Colin W.. wrote: > I require a second (actually third) mac and am looking at buying an > inexpensive one and adding upgrades. > > I have a few questions if you could be so kind as to indulge me here. > > 1. What would be the best and easiest computer to upgrade with G3/G4 card > and possibly usb, firewire and maybe later an ide card. I am considering > 7300/7500 or 7600 are there any others. I currently have a 7200 (dog) > and an upgraded 9500. Does the bus speed matter. I think they are all > close. Either 45 of 50 mhz
The 7500 and 7600 differ only in the processor card originally installed and the AV stuff with the 7600, otherwise they're identical cards. The 7300 has a higher bus speed, and will be somewhat faster for a given upgrade. > 2. Is it better to buy separate usb & firewire cards or get the combo and > can anyone tell me how well do these cards work. Do they have to be Mac > specific? It's cheaper to buy the combo cards. As for USB any card that is OHCI compliant (as more and more of them are, as WinXP requires this too) will work with Apple's USB extensions. Firewire has only one standard, so afaik any firewire card will work in a Mac. Many generic USB cards are USB1.1/2.0 now, which will work, but there's no readily available USB 2.0 drivers for the mac. > 3. I would like to hear from mac users who are running OS X Jaguar on their > upgraded macs. How is the speed and what other problems might I > encounter. Is it really worth the hassle ?? Well, I had many ATA hassles after upgrading to a Sonnet Trio card and Jag, but the recent firmware patch for that card seems to have resolved things nicely. I was previously running Jag on the same 7600 (768 mb ram, G4/400 processor upgrade) on an internal SCSI drive and it's quite stable, and eminently usable. Now I've got it going on a IDE drive it's a bit snappier, and quite stable. -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:pci-powermacs@;mail.maclaunch.com> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:pci-powermacs-off@;mail.maclaunch.com> For digest mode, email: <mailto:pci-powermacs-digest@;mail.maclaunch.com> Subscription questions: <mailto:listmom@;lowendmac.com> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
