SuperSizing my Performa 6360

[ws]

Can I install a USB and Firewire card ? I have the cards installed in my 8500 which had a very painful death living the life of OS Panther. So, I would gut those cards and hopefully have them installed in to the Perfroma 6360.

Could I also install a Ethernet card ? That card is in my 8500. There's some kind of internet card in the Performa now but I'll be d... if I can figure out how to use and besides would rather go Ethernet.

What say ladies and gentlemen? Is it doable ? [/b]
_________________
iMac 20 and 17
QS G4 933MHz 1.5GB RAM (The best of all QS and MDD's I have owned.)
LC520, PERFORMA6360, 8500(Sonnet G3 card)
midi/audio software hardware gear plus acoustic aand electronic instruments

[ktilford]

I'm not that familiar with the 6360, but it appears to have only a single PCI slot? If that is the case, you've got a sticky wicket for exactly which PCI card to install. If you're looking to "max. out" this old Mac, there are so many bottlenecks that choosing which to address is a real problem.

You'd need a CPU upgrade to start with, whatever the best you can find now. I think these are getting harder to find.

You'll need max RAM, which I believe would be two 128 MB 5V DIMMs for 256 MB total.

Choosing the PCI card that would offer the "most" would probably be a Sonnet Tempo Trio with USB/FW/ATA combined in one card. The problem is that you'd then be stuck with the onboard video for everything, and that's a huge bottleneck. If you instead use a Radeon video card to address the video issue, then you're stuck with onboard SCSI HDs, and no USB or FW. Either way, it's bad, and slow.

I'd suggest forgetting about this project unless you just like tinkering around with old stuff. I can't see this ever being very "useable" in today's computing environment. The 8500 you have is many magnitudes more upgradeable than this 6360, and could probably run 10.4.11 with enough horsepower to handle most common modern software, but this old 6360 is going to be hamstrung no matter which way you turn, and consequently any version of OS X you run on it will likely have some pretty severe limitations, limitations I would now find unbearable.

[ws]

Thanks for your reply and interest in my question.

As I reflect on your good advice I will stay as with the possibility of getting a USB port.

I agree it's silly to pour money into this P6360 considering the age and overall price of brand new iMacs.

My P6360 is maxed for RAM so I try to remove the USB card from my dead 8500 and install to the P6360.
_________________
iMac 20 and 17
QS G4 933MHz 1.5GB RAM (The best of all QS and MDD's I have owned.)
LC520, PERFORMA6360, 8500(Sonnet G3 card)
midi/audio software hardware gear plus acoustic aand electronic instruments