G4 Upgrade Praise and Warning

First let me say I was very impressed with the improvement the G4 card made on my Pismo.

Let me also say that when the G4 card was running 1GB RAM, my Pismo was a joy to work on under OSX. Though graphics intensive programs were sluggish compared to newer PowerBooks, it was acceptable considering the price. Based on the following details I am now limited to 512MB RAM which is still amazingly zippy when running OS9.

However, I made the mistake of ordering my G4 upgrade from Wegener Media. When the card arrived it looked old and used and had adhesive labels that were peeling off. That should have been my first clue. The second was that the first processor card I got would not recognize the J2 card slot, so I could only use 512MB RAM total. Despite the fact that the Pismo started up with the BAD slot error (not bad RAM mind you bud a bad slot), Wegener insisted that the card had checked out perfectly before they shipped it. So I sent it back for a replacement. A week passed before I contacted them and was informed they did not have a card to replace it with. So I told them they would have to credit my money back until they shipped the new card. Miraculously they shipped a replacement card the next day. When I got the new card, it looked a whole lot like the first card I got with the loose labels stripped off. It too had the bad J2 slot. When I contacted Wegener, they said I should send my Pismo in for repair as they thought they new what was wrong. I told them I couldn't part with it at the moment. Then after shutting down the laptop for a morning, I started it up and suddenly the J2 slot loaded the RAM and I had a full Gig of RAM for the first time and the Pismo worked great. No sooner than I sent my old G3 card back to get my deposit, I began to have crashes and had to reset the Power Manager in order to get my PowerBook to restart after sleep. Wegener said it was most likely a failing power supply. After checking with a reputable repair tech and parts dealer, I was assured that could not be the case and the most likely problem was a faulty processor card. It took over a month to get my deposit back after they received my G3 card and only after I sent them an e-mail asking for it. Finally the J2 slot failed completely and would no longer load the RAM, conveniently just after the warranty expired. In the meantime I got another Pismo loaner from a company, it was in almost new condition. Installing the card in it produced identical results. When I contacted Wegener, they cautioned me about doing so much testing on the card as the thermal heat compound would thin out and cause the card to overheat and void the warranty, but would not address the fact it did not work in another Pismo in pristine condition and maintained I should send in my PowerBook for repair. When I asked for details to send it in, now that I had a loaner allowing me to do it, they suddenly stopped communicating with me. It has been over two weeks and Wegener has not responded to my half-a-dozen e-mails. For $200, there is little I can do. I am left with a G4 card that works with the limitation of 512MB RAM -- not really sufficient to run OSX, but fine for OS 9.

If you do opt to extend the life of your Pismo and frankly to keep OS 9 functionality and have a back-up computer it is well worth it, I would definitely spend a little extra and get your upgrade from a REPUTABLE G4 upgrade card vendor like DayStar, PowerLogix or NewerTech. At this point I am not likely to invest any more money into my Pismo and will most likely buy a new MacBook since I do not have a G3 card to mitigate the cost of a more reliable G4 card. But do yourself a favor and get the upgrade rather than sell a former $2500-3000 PowerBook on eBay for pennies -- but whatever you do, steer clear of Wegener.