New owner of Old G-4

Michael Harris · 02-04-2007, 12:37 PM

Yesterday I bought a surplus Power Mac G4 with OS X 10.3.9 for $599.00 and included a 17" Apple digital LCD monitor. I bought because I thought the price was right for learning an OS that I've never used before and I'll use it for photo editing since my Photoshop Elements can be loaded on a Mac.

Here are the specs:

733MhZ (can this be upgraded?)
512 MB RAM (but I bought and installed another 512 stick)
40 GB Hard drive (but I bought a $40 80GB, which I'll install shortly)
32 MB Video (any recommended upgrade?)

One odd thing, I can't seem to access the CD drive. It is in there, it is hooked up, but there is no eject button on the front of the machine. Also, the face looks a bit different then the ones I've seen in the .pdf manuals that I've downloaded. I'll have to call the seller and find out. I think this machine was used more as workstation and the CD was locked out to keep users from loading stuff.

I do like how easy it is to access the innards. Very clean on the inside. Also like the way the monitor just requires the DVI cable to provide power and USB connectivity.

Looking forward to playing with this.

Carl Johnson · 02-04-2007, 12:55 PM

I just bought a new used emac and it took me a week to figure out how to open the DVD drive. Are you using an Apple keyboard? If so look in the upper right hand corner above the numerical pad. That's where I found the eject button.

After having owned a PC for five years there are plenty of features that I used to be able to access without even looking at the screen but that's ok. I'm looking forward to mastering the art of being a MAC

Michael Harris · 02-04-2007, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Are you using an Apple keyboard? If so look in the upper right hand corner above the numerical pad. That's where I found the eject button.

I am using an Apple keyboard but the only keys above the numerical pad are the page up, page down, help, and home keys. Fortunately I bought it from a business with a real location, I'll just give them a call.

JohnRice · 02-04-2007, 02:30 PM

That's not an Apple keyboard, which would have volume up/down, mute and eject keys. There is a free app called Ardiem which allows you to program your own key command for eject.

I think that processor is probably upgradeable, but if you can find out the exact model, it is possible to find out for sure. Check with macsales.com.

As far as display cards, most of the ones you would want are not current anymore, but are easily available on ebay. A Radeon 7200 or 7500 are nice, particularly if they are AVP (it's not AVP, but I completely forget what it is) instead of PCI. Make sure it is manufactured as a Mac unit, not a flashed Windows one. The Radeon 8500 (not the LE, it should drive 2 monitors) is basically the best you can get for your computer. Even a 7200 is worth the very small price. You will probably have to get an adapter for the monitor.

Michael Harris · 02-04-2007, 03:14 PM

Quote:

That's not an Apple keyboard,

Not to sound silly but doesn't the fact that there is an Apple logo on it and the label underneath says "Apple USB Keyboard" with an Apple copywrite date of 1999 make it an Apple keyboard? Possibly an old Apple keyboard?

**HTF Ads**

Michael_K_Sr · 02-04-2007, 10:09 PM

Sounds like the keyboard they included was probably not the one it originally came with, as all of the machines that didn't have manual CD eject buttons on the CPU had an eject key on the keyboard. Since your keyboard apparently doesn't have one, here's instructions on other ways to eject a disc.

As for the other questions, there are processor and video card upgrades available for your model. Go to macsales.com and check out what's there.

Michael Harris · 02-05-2007, 01:56 PM

Thanks Michael K for the link. I was able to get a lot of info on my Mac, especially its exact model number. Looks like I have a G-4 "Quicksilver". Seems it was made for the educational market. Here is a link if anyone is curious: http://eshop.macsales.com/Descriptions/specs/g4qs.html. Looks like I'll be able to do some upgrading. I'll check out the instructions on accessing the CD drive and will get a new keyboard with the all important "eject" key. Fortunately not expensive.

Last night a friend stopped by and had an OS X "Panther" book that he had no use for. Looking forward to playing with this thing.

Ken Chan · 02-05-2007, 05:44 PM

That link has the thing you should try first:

Quote:

If you have a keyboard without an eject key, press F12 (under Mac OS X 10.1 and later). Note: You must press the F12 key longer to prevent the tray from accidentally opening.

As far as upgrades, a 733MHz is either a low-end Quicksilver or high-end Digital Audio Power Mac G4. Those pages have links to upgrades. (That site does not seem to render correctly with IE 6; the bottom half is cut off.)

JohnRice · 02-05-2007, 06:25 PM

Quote:

That site does not seem to render correctly with IE 6

Holy Cats!! Microsoft hasn't developed IE for Mac for at least 3 years. It doesn't work in most things. Grab Firefox and use that instead.

Quote:

Not to sound silly but doesn't the fact that there is an Apple logo on it and the label underneath says "Apple USB Keyboard" with an Apple copywrite date of 1999 make it an Apple keyboard?

Well, yeah. I didn't think Apple made any USB keyboards without an eject button. guess they did. Anyway, I have an earlier model Mac, a Gigabit Ethernet model, and upgraded both the processor from 400 MHz to 1.4 GHz and added an Ultra ATA card as well as the Radeon 8500 video card. Your Mac should have a 133MHz bus, where mine is 100MHz, so you should get a good boost in speed up to a 2GHz processor. Beyond that, the payoff diminishes. It just depends on how much you want to spend.