If you're running OS X Leopard on a CPU Upgraded Mac, let me know what your experience has been (satisfied with the decision to upgrade? Performance OK? Any issues seen with your hardware or software?, etc.) Please include the following info in your report

• Mac system details (model, etc.)
• CPU Upgrade details (brand/model/speed)
• Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices, etc.)
• Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc. (especially if you saw a compat. issue)
• How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?

You can cut and paste the above (w/answer) into a mail and let me know what your experience has been. (Thanks!)

Reader Replies: (latest first)

(Added May 16, 2008)
"* Mac system details: G4 Quicksilver 2001 (originally 733MHz) 1.25GB RAM, connected directly to AEBS 802.11n (Gigabit Ethernet), Apple DVI to ADC adapter

* CPU Upgrade details: NewerTech MaxPower 7448 Single G4/1.7GHz

* 3rd party hardware installed or attached:
ATI Radeon 9800 XT/Pro Hybrid 128MB; OWC 3-port FW800 PCI (2-port 800/1-port 400); DSE 3-port USB 2.0 PCI; Apple/Pioneer Superdrive DVR-109AB; D-Link Bluetooth Adapter DBT-120; Brother HL-1440 and Canon PIXMA MP760 as network printers; WD MyBook Studio 500GB as network disk (for Time Machine backups)

* Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc.:
TTP4; NAV11; iLife08; Office 2004, BuddyPop (see notes below)

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
Very -- all works (almost) flawlessly, no crashes/kernel panics, rock solid performance day in day out, even Time Machine works over network drive (almost unheard of!).
Only problems have been:
(a) Had to upgrade the original NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 32MB video card -- was crashing on attempting to restore from Time Machine backups, no problems since upgrade;

(b) 3rd party apps using internal modem to dial (e.g. BuddyPop) no longer work -- definitely a software issue, not due to CPU Upgrade;

(c) wake-from-sleep issues -- began with CPU upgrade under Panther and have persisted through Tiger and Leopard. Nothing I can't easily live with.
Thanks for all your work. Most of my upgrades have relied on your great information.
-Warwick"

Thanks (and thanks to all the readers that share their experiences, tips, issues, etc.)

(Added May 16, 2008)
"* Mac system details (model, etc.):
Well, I have put a DA (Digital Audio tower) motherboard inside an Apple Network Server 500 case, as I wanted an enclosure that was designed to support numerous drives. PC no-name cases didn't really interest me, and so this "retro rig" seemed perfect. The ANS500 was bootable and working when I bought it, but one of the memory controller chips had blown as half of the 8 memory slots would not recognise any RAM. I would (not?) have gutted this ANS500 if it were fully functional. (I'm not that cruel)

As you can see, the chassis of the ANS500 is very well built, and installing the 8 drive caddies was fairly straight forward. (Reminds me of this reader's article on a G4 to 20 Drive Server Cube Case Conversion several years ago.-Mike)

I wired in two PSUs. one for the mobo and boot drives, and the other to power the 8 drives. (I've since installed a MMD PSU as the original DA PSU died) Here is the unit having the drives tested.

I've got more pics at home but had to scavenge these from emails as I'm at work at the moment.

* CPU Upgrade details (brand/model/speed):
I've upgraded the CPU to a Dual 1.33GHz, 2MB cache (7445B), I can't remember the brand now but bought it at OWC. The 1.6 and 1.8GHZ chips were available when I bought this upgrade, but I wanted the 2MB L3 cache ;)

* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices, etc.):
- Geforce4 MX installed from a MDD.
- Pioneer DVR-110D DVD burner
- ATTO UL3S driving 3 10Krpm SCSI drives.
- I have two Acard 6885M ATA133 controllers driving the eight 250GB drives.
- Lucent WaveLAN Silver PCMCIA (this just appears as an "airport card" in ASP. I use this access the server via ARD only) (Original Apple Airport 802.11b cards were Wavelan Silvers (even the original Airport 802.11b base had a std Wavelan PCMCIA card inside-Mike)
- Also put a Sonnet USB2 controller in for the Elgato Turbo H264 encoder.

* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc. (esp. if you saw a compat. issue):
I've got 10.5.2 Server running and am using ZFS (v.111) on the 8 250GB drives as a raidz1 array.
I gave up waiting and listening to the excuses I was getting from the mob who make SoftRaid, about not getting raid5 software out for OS X.
Moot point now as they're essentially finished as a company if they don't adopt ZFS anyway.

Believe it or not, but I experienced no issues! I was so surprised that everything worked from the initial DVD install. Normally with 10.2 and 10.3, (especially with SCSI in the equation) would have to strip the server of hardware and build it up afterwards.

I had heard about the OS installer script rejecting upgraded hardware, but it doesn't seem to be the case with the Server Version. ZFS is still beta. Noel and Don at Apple are doing a great job to get zfs to where it is so far. Noel hasn't really focused on optimising the code yet but rather concentrating on zfs features and attending to kernel panics, which is fair enough. (http://zfs.macosforge.org/trac/wiki/ is anyone would like to suss out ZFS with USB sticks even!) ZFS on OS X has a bit to go yet, before being ready for SME. Performance is the last thing these guys will look at and attend to and for my interests I'm primarily interested in redundancy so I'm happy with ZFS for now.

