Folks,
I'm going to be doing some upgrades on a mate's LC 575 at some point. Bit more RAM if it needs it, If I have spares i want to part with, and larger capacity hard drive and a faster CD-ROM drive.
But before I plunge in, I thought I'd research…
Well, I thought I'd try and research…
Damn the Apple knowledgebase is frustrating.
I can't find specs on the LC 575 power supply anywhere, I don't want to upgrade the thing only to have the smoke escape.
And then trying to find the SCSI transfer speed for this model, there is a tech note that lists some models, but it's not all that clear.
This job isn't going to happen for a while, so I'm not that fussed about finding the info right now, but it would be good to know. The information from Apple, and even the Developer Notes is patchy at best.
But it got me thinking about my Performa 580, it's sweet at the moment, but I wouldn't mind making it sweeter, more RAM (it's got the Apple maximum 52 MB), but I've heard some models of this vintage can take 64 and 128 meg sticks. I also swapped out the original 4x CD-ROM for an 8x, which made a hell of a difference when installing software and running some games. But at the time I thought for some reason the max. transfer rate was 1.5 MB/sec, and so I thought well, an 8x is as close as I'm going to get.
Now on closer inspection of the tech note, I found I had been looking at the wrong model (the 550), and that the SCSI chip for the 475 may have been closer to the mark, with a DTR of 5 MB/sec, so the machine could take a 24x drive in theory, but, not knowing how hard I could push the power supply, no way would I be willing to try it, unless I could find a faster drive that could match the power requirements of the current one.
When I brought the machine back from the dead, and upgraded it from it's stock config. I made sure to try and swap like for like with regard to power requirements, playing it safe as I didn't have the information handy that I do now.
I can live without a high speed CD-ROM, but the RAM upgrade would be cool if the model can take it.
Current specs are as follows…
Performa 580CD
68LC040 @ 33 MHZ
52 MB RAM (Maximum, but it it?)
1.6 GB Hard Drive (Partitioned, running OS 8.1)
8x CD-ROM Drive (Upgraded from 4x)
28.8 CommSlot MODEM
10BaseT PDS Ethernet
AV Input Card
All I need is a suitable external video connector kit and I'd have every slot filled, it'd be a useless upgrade though. Given the age of the machine, it'd be getting a little frail, I think. But it'd be nice to kick the RAM up a bit, even if it's just for bragging rights, be nice to have 84 or 148 megs of RAM.
It handles 8.1 fine, not quite as snappy as 7.5.5, but quite acceptable. One gripe I do have, is I run a RAM disk into which I load 'wakeup pictures' on startup, right now I use applescripts to load and trash the pix on startup and shutdown, it works, but is slow and clunky, and I don't entirely trust it. Can someone tell me, could i get the 'Persistent RAM Disk' feature of later OSes by swapping out the Memory control panel, or am I stuck with the current way of doing things?
Bugger, I didn't think it was so late, no wonder I can't keep my eyes open.
TIA,
Nick
I'm going to be doing some upgrades on a mate's LC 575 at some point. Bit more RAM if it needs it, If I have spares i want to part with, and larger capacity hard drive and a faster CD-ROM drive.
But before I plunge in, I thought I'd research…
Well, I thought I'd try and research…
Damn the Apple knowledgebase is frustrating.
I can't find specs on the LC 575 power supply anywhere, I don't want to upgrade the thing only to have the smoke escape.
And then trying to find the SCSI transfer speed for this model, there is a tech note that lists some models, but it's not all that clear.
This job isn't going to happen for a while, so I'm not that fussed about finding the info right now, but it would be good to know. The information from Apple, and even the Developer Notes is patchy at best.
But it got me thinking about my Performa 580, it's sweet at the moment, but I wouldn't mind making it sweeter, more RAM (it's got the Apple maximum 52 MB), but I've heard some models of this vintage can take 64 and 128 meg sticks. I also swapped out the original 4x CD-ROM for an 8x, which made a hell of a difference when installing software and running some games. But at the time I thought for some reason the max. transfer rate was 1.5 MB/sec, and so I thought well, an 8x is as close as I'm going to get.
Now on closer inspection of the tech note, I found I had been looking at the wrong model (the 550), and that the SCSI chip for the 475 may have been closer to the mark, with a DTR of 5 MB/sec, so the machine could take a 24x drive in theory, but, not knowing how hard I could push the power supply, no way would I be willing to try it, unless I could find a faster drive that could match the power requirements of the current one.
When I brought the machine back from the dead, and upgraded it from it's stock config. I made sure to try and swap like for like with regard to power requirements, playing it safe as I didn't have the information handy that I do now.
I can live without a high speed CD-ROM, but the RAM upgrade would be cool if the model can take it.
Current specs are as follows…
Performa 580CD
68LC040 @ 33 MHZ
52 MB RAM (Maximum, but it it?)
1.6 GB Hard Drive (Partitioned, running OS 8.1)
8x CD-ROM Drive (Upgraded from 4x)
28.8 CommSlot MODEM
10BaseT PDS Ethernet
AV Input Card
All I need is a suitable external video connector kit and I'd have every slot filled, it'd be a useless upgrade though. Given the age of the machine, it'd be getting a little frail, I think. But it'd be nice to kick the RAM up a bit, even if it's just for bragging rights, be nice to have 84 or 148 megs of RAM.
It handles 8.1 fine, not quite as snappy as 7.5.5, but quite acceptable. One gripe I do have, is I run a RAM disk into which I load 'wakeup pictures' on startup, right now I use applescripts to load and trash the pix on startup and shutdown, it works, but is slow and clunky, and I don't entirely trust it. Can someone tell me, could i get the 'Persistent RAM Disk' feature of later OSes by swapping out the Memory control panel, or am I stuck with the current way of doing things?
Bugger, I didn't think it was so late, no wonder I can't keep my eyes open.
TIA,
Nick
