[G4] upgrading a G4 Digital Audio

[John Niven]

--- MKL <mkl18 at pobox.com> wrote:
> I recently aquired a G4 Digital Audio 733 mhz 

> The original CD/DVD  installed unit is possibly
> worth upgrading

I don't have a DA, I have earlier GigaBit models. But
LEM specs 

http://www.lowendmac.com/ppc/g4-133.shtml

say that the G4/733 includes a SuperDrive CD-RW/DVD-R
drive (2x DVD-R, 6x DVD, 8x CD-R, 4x CD-RW, 24x CD) so
if it's working I'd keep it.

> I am told some later G4 DAs did not have power
> supplies How would I find out if mine has one or
> not?

I think you missed something in that conversation -
all computers have a power supply so no worries there.

> I have the maximum amount of RAM  so this is OK  but
> the cache issue is a bit vague for me Is there
> something that can be improved inthis area or better
> managed?

Again LEM says the 733 has 1 MB L3 backside cache. I
actually have a 733MHz cpu in my work AGP overclocked
to 800MHz. It does not have an L3 cache. So the small
256Kb L2 is all it has. I run Tiger, browser, email
and M$ office apps on this machine and find it fast
enough.
Depends what you want to do.

> I have the standard 60 or so gig IDE drive and a
> couple of SCSI drives Could I replace one of the
> SCSI
> drives with a newly aquired ULTRA320  10000k drive
> even though it isnt ULTRA 320 ?

If you have a couple of SCSI drives, they must be
connected to a PCI SCSI card. Which card is it? How
big are the drives? I like SCSI drives. They can be
faster than your ATA/66 hard drive. To fully use your
Ultra 320 would probably require a new PCI card (like
a ATTO UL4S). These are still silly prices (at least
for a LEM budget :-). You can use a matched pair of
SCSI drives to form a striped RAID 0 array which will
speed up the array access (double if you have a dual
channel card). Most of my machines do this (with ATTO
UL3D cards). You can then put the os and apps on the
RAID array, and use your big ATA drive for data,
backups etc.

> If I upgrade the processor with say an xclr8 
> booster

I'm not in favor of spending lots of money on CPU
upgrades. Why not just buy a better Mac? I keep my
G4's going because I want to run older (paid for) apps
that won't run on more modern Macs. It's just cheaper
that way.

BTW do you own the OS install disks? If I was going to
spend any money I'd make sure I have the ability to
cleanly load the OS and any other apps I would use.

Cheers,
John


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