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
Not quite applicable for Server as it's not my workstation machine.
Nonetheless, I'm loving it. I did wait until 10.5.2 was released though as that's the earliest version I'll ever migrate to. I would like to the next version of Time Machine to be more granular (ie. option to select folders only for backup) ZFS volumes don't appear in Server Admin yet, but I'm comfortable to use the command line to se tup shares.
Server Admin shows the sharepoint after adding it via the command line so any subsequent privs can be applied via the GUI fine.
I used Kerberos initially to have all machines connect to the server, but this got quite annoying after a while, due to having to renew tickets while watching TV in the lounge room. (I partner Katherine wasn't too keen having her TV shows interrupted!) I think I'll keep kerberos for work at the moment.
Server now has a RADIUS server built in. (I dabbled with an opensource version of RADIUS back in 10.3 server days) This now means that I can have my airport express rely on a username and password stored on the Server and not have to create a new wireless password for the wireless network. I used the RADIUS service up till I removed Kerberos, again, a nice enterpise feature, but not needed for my home. (yet)

Well, That's my experience using Leopard Server with upgraded hardware.
Cheers, Raoul C.
I.T. Manager
Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute"

(Added May 15, 2008)
" Hi guys, here's some info on my upgraded G4 running Leopard.

* Mac system details: Digital Audio G4/466MHz, 1.5GB RAM, 250GB & Three 80GB HDD's.

* CPU Upgrade details: Sonnet 1.4GHz CPU upgrade

* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices, etc.)
- nVidia Geforce 4 Titanium Ti4600 128MB Video Card
- Sonnet Tempo Trio ATA133, USB2, FW400 card (See Trio notes/tip below)
- MOTU PCI324 Audio card
- FW Cased Pioneer DVD Burner
- Sony Internal DVD Burner
- Noctua NF-R8 Super Quiet Fan in Power Supply (Did have a Noctua NF-S12 Super Quiet fan inside, but it wasn't able to move enough air volume, so had to re-install standard noisy Delta fan.)

* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc. (esp. if you saw a compat. issue):
Office 2008, iLife 08

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
Runs pretty smoothly - still occasional unexpected quits on apps, but much better than Tiger.
Did have some difficulty installing Leopard though, the installer would hang. Ended up installing Leopard on a firewire drive on my G5, then cloning drive to G4. Only issue was the Tempo Trio card wasn't recognised properly. Contacted Sonnet support, and they gave me following info, which fixed the problem:

(Sonnet's comments/Tips - I've never used Leopard Cache Cleaner, but it might also do this.-Mike)
"We've had zero reports that it doesn't work under Leopard. We have a Mac Trio card up here in Tech Support and I know it works as we're booting drives off it. Try this trick and see if it helps:

Delete and empty trash for the three (3) following files and directories:
/System/Library/Extensions.mkext (a file) (Kernel extension cache-Mike)
/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kernelcaches (a directory)
/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.romextensions (a directory)

The last directory might not exist so don't worry about it if it isn't there. Restart after you do this so OS X will rebuild some of the files.

OS X can sometimes get confused if you add in a peripheral card that duplicates or near duplicates function that exists on the motherboard already.

Cheers, Sean C."

(Added May 15, 2008)
" * Mac system details: Originally a G4 Digital Audio 733 MHz
* CPU Upgrade details: PL 1.6GHz (7447A) (bought in late 2005) Still runs smoothly. No downtime. It has been more solid than the original 733 MHz processor it replaced in fact.)

* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices, etc.):
3rd party USB card installed and a GeeThree Sweet Multiport. I have all sorts of USB and Firewire drives attached. I even us SD and CF cards in the Multiport.

* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc. (esp. if you saw a compat. issue):
Had to upgrade to Adobe Creative Suite CS3 before installing Leopard. (Photoshop CS (CS1) ran in Leopard OK here, although PS 7.x didn't-Mike), MS Office 2008 is slow to launch any of the apps, but that is virtually true on any Mac right now.

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?:
Very. This machine is more stable than my MDD G4 dual 1.2 G machine at work. MUCH more stable in fact. And zippy. Going on 6 years old. Wish it were an Intel based, but so far, that hasn't been a big issue.
In all, I'm very pleased with 10.5 on my home machine.
-John G."

(Added May 15, 2008)
" I work in a lab that was ready to discard an old G4 Sawtooth tower (450 MHz). I figured it would be fun to see if I could get it up to speed and run leopard. I threw in more memory (1.6 GB total) that I had from previously discarded machines, added a OWC 1.2GHz (7455) processor upgrade ($200) ($195 on specials page), another HD (40 GB), and upgraded the GPU by flashing a PNY Nvidia Geforce 6200 (a macelite rom). I have both quartz extreme and hardware accelerated core image. The machine runs excellently.
Leopard is quick and definitely faster than my 867 MHz 12" Powerbook G4 that I had been using. Considering I got the machine for free and added only $260 worth of parts, I am tremendously happy. Makes me want to grab a few more sawtooth G4s. Great site, thanks,
-Carlos"

(Added May 14, 2008)
" * Mac system details: Digital Audio 533 single processor (originally), 1.5 GB OWC RAM
* CPU Upgrade details: New Tech 7448 1.8GHz single processor
* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached: ATI Radeon 9600 (64 MB video RAM), Belkin USB 2.0 PCI card
* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc.: Leopard 10.5.2, Appleworks, Office 2004, iLife 08

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?:
Installation was easy and the OS has performed flawlessly and even seems a little quicker than 10.4.11 was.
-Walter M."

