Mac G4 questions

I'm looking at buying my first Mac. It is older, but I really don't do much other than email, watch dvds, word, Excel and the likes. I might do some Iphoto, Imovie stuff, and of course Itunes. Here are the specs. Is this a good deal or should I try and go cheaper? What are some good cheap upgrades. I don't play games and if I was to have a game I got my PC for that assuming I actually take the time to reformat it. What questions should I ask? Thanks!
400 mhz powerpc G4
768 MB SDRAM
2 HD 80/30 set up as RAID
Pioneer DVD-RW
Zip 100
firewire/usb etc.

has a SCSI card in it, though I have not used it.

no keyboard, etc.

running OSX 10.4.1, has iLife installed as well as Office X. Will have to clean out all the personal files.

This is a back-up machine, fully functional, just a slow processor.

$150

seems decent, $150 sound about right. however, with only a 400mhz processor you will never be able to upgrade to Leopard (10.5). you could max out the RAM for pretty cheap. i have a 733 G4 and its lasted me over 7 years. i say if you can afford it, go for it.

Think for the US market $150 is top money, particularly as it comes without keyboard and mouse. Do you know precisely what model it is as 400 came in PCI, AGP Graphics and Gigabit Ethernet models. Duck the PCI and hopefully it will be a GE model which will be more suitable for upgrading?

Increasing the RAM to 1.5/2.0GB will improve it no end.

Make sure you get the Tiger start up disc to run maintenance programs in case you have any problems, and update to X.4.11.

harryb2448 said:

Think for the US market $150 is top money, particularly as it comes without keyboard and mouse. Do you know precisely what model it is as 400 came in PCI, AGP Graphics and Gigabit Ethernet models. Duck the PCI and hopefully it will be a GE model which will be more suitable for upgrading?

Increasing the RAM to 1.5/2.0GB will improve it no end.

Make sure you get the Tiger start up disc to run maintenance programs in case you have any problems, and update to X.4.11.

Click to expand...

I'm not worried about the mouse because it would be junked for my USB trackball (I do know it does work with a G4), and I have a usb keyboard that is supposed to work with mac so I'm not worried there. I shall be asking him about the rest of the stuff. I might try and get him down to $125 though.

Here is what he posted back to my questions. I'm thinking it might not be such a good deal now.

1. no, but I do have some OS discs, just not the ones for this machine
2. it was AGP - but was later upgraded to PCI graphics. The difference is that AGP only had the Apple video output, this has a bual VGA/DVI card, so it works with basically any monitor ever made. The machine ID says AGP, but it is actually PCI now.

it also has an apple airport card in it, I forgot it was in there, thought I had pulled it.

Click to expand...

Welcome to Mac-Forums, lrsmithwhaley.

Well for the missing disks, you'd have to see if Apple still carries the restore disks for that G4 Power Mac*. If not you'd have to get off eBay a retail full install OS X 10.3.x Panther or 10.4.x Tiger kit.

This of course won't get you the iLife suite that originally came with the Mac, though. If it shipped with iLife. iLife is a separate product which is either a standalone product or ships on the Mac's restore disks.

Here's some info on your Power Mac G4 AGP.

Other info here.

Hope this helps.


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* Restore disks from other models would not help you at all, they are hardware specific and simply will refuse to work with other models than the ones they shipped with.

Don't quite follow the PCI reference. THE PCI is a model earlier than the AGP or Sawtooth version which has 2XAGP and the standard video card for the model had ADC (Apple Direct Connect) and DVI. Perhaps it has an AGP model and has a PCI card fitted as additional?

As MHC says be careful with the restore discs.