Apple Power Mac Gigabit Ethernet G4 dual processor 500 mhz

Apple Power Mac Gigabit Ethernet G4 dual processor 500 mhz

I am looking forward to receipt of my "new" Power Mac G4 500 mhz dual processor machine. I was the high bidder on ebay with my whopping six dollar bid. The same seller had the same machine selling in an ealier auctin that went for $36.50. Somehow, the second G4 slipped under the radar.

Part of the problem is the seller was charging $59.99 in shipping and handling charges. At most, you should be able to ship this machine for $30 if not cheaper, but it's all part of the game that ebay sellers play to avoid ebay fees. It also scares away a lot of potential bidders when shipping is outrageously expensive. I think the seller also scared away a lot of potential bidders with his statement: "Due to the intense shipping charges for this product, the item will not be able to be returned." Well you just sold a $100 machine for $65.99, enjoy.

I am curious to learn how Mac OS 10.4 (aka Tiger) runs on the machine. I'll probably partition the hard drive and put 10.3 on one partition and 10.4 on the other. OS X is supposed to better utilize multi-processors. At the time this G4 hit the market, OS 9 was the most recent Mac operating system and was abysmal at using more than one cpu.

Apple Power Mac Gigabit Ethernet G4 dual processor 500 mhz

I have a bunch of extra ram from an old blue and white G3 that should work in this machine. I should be able to add 1 gig of ram total without buying more. It has a 32 mb agp video card which should suffice. I was previously running Tiger on a blue and white G3 that had been upgraded with a 600 mhz g4 processor from daystar. The comparison between the two should be interesting.

There are a number of CPU upgrades available for the Gigabit Ethernet machine. I don't plan on getting one initially but it's nice to have the option down the road.

CPU upgrades range from a Newer Technology MAXPower G4/7447A Dual 1.6GHz Processor Upgrade for $479 to a OWC Mercury Extreme G4@1.2GHz with 2MB L3 Cache for $199 (single processor).

I can add 512 mb dimms for about $32 each. And I can even add an ATI Technologies RADEON 9200 128MB MacEdition PCI Graphics Card with VGA, DVI, S-Video for $109 - quadrupling the video capabilities. Next to Ram, that video card may be the best initial investment. Well, check that, a speedy hard drive would be an awfully good upgrade as well, but that video card could take a huge load off the processors. I'll report more when I receive the "new" machine.

Apple Power Mac Gigabit Ethernet G4 dual processor 500 mhz

Of course, all this reminded me of all the trouble I had trying to upgrade the CPU on an older G4 approximately 3 years ago. After wasting 3-4 days trying to get the computer to work, I ended up parting the whole thing out on ebay and buying an imac. I discovered later that the CPU upgrade was the culprit but had transferred the warranty with the sale so the buyer was able to get a new CPU.

I still didn't learn as I bought a refurbished imac trying to save a little bit of money and ended up sending that back after wasting more time (including several hours on the phone with Apple Tech Support). I ended up buying a new imac G5. Apple, about a month later, came out with the Intel imacs which left me kicking myself yet again.

So the moral to the story is - Computer User Beware.