MacUpgrades.co.uk offers a wide range of fixed price upgrades and repairs for your Apple computers. You can drop in to our offices in Sawston, Cambridge or if you are not local you can either have us collect or send in your computer yourself. Sameday fitting is available for most items, contact us for details. We also offer on site installation services and training on your premises.
Macupgrades offers a wide range of on-site services for your Apple equipment. We offer all of our upgrade services, and most of our repair services too.
All our engineers have at least 15 years of experience with Apple hardware and software
Enter your serial number into the box below for specific upgrades for your machine. Each upgrade has been tested in the machine we list it for. Compatability is 100% guaranteed or your money back.
How to find your serial number in software
You can find your Mac's serial number in Apple System Profiler: Select the Apple Menu > About This Mac, then (depending on the version of OSX you are running) click the System Report button or the More Info button. This brings up System Profiler, and on the Hardware Overview that is displayed by default you should see your serial number, and be able to copy/paste it. The procedure does vary slightly between different versions of OSX.
If you can't boot your Mac
If your Mac is not working, the serial number is printed on the computer casing but the location varies. Here are the main locations of serial numbers on Apple computers.
Unibody MacBook Pro - Laser etched onto the base.
MacBook, Early MacBook Pro, PowerBook G4 - Inside the main battery bay. Remove battery to locate.
iBook (White) - Under the keyboard. To lift keyboard, pull back on the release tabs between the F-keys.
Intel iMac, iMac G5 - Underside of the foot/stand.
iMac G4, iMac G3 - Underside of the iMac.
Mac mini - On the underside of the Mac mini.
Mac Pro 2006-2012 - On rear of machine near graphics card ports.
PowerMac G5 - On lower chassis under side panel. To remove side panel, lift lever on rear of Mac.
PowerMac G3, PowerMac G4 - Label on the back of the Mac.
Your Mac's Model Identifier can be found in System Profiler. You can use the drop-down menus above to be taken to a page that displays upgrades specifically for your exact model.
COVID Update (Jan 2021): Online orders and mail-in repairs/upgrades are happening as normal. Collection and drop-off are operating by appointment - please call us on 01223 833 412 to book a slot.
PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics Upgrades
This page covers all the upgrades we sell for the PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics. Choose the type of upgrade you are looking for from the tabs below.(Not the right Mac? See here for
more PowerMac G4s, or here for
all Macs.)
If you want specific upgrades for your exact model, choose it from the Model ID links below, or enter your serial number here:
The PowerMac G4 "PCI Graphics" was announced in September 1999, along with
the PowerMac G4 "AGP Graphics" - although these PCI Graphics machines started shipping earlier, and would generally be considered the first PowerMac G4s.
These PowerMacs are based on the same Yosemite motherboard as the PowerMac G3 "Blue
& White" - the G4 PCI added a Motorola MPC 7400 processor to an already
successful machine.
Apple billed the 7400 as a "Super Computer on a chip",
due to the fact that it was capable of executing more than a billion instructions
per second (a gigaflop). Much of the 7400's speed increase was due to a new set
of instructions, which were executed by a new unit on the chip. Motorola refers
to this new unit as the "AltiVec" unit, while Apple publicly refers to it as the
"Velocity Engine." The Velocity Engine vastly increased the speed of many
common processor-intensive tasks.
The PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics is an upgradeable machine, however it does suffer somewhat from its older motherboard architecture when compared to the AGP Graphics PowerMac G4.
Apple's own specifications for the PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics can be found here.
How to Identify these Machines
The G4 PCI Graphite can be easily distinguished from other G4 PowerMacs.
The rear
of the G4 has two audio sockets which are aligned horizontally from the
bottom of the port panel. The only other Graphite PowerMac with horizontally aligned audio sockets is the PowerMac G4 Digital Audio (the DIgital Audio however has only three RAM slots, see below).
You can also check the components inside the case:
Turn the machine off and open the side of the case. Internally all G4 PCIs have four memory sockets (black in line sockets - see picture) towards the top of the case.
The PowerMac G4 AGP Graphics, and PowerMac G4 Gigabit Ethernet also have four RAM slots, but the audio ports on the back of these machines are aligned vertically. Graphite coloured PowerMac G4s later than the Gigabit Ethernet range have only three RAM slots.
You will notice four differing expansion sockets. All of these sockets should be cream in colour, but one of them will be segmented into two - this is a faster slot and will probably contain your graphics card. The other 3 sockets are for PCI Expansion cards.
If you have a brown socket instead of a segmented cream one, you may have an AGP Graphics PowerMac G4 instead.
Apple's own specifications for the PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics can be found here.
If you are still unsure you can contact us on 01223 833 412 or by email for confirmation. If you want to upgrade but aren't happy to install your upgrades then we can help. Simply ask our engineers for further details.
Memory Upgrades
The PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics have 4 RAM slots, each of which can take up to a 256MB module, for a maximum of 1GB.
