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Performa 6116 liberated.. and today I went back for the 6400
- Thread starter aphetica
- Start date
Do you think I'll see a considerable loss/gain in speed if I switch to 9?You can get Open Transport from http://www.info.apple.com/support/oldersoftwarelist.html which should do the trick (or put a more modern OS on there, 7 is not good for PPCs anyway as it's mainly 68k code - Mac OS 9.1 is the newest the machine can take and will have everything you need straight out of the box)
Opinion seems quite divided on it, some people say use older OSes whereas others (such as me) always run the absolute latest-and-greatest OS that a machine can take. 9.1 will be slower than 7.5 as the extra features outweigh the more PowerPC-native nature of 9, but I feel the trade-off is worth it as it is so much more modern and 7 is not really a PPC OS. If you wanted to meet more in the middle between speed and modern-ness, 8.1 or 8.6 might be worth a look as they are lighter than 9 but have more PPC-native code and are still somewhat more modern than 7.x. This machine will never be a speed demon though (unless maybe if you install some serious upgrades like a G3 card), I have a 6100 with OS 9.1 and the OS itself is reasonably responsive but it takes literally minutes to boot and apps are slow on it - since getting my G3 I don't use it any more, it's too much of an unpleasant experience and there's no reason to use that rather than the G3, which I've been enjoying even more since getting a G4 upgrade for it. I haven't used anything other than 9.1 on it so I don't know how much slower 9 is than the older ones though. If you have a spare hard drive you could always try 9.1 on that and see what you think of it though
So today I went back for the 6400...
It cost me $25, but I really couldn't just leave it there to fend for itself.
Knowing the kind of abuses that the 6116 suffered, I knew it had to be saved... and plus when I asked the woman how much ram it had, she told me 512.
Knowing a 6400 tops out at 136mb, I did a search for "Performa 6400" and "512", and I got a bunch of returns about upgrade cards, so I thought maybe that was what she was talking about.
So anyway, I brought it home along with yet another monitor, printer, and scanner, which I don't need. All of them were disgusting and looked like they had never been cleaned.
I pulled the mobo and discovered a 56kmodem, a whopping 8mb of ram, a 1.4gb hdd, and a stock processor. Crap.
Nevertheless, I cleaned the case and gave it a fresh install of 8.6.
Anyone have any ideas about what I should do with this thing? I already have a 6400 with better specs than this one.
It cost me $25, but I really couldn't just leave it there to fend for itself.
Knowing the kind of abuses that the 6116 suffered, I knew it had to be saved... and plus when I asked the woman how much ram it had, she told me 512.
Knowing a 6400 tops out at 136mb, I did a search for "Performa 6400" and "512", and I got a bunch of returns about upgrade cards, so I thought maybe that was what she was talking about.
So anyway, I brought it home along with yet another monitor, printer, and scanner, which I don't need. All of them were disgusting and looked like they had never been cleaned.
I pulled the mobo and discovered a 56kmodem, a whopping 8mb of ram, a 1.4gb hdd, and a stock processor. Crap.
Nevertheless, I cleaned the case and gave it a fresh install of 8.6.
Anyone have any ideas about what I should do with this thing? I already have a 6400 with better specs than this one.
Usually that would make sense, but the only thing I could use from this machine is the motherboard. (if anything should ever actually happen to my good one)
I guess I could always put the 8mb stick in one of the 63dozen ram slots in my 7600. I never understood why those had such a high ram capacity... :?:
If the modem is really 56k and you have no desire to keep it, you might try selling it on eBay; internal 56k modems for pre-B&W G3 Macs are relatively rare. Somebody out there may be in need of a CS II 56k modem for their old box... I may have one of these at most in a beige G3, the rest are 28.8 or 33.6, though of course I don't use dialup anymore (except when I use my 540c as a fax machine).
As for the rest of it, I can't think of anything I'd do with it. I'd probably keep it for parts - you never know when you may need a spare drive, or power supply (if you can get it out of there, haha). The motherboard is also interchangeable with a number of models if fitted with a different rear plate and PCI riser (6360 and 5400-series), plus more if the power system is modified (6200/5200, maybe the 630).
As for the rest of it, I can't think of anything I'd do with it. I'd probably keep it for parts - you never know when you may need a spare drive, or power supply (if you can get it out of there, haha). The motherboard is also interchangeable with a number of models if fitted with a different rear plate and PCI riser (6360 and 5400-series), plus more if the power system is modified (6200/5200, maybe the 630).
The 64/6500s were the only ones with dual PCI risers - the 6360 and the 54/5500-series had single PCI risers.
