Might buy a used G4 PCI with OS X

sm8000sm8000
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
My mother has a PowerMac G4 PCI 400MHz with 10.2 loaded on it. She's thinking of selling it to get an Apple notebook, and if she does I'm thinking of buying it. Just wanted to ask a few things, as this would make me a first-time Mac owner....



I've heard that OS X doesn't support ZIF CPU upgrade cards. Is that so? 10.2 seems to run a bit sluggish on this 400, what would you suggest to give it a boost? It has 384MB of RAM, and a 40GB Maxtor hard drive. Video card is an ATi Rage 128 Pro (PCI)



I have some PCI cards I'd like to use in this system. None of their manufacturers have Apple drivers on their websites. Is it possible at all to use these cards in this system? Are there drivers out there, official or not, that'll help me? The cards are: ATi All-In-Wonder VE, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, and two SCSI cards by LSI Logic.



Thanks for helping the newbie!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    millhousemillhouse Posts: 96member
    hey, im on a similar set up, blue and white 450 with 448mb ram, 40gb hard drive, stock vid card...etc.



    os x does support zif upgrades, i know because well i am using one as we speak in this machine. (g4 450 upgrade from owc) if you wanna crank out performance get as fast a hard drive as you can, upgrade the cpu (you can buy 500mhz all the way up to 900mhz g3's or 1ghz g4 upgrades for that machine) and of course max out the ram if you can.

    as for the pci cards i have no idea, check around on os x support of those particular devices, off the top of my head i dont know.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    kraig911kraig911 Posts: 912member
    we have a 400 here at the office, and the update to 10.3 made a big improvement to it.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    staphbabystaphbaby Posts: 353member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sm8000

    I've heard that OS X doesn't support ZIF CPU upgrade cards. Is that so? 10.2 seems to run a bit sluggish on this 400, what would you suggest to give it a boost? It has 384MB of RAM, and a 40GB Maxtor hard drive. Video card is an ATi Rage 128 Pro (PCI)



    It's more of a hardware issue: for a period in the late 90s, Apple made machines which had ZIF CPU sockets, including the Blue and White G3, and the PCI (Yikes!) G4. They don't anymore, but these machines continue to support ZIF CPU upgrades, as these vendors attest:



    ? Sonnet

    ? Other World Computing



    You should be able to get at least a 1Ghz upgrade card, although at that kind of price its possibly worth thinking about just buying a new machine.



    In terms of memory 384MB is about the minimum I'd run a OS X box on; if you've got a few spare dollars, throw some more in there, you won't regret it. OS X's performance seems palpably to benefit from extra memory all the way up to 1GB and over...



    So far as hard drives go, the only thing you need to be really careful about is ensuring that you allow enough free space on the disk to allow the virtual memory system to work: aim for 1GB free space as an absolute minimum, or 2GB to be a bit more comfortable. Not doing so will make your machine extremely slow, and probably very unstable.



    In terms of PCI video cards currently available for OS X, the only one currently out is the Radeon 7000, and maybe a Radeon Mac edition (which is much better, but it'd probably be difficult to find one). This is good enough for Quartz Extreme (hardware acceleration of the GUI) but only if you install a little hack to the system to allow QE over the PCI bus - it ordinarily only works over the AGP bus. (There's also a Villagetronics PCI video card but it: (1) isn't good enough for QE; and, (2) is only intended for second heads: its basically not a high performing card).



    Quote:

    I have some PCI cards I'd like to use in this system. None of their manufacturers have Apple drivers on their websites. Is it possible at all to use these cards in this system? Are there drivers out there, official or not, that'll help me? The cards are: ATi All-In-Wonder VE, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, and two SCSI cards by LSI Logic.



    Thanks for helping the newbie!



    The best place to look for hardware compatability reports, and firmware flashing how-tos is xlr8yourmac. They've got searchable hardware compatability databases, amongst other things.



    Edit: added info on RAM, HDs and video cards.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    dmband0026dmband0026 Posts: 2,345member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kraig911

    we have a 400 here at the office, and the update to 10.3 made a big improvement to it.



    I have 10.3 running on a 400mhz G4 tower with 128mb of ram (I know, I need more ram in that!!! ) as well as a G4 cube @ 450mhz, and the machine that I'm typing this on, a 300mhz iBook G3 Clamshell. I know, it's a bit sluggish, but it gets the job done. In short, you don't need the upgrade, unless you've got a little money and time to burn. Just get more ram and (if you need it) another hard drive.
  • Reply 5 of 9
    sm8000sm8000 Posts: 3member
    I want to thank everyone for their help. Your input has given me a lot of insight. Doesn't look like I'll be able to use these particular cards of mine, but I may go for it anyway just for the sake of learning the OS. Thanks again!
  • Reply 6 of 9
    staphbabystaphbaby Posts: 353member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by DMBand0026

    I have 10.3 running on a 400mhz G4 tower with 128mb of ram (I know, I need more ram in that!!! ) as well as a G4 cube @ 450mhz, and the machine that I'm typing this on, a 300mhz iBook G3 Clamshell. I know, it's a bit sluggish, but it gets the job done. In short, you don't need the upgrade, unless you've got a little money and time to burn. Just get more ram and (if you need it) another hard drive.



    I didn't mention this above, but I agree, a G4 PCI as described should be eminently usable... provided you don't want to play the latest 3D games, or do really heavy professional DTP stuff on it.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    dmband0026dmband0026 Posts: 2,345member
    I'm not a gamer, so I don't know how well games would run on that thing. But I do Final Cut Pro, Illustrator, and Photoshop on my Cube (450mhz) and the Sawtooth (400mhz). They run them quite well, not perfect, and I'm pretty sure that I'll end up dying before some of my projects finish rendering.

    But what I'm trying to say is that the G4 you are looking at is still a very capable machine and can serve you well for quite a while.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    sm8000sm8000 Posts: 3member
    Well I'd use it for general stuff, internet and office apps, nothing fancy or too demanding. I did find a vendor that apparently has the motherboard I want in stock after all. If my mom does sell me this machine, I'll hang on to it to escape the impending Palladium movement
  • Reply 9 of 9
    steve666steve666 Posts: 2,600member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sm8000

    Well I'd use it for general stuff, internet and office apps, nothing fancy or too demanding. I did find a vendor that apparently has the motherboard I want in stock after all. If my mom does sell me this machine, I'll hang on to it to escape the impending Palladium movement



    I'm using a G3 imac 400mhz G3 with 320 Mb RAM running OSX 10.3. I use it for the internet, word processing, and simple games like snood and it works fine. I may add more RAM, but it runs perfectly fine that way it is. That means that G4 tower will run npoticably better and perfectly fine with OSX 10.3.
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