My first experiance (Power Mac G4)

Hello everyone..

I am very new to the whole macintosh scene, I've been with windows all my life but now I think its time to try something new. I have got a 500MHz Power Mac G4(AGP Graphics) running Mac OS X 10.4.6 (Tiger) with 1.25GB SDRAM.
First impressions, very simple and user friendly. However, so much slower than a windows system. Now I know this machine is not the latest or by any means the fastest, but nor is it old, and slow. I am wondering if there is anything I can do to improve the performance of this machine. I know with windows there are various registry tweaks which can be used, are there any for the "Mac"? I have already done a clean install of the OS completely formatting both of the hard drives in the machine. The machine does have an Airport card in and internet is very fast wirelessly, impressed.

i look forward to hearing back from you.
Any tips and tweaks please let me know, you are dealing with a complete novice to the mac scene. So you will have to bear with me as Im not up to speed.
Thanks..
Max.

Welcome to MacForums and welcome to the Mac! No one here is going to flame you for asking questions. Remember that when your model G4 came out seven years ago it was shipped with System 8.6. System 9 didn't exist and none of the four subsequent OS X systems had even been thought of. The fact that it runs at all is a bit of a computing miracle, imho!

First of all you are running an os easily as advanced as Vista on a circa 2000 machine, so it isn't doing that bad.

I am running an Old G4 as we speak, a 733 mhz model, not the fastest thing in the pack but a good useable machine.

As for registry, there is no such thing on the mac, but you should download mainMenu - that will allow you to do many clean-up tasks and optimisations on your mac.


also, download the latest version of tiger - I would recommend the full combo update to 10.4.11

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx10411comboupdateppc.html

Hello Again,
Thanks for the swift reply.
I will do the download of "main menu" right now, I have also managed to get hold of some more RAM from a differant machine, so right now in the G4 I am running 1.75 GB of RAM. Its increased the speed no end. I do have the 800MHz G4 Silver sitting around but it doesnt have a DVD drive in and the operating system that is on it wont let me connect to my wireless network via the airport card, something to do with encryption!

Thanks again.
Max

maxb1992 said:

Now I know this machine is not the latest or by any means the fastest, but nor is it old, and slow.

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That machine was introduced (briefly) in 1999. It's pretty old, and pretty slow.

Dunno about the airport card, but for DVD you can buy a pioneer (I have a Pioneer 110D) for peanuts and they work right out of the box.

Mine came from a PC supplier and works perfectly

i couldnt get the airport card to work with the OS that was installed on it, i will look at buying a DVD drive for it but at the moment I dont have any need for the extra 300MHz I will gain.
Im looking at buying the new IMac but need to be convinced by this one first.

Edit- I need to be conviced by the OS, because its the OS that you seem to pay for with Macs, my windows system is top of the range and i payed for it to be that way, but with a mac i seem to be looking at twice the price.

Like others have said it's an old machine. I have a Dell Optiplex Pentium III 500 and it drags with XP SP2 with 1GB RAM.

The Video Card in that G4 500 Power Mac is slow also and holding it back with 10.4 Tiger.

What is this 800Mhz CPU you are talking about?

Are you sure your Power Mac has the Airport Card installed? The real old AirPort card (just like all really old WiFi cards) does not support WPA2.

Dtravis7..
The 800MHz machine is i think, is what is known as the G4 Silver.
And regarding the wireless card, I am sure it had the airport card installed, because i took it out of the G4 silver when i switched to the 500MHz G4 I am using now, and I am writing this messege off of my Mac. So I know that I have a wireless airport card that does support WPA2 encryption. The one i have retails at around £80 from PC-World.

That is called a Quicksilver. Why not use the Quicksilver G4 instead of the older and slower G4 500 Sawtooth? Did I miss something?

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1353596&tstart=0

I own 2 old G4 Powermacs with the old Airport card. No WPA2 supported.

You can purchase an Upgrade CPU and get it going a lot faster, but you would be better off with the Quicksilver with it's much faster 133 Mhz Bus compared to the G4 500 and it's 100 Mhz Bus. Also the AGP slot on the 500 is AGP 2x and the one on the Quicksilver is AGP 4x.

dtravis7 said:

That is called a Quicksilver. Why not use the Quicksilver G4 instead of the older and slower G4 500 Sawtooth? Did I miss something?

Click to expand...

I have done some research and yes, it is called the Quicksilver. The problem I have is that the machine doesn't have a DVD Drive, I know its not a big deal and is cheap to upgrade to DVD, the operating system that is on the "Quicksilver" currently, wont let me connect to a network with encryption, which is no good for me.
However, when the time comes, which will probably be soonish, I will buy a DVD drive, put OSX Tiger on and transfer the RAM over from my G4 to the Quicksilver one.
This will leave me with a faster clock speed, and a larger system bus, better graphic card plus the 1.75GB of RAM. Which should make it a decent machine. From what i remember the Quicksilver also has bluetooth built in, and is more modern, as it was released in 2002.
Cheers.

As suggested a Pioneer DVR-115D are peanuts. Mine cost me $39.00 here in Australia and there are plenty of 'how to' on the web with photos etc for doing the replacement.

CHECK the memory will suit as the older machine came with PC100 modules, or 100MHz system bus speed and the Quicksilver uses PC133, 133MHz bus speed.. Whilst the 133 is backward compatible, the 100 will not perform at 133 bus speed.

The Quicksilver has only three memory slots so 1.5GB is the maximum. As for Bluetooth you may have to use a D Link USB Dongle.

When the time comes i will get DVD player, and I think that 1.5GB of the RAM in this G4 is 133MHz, but the other 256mb is running at 100MHz, so this particular mac works with this setup.
Anyway thanks for all the quick replys guys.
Max

PS - Will I notice a significant differance if i switch machines?
ta

Well I have switched machines, and to answer my own question.. yes there is a huge differance! it doent boot faster but menu transitions are much smoother and the whole system seems to be much more on the ball, so to speak.
cheers
max

maxb1992 said:

Well I have switched machines, and to answer my own question.. yes there is a huge difference! it doent boot faster but menu transitions are much smoother and the whole system seems to be much more on the ball, so to speak.
cheers
max

Click to expand...

I figured you would see a noticeable difference. Glad it worked out for you.