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Mac Forum / Country Specific / Australian Mac Group / April 2005Upgrading a G4...
G'day All, Well, my G4 finally arrived this morning... with any luck I'll be able to devote some solid time over the weekend to aquaint myself better with Macs. I have had an G3 iMac here for several months, but to honest I couldnt stand squinting at that horrible 15" CRT display :) So, it pretty much sat on my desk gathering dust. Anyway, there are a couple of upgrades I would like to do in the short term. One is replacing the CDROM with a dual layer burner. It seems to me that most any IDE drive should suffice, or should I stick to certain brands? I was thinking of an LG, simply because I have been using them for years with no probs whatsoever. I have had bad experiences with both Sony and Pioneer OTOH... Another is the HDD, are there any SATA cards suitable for Macs? What about SCSSI? I'd like to drop a 10K RPM drive in there at some stage... Later on I know I want to upgrade to CPU (curently a 733) to a 1.7, or 2GHz, or whatever the wallet can bear at the time. Are dual processors out of the question? This is probably a good time to ask about where to buy new and used hardware... what are the best B&M and online stores for Mac hardware, with good prices? Anything/anywhere really where good deals can be had. Lastly, just any really good URLs, NGs etc for Mac related stuff, whether it be software, forums, or whatever. At this stage I dont have much in the way of software either, (running OSX). I have a preference for open source software. I'm an incurable Usenet nut, so I'm keen to try all clients... FTP, IRC, DC + and torrents as well. Sorry for rambling on here a bit ;) Thanks in advance for any advice.  Signature/Jeßus/ Webcam... of sorts: http://members.iinet.net.au/~iijeebz/webcam.jpg > G'day All, > Sorry for rambling on here a bit ;) Ramble is right. Buy the best you can afford, it's that simple. draino >One is replacing the CDROM with a dual layer burner. It seems to me that >most any IDE drive should suffice, or should I stick to certain brands? >I was thinking of an LG, simply because I have been using them for years >with no probs whatsoever. I have had bad experiences with both Sony and >Pioneer OTOH... Just check that the device you want is supported by the OS. Apple have a history of only supporting specific units, even though you can by and large support all ATAPI burners with one driver. It may have gotten better with Panther, not sure. >This is probably a good time to ask about where to buy new and used >hardware... what are the best B&M and online stores for Mac hardware, with >good prices? Anything/anywhere really where good deals can be had. I just buy from whatever random PC place has the bits I need at an acceptable price. This works out fine for RAM, disks, and so on. Have bought some Mac-specific gear from Streetwise and not regretted it. >Lastly, just any really good URLs, NGs etc for Mac related stuff, whether it >be software, forums, or whatever. At this stage I dont have much in the way >of software either, (running OSX). I have a preference for open source >software. Check out Quicksilver. There's a tutorial for it somewhere around the place which is much more useful than the "official" site (which seems to be going for "obfuscated useless site of the year"). Either you'll love it or you'll hate it, I've not seen much reaction in the middle. >I'm an incurable Usenet nut, so I'm keen to try all clients... FTP, IRC, DC >+ and torrents as well. Sorry for rambling on here a bit ;) >Thanks in advance for any advice. I'm still running trn4. None of the GUI clients can beat it. For torrents, try Azureus. It's Java so the UI isn't entirely Mac-like, but it does all the good stuff you'll want and has a bunch of plugins available. The RSS plugin is particularly good, gets me my dose of _The Daily Show_ without any effort on my part beyond the initial setup. Matt <top posting for a change> Thanks very much Matt, I have saved your post and I'll go through all those suggestions/links over the weekend. (I might even try trn4!) >>One is replacing the CDROM with a dual layer burner. It seems to me that >>most any IDE drive should suffice, or should I stick to certain brands? [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] > > Matt Signature/Jeßus/ Webcam... of sorts: http://members.iinet.net.au/~iijeebz/webcam.jpg > Later on I know I want to upgrade to CPU (curently a 733) to a 1.7, or 2GHz, > or whatever the wallet can bear at the time. Are dual processors out of the > question? I thought you said you bought a G4/867? If it's indeed at G4/733 then you will benefit from a processor upgrade for sure. I upgraded my G4/800 to a 1.4MHz single processor and am very happy with it. I got it from Other World Computing in the US for about AUS$550. They'll post it via USPS if you ask them and then you don't have to pay duty or customs charges. MacOSXHints.com is a good place for OS X info. xlr8yourmac.com is good for upgrading info with an excellent database. Macintouch.com is good, as is macnn.com. Versiontracker.com is one of the main places to see OS X software releases. >> Later on I know I want to upgrade to CPU (curently a 733) to a 1.7, or >> 2GHz, or whatever the wallet can bear at the time. Are dual processors >> out of the question? > > I thought you said you bought a G4/867? Nope, that was someone else. > If it's indeed at G4/733 then > you will benefit from a processor upgrade for sure. I upgraded my > G4/800 to a 1.4MHz single processor and am very happy with it. I got it > from Other World Computing in the US for about AUS$550. They'll post it > via USPS if you ask them and then you don't have to pay duty or customs > charges. Very handy to know, I will certainly take note of the above. Not that I've looked a great deal, but $550 seems pretty good to me, I thought it'd be more than that. > MacOSXHints.com is a good place for OS X info. xlr8yourmac.com is good > for upgrading info with an excellent database. Macintouch.com is good, > as is macnn.com. Versiontracker.com