PMG4 Ridiculously Slow

Hello all,

I'm new to the forums and somewhat new to Macs in general but I'm quickly becoming a convert... Looking for a little advice here with a recent acquisition.

I was given for free a Power Mac G4 400MHz (AGP Graphics). It had a 10GB HDD, 256M memory, Pro Keyboard and Pro Mouse. The first thing I did was low-level format the HDD in a PC and then do a fresh install of OS X 10.4. I threw in a gig of memory (4x256 Samsung PC133) and an additional 80GB HDD for storage. I ran all of the updates and now have OS 10.4.10.

My main gripe about this machine is how HORRIBLY slow it is. I have done as much as I can to turn off the "eye candy" effects of the OS, and others such as disabling dashboard, indexing, and turning off login items. Adding the RAM seemed to help a bit but still, I cannot do more than one thing at once without the system lagging.

In fact, if I begin to type too fast or backspace a lot of text at once, my CPU usage spikes to 100% and my XM Radio Online page freezes while the machine catches up. Just idling, my usage runs about 12%.

I am a technician at an Apple Service Centre here in town and I do warranty work on modern Apples every day but I don't really know much about these older Macs. I spent hours searching on GSX for the AHT for this model but can't find it. I'm hoping the logic board isn't dying but I really have no way of testing without a copy of AHT.

I tested the memory and HDD in a PC using Memtest86+ and Spinrite respectively so I know those are not faulty.

One thing I found strange was that this only has a 16Mb video card... Is that normal? I have it connected to an old Envision HW193k 19" wide display and it REALLY struggles to drive it at 1440x900. I can't even play YouTube videos smoothly. I have a huge pile of better video cards (AGP and PCI) laying about the house but I can't seem to get any of them to work when I pop them in the Mac.

Does anybody have any suggestions about why it's so incredibly sluggish? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

BTW today I purchased a Sonnet 1.0GHz upgrade card on eBay. Will this help, or am I just expecting too much out of this vintage piece of equipment?

Thanks,

Alan

It's sluggish because it has a 400MHz processor and OSX is a pig. (sorry guys, it is. It's not a bad OS, but it is far more of a resource-intensive one than XP is) The level of CPU usage you're reporting is completely normal for a 400MHz G4, in my experience.

A single 1GHz proc will help, but to be honest it's not going to make the machine shockingly fast. You'll be able to have Firefox and a few IM applications open at once, but that's about it. I wouldn't count on it to handle playing mp3s at the same time (given my own experience with a 933MHz G4, albeit one that had no L3 cache).

My experience has been that OSX benefits from dual processors far, far more than Windows XP does, and that it appears to handle multithreading differently. It's hard to see without knowing how the OS works, but judging from the CPU usage graph in my G4, it appears that either virtually everything for macs is SMP capable, or the OS actually divides individual threads from applications between both processors.

The best things you can do to get thing working properly are:
-Dump the 10gb hard drive. Capacity is not the issue, speed is. Those old drives were lucky to top 10MB/s sustained transfer rates, and seek times were abysmal. Get a PCI IDE or Serial ATA card and put a modern 7200rpm/8mb+ cache hard drive in it.
-Get a dual CPU module. Given that you have an AGP machine that's going to be difficult as you're not going to have such an easy time dropping in say, a QS or DA dual processor card. Somebody else here (or on another mac forum) may know better than I do but I think your only viable course of action for making the machine truly usable from a CPU horsepower standpoint is to get one of the aftermarket modules from Sonnet or someone else that's designed to fit the Sawtooth boards and has 2 cpus on it.
-Upgrade the graphics card to something that supports at least Core Extreme, or preferably, Core Image (a GeForce 3 will suffice for the former, the card has to be DX9 capable for the latter)- either buy a newer Apple card or modify a PC card.
-Consider upgrading the power supply with a newer ATX (preferably) or Mac PSU to handle the increased power requirements. The Sawtooths came with something like a 245w PS-not very much power once you start adding two processors clocked at 4x the factory speed, a graphics card that draws the better part of 50w and a high speed hard drive.

//EDIT
None of the PC video cards you have will work if they're just popped in. Some may work, depending on what they are, with some degree of modification. And yes, the 16mb Rage 128 was the standard card for the G4 at that time.

Thanks for the quick reply. I only paid $60 for the upgrade card, which I didn't think was too bad for a brand new part even though it is only a single CPU. I got the PM for free, and I know beggars can't be choosers but I guess I was expecting a little more out of it. I'll have to see how much of an improvement the new CPU will make.

I work more with modern Apple hardware (esp. Intel) than I do the actual operating system, as most of what I do is warranty-related. I am going to buy a MacBook Pro once Leopard comes out so this machine is really just a impromptu learning tool for the OS.

I'll have to do a little research on modifying a PC video card, and maybe I'll try that out before I go out and put more money into this machine.

I've got a 36GB Raptor laying around too so I'll have to score a SATA card so I can install that.

It's good to know that this is normal behaviour for this model... But why in the world would they sell this machine if it was so slow? What purpose would it serve other than typing documents in TextEdit? lol

//EDIT
And yes, the 16mb Rage 128 was the standard card for the G4 at that time.

Click to expand...

I guess I didn't realise just how old this was. The first decent PC I ever built had a 16Mb ATi Rage All-In-Wonder TV card and I thought that was amazing back in 2000 or whatever.

That computer is close to 8 years old; it wasn't meant to handle 10.4. A HD upgrade will help some.
-Peace

That machine is old. In fact probably shipped with OS9.

OSX is no more of a HOG than XP and look at Vista. Vista here takes 500+ megs RAM on ANY system here just to run. No Antivirus, no nothing running.

