c'mon help a n00b out- g4 upgrade?

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hey, i just got a Mac g4 'sawtooth' from ebay and i was thinking about upgrading it as for as cheap as possible. its specs:

G4 466MHz PowerPC

OS X 10.3.5

640MB RAM

17" Monitor

20 Gig HDD

Mouse & keyboard


all for £112!:eek: i hope to use it mainly for Final Cut Pro HD for my college course but have heard i should have atleast a gig of RAM for it to run smoothly. im not a computer expert or anything, i know next to nothing about what goes on inside them and would very much appreciate any help. :)

first thing im going to do is get an external hard drive witch will leave me with no money ever again. i have quite alot of old RAM sticks from old PCs aorund my house, could i use them to help boost the RAM in my mac? is there anything else i should do?

thank you:D
 
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You can find CPU upgrades here:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/encore_stg4.html

http://www.powerlogix.com/

Remember, your Sawtooth only has a 100Mhz, maybe a 133Mhz, system bus. In the end, this is the biggest limiting factor to doing anything that requires a lot of power, and there is now way to change it.

As for RAM, if it is PC-100 or PC-133, it should work fine the the Sawtooth Mac.
 
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I think an Intel Mac Mini would probably run better than these old Power Macs.
 
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how do i know if they are PC-100 or PC-133?

also i cant afford a new CPU as i have no money ever again
 

dtravis7


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Are you sure the CPU is 466Mhz? If so that is not a Sawtooth. A 466 is a Digital Audio and has a 133 Mhz Bus and 4X AGP slot Vs 100Mhz Bus and 2X AGP on the Sawtooth.

http://www.lowendmac.com/ppc/g4-133.shtml

Yours is a better machine to upgrade. You have to use PC-133 RAM. What version of Mac OS is on the machine? Click the Apple in the top left corner of the screen and on About This Mac.

Opps, missed you had posted 10.3.5 which is OSX Panther.
 

dtravis7


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also, could i install OS X tiger on to it as it is?

Yes for sure. I installed Tiger on my Digital Audio the first hour I owned it. Worked great. With 640 Megs RAM it will run fine but do upgrade at least the RAM in the future. Pretty much any PC-133 RAM should work except maybe some new High Density stuff.
 
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thanks. what would happen if i put a different kind of RAM in there? like PC 2700 for example?
 

cwa107


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thanks. what would happen if i put a different kind of RAM in there? like PC 2700 for example?

Well, you couldn't fit PC 2700 because it's a physically different form-factor. Your computer takes a particular type of memory. If you use something other than what it specified, it may not power on or it may not run properly.
 

dtravis7


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BANG! :D

PC133 is 168-Pin SDRAM. PC2700 is 184-Pin DDR SDRAM. If you could get it to fit by using a Hammer, it would go Bang! So please do not try it. Totally different RAM and pins. :D

Edit: CWA beat me to it! :D
 
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thanks again:) ive got loads of ram round my house, how do i know if there pc 133? i found one hear with 168 of what im pressuming are prongs(the little gold rectangles where it plugs into the computer) does this mean its pc 133? also how do i find out how big it is? it doesnt say on it
 
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Hi

Yes the gold rectangles are the pins.

if you put it in the machine and restart then go under the blue apple - about this mac then push the more info button it brings up a box with a list on the left.

If you click on the word memory it will list all the ram modules that are fitted
and their respective sizes.
 

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