Graphite City pt. 2
Figured I'd give this one an update. The Yikes! G4, though being crippled from the factory, hasn't been such a bad computer, at least with some tweaking. I managed to overclock the CPU to a blazing 400MHz, boosted the RAM to 512MB with a different set of RAM chips (still registered them as "Unknown" in the System Profiler, though; I have a feeling that it's an issue with the computer), installed a DVD-ROM drive (with the appropriate decoder-equipped video card), added a second hard drive, and installed a SCSI card. However, after all this, it was still a Yikes! G4 (the PCI graphics can't even handle the Flurry screensaver...), so I decided to see if I could find something better at the MIT swapfest. Lo and behold, I did...
Well, sorta.
One of the vendors was selling a load of 400MHz PowerMac G4s, likely gotten rid of by a school or something, for $100 (the same price I paid for the Yikes! G4). Unlike the one I bought prior, however, this one was a "Sawtooth" version: AGP graphics card (ATI Rage 128 Pro), standard DVD-ROM drive (without need for the video encoder add-on), larger stock HD (faster ATA interface, too), newer-style CPU socket (more upgrades available for it), and a few other nice things. This one even has a ZIP drive as installed from the factory, as well as a single 256MB RAM chip (none of that 4x64MB junk). I transferred over the SCSI card and the second HD from the Yikes! G4, borrowed some of it's RAM (which now registers properly in the System Profiler), installed Tiger, and had myself a more-decent computer, in a few respects. It can even run the Flurry screensaver properly now... ;)
Sure, the processor is still slow by modern standards, but the graphics are a bit closer to modern, and the OS runs fairly well. My likely next move will be to get a better processor of some sort for it, and perhaps a better video card, but for the time being, it's quite an adequate computer for it's age, and much more decent than the Yikes! G4. Perhaps, someday, PowerMac G5s will be down in the price range that the early PowerMac G4s are now commanding on the used market, but I'm sure we're a few years off from that point...
-Adam
Well, sorta.
One of the vendors was selling a load of 400MHz PowerMac G4s, likely gotten rid of by a school or something, for $100 (the same price I paid for the Yikes! G4). Unlike the one I bought prior, however, this one was a "Sawtooth" version: AGP graphics card (ATI Rage 128 Pro), standard DVD-ROM drive (without need for the video encoder add-on), larger stock HD (faster ATA interface, too), newer-style CPU socket (more upgrades available for it), and a few other nice things. This one even has a ZIP drive as installed from the factory, as well as a single 256MB RAM chip (none of that 4x64MB junk). I transferred over the SCSI card and the second HD from the Yikes! G4, borrowed some of it's RAM (which now registers properly in the System Profiler), installed Tiger, and had myself a more-decent computer, in a few respects. It can even run the Flurry screensaver properly now... ;)
Sure, the processor is still slow by modern standards, but the graphics are a bit closer to modern, and the OS runs fairly well. My likely next move will be to get a better processor of some sort for it, and perhaps a better video card, but for the time being, it's quite an adequate computer for it's age, and much more decent than the Yikes! G4. Perhaps, someday, PowerMac G5s will be down in the price range that the early PowerMac G4s are now commanding on the used market, but I'm sure we're a few years off from that point...
-Adam
posted by Adam Vaughn at 2:48 AM
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