RAM to 2 Gig ages ago, also a Multi USB/FW PCI card.
I had a 1.4GHz upgrade CPU in there twice - first one died after three years, the socond one after less than a year - now I'm back on the original CPU.
For a DVD burner I went external with Firewire, also went external with my main drive and just kept the two 120 Gig drives in the unit for storage basically.
With all those additions - extra drives, video card, CPU, you probably need a hefter power supply as well.

Niteshooter · Oct 5th, 2009, 09:45 AM

Hmmm which AGP Mac is this exactly?

It doesn't sound like a MDD since this one had dual 5.25" bays and no internal Zip.
If it had an internal Zip then are we talking about a Sawtooth, Digital Audio or Quicksilver.

If so what CPU do you have?

If it's something like a G4 450MHz sawtooth then you should be considering a 500MHz DP upgrade which can be found for a reasonable cost off eBay. Otherwise you are going the OWC route with a fast G4 swap which is going to set you back a minimum of $219 usd.

The SATA drives are the biggest expense next to the SATA card which for a 4 port is probably going to set you back close to $200+ cdn.

As for video upgrades, well there aren't a lot of choices in that regard and I'm not sure worth it even though they might only set you back less than $100....

So in just three upgrades, cpu, SATA card and video you are up over $450 cdn....

Personally, if it's anything less than a MDD I probably wouldn't go this route and instead pick up a good used G5 DP which can be now found in the $450-500 range.

K

krs · Oct 5th, 2009, 10:54 AM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by Niteshooter
	Otherwise you are going the OWC route with a fast G4 swap which is going to set you back a minimum of $219 usd.

Both of my CPU upgrades were OWC CPUs.
The first one quit after just under three years, the replacement after only only a few months.
OWC refused to honour the warranty on the second one, so I went back to the original CPU and swore never to buy anything from OWC ever again.

I actually also bought a dual 500MHz CPU just recently for around $30.- but haven't installed that yet.

CanadaRAM · Oct 5th, 2009, 11:55 AM

Ram to 2GB (512 Mb x4 Chips) - Good.

6TB of HDD (1.5TB HD X4) - somewhat excessive but good. I would go for at least 2 of them external, and possibly all 4 in an eSATA multibay dock.

Sata Card (4 ports pci) - good. See comments about external eSATA

Dvd Super drive (Any Ide drive) - good and cheap - $35 or less

New Graphics card (I have not got a clue on this) - difficult to find and difficult to know how much it will help. doesn't meet the price.benefit threshold IMO

Usb 2.0 4 Port card - good

4 Sata power plugs - OK, bit see comments about external
2 Power splitters

New CPU (What one would be the best?) - don't bother. Marginal improvement.

Black Used Zip drive (If I can find because the white on in this mac is ulgy) - don't bother - use your existing Zip to transfer all your Zip cartridges to one 50 cent DVD then deinstall the zip drive and throw it and your cartridges out. Slow, unreliable.

A new Screen maybe - good

Pram Batt, I forgot this one - essential

Niteshooter · Oct 5th, 2009, 01:29 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by krs
	Both of my CPU upgrades were OWC CPUs. The first one quit after just under three years, the replacement after only only a few months. OWC refused to honour the warranty on the second one, so I went back to the original CPU and swore never to buy anything from OWC ever again. I actually also bought a dual 500MHz CPU just recently for around $30.- but haven't installed that yet.

Hmm that's not good. I try to avoid cpu accelerators, guess I've never seen a really worthwhile gain from them and that goes way way back to upgrades to the old Classic and Mac II's.

The 500DP swap was worthwhile though given the price, I think I paid around the same amount for mine off eBay. Also an easy install, just plug it in with the new heat sink.

I suppose a 1GHz upgrade to my Pismo might swing me or not...

K

krs · Oct 5th, 2009, 01:42 PM

Both of the OWC upgrades I had were 1.42 GHz vs the 450MHz stock CPU.

