G4 400Mhz Upgrade???

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Can anyone tell me is it possible to upgrade the 400 Mhz on a G4 Graphite Sawtooth Tower to something like 867 Mhz? Unless this is something that would take a computer specialist to perform open heart surgery on my computer.

It has 512 SDRAM which I believe it to be maxed out. I don't think I can add any more RAM to it.

Thanks in advance,
Anthony
 
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Hi Anthony!

About your CPU question, you can get many processor upgrades. at reasonable prices compared to buying new.
You'll have some fine folks along later to answer your questions about if it's really worth it and all of that fun stuff. I'm considering it myself.

Lurking around here is a guy named harryb2448.
He's a PowerMac G4 wizard. Us PowerMac G4 owners are lucky to have him around.

I can assume he'll be around. If not, there are many others!

And no, 512 is not the max amount of Ram that can go in that thing.
I think it's 1.5gb or 2gb. If it has 4 slots, it's 2gb. It'll take 512 in each slot.

Good luck!
 

dtravis7


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louishen and Tanner gave you good advice and URL's. OWC has everything you need. I have a 500Mhz G4 Sawtooth. Upped it to a 1.8Ghz G4 with 1.5GB RAM. They are correct, it will take 2GB. There are 4 slots and each will take a 512MB PC100 DIMM. Check out OWC. Very good place for your G4 upgrades.

One quick suggestion, be SURE your firmware is up to date on that Sawtooth before installing an upgrade G4!
 
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How would I know if the Firmware is up to date? If it's not, how do I update it?

I've been using macs for about 20yrs, but I'm a user, not a Guru. LOL
 
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A side question:

How would someone (Uh, me) go about upgrading a processor when I don't have OS9?

I doubt i'll get around to upgrading it, so I guess it doesn't matter that much.
 
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you just need os 9 to run the firmware update (if you are running os x the firmware is likely to be up to date anyhow)

os 9 should be on the original restore disks
 
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Your firmware from About this Mac should read 4.2.8 and probably f1 after that. Tanner if you are running OS X be assured your firmware is up to date.

Anthony I dealt with OWC at www.macsales.com and used a 1.3GHz Mercury Extreme Upgrade which will work super with your Sawtooth, and with 2GB RAM will run Leopard rock solid and fast. The secret is the 2MB of L3 cache in that processor.

Personally I think 1.3 is the minimum you should go to. Other upgrades to consider are a 8MB cache 7200 RPM hard drive such as Seagate and Western Digital, and a video graphics card as you probably have the Rage Pro 128 which will struggle with Tiger and Leopard.

You need a card that is AGP 2X compatible such as an ATI Radeon 9600. eBay has any number of dealers selling flashed PC cards for Macs, and a nVidia GeForce 6200 with 256MB RAM is also a good choice. Personal message me and I shall advise who I purchased mine off if you wisgh.
 
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Harry,
Thanks for the tip. I just purchased 2-120GB HARD DRIVE MAXTOR 4R120L0 5400RPM PATA~133.

I was informed by a member here that the Sawtooth couldn't handle a drive larger than a 120GB, but that it could handle 2 - 120GB drives. So that's what I did.

My firmware is as you stated: 4.2.8 f1 and the ATY Rage is in fact the 128 Pro.

I'd send you a PM, but I'm new to the forum and haven't figured out all the bells and whistles. LOL

Thanks for the info.
 
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OK Anthony. Click on my name and select the send personal messages. The Maxtor will work just fine provided the second is set to slave. If you are unsure of the jumper settings for this, go to Maxtor's web site and you will find jumper settings there.
 
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I figured it out with the jumper settings. LOL I just did a process of elimination and found one that worked. Now just to update the Mhz and the Ram and I should be good to go.

Thanks again for your help.
 

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