I've got a G4 DP 450 (gigabit ethernet) from 2000, with the 220 watt power supply. I got it BTO with the high-speed SCSI controller and I'm running an internal RAID with three 36-gig ultra-Quantums. I replaced the original Rage 128 (16mb) AGP video with a Radeon 32mb and I've got a 16mb ATI card in PCI for the second monitor. I'm on Panther.8 where everything is stable and happy with 832 mb of RAM.
The next step is to upgrade the CPU(s). How likely is it that I might overwhelm the power supply? Will a dual 55 with L2 and L3 stop me cold...erm...I mean, hot? Will a single processor 57 (no L3) be too much of a compromise? Any insights?
Thanks in advance.
cheers,
Henry
Henry henry999@redacted.invalid wrote:
I've got a G4 DP 450 (gigabit ethernet) from 2000, with the 220 watt power supply. I got it BTO with the high-speed SCSI controller and I'm running an internal RAID with three 36-gig ultra-Quantums. I replaced the original Rage 128 (16mb) AGP video with a Radeon 32mb and I've got a 16mb ATI card in PCI for the second monitor. I'm on Panther.8 where everything is stable and happy with 832 mb of RAM.
The next step is to upgrade the CPU(s). How likely is it that I might overwhelm the power supply? Will a dual 55 with L2 and L3 stop me cold...erm...I mean, hot? Will a single processor 57 (no L3) be too much of a compromise? Any insights?
Belkin and other UPS (uninterruptible power supply) units provide a readout -- via USB and their software -- of the load placed on them. This would give you some idea of how close you are to the edge. (Of course, you could buy or borrow an actual power meter.)
The biggest power draw will be when those three drives spin up, especially if they're high rpm drives. If you can jumper one or two of them for delayed spinup, you'd reduce the chances of tripping the power supply's breaker.
I don't think replacing the processors will make much difference in power consumption; but before you buy anything, you should consult Accelerate Your Mac for user reports: http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/cpureview.lasso.