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Alien wrote:

Now, I have two PCI slots left open. Any ideas as to what I might stick in them? I was thinking maybe a gigabit Ethernet card and perhaps FW800/USB2, to top it all off?

That would work. I can't think of much else you could use, except for specialty type stuff you wouldn't need on a server, like an A/V card or something.

Ooh... use it as a WAP. Hadn't thought of that.

It is a GX. Typo on my part.

,xtG
.tsooJ

My B&W has an Nvidia FX5200 card in it. It does core image......if you want to pimp out more than with a R9200!

I'd throw in USB2.0 and FW if you need it.  That and a wireless card.  There are numerous third party ones that work (unoficially, as you won't find many advertised for Mac use that aren't crazy expensive).  Other than that....no idea.  Depends what else you want to do with it.  There's not much else you would need as a server Machine.

TravisReynolds wrote:

so you built your own mac?

You can't legally do this with mac OS X. It's an old PowerMac.

dvpierce wrote:

FutureDreamz wrote:

TravisReynolds wrote:

so you built your own mac?

You can't legally do this with mac OS X. It's an old PowerMac.

Not exactly.

::double checks::
I stand corrected.

The logic boards aren't that expensive.  Well, at least the old PowerMac G4's aren't.  I bought one for my Gigabit Ethernet for like $30 when I thought the ethernet port on mine went dead (it came back to life and I sold the board for the same price).  Maybe the G3's are more expensive?

Well, update time, as I've been playing with the upgraded G3's, again, lately.

First off, they're running Tiger Server 10.4.9, because PowerLogix apparently abandonded the ZIF upgrades and never released the control software for use with 10.4.10 or higher. Bummer, since it had me running them both at 500 MHz for a while on 10.4.11.

Other than that, they're both running beautifully. Nice and snappy. I'm gonna order a 4-port SATA card and Radeon 9200 for the backup machine, too, so that I'll have the exact same hardware on both machines. Too bad there isn't VM software for Macs, or I'd be able to partition the backup machine into separate development/test/mirror environments.

Next up are USB2/FW800 cards, and I'm also planning to put DVD drives into both, maybe even DVD-RW (depending on price), and I have one IDE ZIP750, so if I can score another one of those, I'll be golden in the sneakernet department, too.

That leaves only one thing to wish for: gigabit Ethernet. Anyone got any recommendations there? I'm thinking of scoring Apple PCI-X cards intended for the xServe, but I've seen cheaper ones floating around eBay, too.

.tsooJ

$187.99 .... Ouch. Nice card, though, especially with link aggregation.

Won't work with Mac OS < 10.4.11, though.

.tsooJ

Most any generic card should work with the standard drivers. It's the Ethernet chipsets where compatibility sucks.

I think the first GB Ethernet G4s used Realtek chips though. It's possible worth a gamble. Unfortunately, XLR8s compatibility database doesn't seem to cover Ethernet cards.

Hmmm ... as per usual, the Sonnet product appears to be, of course, some rebranded OEM card with a purple PCB.

Would be nice if something like this one worked, though.

.tsooJ