G4 Quicksilver upgrades

Hi all,

First-time poster on this forum.

I've just picked up a 933MHz G4 Quicksilver off of eBay and was wondering, just how far can I go with upgrades for this beastie?
At present, the specs are:
933Mhz/1Gb/60Gb/DVDRW.

What I would like to know is can I install an Airport Extreme card into this G4, or am I limited to the original Airport? If the latter is the case, what other options do I have? Can I just drop in a bog-standard PCI wireless card?
Also, what options do I have for BT?

I know that I can install a larger hard drive, but can I use SATA drives with this G4? I have 2x250Gb WD SATAs, which I can pull from my defunct 'dose PC.

Finally, I notice that the QS has an AGP graphics card installed, which AFAICT supports ADC and VGA. I have an nvidea AGP card in the above 'dose box, which has DVI functionality. Would I be able to use this?

Many thanks,

I would recommend you download mactracker,

it can be downloaded here Mactracker - get info on any Mac

once loaded just click "This Mac" and it will tell you all about your current machine.

If you have the one I think you do, you can upgrade your processor to dual 1GHZ which would be pretty sweet.

The RAM you could bring up to 1.5GB total which would max it out.

Looks like with the airport card the max supported is probably the 802.11b airport.

You just have to be careful with the pieces and parts you choose cause while apple stuff does not require drivers it needs to be supported to a degree so I dont think you can just smack anything in there. The best bet for some of the pieces and parts would be to just google them.

I am not sure if the motherboard in that computer you have has SATA hard drive ports, I dont think it does as I recall but I may be wrong.

johnnyFIVE said:

I would recommend you download mactracker,

it can be downloaded here Mactracker - get info on any Mac

once loaded just click "This Mac" and it will tell you all about your current machine.

If you have the one I think you do, you can upgrade your processor to dual 1GHZ which would be pretty sweet.

The RAM you could bring up to 1.5GB total which would max it out.

Looks like with the airport card the max supported is probably the 802.11b airport.

You just have to be careful with the pieces and parts you choose cause while apple stuff does not require drivers it needs to be supported to a degree so I dont think you can just smack anything in there. The best bet for some of the pieces and parts would be to just google them.

I am not sure if the motherboard in that computer you have has SATA hard drive ports, I dont think it does as I recall but I may be wrong.

Click to expand...

Hi JohnnyFIVE,

Many thanks for taking the time to reply - I do appreciate it.

I have downloaded MacTracker, as suggested, and this tells me that although larger HDDs are supported, there is no native SATA support.

One thing I didn't realise until MacTracker informed me, was that the GeForce4 Ti was one of this models graphic options. I think I have an old GF4Ti card with a DVI connector knocking around, so if I can find it, then I'll stick it in the QS and see if it works.

Have a great Christmas.

You can add a SATA card to the G4 bur they are not cheap, and you need to make sure that the PCI card is mac compatible

FirmTek SeriTek/1S2 Serial ATA/150 Dual Channe... (FTST1S2) at OWC

For wireless you could add in a card or usb adaptor (if you go for USB 2, you can add any USB2 pci card and it will work)
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/MXP802NPCI/

The Nvidea AGP card should work

No prob, I just built out a quicksilver dual 900mhz w/ 1.25GB RAM to play with from some parts at work. However I just discovered, I think the IDE port is bad or something, Ive tried like 4 hard drives in it and none of them get detected.

...sigh...lol

johnnyFIVE said:

No prob, I just built out a quicksilver dual 900mhz w/ 1.25GB RAM to play with from some parts at work. However I just discovered, I think the IDE port is bad or something, Ive tried like 4 hard drives in it and none of them get detected.

...sigh...lol

Click to expand...