There are none available.
Difficulty 1 / 5 - Very Easy
Open the side of the case, with the machine turned off, and place
the RAM into a socket. The RAM is designed so that it cannot go in the wrong way around.
An internal CD/DVD drive would replace your existing optical drive. There are also external FireWire and USB options (FireWire highly recommended for this machine).
Any replacement internal 5.25" IDE CD unit will install into this PowerMac, and should work to read data. However, unless there is an Apple ROM on-board the CD unit, the computer cannot be booted from the CD, and the unit will not integrate with Finder burning and Apple software like iDVD. Burning can still be accomplished by third party software such as Roxio's Toast.
Look for the footnotes on any internal drive listed below, to see if there are any issues as described above.
There are none available.
Difficulty 2 / 5 - Easy (internal)
Turn off the machine and open the side door.
Remove the front panel of the CD drive, which is secured by two clips.
Remove two small Phillips screws and gently move the CD caddie forward.
Disconnect all cables and replace with the new unit. Then install your software.
If you are unsure please call or email our team for details.
Internal Hard Drive & SSD Upgrades
The PowerMac G4 PCI can can take internal IDE hard drives of sizes up to 120GB. Up to two extra drives can be added alongside your existing hard drive - a straight replacement is obviously possible as well.
If you want to use a larger hard drive you will need to use a SATA drive and install a SATA controller into a PCI socket. See the expansion cards section at the end of this page for details on available cards.
If you don't want to fit a new hard drive yourself, you can take advantage of the MacUpgrades Installation Service. Add the installation service from the list below to your cart along with your chosen hard drive. We can also clone your existing hard drive onto the new one, simply add the Clone Original Hard Drive service below to your cart.
Once you have booked the service, send your machine to us, we will carry out the work and return it to you. Alternatively, we do offer a Collection Service with our courier, please see here for details.
Installation Services
Any fitting information below is intended as a guide before purchase ONLY, when fitting these products you should refer to the original manual for your computer, and any instructions that come with the item. Please see this page for more information, or here for information on our fitting service.
Difficulty 2 / 5 - Easy
Turn off the machine and open side door.
If drive is a replacement then simply remove all cables and screws from the existing drive, and replace the unit.
If installing as a second drive then change the jumper setting to slave, and add the drive above the existing hard drive.
Connect power and data cables, and initialise the disk.
Your PowerMac G4 AGP Graphics has one available 66MHz PCI socket for upgrading your video capabilities. You also have three 33MHz PCI slots, which can take a second graphics card - however the 66MHz PCI socket is superior and should be used for the primary graphics card.
High-end graphics cards are useful for 3D applications and games - also a lot of the effects within OSX use the graphics card, so upgrading the card will make your OSX desktop smoother and nicer to look at.
There are none available.
Difficulty 1 / 5 - Very Easy
Install any supplied software and turn off the machine.
Open side door and locate the (cream coloured, segmented into two) 66MHz PCI socket. Remove holding screw and remove the original card.
Your PowerMac G4 has to three PCI sockets for connectivity expansion. Since the machine was released FireWire 800, USB 2.0, faster internal IDE controllers, faster wireless and wired connectivity, and much more, has become available.
With the use of PCI expansion cards, you can update your machine to use current spec connectivity types. Please note that some cards have an operating system version requirement - see the notes in the table below for any that apply to this machine.
Any fitting information below is intended as a guide before purchase ONLY, when fitting these products you should refer to the original manual for your computer, and any instructions that come with the item. Please see this page for more information, or here for information on our fitting service.
Difficulty 1 / 5 - Very Easy
Install any supplied software and turn off the machine.
Open the side door and locate one of the three free cream coloured 33MHz PCI sockets. There will be three identical slots and one different slot (which probably contains your graphics card). You want to install your card into one of the three identical slots.
Remove the holding screw and remove the blanking plate. Fit the new card and secure with the screw.
Any fitting information below is intended as a guide before purchase ONLY, when fitting these products you should refer to the original manual for your computer, and any instructions that come with the item. Please see this page for more information, or here for information on our fitting service.
Cables & Tools
Listed below are power cables, tools and related products
we supply for this Mac.
This Mac can use any of the following external hard drives.
3.5" USB Enclosures
2.5" USB Enclosures
Complete Machines - Refurbished
Any complete machines of this type or similar that we have for sale are listed here. Please note that these are refurbished models with a 3 month warranty, and that delivery is likely to take 3 - 5 working days. These can be purchased online with the standard website courier delivery charge for the mainland UK only. Please contact us for a quote on shipping to other areas.
Repair Services for this Mac
Here are the various repair services we offer for this Mac. You can have us take the machine in for evaluation, or book a fixed-price repair if you already know what the fault is and the service is listed below (for services without parts, please see the relevant tab on this page for compatible parts that we sell). If you know what the fault is, but we don't have a fixed-price repair listed below, please contact
us for a quote.