is one of the main places to see OS > X software releases. Excellent, all noted. I'll be sure to check those sites out. Thanks very much! Signature/Jeßus/ Webcam... of sorts: http://members.iinet.net.au/~iijeebz/webcam.jpg >>>Later on I know I want to upgrade to CPU (curently a 733) to a 1.7, or >>>2GHz, or whatever the wallet can bear at the time. Are dual processors [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Nope, that was someone else. The G4/733 was well known for being particularly slow when it was released because it had no cache. It was slower in benchmarks than other G4/500 machines IIRC. >>If it's indeed at G4/733 then >>you will benefit from a processor upgrade for sure. I upgraded my [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > looked a great deal, but $550 seems pretty good to me, I thought it'd be > more than that. Actually they're even less now: a G4/1.4 for US$339 http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEG41314L2S/ Good luck with it all! > G'day All, > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > with no probs whatsoever. I have had bad experiences with both Sony and > Pioneer OTOH... Really, I've found Pioneer burners to be perfect, 103, 106D and 108 :) The DVR-109 is excellent. I have several friends who have this model. I also recommend Taiyo Yuden 8x DVD-Rs (16x are available in the US/Europe, should be available here sometime this year) and Ritek G05 8x DVD-Rs. > Another is the HDD, are there any SATA cards suitable for Macs? What about > SCSSI? I'd like to drop a 10K RPM drive in there at some stage... http://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=SCSI+SATA+card+PCI+Macintosh+sonnet > Later on I know I want to upgrade to CPU (curently a 733) to a 1.7, or 2GHz, > or whatever the wallet can bear at the time. Are dual processors out of the > question? No, you can get Dual G4 cards from a couple of the major CPU card manufacturers. Checkout www.xlr8yourmac.com for reviews. > This is probably a good time to ask about where to buy new and used > hardware... what are the best B&M and online stores for Mac hardware, with > good prices? Anything/anywhere really where good deals can be had. www.streetwise.com.au and www.epowermac.com.au > Lastly, just any really good URLs, NGs etc for Mac related stuff, whether it > be software, forums, or whatever. At this stage I dont have much in the way > of software either, (running OSX). I have a preference for open source > software. www.appletalk.com.au - the forums are full of helpful people. For Mac software demos, freeware and shareware, www.macupdate.com > I'm an incurable Usenet nut, so I'm keen to try all clients... FTP, IRC, DC You can find all that at macupdate.com > + and torrents as well. ;) torrents are a dirty word here :) Signature"Bill Gates is just a monocle and a Persian Cat away from being one of the bad guys in a James Bond movie." -- Dennis Miller > > One is replacing the CDROM with a dual layer burner. It seems to me that > > most any IDE drive should suffice, or should I stick to certain brands? [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Really, I've found Pioneer burners to be perfect, 103, 106D and 108 :) Can I put in a plug for the Sony Dual RW Double Layer Drive (DRX-700UL)? It has been going very well for me on both Mac and PC laptop. Rifty SignatureAcademic and Computing Help http://rifty.net > > > One is replacing the CDROM with a dual layer burner. It seems to me that > > > most any IDE drive should suffice, or should I stick to certain brands? [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Can I put in a plug for the Sony Dual RW Double Layer Drive (DRX-700UL)? > It has been going very well for me on both Mac and PC laptop. The Sony superdrive in my G5 tower works fine, but it's not as sturdy as my Pioneer 108. Lite-on make them for Sony... Sony is a pale shadow of its former self IMHO. Signature"Bill Gates is just a monocle and a Persian Cat away from being one of the bad guys in a James Bond movie." -- Dennis Miller > G'day All, > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > Another is the HDD, are there any SATA cards suitable for Macs? What about > SCSSI? I'd like to drop a 10K RPM drive in there at some stage... I've used seritek (www.firmtek.com) serial ATA cards - they were the first out and work very well. However if I was buy another one, I'ld get a 8 port Sonnet (4 internal, 4 external). OS X 10.4 will support rebuilding RAID arrays on the fly, so you can create an internal RAID with an external drive that you swap offsite for backups. Plug it in, and the OS will automatically bring it up to date (at least that's how it's supposed to work!). xlr8yourmac slammed another brand of SATA card (can't remember the name), so check them out for details. I asked both Sonnet and Firmtek about support for NCQ (Native Command Queueing - reodering read/write requests for best performance) and I liked the attitude/reply of Sonnet -much- more. Dale Signaturedstanbro@spam.o.matic.bigpond.net.au > I'm an incurable Usenet nut, so I'm keen to try all clients... FTP, IRC, DC > + and torrents as well. Sorry for rambling on here a bit ;) > Thanks in advance for any advice. Lots of people like Transfer for ftp (the command line ftp client is fine for me). Conversation is my favourite for irc, there is a DC client but it's not great and for BT you have lots of options. The official client is simple and good and there's also "TomatoTorrent". Azareus apparently works well too. Cheers, Robert. > > I'm an incurable Usenet nut, so I'm keen to try all clients... FTP, IRC, DC > > + and torrents as well. Sorry for rambling on here a bit ;) [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > client is simple and good and there's also "TomatoTorrent". Azareus > apparently works well too. The official client (4.0.1) is much better than Tomato Torrent, and uses less CPU than the Java app Azureus. Signature"Bill Gates is just a monocle and a Persian Cat away from being one of the bad guys in a James Bond movie." -- Dennis Miller |
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