Well, if you have any free PCI slots, you could always add in a PCI IDE controller.

louishen said:

You can add a SATA card to the G4 bur they are not cheap, and you need to make sure that the PCI card is mac compatible

FirmTek SeriTek/1S2 Serial ATA/150 Dual Channe... (FTST1S2) at OWC

For wireless you could add in a card or usb adaptor (if you go for USB 2, you can add any USB2 pci card and it will work)
Newer Technology MAXPower 802.11n/g/b Wirel... (MXP802NPCI) at OWC

The Nvidea AGP card should work

Click to expand...

Hi louishen,

Thanks for the links. You wouldn't happen to have a link to a UK-Based site that sells SATA controllers, would you? If I can help it, I want to avoid international shipping and especially import duties.

Many thanks.

The only ones I can find in the UK are 60 quid, but there is an external controller that you could route the connectors back in to internal drives, its inexpensive and has os x drivers

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/8697368/LaCie-2-Port-eSATA-PCI-Card-Design-By-Sismo/Product.html?&_$ja=tsid:11518|ccprd:8697368|cat:Accessories

It has the same connectors as this more expensive internal card, but I bet you could just run cables through an unused PCI slot to connect internally
FirmTek | SeriTek/1V4 4-Port PCI-X SATA Host Adapter | SATA-1V4

The only other alternative is to use an external SATA enclosure using USB2, at least the cheap Maplin USB2 PCI card works (it works in my 733 mhz G4 quicksilver)

louishen said:

The only ones I can find in the UK are 60 quid, but there is an external controller that you could route the connectors back in to internal drives, its inexpensive and has os x drivers

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/8697368/LaCie-2-Port-eSATA-PCI-Card-Design-By-Sismo/Product.html?&_$ja=tsid:11518|ccprd:8697368|cat:Accessories

It has the same connectors as this more expensive internal card, but I bet you could just run cables through an unused PCI slot to connect internally
FirmTek | SeriTek/1V4 4-Port PCI-X SATA Host Adapter | SATA-1V4

The only other alternative is to use an external SATA enclosure using USB2, at least the cheap Maplin USB2 PCI card works (it works in my 733 mhz G4 quicksilver)

Click to expand...

Is this the USB 2.0 card that you're using? £20 for two ports seems a little steep, even by maplins standards.

Do not bother going the ESATA route which is expensive, and the machine is still bottle necked with the 133MHz system bus speed. Airport Extreme and Bluetooth will work with the machine. Look at places like eBay and such for these. Any graphics card will have to be a Mac version, and most PC and Mac cards are not interchangeable, however there is one the ATI Radeon 9600 Mac/PC version.

As far as the HDD goes, look for a 7200RPM IDE drive, pop it in and the boot from the install disk, and assume you have got an operating system disk, and see if the disk is recognised under Disk Utility in the menu bar. Run Repair Disk, and then format Mac OS Extended (Lournalled).

Keep us posted Rottie.

harryb2448 said:

Do not bother going the ESATA route which is expensive, and the machine is still bottle necked with the 133MHz system bus speed. Airport Extreme and Bluetooth will work with the machine. Look at places like eBay and such for these. Any graphics card will have to be a Mac version, and most PC and Mac cards are not interchangeable, however there is one the ATI Radeon 9600 Mac/PC version.

As far as the HDD goes, look for a 7200RPM IDE drive, pop it in and the boot from the install disk, and assume you have got an operating system disk, and see if the disk is recognised under Disk Utility in the menu bar. Run Repair Disk, and then format Mac OS Extended (Lournalled).

Keep us posted Rottie.

Click to expand...

Hi harryb2448,

Firstly, thanks to your detailed reply. I was thinking about possible bottlenecks, regarding the 133MHz bus speed and you have borne out my initial thoughts.
That being said, I would still like to attempt to use a PCI SATA controller, if it is at all possible and make use of my SATA HDDs. Failing that, then I'll stick them in external casings and use them via USB2 or something. Although, again, there will likely be bandwidth issues there, as well.

