krowmagnum
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Re:Performa 6320 needs to keep up - 2008/07/17 20:05
You cannot get USB to work on the 6320 as it is. You would need a PCI USB card and the 6320 has no PCI slot to add one.
You can use the comm slot ethernet card but they are slowwwww 10baseT but it uses a regular RJ45 ethernet port.
RAM is stuck at 64MB but you can use an app called RAMDoubler that will "virtually" double the RAM to 128MB. I used RAMDoubler on a 1400 and a 5500 and I'm still not convinced it actually helps all that much, if any.
May as well just leave the tv card in because nothing else will work in that slot unless you have the cover for the hole it will collect dust.
You can run up to OS 9 on it but I would stick to OS 8.6 or earlier to make it more usable speedwise. System 7 would run well and OS 8.1 would be my choice as a decent somewhat current OS for that Mac.
Keep in mind this was not one of Apple's better machines and is listed on the Road Apple list. But still a fun toy to play with and run old software on.
Upgrading...
You can put a later PPC board from a 54/55/64/6500 or 6360 in the 61/62/6300 Macs and make it run much better (slides right in). From 160MHz to 300MHz 603e speeds and RAM would be maxed at 128MB with the later board and you would also get one PCI slot. With the PCI slot and the single PCI right angle adapter from a 6360 you could add a USB card and maybe get it to work.
I've been told that the power supplies in these Macs do not supply power for PCI slots so PCI cards should not work. But i did have a USB card working in my old LC580 All-in-one upgraded with a 300MHz 6500 board. That said, I cannot guarantee that it will work. The later boards will work but PCI is questionable. Depending on your location you can find the boards pretty cheap and all you do is swap the back plate to make it fit. A few screws and slide it in and you have a nice speed boost. It would run OS 9.1 pretty well with the later 603e CPU and 128MB of RAM.
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