Wallstreet upgrades

guarthoguartho
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Awhile back I was considering upgrading the processor of my Wallstreet G3 PowerBook to a G4, but I decided against it because I believed the system BUS would stay at 66mhz and I wouldn't notice much of a difference.



Today I pulled the keyboard off to show my girlfriend how easy it will be to install more memory in her iBook and I noticed, or rather, re-noticed, that the processor, memory, and HD all connect to the daughtercard, which would be replaced in an upgrade. Does anyone know if this means I could get a faster BUS because of this? If so, what cards would you recommend?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    The bus speed is a property of the computer's motherboard and it cannot be changed. There are very few computers that can have their bus speeds altered with an upgrade, most notably the PowerMac 7200. The only upgrade path for the 7200 is a special motherboard-on-a-PCI-card, which basically fits RAM slots, a motherboard, and a G3 or G4 processor onto a PCI card. The card's bus speed is greater than the 50 MHz that is standard for the 7200... I think it is 66 MHz. Still, that is similar to replacing the motherboard, the original motherboard is still the same speed.



    Also, some machines can have their buses overclocked. A lot of people have overclocked their 500 MHz iBooks with 66 MHz buses to 600 MHz on a 100 MHz bus. I don't know if you can do that with the Wallstreet though.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    guarthoguartho Posts: 1,208member
    But since the processor and memory are both on the daughtercard and not the motherboard, isn't it possible that it's like the 7200? Does anyone know for sure.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Well, the 7200 upgrade and the Wallstreet's daughtercard are different because the 7200 upgrade is like a small motherboard with RAM and CPU, whereas the Wallstreet just puts the CPU and RAM on the daughtercard with all the other components (including the mobo) separately.



    On the other hand... there are two versions of the Wallstreet that use 83 MHz bus speeds. The 250 and 292 MHz versions have the faster bus speeds but I don't know if they throttle down to 66 MHz if you put them in a different Wallstreet or not.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    guarthoguartho Posts: 1,208member
    I read on Applehistory.com that all the G3 series Wallstreets had the same motherboard, so the BUS speed difference had to be due to the daughtercard... yay, there is hope.
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