(added May 14, 2008)
" I have Leopard running on an upgraded Cube at the moment. It was originally a 400MHz G4, but I've pretty much replaced everything.
PowerLogix 1.8GHz G4 upgrade (7447A)
XFX Nvidia 6200 AGP that's been flashed (obviously)
1.5 GB RAM, 80GB Hard Drive (Seagate)
I upgraded the VRM module a while back, but I don't know if it's relevant for this. (Voltage regulator module - I asked if he bought a beefed up VRM board or just one that had a Heatsink on the vreg.-Mike).
I actually picked up the GigaDesigns C-VRM a while pack. OWC had them a couple years ago, but I don't think they do anymore though. I had originally intended to put a Radeon 9800 in the cube, but never got around to it. I should probably mention that some people have mentioned problems with the GigaDesigns VRM, but I've never had any issues with it. (As a FYI - Gigadesigns website is no longer on the web as of early April 2008 - I assume they're out of business now.-Mike)

I switched out the original DVD drive for a Combo drive about a year ago.

I'm not really pushing the machine, it's mainly just a web surfing, email machine. I have a few haxies from Unsanity running, but otherwise it's standard. I have to say, I'm very happy with Leopard. It's nice not having to worry about downloading drivers/patches for the OS every point update. I don't know if Leopard does any of that fancy dynamic frequency switching, but it so much less of a hassle. I haven't noticed any problems with this machine. No strange crashes or errors, the machine's actually running better now than it did with Tiger. I can't speak for everyone, but I think it's well worth the cost to upgrade. Tiger was nice, but after using Leopard for awhile, all the little things I had to do to keep it up and running under Tiger just seemed like too much hassle. (I did a fresh install, by the way.)
-Elliott"

I always liked the Cube (I have two, the one I did a dual G4/450 swap many years ago had a logic board failure a couple years back - other has a 1+GHz (7455) CPU Upgrade installed - both had OEM Geforce3 video cards). Unfortunately I rarely get to use them as most of my time is spent on other people's problems. (Reader FYI - the Systems page Cube section has links to articles/reviews from the past of Cube mods, upgrades, etc. from several years ago although there were many more posted in the older news pages over the years.)

(added May 14, 2008)
" I've run Leopard on my 2001 Quicksilver (originally 733 MHz) with no major problems to report since it was available.
System Specs:
CPU: Dual 1.8GHz Giga Designs (7447A)
RAM: 1.5 Gigs (max)
HARD DRIVE: 250GB Hitachi SATA (SIIG PCI SATA controller card)
VIDEO CARD: ATI 9800 (256MB vram)

My Quick Silver would not originally accept Leopard DVD, gave me a "will not work on this model" message. A little reading confirmed that the Leopard installer will only accept even buss multipliers, (i.e. the misreported CPU speeds from non-integer ratios mentioned before.) My Giga Designs CPU card uses an X13.5 setting. I changed the CPU jumpers to get a multiplier of X13 (13 X 133=1729 GHz) and Leopard installed with no problems on the first try. After Leopard was installed I changed my buss multiplier back to 13.5 to return to 1.8 GHz CPU operation. I did have to reinstall GIGA's meter software in order to get the correct CPU speed in the system profiler app. Leopard also broke my copy of Adobe Elements 2.0, the only way to fix that is to buy the newer version of Elements, 6.0 I think, as Adobe doesn't support 2.0 on Leopard, but thats not Leopards problem. The 10.5.2 upgrade took care of most the complaints that I had with 10.5.1 and my QuickSilver seems to be quicker than it was in Tiger 10.4.11 (XBench overall score 66, Geek Bench 1400).
-Thomas C."

(added May 14, 2008)
" Leopard experience on CPU upgraded Mac.
* Mac system: Quicksilver 2001, 1.5GB RAM, SATA 400GB WD HD (two volumes, one for TMachine, one for iTunes), IDE 120GB WD HD (OS X boot system).
* CPU Upgrade details (brand/model/speed): Fast Mac 1.4GHz Dual (clocked at 1.33GHz until I replace case fans, the heat-sink is way too hot to touch)

* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices, etc.):
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Zalman VF900Cu Cooler), CompUSA Generic PCI Usb 2.0 card, OWC PCI FW 800 card, OWC PCI SATA card. Two LaCie 500GB usb drives connected to AirportExtreme via USB over Gig-E. 250GB & 80GB HD's in OWC dual drive FW 800 enclosure. Brother HL-5040 monolaser attached to AirportExpress, which is ethernet tethered to AExtreme (to allow for Nintendo Wii to have 802.11g, and MacBook to have 802.11n 5GHz). Pioneer DVR-110D in Q-Fire FW case (removed old cd-r and reused fw400 case) daisy chained to OWC FW800 enclosure w/800 to 400 cable Lastly HP C3180 all-in-one over USB 2. I had a Griffin Powermate that kernel panicked the 10.5.0 install. I haven't hooked it up since to see if it is still affecting the computer. I found this out from console log, disconnected the device, and was O.K.

* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc. (esp. if you saw a compat. issue):
Menu Meters, ATI Displays, Perian, Divx Pro, Flip4Mac, ATICellerator II, are the only add-ons.

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
Very.
When I had the single 1.33GHz OWC card the computer would be brought to it's knees when multiple apps were active and TM tried to backup. This is no longer a problem. The Dual G4 CPUs handle everything with aplomb. I only see above 65% cpu utilization if I am converting video or the like. I may upgrade to a newer SATA drive for the system drive. This is a major bottleneck right now. I was looking at the WD Velociraptor 300GB 10k rpm 2.5" drive, but prices are too high. The 750GB Seagate enterprise class drives look far faster than the WD SE I am using now. This will also allow me to move iTunes back to the start up drive so TM will back it up. I will replace the WD SE 400 GB Sata with a 1TB Seagate enterprise class drive for TM.

Bottom Line: You really need a Dual Proc machine to enjoy Leopard. Our MacBook Core 2 w/4GB ram absolutely flies on Leopard. If I didn't have that machine I may have been happy with the single G4. I feel that the QS, as I have it, is actually the minimum for a useable machine in day to day use. It is still slow for transcoding and other heavy lifting, but normal use is livable.
As always, Thanks for all your work!
-Barrett W."

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" Leopard running wonderfully on the following upgraded PowerMac G4:
- Gigabit Ethernet PowerMac G4 (originally a dual 500MHz machine)
- 1.4GHz G4 OWC Mercury 7455 CPU upgrade (2MB L3)
- ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
- 80GB hard drive (Western Digital, I think - haven't looked inside in a while)
- 1.0GB RAM
- Adaptec USB 2.0 4-port USB card
- D-Link Bluetooth adapter (USB dongle)
- Pioneer DVR-107 optical drive

Installed right off the retail DVD (family pack); did a format and install, so no 10.4.x stuff left over.
-Cadaver"

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" Mac system details: Originally a G4/4OOMhz Sawtooth, 1GB Ram/160GB 7200RPM HD
Powerlogix with 2MB L3 (plug and play no drivers/patch required) purchased from OWC on sale.
(Flashed) ATI 9200 128MB Vram Video card from eBay
Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc.: None, see extra app's below.

How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
Works very well, one problem noted with a Safari update via update pane. The only additional app's are First Class, Office X, ATI drivers for video card and Firefox. Installed via Firewire from a PPC mini in target disk mode, no problems during installation, one problem with a Safari update through SysPref Update panel which would not complete so downloaded update directly from Apple web site otherwise no problems. (I prefer to use the download updaters, run after a clean reboot w/o anything else running.-Mike)

Total cost for machine was about $400 (Tower $40, CPU $170, ATI video $100, HD ~ $80, ram was OH so no direct cost). 10.5 is slightly slower, subjectively, than 10.4 but way more than adequate for normal surfing and word processing.
Regards, Wil"

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" I have a Digital Audio and a Quicksilver (2002) both running Fastmac upgrade CPU's at 1.467GHz. They ran Tiger flawlessly and Leopard runs great as well. It runs smoother on my Quicksilver because of the Radeon 9800 in it vs. the Digital Audio Radeon 9000.

Installing Leopard was a breeze, no issues whatsoever on either machine, no weird firmware updates needed (he's referring to the fact all 7455 upgrades require no system firmware patch before install, which all 7447A, 7448 and 7457s do.-Mike) - the machines both feel like stock Apple hardware.

As for the Leopard hype, it's worth the upgrade! Tiger feels like OS9 next to Leopard, every time I boot into Tiger for something I feel like I'm going back in time, way back into the Jurassic period:-)
Take it easy, Niko"

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" I ran Leopard on my Sawtooth with a 1.8GHz cpu and then with a dual 1.8GHz cpu. (7447A or 7448?) Both ran just fine. I also used Apples Raid0 to get past the drive size limit (of the sawtooth's onboard IDE interface) and all worked fine (two 120GB =240 GB).
I put another drive that I had in the zip drive bay and used it for Time machine.
Ati Radeon 9800Pro from OWC worked video fine.
No problems at all.
Almost sorry I replaced the Sawtooth with an 8-core 3.2GHz Mac Pro. Not really.
Regards, Fred"

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" I have a Quicksilver 2001 (originally 733 mhz) upgraded with a GigaDesigns 1.8GHz (7447A) CPU. RAM is maxed out. It is fairly FrankenMac-ish. SIIG PATA (IDE) PCI card, upgraded hard drive (Seagate, I think), flashed ATI Radeon 9000, Belkin USB 2.0 PCI card (a disaster - caused kernel panics until I read about the issues with Leopard on your site). I would NOT recommend upgrading to Leopard based on my experience with this machine.

