Quicksilver Quirks?

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The Czar's picture
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Last seen: 13 years 2 weeks ago
Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
Posts: 287
Quicksilver Quirks?

Howdy all,

A few days ago, I bought a Quicksilver G4 sporting the following specs:

  • 733Mhz G4
  • 384MB RAM
  • 40GB HDD
  • DVD+RW Drive
  • OS X 10.3.9 / 9.2.2

The whole shebang cost me about $175US or so, depending on the exchange rate from $CDN. I've since upgraded it to 640MB RAM and 2x40GB + 1x20GB HDD. It's a gorgeous machine, and a perfect compliment to my 1.33Ghz 14" iBook. I've stripped this machine down and cleaned all the dust and crud out of it. I do have some questions about the machine, however.

First: Apple's service documents state that the only way the IDE controller in the Quicksilver will work is if the drives are configured as cable select. However, setting the drives up as cable select results in the machine being unable to find a usable system folder. Configuring the drives as Master/Slave, however, allows the drives to work just fine. Is this common with the Quicksilvers, or is my machine just weird? Blum 3

Second: Are there any quirks with these machines that I need to be aware of? (For example: Rev A. Beige G3's don't support slave drives on the built in IDE controller.) Is there anything that's particularily weak or flakey on these machines? It's been running non-stop since I got it with no problems, but I am curious if there is anything I need to be aware of. The only thing I've done (besides upgrades) is put a Pentium I heatsink fan on the video card's heatsink. It was getting far too hot for my liking.

Third: There seems to be a lot of processor upgrades available for this machine, but which ones are really worth it? I've heard rumours of up to 1.6Ghz G4s being available for this computer. At what point does the processor become too fast for the rest of the computer? Also, if I do look at upgrading, should I go for dual processors or a single, faster processor (ie: dual 800's or a single 1Ghz)? Can a dead Quicksilver 2002 be used as a donor machine for the older Quicksilvers?

Thanks for your help.

Cheers,

The Czar

dankephoto's picture
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Last seen: 9 months 1 week ago
Joined: Dec 20 2003 - 10:38
Posts: 1899
I always config ATA drive manually, and prefer dual CPU

1 - I always config ATA drives manually, I've never had good experiences using cable select on any Apple product. Maybe it's just me.

3 - Based on everything I've read, I think a dual's performance will be roughly equal to 150% to 180% of a single, depending on the task. For example, I'm ripping a DVD right now on my dual 800 (using HandBrake.) Activity Monitor shows HandBrake using about 175% CPU, delivering ~30fps. As I haven't got one, I can't say exactly how well a (eg) 1.5GHZ single would do, but that's my guess as to a comparable single CPU.

Do a pass through the xlr8yourmac.com database, there's tons of realworld experience there that should help you decide what's right for you. For my 733 I decided to go for a used dual 800 rather than a new (and more expensive single 1.3.)

hth,

dan k

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