Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Get the Right Memory for Your Mac Top Quality, Competitive Price, Lifetime Backed Free Expert Support + Installation Videos too! MacBook & mini 8GB, iMac 16GB, Mac Pro up to 32GB. Click here

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Second Class Macs & Road Apples

Quadra 800/840av and Power Mac 8100 Case

two

Dan Knight - 1999.11.08

Second Class Macs are Apple's somewhat compromised hardware designs. For the most part, they're not really bad - simply designs that didn't meet their full potential. (On our rating scale, the more brown apples, the worse the hardware.)

Believe me, no tears were shed when Apple introduced the Power Mac 8600 and abandoned the minitower case first used with the Quadra 800. (The Power Mac 9500 used a taller version of this case.)

Not counting Workgroup Servers, four Macs used this case: the Quadra 800, 840av, 8100, and 8500. And all were equally difficult to work inside.

The case itself is quite attractive with four drive bays. The top one usually held a CD-ROM, the next a floppy, the third your hard drive, and the fourth was available. Unfortunately, the fourth didn't have a faceplate, so it could only be used for an internal drive.

On the other hand, it was easy to move the hard drive down one bay and put a tape drive in the third slot (as Apple did on some Workgroup Server configuration). You could undoubtedly do the same with a Syquest, optical, or other removable media drive.

No, the problem wasn't drive bays. They were actually not hard to work with once you had the case open.

Getting the case open was more work than usual, since most Macs could (and still can) be popped open without a screwdriver - or maybe be removing a single screw. Not so the Q800 case. There were four screws on the back that had to be loosed before the cover could slide off.

Once the screws were loose, the cover slid forward, and then you lifted it up. Not bad, really, although the reverse could be a bit difficult. Sometimes the cover didn't want to slide neatly back and align holes with the screws on the back of the case.

But that's minor compared with working on the motherboard. Except for replacing the CPU card in the 8500, changing anything on the motherboard required completely removing it. That included removing the reset button (on some model), removing a screw, disconnecting several cables (power, floppy drive, hard drive, CD-ROM sound out, and speaker), then sliding the motherboard assembly forward about an inch, then pulling it away from its mounts.

Yes, it was that much work. But after all that, you could finally upgrade your RAM or VRAM.

Of course, to test the new memory, you had to reassemble almost the entire computer. Aligning the ports with their openings was always tricky, as was reseating the cover after all else was done.

Compared with the slide-off case of the 7200/7500, the flip down case of the 8600/9600, the drawbridge case of the Power Mac G3/G4, and even such antiques as the Mac II and IIcx, the Quadra 800 case was a real bear. Some of the compact Mac designs may have been worse, but by 1993, Apple should have known better.

The computers themselves were outstanding, so only the case design itself merits a Road Apple.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: 17" iMac G4/800 MHz, July 2002 - The iMac 'grows up' with a 17" 1440 x 900 display.
Group of the Day: LisaList supports Lisa users.
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.03. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 8-core. $2,299; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.26 8-core, $2,799; 2.93, $4,999.
Best iPhone Deals, 11.03. New 8 GB iPhone 3G, $$99; refurb 16 GB 3GS, $149; new, $199; 32 GB, $299.
Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.03. Used 867 MHz SperDrive, $348; 1 GHz, $499; 1.33 Combo, $298; SD, $559; 1.5 Combo, $448; SuperDrive, $589.
Best Power Mac G3 and PCI Video Card Deals, 11.02. Used beige 300 MHz, $25; G4/366, $49; blue & white 350, $80; 400, $90; 450, $105; PCI video cards from $15; shipping additional.
Best Power Mac G4 and AGP Video Card Deals, 11.02. Used 400 MHz, $50; 733 MHz, $69; 933 MHz, $209; 1.25 GHz dual, $299.
Best 15" MacBook Pro Deals, 11.02. Used 2.0 GHz, $800; 2.2, $900; 2.4, $1,000; refurb 2.53, $1,449; 2.66, $1,699; 2.8, $1,949; 3.06, $2,169; new 2.53, $1,579; 2.66, $1,799; more.
Best Mac mini Deals, 10.30. Used 1.33 GHz G4 mini, $379; 1.42, $389; 1.5, $419; 1.83 GHz Core Duo, $350; Core 2, $439; new 2.26 GHz nVidia, $580; 2.53 GHz, $770; Server, $990.
Best G4 iBook Deals, 10.30. Used 12" 1.07 GHz Combo, $225; 1.33 GHz, $298; 14" 1 GHz, $349; 1.33 GHz, $398; 1.42 GHz SuperDrive, $498.
Best Classic Mac OS Deals, 10.30. System 6.0.8 floppies, $10; 7.1, $12; 7.5, $20; 7.5 CD, $4; 7.6 $13; 8.1, $11; 8.5, $20; 8.6, $90; 9.0, $20; 9.2.2, $30.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.