Upgrading a G4 Mac--can I do the following...?
I've built my own PC for years, but am ready to try out the Mac world. Started today when a friend practically gave me their old G4 tower. But I can tell some parts need to be upgraded...so I have some (probably very basic and stupid) questions...
1. The hard drive on this thing is like 20GB. It looks like I can just drop a regular "PC" hard drive inside, reformat with MacOS and be ready to go. Is that correct?
2. It came with a CD-burner, but I'd rather have a DVD burner, or at least a DVD reader/CD burner inside. Can I just put any regular "PC" DVD burner inside and expect it to work, or do I need a specific brand/kind?
3. Perhaps most importantly, is there an online resource that can show me exactly what machine I have, what the parts are, how to upgrade, etc?
Thanks for your help--I'm looking forward to my experience!
1. The hard drive on this thing is like 20GB. It looks like I can just drop a regular "PC" hard drive inside, reformat with MacOS and be ready to go. Is that correct?
2. It came with a CD-burner, but I'd rather have a DVD burner, or at least a DVD reader/CD burner inside. Can I just put any regular "PC" DVD burner inside and expect it to work, or do I need a specific brand/kind?
3. Perhaps most importantly, is there an online resource that can show me exactly what machine I have, what the parts are, how to upgrade, etc?
Thanks for your help--I'm looking forward to my experience!
Comments
http://www.apple-history.com/
www.xlr8yourmac.com
www.macsales.com
The above are good places to start and look around. Ebay is a good place to get some good deals too if you know how to play the game. Pretty much any halfway newer PATA HDD will work. Most memory brands seem to work. Burner wise I know some of the Pioneer and Sony drives are supported, not sure about others. Video cards are the narrowest field to choose from but still some good choices.
Feel free to ask if you have any more questions...
1. The hard drive on this thing is like 20GB. It looks like I can just drop a regular "PC" hard drive inside, reformat with MacOS and be ready to go. Is that correct?
2. It came with a CD-burner, but I'd rather have a DVD burner, or at least a DVD reader/CD burner inside. Can I just put any regular "PC" DVD burner inside and expect it to work, or do I need a specific brand/kind?
3. Perhaps most importantly, is there an online resource that can show me exactly what machine I have, what the parts are, how to upgrade, etc?
1. Yes, you can. Just be aware that almost every G4 sold doesn't support drives larger than 128 GB. To go higher, you need a PCI ATA-133 card.
2. Any IDE/ATAPI DVD burner should do, Pioneer makes good ones that are usually supported by Apple's applications as well. Use Roxio Toast for everything else.
3. See above.
The question, I think, is whether it is wise to spend so much money on an "old" machine like a G4. It is probably more than 5 years old and all the parts (including RAM) will cost you almost the same than a brand-new Mac mini, which is much, much faster and very quiet when running, unlike those tower machines...
OK, based on the link from RoyBoy and looking at the info on the back like gwoodpecker said, it appears like I have a Power Macintosh G4 (AGP Graphics). (Sawtooth?)
CPU: PowerPC 7400
CPU Speed: 400
RAM Type: PC100
RAM Included: 1 GB (this was upgraded)
Expansion Slots: 3 64-bit 33 MHz PCI, 1 2x AGP
Video Card/Chipset: ATI RAGE 128 Pro (AGP) 16MB
Video Card #2: ATI RAGE 128 Pro (PCI) 16MB (this was upgraded for running dual displays I'm guessing)
Hard Drive: 10 GB
Zip Drive
CD/RW Drive 48x (this was upgraded)
USB: 2
Firewire: 3 (1 internal)
Modem: 56 kbps
Ethernet: 10/100Base-T
Since the RAM has already been upgraded, it looks like my first order of business will be to get a DVD Burner. The CD Burner they put inside won't allow the boot from CD feature, so it's got to go. Thanks to opuscroakus' links, this will be extremely easy.
I'm also replacing the 10GB hard drive with a an old 120GB one I already have. Then, hopefully, I can install the latest OS X.
Any other (very frugal!) suggestions or advice?
Any other (very frugal!) suggestions or advice?
A better video card would be nice, one that supports Quartz Extreme. If you can find a deal on a Radeon Mac Edition or Radeon 8500, or a nVidia GF2MX, it would be a good upgrade.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartzextreme/
P.S. gwoodpecker raises a good point. While the G4 towers are actually quite upgradeable, financially it makes no sense to start from scratch and dump a bunch of money into upgrades when newer, more capable machines can be had for the same amount of money. I have had my Sawtooth for nigh on an eon now and all my updates were here and there over the long term. Having said that it does look like you are just going for cheap and easy so that is good for a learning machine.
Curious--the Radeon 8500--do I have to get one that specifically says it's a Mac edition? The ones that are just "8500" go for quite a bit less.
Will this machine run OS 10.4 fine or am I dreaming?
Curious--the Radeon 8500--do I have to get one that specifically says it's a Mac edition? The ones that are just "8500" go for quite a bit less.
I have a G4 466 Digital Audio and it runs 10.4.9 without any problems. I have 640 MB ram, 120 G HD, USB 2.0.
Royboy--what kind of video card do you have? And can you do stuff like iMovie?
Cool! Now I have to buy all this stuff and make my pocketbook hurt.
Royboy--what kind of video card do you have? And can you do stuff like iMovie?
ATY,Rage128Pro
I used to make short movies clips and send them by email, but people really got pissed at me. I've taped several wedding and made some short movies and burned them to a CD so that they would play on a DVD. I have the original SONY CD-RW CRX140E in my computer.
ATY,Rage128Pro
I used to make short movies clips and send them by email, but people really got pissed at me. I've taped several wedding and made some short movies and burned them to a CD so that they would play on a DVD. I have the original SONY CD-RW CRX140E in my computer.
Wow--that's encouraging. I figured you had upgraded your video card. OK, well, it seems I should focus on getting a new CD/DVD drive and the OS first...and of course put in the bigger hard drive I already have.
This is turning out to be a really fun deal. Now we'll just have to see if I end up enjoying OS X more than Win XP. :P