I installed Leopard on it several times (archive, clean... you name it). The machine stalls for long periods of time. The mouse will move, but you can't switch between apps, pull down menus, or get Force Quit to come up to even see what is going on... nothing. It will eventually switch windows or start up the app you clicked on five minutes before, but then it will freeze again for several minutes. (might check the logs and console to see if there's any useful info on what's causing this (as well as the other addons))
Basically, it is unusable with Leopard, whereas it ran like a champ with Tiger. I have not tested individual hardware (e.g., removing each upgrade card to see what is causing the problem). I probably should, but I haven't had the time and don't really use the machine on a regular basis. My experience with this machine is to wait for 10.5.3 or 10.5.4, especially if the machine is "mission critical" for the user. Frankly, though, I would make this recommendation based upon my experience with Leopard on my Intel Mac (1st Gen. MacBook). While it hardly has the problems the Quicksilver does, Leopard is just quirky (as I have described it on other forums) - certainly not unusable, but clearly not as stable as Tiger. I certainly could manage without Leopard's features until the stability issues are cleared up.

(He later wrote in reply to my comments.-Mike)
Thanks for the tips. I don't recall there being a second drive in the machine, but I will honestly have to go take a look. The e-mail got me thinking I ought to actually figure out what the heck is wrong with it (or just install Tiger), rather than have a big doorstop sitting in my basement. :) The system was pretty basic though. I didn't even get to install third party apps like MS Office and Adobe Acrobat on it because of the all the hanging. I'll take a look over the weekend and report back if I get it squared away (or not!). :)
-AJT "

Knock on wood OS X 10.5.2 has been stable overall on an AL iMac and G5 tower here (although I have seen some of the earlier issues with Leopard that apple released updates for). But in general Leopard seems fast and stable on those machines. (Primary daily work system is the AL iMac running 10.5.2 w/all updates.)

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" I have a Gigabit dual 450MHz upgraded to a over-clocked PowerLogix G4 1.1GHz with 2 Gigs of Ram and two WD 80GB eide drives. At first the Leopard 10.5.0 and the 10.5.1 were not as smooth running as Tiger 10.4.11 but after the 10.5.2 update I haven't looked back it is very smooth and snappy.
Everything works, no sleep issues except for a USB warning of a over-current USB hub which is self powered by an external 2.0 amp power supply!! Otherwise I am very happy with the move to Leopard.
Regards, Robert B."

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" * Mac Model: Digital Audio G4/533Mhz DP/1.5GB RAM/120GB Seagate & 40GB Maxtor (OEM) HD's, SIIG FireWire/USB PCI Card, Pioneer DVR-109 (v1.58 RPC1 Firmware). ATI Radeon 8500 AGP Video Card, Quartz Extreme Supported, Core Image Software Supported

* CPU Upgrade: NewerTechnology 1.8GHz DP 7448 CPU

* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc.:
Nothing special installed except it's doing Folding@Home 24/7 for Stanford University, MacResource.com Folders Team #38910 So it NEVER gets a break, is always on crunching proteins, has been doing that since I bought it back in 2004 as a 2nd Mac... To backup my often broken original G5 1.8Ghz DP/8GB RAM/BT AE etc, that everything broke on over a 20-month period, so It's been a great backup Mac for me when things were looking rather grim with that G5, now replaced by Apple with a Dual-Core 2.3Ghz G5 PCI Express PowerMac, the last one ever made without liquid cooling (thank God for that!), which is my workhorse.

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
You know Mike, I guess 100%! I never think about it, after it installed so easily and quickly. I often use the G4 for encoding videos, RIPping DVD's with MTR & the DVR-109 when my G5 is tied up (sometimes for days with various projects) and busy, then using Toast 8.x after DVD2oneX to remove all the anomalies. Let's see, I've had Leopard installed for about 8 months on the G4 and it's never hiccupped once, just sails along doing its thing, and that 7448 CPU has been bullet proof to boot, after OWC Larry had me test the thing for some 90 days or so prior to their release last January through March 2007...anyway you remember the story about being under an NDA etc etc about the 7448 (during tests before official release of product).

But honestly, I've got nothing to say bad or good about Leopard per se, as it's just as stable as 10.4.11 is/was, with a LOT of enhancements that Tiger never could/did have. Since I haven't had any problems to report then I guess things are going 100% like I said above.

Who knows how long this machine will continue to work?!! It's an amazing chassis and PS setup, even though it's burdened by the lack of Big Drive support, heck I never need anything bigger than the 120GB Seagate HD to work with on it anyway for WP, encoding, and the other mundane tasks that it gets assigned.

So yeah, if the guy wants to "Go Modern" and get with Leopard with his almost duplicate machine to this one, by all means go ahead and upgrade the sucker! You know me, I'll try anything on anything Mike:-) And it worked out well for me here, no regrets, no misgivings, and lots of good things to report about Leopard on this legacy G4 PowerMac.
Later Gater, David C. "

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" Mike, FWIW, here's what I used to have...

