Power mac g4 quicksilver

[timwebb2]

Hi,
I have bought a power mac g4 quicksilver at a knock down price.
When I opened it up there is no HDD or back up battery inside.
The light comes on when I switch it on and then goes off, so I guess power supply is ok.
My question is, is it worth spending more money on it?
All I want to do is read emails and watch youtube.
What can you suggest?
thanks.

 

[Lufbrarunner]

It's probably worth spending a little money on it. A HDD and a battery will not cost too much, you will probably need to find a set of O/S disks to get it going.

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

I agree with lufbrarunner,you could go go down the route of putting in a SATA drive by using a SATA-to-IDE bridge.


Have a look here.
http://lowendmac.com/macdan/05/1025.html

And for batteries have a look here

https://www.macupgrades.co.uk/store/product_info.php?products_id=639


Let us know how things go.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

I loved the QuickSilver G4 Macs. Yes, you can get a PRAM battery and a HD for short money. The issue would be that depending on what exact model it is, the maximum version of OS X may hamper the ability to view some websites, including YouTube.

Can you give us more details on the specs of the QuickSilver?

C

 

[timwebb2]

thanks to all concerned for the advice.

Having looked inside the ram slots are not in use, so I can guess it will run on the min spec until I upgrade it.

the model number is M8493, label quotes serial no CK1 etc, with 733 mhz cpu.
when I checked this serial number on everymac site it came back with :
Power Macintosh G4 733 (Quicksilver) 733 MHz PowerPC 7450 (G4)

Intro. July 18, 2001 Disc. January 28, 2002
Order M8359LL/A Model M8493 (EMC 1896)
Family Quicksilver ID PowerMac3,5
RAM 128 MB VRAM 32 MB
Storage 40 GB HDD Optical 12X CD-RW

Hope this helps.

What I would like to know if is worth fitting HDD, loading OS, upgrading ram, etc, so I can read emails and view youtube? Or should I forget it?
thanks

 

[Lufbrarunner]

If it were me I would go for it, it's a great feeling when you can get some older technology up and running.

 

[timwebb2]

by the way I only paid £5 in the first place for it at a car boot sale on Sunday.
I also bought an imac G4 but this is fine apart from the fact it is locked with the previous users password and an imac g5 17 inch, which has 1.5 gb ram and just about runs youtube but struggles on tenfour fox.
All in all not bad for an early Sunday morning bootsale near Bromley in Kent!

 

[Cory Cooper]

Thanks for the additional info.

-That particular Mac can run up to Mac OS X 10.4.11 Tiger. It would be best to find an actual retail disc - black face with the Tiger logo, than trying to find the correct gray faced Apple restore disc set that came with it.
-It has 3 - PC-133 3.3v, unbuffered, 8-byte, non-parity 168-pin SDRAM, which support 512 MB sticks, for a total of 1.5 GB. If there aren't any sticks of RAM in it, it will not startup.
-It supports an Ultra ATA/66 hard drive, which are fairly scarce these days new, but you can probably find a used drive. Instead of trying to find a PCI card to use SATA drives, it may be easier to just find an external FireWire 400 hard drive and use it.

A great company that specializes in older Mac parts: We Love Macs

It's a nice machine, although a bit outdated for some websites and functionality. I guess it would come down to the cost of sourcing and installing the RAM, HD, OS, etc. It is always fun to revive old Macs, but only at a cost that you are comfortable with. And, accepting the limitations/quirks that older software/hardware sometimes provide.

C

 

[timwebb2]

Hi,
thanks,
I will have a look for a retail disc, how would I know if my powermac has a DVD drive fitted?

 

[Lufbrarunner]

I may have a copy of 'Tiger' in the garage. If I remember correctly it's a set of 4 CDs.

 

[timwebb2]

I may have a copy of 'Tiger' in the garage. If I remember correctly it's a set of 4 CDs.

I will have a look on ebay for cd rom versions not DVD then.

 

[Lufbrarunner]

If I can find them you can have them, gratis. They were left behind when my son left home and they are of no use to me.

 

[Cory Cooper]

The default configuration for the 733 MHz model was: 128 MB RAM, 40 GB HD, and a CD-RW drive (not DVD). That's probably the optical drive yours has.

C

 

[timwebb2]

If I can find them you can have them, gratis. They were left behind when my son left home and they are of no use to me.

hi that would be great and much appreciated,
regards, Tim

 

[Lufbrarunner]

I will try to find them tomorrow.

 

[timwebb2]

thanks.
I was also wondering which HDD I should fit.
I have 2 possible candidates.
One is an Hitachi Deskstar 250gb rpm 7200 August 2006 and the other is a Maxtor Diamond max plus 9 200gb.
Which or neither is recommended and what would the pin settings be?
thanks

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

I've put a 1TB drive into a iMac G5 power pc 2008 model and 2GB of Ram it runs great, but never had a mac g4 quicksilver, so would not like to say sorry.

 

[timwebb2]

Hi,

I've put a 1TB drive into a iMac G5 power pc 2008 model and 2GB of Ram it runs great, but never had a mac g4 quicksilver, so would not like to say sorry.

 

[timwebb2]

Hi thanks,
I am going to try an old 40gb HDD from an imac G4 first and see how I get on.
Am awaiting for ram I ordered from ebay and then try it out with various HDD's I have.
Got 2 old HDD's that were used as storage for the "fat" version of the PS2.

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Sounds interesting please keep use posted as to how things go. I love retro Apple technology,

Ment to say that the iMac has 4 not 2 GB Ram.