Powermac Quicksilver 733mhz

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Hey guys,
UK noob in the house! Total Mac new user having just acquired a Quicksilver G4.
I'm speccing it up a bit and giving it to my 6 year old son as a christmas pressie along with a 17'' Studio LCD so he'll be a happy bunny!
I've got a gig of RAM to go in and I'd like to upgrade to a DVD drive but am unsure as to what 'll fit? Is it only units from the same PowerMac? Or is there anything brand new I could replace it with?
Also am I along the right lines thinking iLife 5 is the way to go with this machine?
Many thanks in advance!
Si.
 

dtravis7


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Real fast, what version of OSX is installed? Since you are new to Macs, on the desktop look up top to the left. You should see an Apple in the bar up top left. Click on it and on About This Mac. It should give you the OS version.

I have to take off but I am sure someone else will answer your other questions, but if not, I will when I return. Be sure the RAM is PC133 SDRAM and Single Density Modules.

I own a 733 Quicksilver BTW.
 
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Any ATAPI IDE DVD superdrive will do the job but personally prefer Pioneer as they are recognised as native and simple plug and play. For a how to with photos check this out and it is a simple job. The only hard part is disconnecting the power supply ~ struth they are tight so suggest using needle nosed pliers and pull by the plug and not the wires.


http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/g3-zone/hival52x/install.html
 
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Thanks for that fella. A quick ebay prod turned up a stack of superdrives compatible with the Quicksilver - I also found this little puppy on Ebay uk:
180591304785. Can't post link as I'm on my mobile!
Reckon it'd fit? I'm not bothered about the ability to write to DVD as I'm going to buy a new iMac and also intend to run a NAS drive on a wired network I've installed in our house.
Cheers,
Si.
 
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I've got an LG GSA-H22N superdrive in my 733mhz QS, and it works great. I've always liked LG's drives.

I'd also max the ram out to the 1.5gb it can hold. PC133 is hard to come by these days, and usually pretty expensive, compared to even newer DDR ram.
 
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Many thanks for the quick replies guys!
I had a good look on www.ebuyer.com at the IDE drives - plenty on there at an amazing cost frankly! If anyone gets 5 take a look and choose your fav?!

So with maxed out RAM and Leopard installed, would I be able to run iLife 05 okay? 06 may be pushing it? Or should I install a newer OS?
 

dtravis7


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You never answered my question as to which OS is installed on the Quicksilver at present.

10.5 Leopard BTW wants a 867Mhz G4 and will refuse to install on anything slower. There is a way around it though using a little Utility called Leopard Assist, but Tiger will be the fastest on the 733 overall. I do have 10.5 installed on mine (Using Leopard Assist) and in general it runs fine, but Flash videos are a bit slow and the DVD player app really wants a much faster CPU due to improved interlacing performance on the new DVD player in 10.5. Otherwise it works fine.

Keep us posted on what you end up doing.
 
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Sorry fella - I got caught up in the moment! ;)

It's running 10.2 at the mo.

As long as my boy is able to view DVDs with possibility of burning some film to disk in the future, I'd be happy with that.

Thanks guys.
 

dtravis7


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Sorry fella - I got caught up in the moment! ;)

It's running 10.2 at the mo.

As long as my boy is able to view DVDs with possibility of burning some film to disk in the future, I'd be happy with that.

Thanks guys.

No problem at all! Just wanted to know to better help you. Either Tiger or Leopard (using Leopard Assist) will do what you want. Tiger might be a lot cheaper $$$ wise though.
 
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Sorry fella - I got caught up in the moment! ;)

It's running 10.2 at the mo.

As long as my boy is able to view DVDs with possibility of burning some film to disk in the future, I'd be happy with that.

Thanks guys.
 

dtravis7


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Okay, cheers for that.

So what AM I actually running then!? Lol!!

10.2 is Jaguar. There was 10.1 Puma, then Jaguar, then 10.3 Panther, 10.4 Tiger, 10.5 Leopard and now 10.6 Snow Leopard (Intel Macs only).

10.2 is very old now. It's what I started on. It will play DVD's fine but has not been updated in ages. Internet usage will suffer and it's impossible to find any new applications for it. The old Web Browsers will fail to load a lot of modern pages without errors.

10.4 Tiger is new enough to do everything well even on the net, but support has pretty much ended for it. On that 733 though it might be a bit more snappy with some applications than 10.5 Leopard.
 
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Yes PATA is the new word for IDE, means Parallel ATA is all.
 

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