* Mac system details: Power Mac G4 - Digital Audio, 533MHz, 1.5GB RAM
* CPU Upgrade details (brand/model/speed): FastMac G4 1.47GHz (7455)

* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices, etc.):
- FirmTek SeriTek/1V4 4-port SATA PCI card
- Belkin F5U220 5-port USB 2.0 PCI card
- SIIG FireWire 800+Hi-Speed USB combo PCI card
- ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256 MB PC APG card flashed with Mac ROM

Drives:
- Western Digital 320GB SATA -> Seagate 500GB SATA, Seagate 500GB SATA
- Firewire 400/USB 2.0 Cased Seagate 500GB PATA
- Pioneer DVR-112D cross-flashed to a 112L via FireWire 400/USB 2.0 enclosure

* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc. (esp. if you saw a compat. issue):
No real issues that I remember

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
Loved having Leopard, but I wanted more power! So, I was able to get a FireWire 800 MDD G4 (dual 1.25 GHz) in Nov. '07, but I'm now using a Dual core 2.0 GHz G5 (Late 2005), 9.5GB RAM, and NVIDIA 7800 GTX 512 MB.
-Fabian"

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" * Mac system details (model, etc.): QuickSilver G4 with 1.5GB RAM running OS 10.5.2
* CPU Upgrade details: Sonnet Dual 1.8GHz (7447A) G4 (XBench 1.1.3 total score 181.21; CPU test 221.89)
* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices):
ATTO Express UL4D connected to three 136 GB Seagate 15,000 rpm hard drives (XBench 1.1.3 Sequential test 173.47 and Random test 184.92)
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Graphics (XBench 1.1.3 Quartz Graphics test 213.79; OpenGL Graphics Test 151.25; UI test 236.21)
MOTU 828 FireWire Audio Interface and MTP AV Midi USB Timepiece

* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc.:
Use this computer primarily for creating and recording music using Kurzweil K2500X electronic keyboard, numerous third party sound samples and MOTU Digital Performer 5.13 sequencing system

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
This upgraded computer is very stable and reliable using OS X Leopard with all of the 2008 iLife applications and Digital Performer. For creating and recording digital music, I try to stay within a five track recording limitation to avoid hang-ups. Obviously, it would now be less expensive to buy a new Mac Pro but I've been using this computer for eight years and keeping it upgraded to meet new software challenges. I did have to upgrade the graphics card to eliminate artifacts that showed up on OS X Leopard.
Hopefully, the above information will be helpful.
-Ed N."

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" * Mac system details: Dual G4 (originally 533) Digital Audio, pretty much stock.
* CPU Upgrade details (brand/model/speed): Newertech Dual G4 1.8GHz (7448)
* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices, etc.):
PCI cards - ATTO SCSI card, Firmtek SATA card, Audiomedia III soundcard.

* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc. (esp. if you saw a compat. issue):
Basic install. Had a problem where I would get a kernel panic on every other boot or so...never could track in down. (Did you ever update the Firmtek SATA card? (what model was it?) - Firmtek released firmware/driver updates for many of their cards after Leopard was released, to address some issues.-Mike) Never had a kernel panic with the old processors, except of course they can't run Leopard. Gave up after a year and built a FrankenMac Intel based PC.

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
Love it! I have been with OS X since the beta days and Leopard is SO stable and solid that it is a joy to work with.
-John E. "

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" * Mac system details: Quicksilver 2002, 1.5GB RAM, ATI 9800se (256MB) AGP card
* CPU Upgrade Details: PowerLogix 1.8GHz (7447A) (also filed a CPU Db report on 2/24/2008)
* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices, etc.):
2X USB PCI card (both work), 1X Firewire external drive, Griffin iMic (also works just fine)

* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc. (esp. if you saw a compat. issue):
Nothing that I've seen an issue with.

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
So far so good, the only "problem" that I have seen is my framerates have plummeted in OpenArena (no empirical data, but it is noticeable and VERY annoying). All other apps are speedy, as is the OS, install went just fine and (occasionally, very very infrequently) I'll have a kernal panic. But that used to happen anyway. Can't wait to hook up another FW drive and try out Time Machine!
-Mike T."

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" Hey Mike, I've had zero problems whatsoever with my move to Leopard (and all other OS X versions for that matter, starting with 10.0)

System details:
Quicksilver G4 (was an 867) w/OWC 1.6GHz card
1.5GB ram, Radeon 9800 Pro, Pioneer DVR-109
2x Raptors + 2 Maxtor ATA/133 HDD's
Sonnet ATA/133 pci card
SIIG SATA pci card
Belkin 4 port PCI USB 2 card
HP w2207 Monitor
Apple Aluminum KB (new one from last summer)
Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer
Too much software & other misc stuff to list :p
hope this helps, keep up the good work, and be well!
-Rod"

(from May 8, 2008 mail)
" Hi Mike, I'm running OS X 10.5 on my G4 Sawtooth upgraded with a Sonnet 1.8GHz G4 (7447A) and 1.5GB RAM. I installed 10.5 when it first came out but had to downgrade to 10.4 when I realized the (Intech) Hi-Cap ATA driver wasn't yet compatible. (Intec's original driver for adding big drive (48bit addr) support for older mac onboard IDE was broken in Leopard.) The driver was later updated at which time I re-installed 10.5 and I've been running it since without any problems.

