Leopard on upgraded G4

Question

Hi all, at the moment I have a Powermac G4 400 sawtooth and am running 10.5 installed using the firewire target method. Ive finally taken the plunge and ordered a Powerlogix 1.6 processor upgrade and because I need to run 10.5 server and it really wont be worth it without upgrading.
What I wanted to know is will the leopard installer still refuse to install normally even with a processor upgrade?
Thanks Nick

Answer 1

Hi kdjc95-
The PSU was the last internal mod that I did. The stock PSU was working fine with the processor upgrade, the 9800, the two SATA's, an ATA drive, and the USB. The problem was heat.
The extra heat was mostly going through the PSU on the way out (Arctic Cooling VGA cooler helped some), and in the summer, under hard game load, lengthy software install's (CS2 premium),and video rendering, the system would occasionally freeze. I traced this to heat by running the same tasks that froze the machine, while the side was opened. This corrected the problem.
So, heat was causing the PSU to heat up beyond the point of producing reliable power. Since I had already increased the CFM's of the interior fans, and had hard drive coolers, and the graphics cooler, the only thing I could do was get rid of more heat before it went through the PSU. So, I tore the tower down, cut a hole and put a 80mm fan in the top of the tower, creating a blow hole. Well, I never did try the machine with the new cooling configuration. Since it was all torn down, I figured, what the heck, and put a dual fan ATX PSU in. This was partially driven by the desire to do a few more mod's to the machine (using yet more power).
The new PSU, with the dual fans, moves more air than the stock PSU, and with the other cooling mod's, the freezes, even in a 30ºC room, ceased. A side benefit of the PSU's increased power (which I hadn't anticipated), was an increase in xBench scores by 3-5 points.
If you aren't experiencing unexplained system freezes, then the new PSU isn't mandatory. If you have freezing problems, with no other possible causes, the new PSU would be worth the hassle. I say hassle, because the ATX PSU wiring harnesses aren't designed to work in the G4 tower as cleanly as one might like. I hate wire clutter, and spent two days cutting, extending, shortening, completely rebuilding the wiring harnesses, sheathing and bundling them.
As for Leopard, it runs great. The only problems are ones that everyone else experiences- jerky dock, some hardware/software incompatibilities, occasional unexplained and erratic sleep problems, and Time Machine and it's limited practical function (my opinion, shared by others). All in all, it's fine, with no real hits because it's in a G4. I'm looking forward to the eventual 10.5.5, or so. By then, Leopard should be polished up like fine laquerware! 'til then, we're still "beta tester's".
Honestly, though, I like Tiger better......just want Leopards Front Row and USB webcam compatibility/performance boost in Tiger.