A G4 466 running Tiger? Absolutely!

[JeDiBoYTJ]

So, I had a previous post here about buying a Mac G4 for $75 from my college... I was hoping it would be a Dual 500... but long story short it ended up being a Single 466. It came with:

G4 Tower: 466mhz, 128MB Ram, 16mb graphics, CD-RW drive, ZIP drive
Viewsonic 17in Monitor
Black Apple Keyboard
iMac Hocky Puck Mouse (supposed to come with optical, but didnt want to argue)
Brand New Harmon/Kardon speakers! (great speakers)

so I brought the machine home and set it up. still running OS 9.2. I completely rip apart my old HP POS. I took both RAM sticks out (128 each) and put them in the G4, and it works great (384mb RAM). then, I took the CD-RW drive out, and put the HP DVD-ROM drive in it, so I could install Tiger and iLife.

Tiger installed, and it booted quicker than 9.2 did! I set it up for 2 accounts (my mom and brother), all quick and easy, not a single problem. Installed iLife, even GarageBand runs!

overall, just using that machine for web, email, ichat, and other productivity, its working great! I wasnt expecting Tiger to run as smoothy as it is! The only lag I see is with expose and such, but thats because of the crappy gfx card. Spotlight works, and everything opens up fine. I was thinking of getting an OWC Update card for the machine ($199 for G4 1ghz), but I dont even think its needed.

Im so excited... and for $75, why not?!

 

[Makosuke]

Glad to hear it all worked out for you, and that's one heckuva deal--sure wish I could find a blowout like that near where I live.

And those specs sound just fine to me--my lab is running several even older 400MHz G4s (Yikes! ones, even) with 384MB RAM, and they do just fine on Panther, and I see no reason Tiger wouldn't be just as comfortable (save weak graphics performance).

I can tell you it feels a lot faster than XP on an HP from the same era, although admittedly even that does work.

 

[JeDiBoYTJ]

I cant believe how much better it is than the HP. both are from the same generation (2001), but the Apple runs more than twice as fast!

I also took the 60GB drive out of the HP, and put it into the Apple (the apple has 30GB, so im using that for main OS and Applications, and the secondary HD for music and photos and such)

 

[G5power]

$75 is a very cool deal for what you got. If you get the opportunity you may want to bump the memory up a little more.

I recently picked up several older G4 systems and have enjoyed putzing around and upgrading them. In a dual 450, I installed a combo drive that I took out of my main system (dual 867). Initially the memory was only 128MB, so I salvaged some memory from another system and bumped it up to a GB and that makes a noticeable difference. Tiger performs very well on that hardware combo.

I have two different 533 singles - one with 768MB and one with 256MB and the performance difference is noticeable. The 533 with more memory is going to replace my wifes current PC. I'm not planning on keeping the other 533 as I really don't need the row of G4's in my home office.

I am going to keep a close eye on the processor upgrades and hopefully someone will offer a killer special on something like a 1.2GHz upgrade.

 

[JeDiBoYTJ]

$75 is a very cool deal for what you got. If you get the opportunity you may want to bump the memory up a little more.

I recently picked up several older G4 systems and have enjoyed putzing around and upgrading them. In a dual 450, I installed a combo drive that I took out of my main system (dual 867). Initially the memory was only 128MB, so I salvaged some memory from another system and bumped it up to a GB and that makes a noticeable difference. Tiger performs very well on that hardware combo.

I have two different 533 singles - one with 768MB and one with 256MB and the performance difference is noticeable. The 533 with more memory is going to replace my wifes current PC. I'm not planning on keeping the other 533 as I really don't need the row of G4's in my home office.

I am going to keep a close eye on the processor upgrades and hopefully someone will offer a killer special on something like a 1.2GHz upgrade.

yeah, im going to be buying a 512 ram stick for $64 from Newegg soon... but just with 384mb Ram the thing runs beautifully.

And if you happen to find a 1.2ghz upgrade for <$200, then let me know!! :-D

 

[aquajet]

It's amazing how much better a G4 is than a G3 running OS X. My G4 with its old 450 processor ran OS X better than my old 700 mhz G3 iMac. For a cheap upgrade, you might look for an old Radeon or GeForce 2mx AGP video card for Quartz Extreme support.