[rescue] replacing an Ultra2

[Michael Parson]

On Fri, Apr 27, 2007 at 12:47:38PM -0400, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> Fri, 27 Apr 2007 @ 11:03 -0500, Michael Parson said:
>
>> With Apple's current crop of offerings, you can only replace the video
>> on the Mac Pro tower units.  Their base-graphics is a GeForce 7300 GT
>> w/256 MB and dual-link DVI.
>
> The last time I looked, that was their only nVidia option, and their max
> ATI option is pretty far behind, or it was a couple of months ago.
>
> This is a really serious issue, because video upgrades often make a huge
> difference, and Apple has poor selection there.
>
> It's almost like all those expansion slots they have are useless, since
> almost nothing has the Apple firmware needed.

Only stuff that needs the firmware are hard drive controllers you want
to boot off of and graphics adapters.  I guess there's not much else out
there, though I do have a 3rd party USB2/Firewire card (Adaptec) in my
G4.  All my disk on that box is Firewire, but I boot off the onboard
controller.

> Oh well, it's only been 15 years or so.  PCI will have standard firmware
> any day now... really...

Same problem with PCI Sun gear.

>> All their other boxes have on-board video of some sort, some better than
>> others.  
>
> I read not long ago that you could get a GPU chip and update at least a
> couple of their all-in-one machines.  Or do you have to do that when you
> first buy it?

Could be, but probably only on the iMacs.  I've never dug into it.  My
two Macs are an aging G4 and my MacBook, plus I provide support to my
sister and her Mini.

-- 
Michael Parson
mparson at bl.org