recently my uncle gave me his power mac g4 with specs as follows:

power pc g4 500MHz
640MB SDRAM
(80 + 30)GB of HDD
DVD/CD-ROM
ATI Rage 128 with 16MB of VRAM
Mac OS 9

my questions as follows:
1. where can i upgrade the cpu?
2. can i change the optical drive?
3. any agp card will do?
4. will any of my above actions render my g4 useless?

thanks in advance

You could consider this: salvage the case and the drives. Mod in a PC and install hacked OS X. Gives you a lot more bang for the buck while preserving the old school Mac look. Or you can start fresh and assemble a fast modern Mac with hacked OS X.

Looks like a PowerMac G4 Sawtooth to me. A nice Mac.

I normally shop from eBay. You can also try some trusted online retailer like OWC, Sonnet or GigaDesigns. But those are more costly.


Yes you can, any IDE (aka ATA/PATA) CD-ROM/ DVD-ROM/ DVD-RW drive should work.


No, only specific card that have the Mac BIOS will work. You can get OEM/retail card or DIY flash a PC version into Mac compatible.


No, if you do it the right way. Makesure all part you purchased are working & compatible. The Mac might not boot or not stable if you put in the incompatible part, but my expereince tell me it's very unlikely to damage the Mac. It's a tough machine.

thanks for the info wei. i wonder if my g4 can handle mac os x leopard?

General requirements

Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor

512MB of memory
DVD drive for installation
9GB of available disk space
Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; fees may apply.
Some features require Apple's .Mac service; fees apply


But there's a way to use Leopard on old mac.

You can try, if without any upgrades, you will not have a smooth experience with Leopard. And you need to apply some mod to the Leopard installer to accept your system.

what about other mac os x, like tiger or panther? will i have smooth experience using those?

Tiger should be fine. But the stock graphic card does not support core image. Some transition will not appear. Like the ripple effects when dropping new widget in Dashboard. Also, FrontRow will not display properly.

This post has been edited by wei: Jan 3 2008, 04:12 PM

I am sure you able to use Tiger. Anyway, which OSX version is installed on yr mac ?

I am still using Tiger ... how sad

mac os 9. thanks for the advices guys/girls

is it a single or dual processor? dual will be more preferrable...

1) forget about the CPU upgrades... by the time you obtain 1 you might as well pay for the down payment for a new mac...and there is a slight chance you'll kill you machine by doing it yourself...
2) Optical and Hard Drives and also Memory upgrades are the easiest upgrades to perform on that generation of Macs... just a few screws and the whole optical drive and the case will come off the chasis....
3) Mac AGP cards are different... not only the software but also physically... the AGP slot on the logic board is practically further away from the slot on the chassis so trying to fit a PC AGP card is useless as it will not line up and slot in to the AGP>...
4) CPU upgrade yes, others not really if you know what you are doing.... and not to mention... the original parts for this machine is already obsolete i think...

panther will obviously run better than tiger... but in terms of functionality... tiger is better compared to panther...

and tiger needs a DVD rom to install... so make sure your DVD rom isn't dead...

I think you better check on that. All AGP card are standard. That's why they're called AGP. There's no physical differences. That's why ppl able to flash PC card into Mac card.

as far as i know... most files like movie, images, compressed files (zip, rar) can be transferred and used on both platforms.. only applications, fonts are not usable on both platforms...that is as far as i know...

if your office means word processing and spreadsheet then it should be OK... you might need to be extra careful with PowerPoint though... as you might need to re-link audio and video files in powerpoint files when you transferred it to PCs from Macs...even PCs to PCs needs to be "pack and go"ed which is not available on the mac... and if you don't use strange mac fonts for your presentations and documents then you'll be safe... most default word and powerpoint fonts are available on both platforms...



okay... i think i might be wrong in some area... but i am very sure some cards could not fit... or maybe is was a different AGP slot problem...AGP 2x\4x\8x.... i can't remember in detail... cos i did try to slot an AGP card into one of the dual 550MHz last time and it did not went in...or was it an AGP \ AGP Pro thing... anyways... try at own risk... it is not advisable to upgrade and furthermore nowadays AGP cards are not cheap...and furthermore.. what is the point of upgrading to another card when the processor is not powerful enough...

This post has been edited by butthead: Jan 6 2008, 09:41 PM

Yeah, this mac might be old. Depends what you plan to do with it. You can still use it for many things.

I recently bought one 466 Digital Audio. Put in my extra 80GB HDD. Put in my flashed 9800Pro 128MB. Now it's in the living room as a media center. Next step is to get used 867Mhz proc & more RAM. Should last me for few more years. It's a good hobby machine.

This post has been edited by wei: Jan 7 2008, 09:51 AM

That may apply to the rich among us, but it's not viable for first time Mac switchers who are looking for value. Sure, you can jazz up a piece of ancient relic, but really it's strictly for Apple diehards. People who are looking to get a Mac "that just works" at a price competitive with Windows PCs wouldn't think twice about building a Hackintosh. Otherwise you wouldn't find such a growing number of users over at InsanelyMac. So good luck to your endeavers, banks, and do report back to inform us as to how your project turns out, and whether you feel it's worthwhile.

What's the issue there? I'm just giving an example of what's the possible usage for the Mac that was given (FREE) to TS.
Yeah, Hackint0sh is great, but there's still choices, don't make it like whoever want a Mac should buy a PC.

That may be true but adding in the cost of upgrades and such and you will end up with huge tab at the equivalent of a new PC. And the latter has far better upgradability. Unless you want to encourage our friend to use the existing computer as is given to him, and install minimalistic OS (OS9 wouldn't be a bad idea) and applications, then it might work out for him. It's all up to him entirely, no one is going to force anything on him. But judging by his response, or lack thereof, it looks like the machine is just going to sit on the floor gathering dust anyway, no?

Hey TS, if you think this Mac is useless to you, don't let it gather dust on the floor. I know someone that will gladly take it from you and make a good use of it.

it's old but powermacs are a tough machine.. it will live on forever with good care...except for the hard drives and optical drives that is...


the thing is.... you are already a mac sifu... you can't just expect a newbie in mac to try every of the things you mentioned no doubt of the thing you can still do with such an old machine...it is a bit scary when you are asked to buy several hundreds in parts and not sure whether it will finally work or not... maybe you should just do the upgrade for him and charge his some money for it

[quote=banks,Jan 2 2008, 11:29 PM]
recently my uncle gave me his power mac g4 with specs as follows:

power pc g4 500MHz
640MB SDRAM
(80 + 30)GB of HDD
DVD/CD-ROM
ATI Rage 128 with 16MB of VRAM
Mac OS 9

my questions as follows:
1. where can i upgrade the cpu?
2. can i change the optical drive?
3. any agp card will do?
4. will any of my above actions render my g4 useless?

We Sonnet Technologies has all the upgrades cards for your needs.

1. we have the CPU that matches G5 speed.

2. if you want to upgrade to a OSX, you need to increase a bit more RAM.

3. you can also upgrade SATA Drives to give a better performance too.

4. HDD also have to upgrade to a SATA version too in order to give your G4 the performance

5. of course we also have the latest super drives for all macs.

Basically, you need to know what kind of jobs that you are doing, so that it will give you an idea if you should upgrade it.

if you are interested, please let me know I am more than happy to assist you.

yoketee@sonnettech-asia.com