I think I will still try installing the GeForce 4TI AGP card that I have and see what's what from there. I have a fair amount of PC hardware, that I'd hate to see go to waste and I would like to be able to recycle as much of this, as possible.

Moving on to my next thought: In one of my defunct PCs I have a DL +/- DVDRW, with an IDE interface.
In the G4 QS, according to System Profiler, I have a DVDRW - Pioneer DVR 103 is the model.
Now, can I use the DVDRW that I have from my PC? (AFAIK It's set to Master, but if need be, I can switch the jumpers so it would be slave -- OR would it be better to leave it as Master, but have it on a seperate IDE/ATAPI channel?)

I peeked on eBay earlier and saw a 120Gb 7200 RPM IBM Deskstar, used at the amazingly low BIN of £19.99 UK, With £4.99 delivery.
I think I might have to mull all this over, during the holidays - That 120Gb is mighty tempting and the supplied 60Gb is as noisy as a bucket of loose bolts and washers! lol

Have a Merry Christmas, m8.
Thanks again to all for the advice.

Went the way you suggested with a MDD 1.25Dual processor and the expense was just not worth the marginal improvement and that was with a 167MHz system bus. An external case that will take the SATA drive will be excellent, but make sure you get a Firewire connecting case, as G3, G4 and most G5 machines are not bootable using USB, even USB2 as it is much too slow.

Yes the IDE ATAPI superdrive will work nicely. Master is fine as it uses a different cable and channel to the hard drive. Pioneer drives are recognised as native by PowerMacs so it is plug and play. XLR8yourmac.com have to to's on replacing the unit with photos. Only hard part is the power plug. Use needle nose pliers on the plastic body of the plug and NOT the cables.

Suggest avoiding the Deathstar line of drives. Only drives I have ever had die on me. Told the Hitachi, who took over IBM drives have improved, but once burnt, twice shy. WD, Seagate, Fujitsu are all excellent and get a larger HDD, say 250GB as your Mac will recognise it. Noisy drives are dying drives as a rule of thumb.

Compliments of the season to you to.

harryb2448 said:

Went the way you suggested with a MDD 1.25Dual processor and the expense was just not worth the marginal improvement and that was with a 167MHz system bus. An external case that will take the SATA drive will be excellent, but make sure you get a Firewire connecting case, as G3, G4 and most G5 machines are not bootable using USB, even USB2 as it is much too slow.

Yes the IDE ATAPI superdrive will work nicely. Master is fine as it uses a different cable and channel to the hard drive. Pioneer drives are recognised as native by PowerMacs so it is plug and play. XLR8yourmac.com have to to's on replacing the unit with photos. Only hard part is the power plug. Use needle nose pliers on the plastic body of the plug and NOT the cables.

Suggest avoiding the Deathstar line of drives. Only drives I have ever had die on me. Told the Hitachi, who took over IBM drives have improved, but once burnt, twice shy. WD, Seagate, Fujitsu are all excellent and get a larger HDD, say 250GB as your Mac will recognise it. Noisy drives are dying drives as a rule of thumb.

Compliments of the season to you to.

Click to expand...

You wouldn't happen to have a link to the How To's you mentioned above, would you, please? I visited xlr8yourmac.com the other night, but couldn't find anything.

Many thanks,

Illustrated Guide to Installing an Optical Drive (CD/CDRW/DVD) in a Beige G3/86/9600 and Blue and White G3 or G4 Tower System

There you are. The article mentions G4 up to Digital Audio but basically it is the same.

And here for the Quicksilvers:-

eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/manuals/cdinstall/quicksilver72.pdf

Thanks Harry you're a star!

A quick update:
In the past few minutes, I've just seen this on eBay. I'm going to email the seller to make sure it's fully compatible with my G4 QS and if it is, then I think I'll get it, so I can utilize those two SATA HDDs I have.

Good luck just remember you will not be able to boot from the external SATA drives if you back up your system.

I've just had a reply from the seller and he tells me that the card is bootable, so that's a bonus.