Older G4 Owner, Help Identify?

Hey all,
Pretty new to the forums here, and fairly new to Macs as well.
I have recently become the owner of an older G4 Power mac (according to the sticker on the back).
The basic specs are:
933MHz single CPU with, 256K L2 and 2Mb L3 cache
64Mb GeForce 4MX
1.5Gb of SDRAM
300 some odd gigs of HDD space, between two HDDs.
Airport card, firmware 9.52
OSX 10.4.11
DVD RW
133MHz Bus speed

Not positive of the north bridge and south bridge chipsets, as I haven't been able to look them up (still new to the format and all). So, the big thing is...what model is it? Based on a little spec matching, I am guessing that it is a PowerMac G4 Quicksilver 2002?

Have a look here

Cool. thanks!

shoggoth80 said:

Hey all,
Pretty new to the forums here, and fairly new to Macs as well.
I have recently become the owner of an older G4 Power mac (according to the sticker on the back).
The basic specs are:
933MHz single CPU with, 256K L2 and 2Mb L3 cache
64Mb GeForce 4MX
1.5Gb of SDRAM
300 some odd gigs of HDD space, between two HDDs.
Airport card, firmware 9.52
OSX 10.4.11
DVD RW
133MHz Bus speed

Not positive of the north bridge and south bridge chipsets, as I haven't been able to look them up (still new to the format and all). So, the big thing is...what model is it? Based on a little spec matching, I am guessing that it is a PowerMac G4 Quicksilver 2002?

Click to expand...

Yep. Sounds like the one I have at home. Identical on all but the obvious upgradeables.

1.5 GB sounds like the maxed out RAM
You should have four HD bays
Originally it came with OS 9 and the first ever version of OS X.
Also, you'll be hard pressed to burn any current DVD media on that DVD RW drive.

I don't know what more you're looking for, perhaps you should check out an app called mac tracker if you want to know some more minutia about it.

You could install a Pioneer DL superdrive for about $40.00. Memory is already maxed out and a faster graphics card, such as an ATI Radeon 9800 would improve things enormously. Will run leopard OS X.5 very nicely also.

Basically wanting to know what I had. I got it for a pretty cheap price, and it suits my needs at the moment just fine. As far as burning goes... the drive should be a 2x... I know, not very fast.

From what I could find, 1.5 is maxed out. Part of wanting to know the basic model was because of some processor upgrades I found while searching the forums, and googling. PowerLogix makes one for about $200 that should up the CPU to 1.6Ghz. The real question is: is it worth it? I'm really tempted to buy one of the new Mac Mini computers in the near future, which will be a much more powerful machine than this thing. I like it a lot, don't get me wrong. I bought the G4 as a first foray into having my own Mac, and I am not disappointed thus far. I don't think there are any further video upgrades either. I don't need more HDD space yet, and unless there are faster drives I can throw in there, then I am stuck with a slow burner (which probably wasn't bad for its time). Like I said, don't need a rocket ship for doing homework, web-browsing, and a little bit of lower requirement gaming.

harry, I would like to know more about these parts. I am guessing that I have to search on the secondary (ie: used) market for these bits? I doubt these parts are offered by apple anymore.

OWC has the burner for $38. No dice on the 9800 video card though. All OWC has are 32MB ATI cards. Will search other sites.

eBay and the like will be the go for the graphic card as they are all a couple of years old. If you can make sure you get a Mac Pro version of the card, and not a flashed PC version which many of eBay sellers seem to flog. OWC are tops and should have a video on installing the superdrive.

Also you might consider a 7200 RPM HDD which will give the machine a speed lift.

I'd need the install discs before I got a faster HDD. I don't have them, and the machine didn't come with them. I don't suppose I could ask the guys at Apple really nicely for a set of system discs? Ha ha ha!