I recently acquired a PowerMac G4 quickSilver for £50 from a friendly Guy.
He threw in a ProMac keyboard and a Promouse. the machine had 256 Mb RAM but has no Airport or ZIP and all else is standard as per its initial Apple release. I have put Tiger on it and it works. It was origianlly owned by a Glasgow college and Guy got it for them at a bargain a couple of yrs back.
I was wondering how I can improve the performance of it, as I bought it as I knew it is not too far off as is from my iBook G4, and expansion shd be cheap and, er.. fun! I Asked someone I know on an online community ( a secret one ) , and this is our discussion. I hope it is of use to some others out there.
> Luke Barker wrote:
>
> > I had a couple of questions for you, as I never owned a g4 tower
> > before and was wondering about upgrades to it?
>
> First of all: most information for upgradability of specific models
> can be found on, or through everymac. You machine is on this page:
>
> http://shorterlink.com/?BLOZ54
thanks, hadn’t seen this, and the apple specs were for selling rather
than what I’m after…
>
> > a) the optical drive - I read I need to swap out the CDRW if I want to
> > upgrade it as the other bay is 3.5″ (for Zip). I have a DVD RW and
> > Tiger, so I am going to try this as at least I will have a DVD ROM
> > from doing that, even if the writer is not compatible - is that
> > correct do you know?
>
> What do you mean exactly? Do you wonder if that new DVD RW will be
> compatible with Tiger? If so: you’ll have to dig in the specs of that
> specific writer. Sadly, I’ve never done this specific upgrade, you
> see. Or have I misunderstood your question?
no, you are right..I think from what I have read now that the DVD rom
aspect will work, but the burning is luck. tiger added lots of support
so I hope it works. It is an optorite and not listed on a page I found
where they say any burners tested in G4 PMacs with Tiger 
>
> > b) RAM - I need more, so I was going to get a kingston PC133 MHz 512Mb
> > from ebuyer, at 55€ , but this wont be the same type as the stick in
> > machine - is that worth worrying over, or shod I just get it?
>
> The Kingston should work just fine, as far as AI know. It looks like
> you don’t have to ‘pair’ it. (many macs are happier if you plug in two
> identicak stick or RAM).
>
> Get as much RAM as you can afford. 2 Gb if you can. 1 Gb minimum.
> It’;s the single most important way to speed things up.
>
thanks for this - I think I will buy 2 if I can afford it, but that is
110€ already , so total machine price is then 170€…bah..I am asking
around to see if I cannot find some old RAM of someone else with nicer
machines than me
> > c) Wifi? I have a Silver Lucent card (Orinoco) which I have working in
> > a pbook 3400 (!)
>
> Is that PCMCIA? The Quicksilver doesn’t have that. If it’s USB it is
> still not clear if it works. I assume you run OS 9 on the 3400? Many
> cards that worked under OS 9 don’t work under OS X. Getting a PCMCIA
> card for the Quicksilver is not worth the hassle, I think. If it’s
> USB, just try it, and look hard for 3d party drivers if that doesn’t
> work. getr back to me in case of emergency 
>
yes, is PCMCIA, but like an Airport Card - there is an airport slot in
the QS, but unfortunately after reading on this the antenna will not
fit in the slot (AirPorts didn’t have these antennas) so I cannot
close the case if I try that. I am now looking at the USB Belkins and
a Buffalo PCI card (best compatibility but less flexible than USB)
> > do you know any cheap alternatives, as the Airport original is very
> > expensive?
>
> Many vendors sell USB wifi connectors, and some even one that plugs in
> on your ethernet connector. Take note: there are baiaclly two
> ‘chipsets’ for use on USB cards, one which works on macs, one which
> doesn’t. This is a bit of a jungle, sadly
>
your explanation is perfect - the Broadcom chipset and Ralinks are the
best, and there is a new one Zydas with drivers …somewhere!
> > d) what types of video card would work with it? Any mac Radeon etc? I
>
> Probably. I would advise something like a 9200:
> http://eshop.macsales.com/item/ATI%20Technologies/100436014/
>
> and I guess it should be possibl to get it a bit cheaper.
>
I hope so - this is the part I still do not understand, and the Mac
cards seem to hold their price very much. Not complaining though, I
will only upgrade this in the future.
So thanks again, very kind of you, hope life in Netherlands is good!
hope I can return the favour!
Luke
If you are interested in more of my researches - check back through some of my delcious posts (see below) where I post g4 stuff or
look at my del.icio.us page itself
UPDATE!
scavenged 384Mb of RAM (PC 133 and SDRAM), one a quality hyundai bank, from an old PC tower today! Sooo lucky.
Just managed to get the 2 RAM banks (?) in OK, and it didn’t {{do the beep}} when I turned it on. Although, it took me 10 minutes to realise that I have to pull the little drawer at the back to get it to close properly.
I cant check in sys profile if they are compatible/recognised yet, but am confident the 256 will be ok - it is hyundai and looks , er cleaner than the 128 no-namer.
mega.
Also won a pci wifi card on ebay for 20$ inc delivery today, a buffalo one that is supposed to be compatible and has a nice antenna for good range.
“Wireless 54Mbps Desktop PCI Adapter”
Link is to best buy, where you can still get it in the States, I think!. Model: WLI2-PCI-G54S
I read that is is almost certainly compatible.
Otherwise there were plenty of v3000 and v4000 Belkin wireless USB sticks, it seems, both with drivers that are reported to work on Os X, although they seemd more annoying as many reported the stick had to be taken in and out on sleep or reboot. Nada!
The simpler alternative to running MAMP or XAMPP on Os X is using the built-in PHP, APache and getting a binary of Mysql. Although MAMP and XAMPP are simple ways also.