For day-to-day surfing, email, Word and Excel, I didn't really notice much difference if any.
The only noticable improvement in speed was when I did video conversions - they were actually completed three times as fast.
Instead of investing more money in my G4 Sawtooth where I maxed out the RAM ages ago and added external drives and DVD burners, I bought an Apple refurbished 15-inch MacBook Pro which I will use as a "desktop" - ie with external 24-inch display and external keyboard and mouse.

rampancy_fatalin. · Oct 5th, 2009, 02:23 PM

re: Graphics Cards - I've had a good experience with the cards sold by AppleMacanix, an eBay retailer in the US who sells PC video cards flashed with Mac ROM files (and on occasion, authentic Apple OEM cards).

Of course, if you have the technical know-how, doing it yourself is obviously a better option.

With respect to upgrades, after souping up several Sawtooths and MDDs on the cheap I'd say the best bang for the buck upgrades are memory and IDE hard drives/optical drives; I'm not sure about adding SATA, as I've had a hard time finding a Mac SATA PCI card for a reasonable price online - since you live in a major city you shouldn't have a hard time finding a place to get cheap IDE hard drives.

As for optical drives, the best choice overall is Pioneer - I think the latest drive they have is the DVR-118D. Just make sure you get their IDE DVD burner; their SATA line is the DVR-218D. If you insist on a Zip, you might be able to find stores or people on places like CraigsList or Kijiji getting rid of old IDE Zip 250 drives. Otherwise, don't bother. If the Zip you already have works fine, why change it?

Finally, you also might want to look into other add-on cards like a PCI FireWire 800 card, if you can find one cheap. Look for a FireWire card with either an Agere or NEC chipset for maximum compatibility (VIA chipset-based cards have issue with sleep and other compatibility problems). When you go out to buy a PCI USB 2.0 card, also look for a card with an NEC or ALi/Nvidia chipset, as VIA chipset-based USB 2.0 PCI cards don't behave very well on Macs.

EDT: As for other addons, you might want to consider looking into replacing the stock cooling fan with a quieter or more efficient fan, and, if you can find a place which sells it, adding sound-dampening adhesive foam sheets made for PC cases; it makes a real difference if you put it beneath the top and side panels of a Power Mac G4.

Finally, I also think that CPU upgrades are a waste of money, unless you can find one cheap somewhere.

krs · Oct 5th, 2009, 02:34 PM

The problem with IDE drives in a sawtooth is that you're limited to 120 gig.
At least I haven't found a reliable way to put two 500 GB IDE drives into a sawtooth - that would be great.

And with all those upgrades the OP is planning, doesn't antone think a bigger power supply is needed?
Four internal 1.5 TB drives, new video card additional ports............
I think my stock power supply is 137 Watts.

Niteshooter · Oct 5th, 2009, 03:44 PM

I have my old Sawtooth G4 450 (now 500DP) upgraded as far as I feel is cost effective. I use this Mac because I need OS 9 to run an old Leafscan 35 film scanner which is SCSI and only has drivers up to 9.

For hard drives I run 2 x 500GB IDE drives through an Acard IDE PCI card for Mac on it. I found that it must be a version made for a Mac as most if not all PC versions will not work. Not exactly cheap either, found one on eBay new for $79 usd plus shipping. Can run up to 4x500GB drives. The OS and programs reside on a 120GB internal drive with a second 120GB drive used as a photoshop scratch disk.

Also bumped the memory up to 2 GB with 4x 512MB dimms and added a Pioneer DVR 107 writer way back when that was still current. Price was around $35 at Canada Computers. I've installed up to the DVR 115 in Macs and they work well so would +1 other poster re using Pioneer drives in Macs.

I use Adaptec USB/FW PCI cards, found them to be the least headache prone so far though my G5 DP doesn't seem to like the USB2 6 port version with my CF card reader.

K