Upgrading a Power Mac G4 on the Cheap
- 2008.01.04
Bookmark in del.icio.us
Suggest to
Slashdot
Low End Mac Reader Specials
Memory To Go Special: MacPro 8 Core Memory 4GB kit $192 / 2GB kit $109. MacBook Pro / MacMini / iMac Intel Core2 DUO 2GB $44 1GB $23--Free shipping available.
Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com
LA Computer Company: LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, Apple Displays, MacBooks, iMac's, MacBook Pros, Laptop and iPod accessories and more. Apple A/C Adapters for laptops starting at $25.00 Call 1-800-941-7654 or Click Here.
Other World Computing: Go Longer Between Charges with a NewerTech NuPower Batteries! Not just another battery, NuPower available for PowerBook and iBook models, is built in the USA to offer the longest Run Time + the longest useful LifeTime too! In Stock at OWC from $99.95
Mac users can finally play Party Poker for Mac. Not only that, they can also learn how to play PokerStars for Mac.
Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.
Compare products like desktop computers, laptops, and LCD TVs side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for a new cell phone GPS products or MP3 players. The Ciao network makes searching products easy for you.
NEW MacPro Memory 800Mhz With Apple Spec Heat Sink 2GB Kit $104 / 4GB Kit $184 / 8GB Kit $362 Click to Maximize your Macs...
My Turn is Low End Mac's column for reader-submitted articles. It's your turn to share your thoughts on all things Mac (or iPhone, iPod, etc.) and write for the Mac web. Email your submission to Dan Knight .
I have been talking to several of my friends about low-end Macs and how easy it is get a decent Mac for not a whole lot of money. I have noticed that there are several arguments that most folks use against going to Mac. Number one is cost, and the other ones included lack of gaming and lack of software to run on Macs (that last one is more of a myth, in my opinion).
Since I own three low-end Macs, I though I would share my upgrade experience, which (against my initial expectations) turned out to be just about at a level of a PC upgrade.
When I received my Mirror Drive Door Power Mac G4, it was a dual 867 MDD with 1.25 GB of RAM, stock GeForce4 32 MB Video card, a PCI wireless G card (Buffalo) which shows up as an AirPort Extreme, and a stock Combo Drive, stock 60 GB hard drive.
I have a miniDV camcorder and burn video files for my folks in Europe with their first grandson starring in most, so I needed a SuperDrive. Most drives I have seen advertised on the Web were going for just a tad under $100. I did some research and ended up buying a Pioneer dual-layer burner that I installed in the bottom tray for $40. After the install, I found latest version of PatchBurn, and my new SuperDrive is available in iTunes and iDVD. I also use Toast with it; never seen an issue yet.
I work as a support technician for an IT consulting firm and try to work at least one day a week from home. Once I switched to Mac, I noticed that having several tabs opened in the browser along with Office software, Remote Desktop connection sessions to couple of servers, all chatting applications for work and personal, X-lite for my VOIP phone, my RAM was getting pretty low, so I picked up two sticks of 512 MB each on eBay for my Mac for $16 apiece, after shipping another $40 (making it total of $80 since I purchased the Mac). I removed original stick of 256, and upon next boot my MDD showed 2 GB of RAM. I have since installed Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) and have not been able to push the memory usage over 1.2 GB yet with my normal usage.
There were two more pieces that I was missing from the PC I switched from. USB 2.0 was the first piece. I use an external hard drive, and copying larger files was driving me nuts. Once again, I did my research: There are sites specializing in selling Mac PCI USB 2.0 cards for around $40-50. I got mine from a seller on eBay for $10 and $10 shipping (4 days from HK to Ottawa). The card was brand new, NEC chipset, came with Windows drivers, but once installed in my Mac it showed up fine - and the copy times are what I was used to on my PC. That brought me to a total of $80.
As you know, Power Macs do not have a mic built in, so I was using a USB headset with mine. It worked fine until my son ripped it apart. I looked for a replacement and decided to install a Bluetooth dongle and use my Bluetooth headset instead. OWC was selling those for $20, so that brought complete upgrade project to a bit over $100.
I was going to stop there, but there was one last thing that I missed from a PC world - occasional game of first person shooter. Video card upgrades for Mac are not cheap, and I needed something lower priced than Mac stores and eBay. I again went to Google and decided on an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB. That card cost close to $240 at Mac stores online, or you can buy a modified PC version on eBay for between $100 and $150.
I decided to do the work myself to save some money. I purchased a PC version of the card on eBay for $50 and $20 shipping. Once it arrived, I flashed the card (please be advised that this voids warranty on the card and may go wrong, turning your card to an very nice Christmas tree ornament), then I desoldered two resistors as per the wiki page on the Mac Elite website, swapped cards, and was able to play some Halo at pretty decent settings. Cover Flow also appears to benefit from new card. It runs nice and smooth now.
I also ended up with a Keyspan Front Row dongle and remote (no cost to me, but I'm told it goes for around $30), so I am able to use Front Row on my Power Mac.
To summarize: for around $170, my Power Mac offers everything that a new Mac would at a fraction of the cost (with the exception of a CPU performance - I have not found this to be a bottleneck in my daily use however).
I guess if someone is looking for adding some file to their old Mac, it can be quite inexpensive as long as you don't mind some Google time and for most part stay away from retail.
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
Recent My Turn articles
- Leopard is the way to go, even on most old G4 Macs, 05.14. The useful and just cool features in Mac OS X 10.5 make this the biggest step forward in the history of the Mac OS.
