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Q: I have a Power Mac
7500 with 96 MB of memory, 1 GB hard drive, and 120 MHz
PPC 604 daughtercard. I want to gradually upgrade it for my daughter
to use for educational purposes. What should I upgrade first,
particularly to improve CD performance, and where can I get
it?
A: You have plenty of memory right now, although you should keep
in the back of your mind the old adage, "You can never have too much
RAM." The hard drive is a bit on the small side; upgrading this
probably won't greatly affect CD-ROM performance, however. The 604 is
a plenty fast processor for any educational games at this point.
The two main components that will affect CD-ROM performance most
dramatically are (obviously) the CD-ROM drive itself and the video
card. The operating system plays a role, too, and if you don't have
at least Mac OS 8.1 on that computer, get it. If you can afford it,
get 8.5 and upgrade that (with a free download from Apple) to 8.6.
You'll thank yourself later.
The 7500 had a decent (for its time) video subsystem, but it's not
great. Perhaps the best upgrade right now would be to put an ATI Rage
128-based card in one of your free PCI slots. I recommend the ATI
Rage Orion, available from CDW for
US$130 plus shipping. It's a reasonably inexpensive card, has 16 MB
of video memory (VRAM), and is powered by the wonderful Rage 128
chip, which is the same graphics chip Apple uses in their current
high-end desktop machines. The extra cost of the Nexus 128 for twice
the VRAM is really only justifiable if your preschooler is going to
be playing Quake III or Unreal Tournament, both of which seem a bit
inappropriate for her age group. :-)
The CD-ROM is a 4x SCSI drive, unless someone else has already
upgraded it. A 4x drive is plenty fast for most CD-based games and
such. If you really feel shackled by the slower speed, though, get an
8x or 12x Apple drive,* possibly from eBay (where you'll probably get
the best price, even on a new drive). MacResQ,
Shreve
Systems, or Sun
Remarketing might also have the drives available. (They're
generally not available at ordinary retail any more, since Apple no
longer sells either SCSI-based systems or that slow of a CD-ROM
drive.)
* Most third party CD-ROM drives require third party drivers
and cannot be used to boot the system. Having a bootable CD-ROM is
great if you need to run diagnostics (Norton Utilities, Disk
Warrior) or boot from CD so you can replace a damaged system. You
can often find Sony 8x and 12x units at MacResQ
that are bootable, work with Apple's CD-ROM drivers,
and cost less than Apple brand drives. For older Macs, you might
even want to consider the 4x Sony drives usually in stock at
Small Dog Electronics. I've
been very pleased using Sony drives in my personal systems. Dan
Knight, editor.
Once you upgrade the video card, and possibly the CD-ROM, the next
upgrade you'll want to look at is a G3 or G4 upgrade (see Low End
Mac's Guide to G3 Daughter Cards
and Guide to G4 Daughter Cards). I
recommend against trying to upgrade to a faster 604 or 604e simply
because they're not a significant increase in performance relative to
the money you would put out. You'd be far better off getting a
low-end G3 upgrade and spending maybe $50 more. Prices will certainly
change by the time you get around to upgrading your processor,
because, in my opinion, this is the part of your system that needs
the least attention. Right now, you can get a 500 MHz G3 or 400 MHz
G4 upgrade for about the same price. My recommendation, knowing that
you're not going to be doing heavy number crunching, is to go with
the 25% higher clock rate of the G3, because that will give you a
noticeable speed boost.
You might need to upgrade the hard drive later, depending on how
full it is now and what sort of space those installers for the games
and educational software require. The good news is that your 7500
supports a second internal hard drive without too much trouble. You
can just order a 50-pin SCSI hard drive and drive rails from any
vendor (or eBay), plug it in to the existing cables in the drive bay,
format it with Apple's Drive Setup (if necessary), and off you go. I
recommend IBM and Seagate mechanisms, but Apple's OEM was Quantum for
a while, and those were rock-solid drives. Stay away from Micropolis
if you buy used; they had reliability problems.
The very last thing you may want to consider at some point is a
memory upgrade. Since this will primarily be a one-application
machine for the foreseeable future, huge amounts of memory are really
unnecessary. As your daughter learns to use the computer more, she
may want to run more than just her educational software and games --
possibly some email or Web access. I don't know what configuration
your 96 MB of RAM is in right now, but if you need more memory later,
get a 64 MB chip and put it in an empty slot (or if there isn't an
empty slot, remove one of the smaller DIMMs and replace it with the
64 MB chip).
Chris Lawson has
been using Macs since 1988. He has extensive experience with Mac OS 8
and later -- and a good deal of experience with System 7.5 and up as
well. Earlier System 7 versions are also within his realm of
knowledge, as is System 6. He has used and abused a wide variety of
Macs from the Plus to G3s, gaining extensive Power Mac experience and
a great deal of Compact Mac knowledge. Questions on all topics are
welcomed, but be forewarned that pre-G3 portables and pre-System 7.5
Internet access are his weak spots. For a more personal bio, please
visit his web site.
Have a question to ask Mac Daniel & Friends? Visit our
staff page and pick an expert.
Macster on the iMac, 8/14/00.
There are some problems with Macster on the iMac. Evan explains
how to work around them.
Upgrading a Power Mac 7500, Chris
Lawson, 7/28/00. A look at memory, video, hard drive, and
processor upgrades for one of Apple's most upgradable Power
Macs.
Resurrected Centris, part 2, Chris
Lawson, 7/5/00. New drives and memory for the Centris 650, but
there's another problem.
Not sure if you should upgrade your old Mac or replace it? Check
the index to see if we've already addressed
your problem recently -- and look in the
archive if it's not in the recent columns. If not, visit our
staff page for the names of several people
who may be able to help you.
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