I have a 400 MHZ G4 here running 10.4.9 and it no where as slow are you are talking. The 16 Meg Video card was standard back in the old days. Why did they sell a 400Mhz G4? Why did Dell sell a 400Mhz PII or PIII? Same reason. Run XP on a 400Mhz Dell with a 16Meg video card and tell me it is ripping fast.

nezwick said:

But why in the world would they sell this machine if it was so slow? What purpose would it serve other than typing documents in TextEdit? lol

Click to expand...

The machine wasn't slow when it was new; it never shipped with OSX. That machine shipped with OS8.6, and I've got no doubt that it was stupid fast on that OS. Heck, my G3/266 Powerbook flies on OS9. OSX is a much larger, much more demanding OS than anything that came before it, and the older machines just do not deal with it very well.

What PC video cards have you got lying around? Not all of them can be modified, some are much easier than others, and some will leave you with only partially functional cards; PM me or post up a list or something, if you can)

Yep it shipped with 8.6 and it was released in 1999 so 8 years ago...

If you're really an Apple technician, if I were you, I would try and learn/research about these old Macs because quite frankly they still work and are still out there, even if they are slow.

Haha well now I feel really stupid because it just didn't occur to me how old this was. Today was really the first day off I have had to play with it and I haven't had the time to do much research into it. 1999 was, in fact, a long time ago.

Like I said, I'm very new to the Mac scene and I have never used an OS earlier than let's say 10.3, so I don't know any different. There was no OS loaded on the drive when I received this unit so I just had to install what I had access to.

Somebody removed the sticker containing the machine's serial number and info from the rear of the case so I don't know much about it. Tomorrow at work I'll have to copy the serial number into GSX and look at service history and whatnot.

What PC video cards have you got lying around?

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Well I have these three cards laying right here - I'd have to find the rest:
- nVidia GeForce2MX 200 AGP 64M [DVI only]
- some generic rebranded GeForce MX4000 128M PCI [VGA/S-vid]
- ASUS ATi Radeon 7000 64M AGP [VGA/S-vid]

Most of the other spare AGP cards I have are 8x and I am guessing these have 2x slots or something like that.

I guess from now on, I belong in the n00b section because obviously I have no idea what I'm dealing with but at least now I have a starting point.

The GF2 and the Radeon may be moddable, the MX4K may be as well, I don't recall offhand. None of them are really enough faster than the Rage to bother with though. And yes, they have 2x slots, but some newer cards will work in those.

Is your 400Mhz G4 a Gray tower? Does it for sure have an AGP Slot? Reason I ask is there was also a 400G4 code named Yikes and it had all PCI slots but the video slot looks AGP unless you really stare at it. It sounds like a Sawtooth G4. That has AGP 2x but a lot of 4x cards will work. The ATI radeon 9800 Pro either Flashed to Mac or a Mac version will work but it's not cheap.

The IDE controllers are old and will only work with a 120GB IDE drive. You can of course get a newer PCI controller but be sure it's for Macs and OSX. The CPU can be upgraded a lot also but don't go overboard and waste too much $$$ as the machine has a 100Mhz bus and going too far will not yield that much. If it's for sure a Sawtooth 400Mhz G4 (Another way to tell is there should be a slot on the board for an Airport card) you can put in 4x512Meg Dimms for 2GB RAM! Be sure they are no larger than 512 Megs each and at least PC100. Most PC133's will work also. If we can be of farther help just let us know.

Yes, the machine for sure is a Sawtooth G4. Additionally, System Profiler states the following about the video card:
Chipset Model: ATY,Rage128Pro
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-A
VRAM (Total): 16 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x5046
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-63001-110

I'll have to see what I can do about a video card. My proc upgrade is on its way so that should help a bit as well. This isn't that big of a deal because I'll soon have a MacBook Pro but I'm just not used to working with slow or older equipment.

Thanks.

Ok that settles that!!

Search around google and see if you can find a Mac Flash update for those PC cards you own. Any of them would blow down that 16Meg ATI in that machine! I have a Radeon AGP 4x in my old Sawtooth and it's not bad. Sure smoother than the original card! I tried the 9800 Pro in it and it was even smoother but I put it back in my Digital Audio with 133Mhz Bus and AGP 4x. That machine is quite fast even with 10.4.10 and doing a lot more than just basic computer usage. I have a 1.8Ghz G4, 1.5GB PC133 RAM and Radeon 9800 Pro in the DA. I did it just to see what upgrading an older Mac would be like. Quite pleased by the results, but so glad I went with the DA over the Sawtooth as with it's faster bus and AGP, it works with the upgrade even better and gives quite good performance.

I'm reasonably certain that the sawtooth boards require low density ram; I don't recall for sure, but if they do then most of the PC133 that's available new will not work as it's high density stuff; ebay (if you can get high quality modules...) or Crucial might be the best options for RAM upgrades for this system.

The 9800 that dtravis mentioned is an excellent option, although I don't know if the DVI ports function on the flashed PC cards after they're flashed (of course, that may not matter to you), and I would highly recommend upgrading the power supply in that machine before you dump a 9800 in it (with a half decent PS; if it doesn't say Antec, Enermax, PC Power & Cooling, Fortron Source/FSP, Sparkle, Corsair, Thermaltake or Ultra on it, there's a decent chance that it's garbage). There's a bunch of guides online about using an ATX PS in a Sawtooth G4, just google.

Geeky1 said:

I'm reasonably certain that the sawtooth boards require low density ram; I don't recall for sure, but if they do then most of the PC133 that's available new will not work as it's high density stuff; ebay (if you can get high quality modules...) or Crucial might be the best options for RAM upgrades for this system.

Click to expand...

That is why I said most. Actually I have had few PC133 Dimms that would not post, but did run into a few with High density chips and they would not even allow the machine to post. You are safer with PC100 if you purchase new ram unless you have some old ram just laying around that you can try.