Extending the life of a G4 MMD FW800 on a budget

[MarkG4]

Below is a list of what I have done to my G4 Dual 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 1MB L3 cache per processor Firewire 800 to run the video editing programmes I needed on a budget. It is also an example of how to extend the usable life of this G4 by making it as fast as possible, as cheaply as possible, in general without over clocking or anything too technical.

 

I love my G4 FW800 and don't feel the need to upgrade it any more, it does everything I need, and thought I would post here. I found this site very helpful when putting it together earlier this year. I bought it for £200 on Ebay at the begining of 2009.

 

I also bought a PC modded video card for £50 on Ebay a GeForce7800 GS 256 MB. Having this card is one of the keys that allows me to run programmes that I wouldn't otherwise be able to like Apple Color (the video grading programme).

 

I also use two Raid 0 internal IDE 7200rpm hard drives which I use for editing HD video with Final Cut Pro Studio 2. IDE hard discs bought cheaply on Ebay one is connected to a 2 channel UltraTek100 PCI ATA card also bought on Ebay for £3 and the other to a built in internal Ultra ATA/100 connection (I understand this is the fastest configuration possible).

 

I also use Photoshop CS3 all the time but don't use the Raid 0 discs for that just in case they crash but they never have yet. When using them for video editing I always have a copy of the material on the Raid 0 drives so it would not matter if it was lost in a crash. The Raid 0 discs are just used to playback the "copy" of the video. I do also use the Raid 0 drives for my system virtual memory, as set in MacTuneUp. Also use the Raid 0 drives as my photoshop scratch disk and also for FCP wave form and thumbnail cache.

 

I also have a cheap (bought on Ebay) internal IDE 5400rpm back up drive installed in the second CD slot which is a clone back up run daily of my main system drive. After the initial clone it just copies the difference.

 

I installed 2 x 1GB RAM sticks (which are seen in the system profiler as DDR SDRAM PC2700U-30330) which I got from Crucial.com. They where listed for a G5 and Crucial said they wouldn't work but they do. This is also the cheapest way the add maximum RAM and I suspect two sticks of the fastest RAM possible in this machine makes a fair difference to the over all speed.

 

To stop over heating I have installed CHUD 3.5.2 and a napmode script which loads at start up. I also installed a very cheap and simple PCI slot fan bought on Ebay.

 

I also use general tools like MacTuneup once a week. I think running maintenance helps a lot with keeping my system from slowing down. I also use DiskWarrior 3 and Disk Genius 2. The former stops my disks from crashing my system by keeping good directories and the later scans for bad blocks to stop my computer writing to them and thus not hanging up at some point.

 

I also have a Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-110D in the main CD slot. This is a replacement burner that with computer when I bought it, very good does everything I ever asked it to burn/read. And I have a USB 2 PCI card bought on Ebay for £12 (specified for G4 Macs) and a Broadcom Bluetooth USB stick £10 (specified for G4 Mac). I use the built in Gigiabit Ethernet to connect to the internet with my external cable modem.

 

I have never upgraded a Mac before. Prices are in £ pounds sterling, I am British, and current for early 2009.

[bibendum]

As much as you may love that machine, realize - it's nearly six or seven years old...

 

With Moore's Law still in effect, and machines doubling in speed/storage every 18 months, that's FOUR cycles behind... or 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 or sixteen times slower than modern machines. Believe it or not, a Dual Atom board geekbenches faster than that G4.

 

Now, obviously you've propped it up with a RAID and a good video card, but those things will only hold back the sands of time for so long. Soon, the PPC architecture will be history.

 

Just trying to prepare you.

 

Patrick

[MarkG4]

Hi Patrick,

 

Of course you are right but what you said is also true about the newest computer available today.

 

My aim was to get a computer that would run FCP Studio 2 with Apple Color, as well as Photoshop CS3 and CaptureOne. All for £400, now show me another Mac that would do that for that price with a RAID (for HD video) ?

 

The above are the programmes I use and I can go on using them for years running Mac OS 4.11 I don't need it to do anything else.

 

I have a dual core PC laptop but it doesn't seem any faster on photoshop and is no good for FCP/Apple Colour.

 

When I do upgrade I will want an 8 core Macpro with 32 GBs of RAM but that won't be for years, when they are on Ebay and very cheap because no one wants an old machine!