[geeks] The ol' trusty G4...

[nate at portents.com]

I've noticed from time to time people here have made mention of their
older G4 Macs, and I just thought I'd mention some of the upgrades I've
done recently to a Digital Audio G4 to upgrade it, and if anyone would
like any more information about what I've done feel free to ask since some
of the stuff is kind of obscure:

Original machine was a 466Mhz G4 "Digital Audio", specs here:

http://www.apple-history.com/?page=gallery&model=g4da&performa=off&sort=processor&order=DESC

- power supply upgraded to a Sparkle (FSP) 400W ATX standard power supply
by creating a special 24-pin to 22-pin adapter by disassembling and
re-wiring a 20 to 24-pin and a 24 to 20-pin ATX adapter (only side-effects
are no ADC power and no Firewire bus power during deep sleep)
- processor upgraded to a dual 1.6Ghz G4 7448 (1MB on-chip L2, no L3
cache, i.e. the heavily delayed G4 CPU from Motorola/Freescale that Apple
never got to use)
- video card upgraded to a GeForce 6800GT 256MB, firmware flashed to be
Mac compatible (AGP slotted PC with the ability to boot into DOS needed
for the flashing process, patience needed to mask out AGP pins 3 and 11
with scotch tape, nail polish, or something equivalent to prevent the AGP
8x lines from being used for ADC purposes by the motherboard)
- 1.5GB RAM
- FirmTek SATA card, fully OpenFirmware bootable (I'm using a 10k RPM
Raptor drive and a 7200RPM Barracuda)
- Firewire 1394b (FW800) 64-bit PCI card
- USB 2.0 card (NEC chipset, supported by OS)

All in all, makes for quite a snappy machine that gives both lower end G5
and Core 2 Duo systems a run for their money.  I only wish Apple made a
relatively inexpensive modern system as upgradable as the old G4 desktops!

- Nate