- From Mac tinkerer to full time Mac user, 05.12. It started with buying old Macs on eBay and tinkering with them. But when the Windows PC died, the author learned that Macs could do everything he needed.
- 500 MHz iMac with Panther great for Internet, watching video, and more, 05.08. At $65 with upgraded RAM and a bigger hard drive, it was too good to pass up, and it works very nicely with Mac OS X 10.3.
- More in the My Turn index.
Recent Content on Low End Mac
- Beyond the Mac mini, Dan Knight, Mac Musings, 05.16. What if Apple were to think different and eliminate the built-in optical drive, cut $100 from the price, and offer an expansion chassis?
- Best Mac mini deals, Low End Mac Deals, 05.16. Used 1.25 GHz G4 Combo, $449;; refurb 1.5 Core Solo, $450; 1.66 Duo SD, $489; 1.83, $599; ; new 1.83 Core2, $569 after rebate; 2.0 SD, $769 a/r.
- Best 15" PowerBook G4 deals, Low End Mac Deals, 05.16. Used 1 GHz Combo, $550; 1.25 SD, $575; 1.33, $625; 1.5, $675; 1.67, $725; hi-res, $800.
- Best classic iPod deals, Low End Mac Deals, 05.16. Used 20 GB, $120; 30, $140; 40, $160; 60 color, $189; 30 video, $180; 60, $200; refurb 80 classic, $209; new, $230; refurb 160, $299; new, $330.
- BlackBerry's bold challenge to iPhone, Zune sales still flat, 3G iPhone launch nigh, and more, iNews Review, 05.16. Also a new Google Reader for the iPhone, an iPod-based supercomputer, remote Mac access from iPhone and iPod touch, new cases, and much more.
- Open source virtualization for Macs, iMac shutdowns, Psystar reviews, and more, Mac News Review, 05.16. Also aluminum iMac USB power concerns, Penryn iMac twice as powerful as fastest G5 iMac, Radeon vs. GeForce in top-end iMac, Odysseus email client in beta, and more.
- Limited USB bus power in Santa Rosa Macs, 1 TB in your 'Book, MacBook cooler, and more, The 'Book Review, 05.16. Hitachi first to market with 320 GB 7200 rpm notebook drive, Apple to refund for sparking power adapters, 10 hour external MacBook Air battery, bargain 'Books from $150 to $2,699, and more.
- Best iPhone deals, Low End Mac Deals, 05.16. New 8 GB iPhone, $399; 16 GB, $499.
- Best iBook G4 deals, Low End Mac Deals, 05.16. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo w/AP, $350; 1.33 GHz w/o AP, $400; 14" 933 MHz w/AP, $400; 1.07 GHz, $425; 1.33 SuperDrive, $450; 1.42, $500.
- Best Mac Pro deals, Low End Mac Deals, 05.16. Refurb 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,888; 2.8, $1,999; 3.0, $2,299; 8-core '07, $2,499; new 2.8 4-core, $2,199; 8-core, $2,598 after rebate; 3.0 '08 $3,399 a/r; 3.2, $4,169 a/r.
- Mac Pro beats HP and Dell at their own game: Price, Frank Fox, Stop the Noiz, 05.16. Whether comparing the top-end or low-end of Mac Pro options, comparable models from Dell and HP cost more.
- Mac of the Day: PowerBook 500 Series, May 1994 - 25-33 MHz 68040 powered PowerBooks with smart batteries, grayscale and color displays.
- List of the Day: G-Books is for G3 PowerBooks and iBooks.
- May 16 in LEM history: 98: iMac: A second look - 00: Raised in a 6-color world - 01: The exclusivist Mac - Troubleshooting your Mac - 02: MP3 and the Mac - SE/30 catharsis - 03: Don't confuse a pretty interface for an easy OS - SCSI and OS X on a beige G3 - 05: The Apple III and Lisa era - Bigger, faster, more: Enough! - G4 upgrade for iMac A-D - 06: MacBook - PowerBook 3400: Surprisingly useful and spry - 07: MacBook value equation - 3 GB in a MacBook
- Windows on Macs: Three paths for integration, Jason Packer, Macs in the Enterprise, 05.14. Mac users have three routes for running Windows apps: Run Windows using Boot Camp or virtualization, or use a compatibility layer such as WINE.
- Mac OS 9 still nice, anticipating Odysseus, PowerBook 1400 upgrades, and more, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 05.14. Also rebuilding PowerBook batteries, FastMac vs. NuPower replacement batteries, and only one G4 upgrade left for WallStreet PowerBooks.
- Up-to-date or low-end, we need technology in our schools, John Hatchett, Recycled Computing, 05.14. Modern computers are great educational tools, but sometimes less distracting options (like no Internet) make more sense.
- Best iMac G4 deals, Low End Mac Deals, 05.14. Used 15" 800 MHz Combo, $320; SuperDrive, $380; 1 GHz Combo, $400; SD, $485; 17" 1.25 GHz, $459; 20", $750.
- Best Mac OS X 10.0-10.3 deals, Low End Mac Deals, 05.14. Mac OS X 10.0.3, $40; 10.1, $49; 10.2, $60; 10.3 DVD, $50; CD, $100; 10.1 Server, unlimited users, $109; 10.3 Server, $130.
- Best MacBook Air deals, Low End Mac Deals, 05.14. 1.6 GHz, 80 GB, $1,694 after rebate; 1.8 GHz, $1,994 a/r; 1.6 GHz, 64 GB SSD, $2,689 a/r; 1.8 GHz, $2,950 a/r; SuperDrive, $99.
- More links in our archive.
About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts



