If you’ve ever thought about digging in and upgrading your PowerMac G4 (Yikes! model), here’s a tip:

Think again.

After several successful projects involving simple upgrades like RAM and a PCI USB 2.0 card, a recent attempt at installing an Apple-made DVD-ROM drive was a complete disaster. Sadly, it’s because of the design of the PowerMac itself; when you open it up, it looks customizable, but actually trying to take the thing apart is a nightmare.

And it’s all the screws’ fault.

Here’s how it went down. I purchased a bargain DVD-ROM drive, circa 1999, off eBay (above). It’s in great condition, and it’s an Apple-branded model, which means it’ll work in anything Mac with an ATAPI connector. Looking at the interior of the PowerMac, you’d think upgrading would be a simple case of sliding out the CD-ROM drive, inserting the DVD-ROM drive, and plugging in a few wires.

Early on, though, I found several obstacles – including ill-placed screws holding the CD-ROM drive (one placed behind the drive, facing the other side of the PowerMac, which is impossible to get to) and power supply in place. The power supply’s screw was put in such a spot that one would need an L-shaped screwdriver of some sort, while the CD-ROM’s hidden screw requires the abilities of Plastic Man.

A lot of this I discovered after having already taken the beast apart. Using a screwdriver, I popped the side panel off the PowerMac, revealing nothing but a smooth wall of metal between me and redemption:

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

So reaching any screw or drive or bracket was impossible from this angle, too. The PowerMac anticipated my moves, and beat me at every turn.

After seeing a YouTube video where a fellow upgrader met similar challenges (warning: the kid can be annoying), I should have been better prepared. But that’s not the American spirit, is it? We expect to fix things by the sweat of our brow and the practicality of our tools. But little can we do against an enemy who meets our efforts with grim futility. The sad part is Apple makes it look so easy.

In the end, I gave up. The super computer had defeated me. All that was left was to try something drastic: hooking up the DVD-ROM drive without actually installing the thing.

On that front, I was successful. Piecing the PowerMac back together, I used the power cord and ATAPI hookup and placed the DVD-ROM outside the PowerMac (above). And it worked. I was able to power up, load a DVD in the drive, and view its contents:

Who needed an actually installation? The DVD-ROM worked fine as long as nothing knocked it off its perch. In true FrankenMac fashion, I made the best of what I had.

The entire project was a means to load OS X 10.4 Tiger on the second, larger hard drive inside the PowerMac. And how did that turn out?

Just like the rest of the project: a damned failure.

I imagine it’s because I attempted the this-OS-goes-with-another-piece-of-hardware trick – namely, trying to install my iBook’s Tiger disc onto the G4. This, too, was a fruitless effort.

Now that I have my commercial copy of OS X Tiger, I can attempt a second install.

After the Prozac kicks in, that is.

Two days and about $15 later, my “Yikes!” PowerMac G4 now features full USB 2.0 capabilities thanks to the PCI card I installed on Thursday.

I shopped on eBay for a few weeks, waiting for the perfect USB PCI card to hit the auctions. One, a PCI card featuring four USB slots, a gigabit Ethernet port, and an extra Firewire 400 port, would have been my choice, but I lost the auction. The one I did buy, a generic Adaptec model, suited my needs find, however. So $9.99 on a “Buy It Now” and $5 for shipping, and my card was on its way.

The model I bought came with a driver CD for most Windows versions and “Mac OS 9.0.4 and above” including Beige G3s. Funny thing, though: the USB card was made when OS X didn’t yet support USB 2.0 speeds:

How about that? An OS 9 driver for a OS X 10.3 Panther machine? Would it still work?

First, though, I had to install the card. It’s an easy enough project on any PowerMac model since the Blue and White G3: simply pull the side lever, open the case up, and locate the PCI slots:

The screws that hold the cover in place are on the “top,” looking down. Unscrew the screw, take off the cover, and pop the PCI slot into place:

Whala – nice and snug.

Snap the cover back in place, plug the monitor, keyboard, Ethernet, and power cord back in place, and fire it up. After I signed in, I reset the PowerMac just to make sure it recognized the new hardware. After it started up again, I signed in and inserted the driver CD.

Notice anything funny about that icon? It’s a low-res, OS 9 icon. Double-clicking on it fired up Classic mode, and the driver installation process had that Platinum look of yesteryear.

The installer dropped the driver into the correct hard drive, and gave me a confirmation notice. From all appearances, everything was finished. I reset the PowerMac one more time, logged on, and tested the USB slots. Sure enough, they worked just fine (even though, to me, I had to insert my flash drive upside down).

Part of me wonders whether the whole driver installation was necessary. Would Panther have recognized the PCI card without the driver? Based on a previous experience trying to install a printer driver on 10.2 Jaguar through Classic – a useless process – the need for a Classic environment was probably a waste. Whatever. The darned thing works.

The PowerMac recognized the higher-speed USB card, as seen here in System Profiler.

Next up, I would like to install a DVD drive in place (or perhaps below) the current CD-ROM drive. Since there are two hard drives on the PowerMac (one the stock 10 GB, and the other an 80 GB add-on), I want to try installing Tiger on the 80 GB drive – perhaps even mirroring my iBook G4 somehow. Playing around with Panther has been fun, and I would hate to lose it completely, so it can remain on the smaller drive. By installing Tiger on the bigger hard drive, I could make the PowerMac a real workhorse machine, complete with my entire iTunes and iPhoto libraries, and the ability to sync my iPod and iPhone.

Also, a processor upgrade would be fun, too – but that seems a bit beyond my reach right now.

The higher-speed USB 2.0 slots bring the PowerMac closer and closer to an everyday machine. Stay tuned for more projects and upgrades on this “Yikes!” model.

Look what I found at my recycling group’s most recent e-waste drive: a beautiful-condition PowerMac G4 and Apple Studio Display.

The guy who dropped it off said it “worked perfectly.” His family was simply upgrading to a newer Mac. All the volunteers at the e-waste drive immediately brought it to me and asked me if I wanted it. The answer to that one is obvious.

An older guy dropped off a Macintosh IIci and an Apple Extended Keyboard II, as well, but those are going to my friend Curtis, who helps me out with classic Macs.

Now, what to do with the G4?

After turning the machine on, I found out it’s the “Yikes!” model – which came out just after the blue and white G3 PowerMac. Low End Mac labels this first-gen G4 a “Road Apple,” arguing that the only significant upgrade from the G3 is the G4 processor. But still. This thing qualified as a supercomputer when it was released in 1999.

This G4 runs with 320 MB of RAM at 400 Mhz, purring with OS X 10.3 Panther (I updated it to 10.3.9 through Software Update).

Opening the G4 up, I found four RAM slots, four PCI slots, two hard drives (one the original 10 GB, the other a 80 GB drive), and a simple CD-ROM drive. I’ve always admired the flip-down, open design of the post-G3 PowerMacs, and this was my first chance to really play around.

The 17″ Studio Display matched the G4′s design, with a nice flat-screen front and VGA connector. It would have been better if the family had recycled an LCD, with its lower thirst for power, but who can complain about free?

It seems the first hard drive ran the family’s main applications and general files, while the 80 GB drive held a lot of graphic design projects and a slew of graphic programs for OS X and Classic environments: the Adobe CS2 suite, the pre-CS Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign, as well as Macromedia’s Dreamweaver 4. This machine was a hard worker.

This G4 needs a purpose. My iMac G3 isn’t exactly a modern desktop computer, and my iBook G4 is just now showing signs of its age. My first thought was to upgrade the RAM to the 1 GB ceiling, pop in a USB 2.0 PCI card to upgrade the connectivity, and possibly upgrade the G4 processor to a 1.6 or 1.8 Ghz speed. It would, essentially, become a capable desktop system. Panther might be an issue (especially after I found the new Firefox was a no-go), and this G4 probably can’t handle Leopard, but by no means is it outdated for the average user. A new hard drive can’t be bigger than 128 GB, and a new video card might be a good idea for any modern graphic work, but I can see this particular PowerMac serving as a great web design machine or as a simple web browser. My iBook can still be the graphic design heavy lifter, and I still haven’t decided how I’ll handle my vast, 28 GB iTunes music collection, but as I go along I’ll figure everything out.

For now, it’ll be a work-in-progress, and I’m pretty excited to have a PowerMac to play around with. It’s not the most capable version, but again – I couldn’t beat the price.

My first run-in with the G4 was with the “Quicksilver” version in my newspaper office in college. We had four of them, and it was such a cool experience to walk into the dark office with all four G4s in sleep mode, glowing in the room. They were great machines, serving us well with QuarkXpress.

Thanks to good luck, I get to play with my own. Any suggestions?

[Updates: Check out what I've done with this PowerMac so far: upgrade the RAM, install a USB 2.0 PCI card, fail to install a DVD-ROM, then succeed.]