Mac PowerMac G4 Specs questions

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I have this given to me without keyboard and mouse. I hooked up a usb keyboard and mouse from a pc. So it's a 466mhz, 30gb HD, 384 ram.

Are tjese the same ram modules as on a PC? It certainly looks like it? What is the highest OS I can put on this beast? It now has OS 9.1 which I find quite bad. What are my choices for upgrades that will run fine on this Mac? Can I go to OS X and it will run well with these specs?

How do I install the OS if I get some version of OS X? Do I do a clean install? What steps do I do to get this OS on as a clean install?
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MacMini 14.3, 8.1 & 4.1, OS 13.5, 10.14, & 10.11 & 10.6; Macbook Pro 8.2, OS 10.12.
So it's a 466mhz, 30gb HD, 384 ram. Are these the same ram modules as on a PC? It certainly looks like it?

I used PC RAM in my G3 350 b/w tower at first and it worked fine BUT, I did use matched pairs of PC100. I upgraded the RAM when I went to dual drives (see my Mac specs).

What is the highest OS I can put on this beast? It now has OS 9.1 which I find quite bad. What are my choices for upgrades that will run fine on this Mac? Can I go to OS X and it will run well with these specs?

Personal experience has taught me that Panther (10.3.9) is about as high as you'd want to go with that processor. Sure, it'll handle Tiger, with plenty of RAM, but slowly.

You might care to consider keeping that small 30 Gb HD inside, upgrade its OS to 9.2.2 (the last Classic); and then install a second and larger HD on which to install OS X.

How do I install the OS if I get some version of OS X? Do I do a clean install? What steps do I do to get this OS on as a clean install?

The best advice I can give you is to get Mactracker (free), from MacUpdate or VersionTracker, and it will tell you everything you need to know about that model of G4 PPC and what you can do to upgrade it to best performance.
 

dtravis7


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MacMini M-1 MacOS Monterey, iMac 2010 27"Quad I7 , MBPLate2011, iPad Pro10.5", iPhoneSE
That is a Digital Audio. The first Digital Audio had a 466Mhz G4. It takes PC133 SDRAM. It's PC ram but not what recent PC's use. It will accept 3 512Meg PC133 modules for 1.5GB RAM. The DA was the only G4 tower with a 466 G4. The older ones used 400 and 500. Another way to tell is the Digital Audio models have the Audio ports at the very top of the back panel above the rest of the USB and Firewire ports like the faster and newer Quicksilver models.

It will run Tiger well but it needs RAM. It would be good to max it out with the 3 PC133 modules. Panther is not supported, Safari is really bad with many sites with 10.3.9 even. That is why I suggest Tiger.

Depending on what you want to do with the machine and how much you want to spend, you can upgrade the CPU, Video card, RAM. The CPU and Video upgrades are not cheap though! Just a warning.

As it sits if you upgrade the RAM to at least 1GB or more, it will do all the basic things pretty well. I have one and used it stock before upgrading it. It's now a 1.8Ghz G4 with ATI Radeon 9800 Pro and runs quite well with even leopard. Cost me a bit but I did it for the fun of upgrading it.

This should be your machine.


http://www.lowendmac.com/ppc/digital-audio-power-mac-g4.html
 

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