Upgrade WallStreet Part 2, Page 3 Pros and Cons. There is little doubt that anything is better than the original G3 233 through 300MHz processor cards that came in the WallStreet II series. The addition of a full 1 MB of L2 backside cache is a major advantage over the original 256 or 512 MB cache for relieving the processor of a lot of overhead work. Whether you choose the G3 or the G4 will really be a matter of how much you want to spend if you're living in more of an OS 9.x world, or if you're really committed to OS X applications with the occasional use of Classic mode. Hold it, there is one more thing to consider, the Pros and Cons of each manufacturer's kit. ìOne side benefit of these newer generation processor chips is that they definitely run cooler than the original . . . î Yes, there are some pros and cons with both processor upgrades, some of which I've already pointed out. Here's a statement from the PowerLogix web site. "Note: The BlueChip G4 (WallStreet model) will not sleep properly when booted from OS 9.x. It will crash when it attempts to sleep. The Mac will sleep properly when booted from OS X and when running in Classic mode while booted from OS X. There is a fix that will allow the PowerBook Lombard (BlueChip LS) to wake up from sleep. Click here to download the patch. We recommend that users of the WallStreet Model disable sleep and processor cycling in the energy saver control panel when booted off of OS 8.x or 9.x." PowerLogix may or may not be able to find a similar solution for the WallStreet because of the inherent design of the WallStreet, which different than the Lombard. We also experienced an issue that some others have reported to PowerLogix, and that is when OS X and OS 9 are on separate partitions you may not be able to switch from OS 9 back to OS X using "Startup Disk" from the Control Panel.				The simple solution is to just put both operating systems on the same partition. We didn't see this issue with the Sonnet Crescendo/WS and PowerLogix hasn't seen it with the Lombard or Pismo upgrades either. One side benefit of these newer generation processor chips is that they definitely run cooler than the original Apple OEM processors. The WallStreets were regular "lap toasters" and I used to joke that you could fry an egg on the underside surface of an original WallStreet. Both kits appear to consume somewhat less power off the battery as well, lengthening battery-running time some 9 minutes on the Crescendo/WS G3 and 16 minutes longer on the PowerLogix BlueChip G4. These measurements are very subjective depending on how much hardware you have plugged into the WallStreet (USB/Firewire Cards and WiFi cards), how often you're accessing the hard drive and what AltiVec applications are running in the case of the G4 processor. Yep, that's right, when the AltiVec engine is "activated", the differentiating element to run the AltiVec engine causes more power consumption to occur as compared to a G3 chip. It might be a very tough decision for you to make. An admittedly very fast G3 500MHz upgrade that is in some conditions is just as fast as a G4, or the AltiVec Engine G4 that is built for OS X and all the Altivec enhanced applications. To me the choice is easy as I am very much committed to OS X and will be happy to one day leave OS 9.x Classic behind forever. But that's me. back
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