I use the machine as a file server, security cam server, and home automation server (running Indigo) and it has been flawless with 10.5. I manage it remotely with my MacBook Pro and I can't think of a single instance when I wished I hadn't upgraded.

I don't use the machine for any tasks other than those server tasks so it might actually be slower running 10.5 instead of 10.4 for things like word processing or web browsing. I wouldn't know. It's quite responsive for what it is doing.

The great thing is that I only have one OS to maintain on my two Macs. It's quite extraordinary that an 8+ year old machine still runs the latest Mac OS and does it well! I would say I'm very satisfied.
Best Regards, Jorge"

(from May 9, 2008 mail)
" * Mac system details: Originally 733MHz (no L3 cache) G4 Quicksilver Tower, 1.5GB RAM
* CPU Upgrade: GigaDesign G4 800 CPU upgrade, running at 867MHz
* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices, etc.):
PCI Acard 133MHz HD interface with two 120GB Hitachi HDs, USB 2.0 PCI card (NEC chip)

* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc. (esp. if you saw a compat. issue):
No bad compat. problems, system sleeps and wakes up, etc. iTunes will occasionally forget that an iPod Nano is attached, reattaching it works, usually.

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
Barely fast enough for use as a work machine at 867MHz, graphics on the old video card (Model?) are slow but workable. The system itself is very usable, and pleasant, would only get better with newer hardware.
(he later wrote with info on the graphics card)
GeForce2 MX 32MB RAM (so some of the "eye candy" doesn't work).
the speed is OK for most applications, ie. workable, but with slow scrolling on longer documents
Best regards, David"

(from May 9, 2008 mail)
" I'm running a Digital Audio G4 w/Sonnet dual 1.3Ghz card AND a Gigabit Ethernet G4 with single 1.4Ghz card, both with Leopard 10.5.2. Currently, although both machines are now fairly stable and functioning well -- I think that Tiger is a little better on the G4s. Tiger ran so well on my G4s, that I was expecting Leopard to be far beyond that -- and it's not. Overall it actually feels like a step backward.

And I still don't understand certain function changes in Leopard, such as with Disk Utility and the removal of Single-User startup. Disk Utility takes FOREVER to run on the startup disk, provides less info, and is basically useless for a quick fix. And removing Single-User startup capability also made obsolete another EXCELLENT utility called Applejack, which saved my machines on multiple occasions.

Early on with Leopard, I ended up having to completely rebuild my original install, as I started having disk corruption, which eventually led to a non-functioning machine. All is well now since 10.5.2 and a complete rebuild (on both machines), and I'm hoping the 10.5.3 will have some refinements that will tweak Leopard and bring back some of Tiger's speed and functionality.

My suggestion to the reader with Tiger -- if he doesn't absolutely NEED Leopard for the software he's using -- then wait a few more updates (maybe until 10.5.5), and ask the question again. Maybe by then Leopard will live up to some of the hype. Right now, it's not really worth it unless you're a junkie like me and you like the challenge.
That's my opinion, Mark"

(from May 9, 2008 mail)
"I have a Sawtooth machine upgraded to Leopard.
* Mac system details: Orig was 500 MHz G4 Sawtooth, 2GB RAM, 23" Apple Cinema display
* CPU Upgrade: Currently have dual 1.7GHz 7448 NewerTech CPU upgrade from OWC. No problems with the upgrade. I had a Sonnet 1.4GHz upgrade but it would freeze (overheat?) on occasion and it was getting to be too slow

* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices, etc.):
Added Lacie external SATA drives and use the PCI SATA card that came with the enclosure for my main and backup HDs
Also have an Nvidia graphics card from OWC, System Profiler lists it as GeForce4 MX with 64MB RAM with Quartz Extreme supported but Core Image listed as software

* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc. (esp. if you saw a compat. issue):
No real issues to report. Upgraded to Leopard when it came out and it installed just fine. Only issue I see is that there are some slight graphics issues in some apps - at least in quicken 07. Nothing major, just the shades of grey are off in certain spots. Rather than continue to describe it, see attached screenshot. Notice the grey outlining around the 2 arrow buttons and the date. This was not present in 10.4.

Quicken works fine (other than not acknowledging cmd-Q on occasion but I think that is more a quicken thing than Leopard).

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
I am very satisfied with Leopard. The 2 main improvements to me are: Spotlight is now fast enough to be usable (in 10.4 it worked but was painfully slow), and QuickLook is a feature I love. I also like the toned down color scheme of the GUI. When I use a 10.4 machine at work it just looks way too bright.
Bottom line is that I would recommend Leopard without hesitation over 10.4.
-Rob P."

