After several sudden mac failures, all around the time of the demise of Steve Jobs, I have been trying to get by the past few months on a G4 466, entirely stock, original 30gig hard drive with only Panther on it, no dvd drive to even install Tiger. i have sort of collected numerous questions to strategize on how to maximize this current situation, which I will now present:
1. I have had chances to grab various G5's for between $100 and $150. I have been hesitant because I have ehard they use so much power. Do they really use that much more power than a G4? How much more? My other hesitation, and my biggest overall frustration is once again the OS/browser limitations for PPC. At this point, I am using Opera 10.10 with javascript always off just to be able to get decent surfing speeds. I like Opera because of the ability to toggle the fit to width of webpages on my Apple Studio Display. It is such a nice monitor, I do not want to really upgrade to a mac that won;t be able to use it without an espensive adapter. Would a G5 running Tiger really be worth the investment and supposed energy cost? I would not want to pay an extra $250 a year, over the G4 power price. 2. I've tried to locate a processor upgrade for this DA. Would a processor out of a MDD work? I really can't see paying more than $25 for an upgrade, though, maybe someone could point me to a really great, easy to install upgrade card. How hard is it to just swap the motherboard out with a latter G4. like a MDD? By the way, what exactly does the Digital Audio do in this machine that isnt done in other G4's? I am running my old Apple Pro speakers from my dead iMac and the sound is just the same. 3. For software I am stuck in Panther, unless and until I can get my Tiger hard drive inside there, which is stuck inside the dead G4 imac.. By the way, I can figure out how to install another hard drive on the same ribbon, but supposedly one can install more than 2 hard drives---but where are the other ribbons and cables supposed to be? I see I can upgrade quicktime to 7.5, but, wasn't there some reason to stick with 6 instead? 4. My s/o has a macbook pro with an Intel Tiger install disk. Could this be used to install on a hacintosh, like 10.6? Should I just give upgrading the G4 and go hacintosh or Ubuntu on some pc? I could probably find a useable donor pc laptop for the $150 a G5 would cost me. -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
