On Sunday, May 16, 2004, at 03:22 PM, Bervin Link Mack wrote:
Hey,
I was just wondering if all of the AIO's in the 266MHz style have all the audio and video in/outputs. Also what are the best upgrades to fill those 3 PCI slots.
The AIO's (as well as the DT & MT) audio/video in/outputs are on a daughter card called
a Personality Card. There were three versions of the Personality Card, with the cards
for the AIO having an extra internal connector for passing the video to the internal
monitor.
The basic Personality Card offered audio output, a microphone port and modem slot. More
advanced cards offered video input and even DVD, however these features are not supported
under OS X. (I believe the DVD version needed the Rev. 3 motherboard.) Almost all the
video/DVD features of the advanced cards have been surpassed by PCI cards.
If you don't mind a two monitor system, I highly suggest a Radeon 7000 PCI card. These
will give you higher resolutions, more colors, it has more video memory and better OGL
support.
Next, consider a USB (or USB/Firewire combo) card. This will give to access to USB
printers, a wide range of USB mice and other input devices. Make sure the USB card is
OCHI compliant, as there is also "another" standard (not supported by Apple) used
by some "other" systems.
Filling the last slot is the hardest.
If you need Fast Ethernet, you might consider an 10/100 Ethernet card, but make sure
you can find a driver for the particular card you purchase. However, the AIO's onboard
ethernet works quite nicely, and is fast enough for most (if not all) internet hookups.
Or you could install an ATA/IDE hard drive controller. The IDE system of the AIO is
dated (ATA 3, with an ATA 4 commend set) Modern ATA is at version 6. Also, the AIO's
built-in interface has problems booting OS X from drives larger than 8 Gigs (it can
boot from a larger HD by partitioning the HD to have an 8 Gig boot partition).
There are USB/Firewire/ATA combo cards. Getting such a card would fill only one slot
instead of two/three slots.
As the built-in floppy drives no longer work under OS X, you might consider pulling
the drive and using the bay for another HD. I pull my AIO's internal SCSI, and replaced
it with a 128 gig HD (required a longer HD cable).
Then there is the question of DVD. The Radeon 7000 has DVD support, but I believe you
need a hacked version of the DVD Player, depending on OS. If you plan to do any DVD
burning, I believe you need a G4. So, you might consider a CPU upgrade. I had no plans
to burn DVD's so I when with a 867Mhz G3.
- Ron.
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