(from May 9, 2008 mail)
" Mike, Being a frequent reader of your website in full appreciation of your exhaustive collection of hardware information, I would like to update my Leo experience. (he had previously posted comments earlier on Leopard in the Nov. 5th, 2007 news page-Mike) So here is my heads-up:

* Mac system details: Original Quicksilver 800MHz, 1GB RAM
* CPU Upgrade: Sonnet 1.4GHz (7455) Single CPU
* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices, etc.)
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (ROM Revision: 113-A07525-130)
Pioneer DVR-112 (firmware 1.24) I could update the drives's Firmware by using the Mac patching application, which seems to be gone? http://lasvegas.rpc1.org/ (I posted a note back in April 2008 that there was a DVRFlash v2.5.1 release (with added support for DVR-112, 115, 212 and 215 models) at http://dvrflash.rpc1.org/ but that page isn't loading this AM either. (Also updated the FAQ item on that).-Mike)
Ratoc USB2/FW combo card, no drivers required
Alchemy TV card does not work (as stated on their website AlchemyTV & AlchemyTV DVR OS X 10.5 Compatibility (last updated Dec 3rd, 2007)

"AlchemyTV and AlchemyTV DVR are not compatible with Mac OS X 10.5. We are currently working on an update that will be released as soon as it is ready for prime-time. As AlchemyTV DVR started its life in the 10.2 days (and works fine up to 10.4.11), the architecture needs profound modifications to enable 10.5 compatibility. The update is taking longer than we would really like, but rest asssured that we are working on it."

* Info on Software apps, addons, startup/login items, etc. (esp. if you saw a compat. issue)
No hardware related issues

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
10.5.2 is usable and stable on my system, I won't go back to Tiger. However, there seems to be a glitch with some Firewire enclosures. In my case, it is a MacPower "ClearLight" enclosure for notebook drives. If connected (and turned on) to my Mac (any of the ports, on-board or RATOC card), booting the system takes "forever" at least 10 Minutes. The system hangs with a blue screen before the log-in screen would appear. When turned-off (still connected) booting is matter of seconds (~20 sec. to log-in). (No bridge board firmware update available I assume)

I have two more drives (Pleiades Taurus RAID and Hard Box) that do not exhibit the problem.

Other general issues w/Leopard (not related to hardware upgrades)
- DNS Server issue (some pages load slowly in Safari and Firefox, Open DNS entry in Network control panel fixes that)
- InputManagers do not work with Safari anymore (Saft, Pith Helmet). Changed to FireFox anyway....
Pathfinder: copies files again since latest update, also resolved with Tiger as it seems (see their website)
Cheers, Joachim"

(from May 9, 2008 mail)
" * Mac system details: Gigabit Ethernet G4 400mhz
* CPU Upgrade details: Giga Design 1.2GHz (7455) adjustable speed upgrade via jumpers. 1.2GHz is as fast as I can go without any issues. It is reported correctly via get info. If it is not, leopard did not install. (see ratio issue notes/tips from Nov 2007 news page below)
* Any 3rd party hardware installed or attached (PCI cards, Graphics card, FW or USB devices, etc.):
PCI usb 2 card (Belkin model works great, had to replace a Startech usb 2 card (part # PCI425USB) that did not work at all), Adaptec 2930 pci scsi card (used for scanner only), M-audio pci card (Revolution 5.1) (FYI - m-audio recently posted a beta driver update for Leopard. See Reader Feedback on Revolution 5.1 PCI Audio Card .-Mike)

* How satisfied are you with OS X Leopard?
Leopard was the most challenging upgrade ever for sure...only because all previous ones went flawless. I had the giga design on a setting that was misrepresented in the "about this mac" (non-integer (i.e. x.5) ratio setting misreported) Easy fix with jumper setting that was correctly identified as 1.2Ghz. NOTE: After the install, you can go back to the slower reported setting. (although misreported speeds can also affect other software that check that. Gigadesign had a "GigaMeter" extension to address that in the past but their site is RIP (gone) now-Mike)
I have 4 ram chips, 3 pc133 (333) and the other was a different speed. (By speed do you mean PC rating or CL/CAS rating? Assuming ram was good/proper PC1xx rating, if the difference was just CL/CAS timing, all will run at the slowest CL timing of any installed dimm - however after that last (years ago) 4.x firmware update for older G4 towers if any Dimm does not have CL3 timing in the dimm's SPD it won't be recognized. (Old page here on that many years ago, which had a dimmfix utility to address that.-Mike) Boy, it didn't like that and that is what took a bit of research to fix. (That one dimm not recognized - slot shown as 'empty') Again, as long as it is not there during install, all is well, then you can plug it back in later. While it was there during install, I got all kinds of different errors and crashes all resulting in a failed install midway through.
Once those 2 issues were corrected, I am loving the upgrade, never need to go back to tiger for anything. Now if M-audio would get their act together, I'd be straight.
-Eric"

I sent him a note to try the M-audio beta 1.6 driver for Leopard (linked in May 7th news page here and on Revolution 5.1 reports page).

Previous (fall 2007) Related Posts:

• CPU Upgrades and Leopard Installs Revisited (Nov 2007) (ratio issues/tips, Sonnet firmware patch)
• Tips for those that had 10.5 DVD refuse to install on CPU Upgraded Macs
• 10.5 feedback/tips/info page