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My 7 year-old PowerMac G4 underwent surgery today. 
Despite happily running the latest version of Tiger with a very acceptable dual-monitor setup (15" Original Apple Studio plus 15" Dell driven by a MPDD+ Villagetronics card), I've been noticing that the processor load has tended to max out, especially when using video on Skype (it's used as an apartment monitor via a Labtec webcam with Macam drivers).
So, at the end of last year, I ordered a PowerLogix Dual 1.4Ghz G4 upgrade from OWC and while I was at it (to mitigate the international postage costs from the US) added an ATI Radeon 9200 Mac edition, an extra half gig of memory and a 16x Dual Layer DVD bruner. All under the guise of the reduced marginal costs, of course.
How wrong I was.
First issue was the OWC inefficient stock allocation system, which meant that my order kept getting delayed because different bits kept going in and out of stock - it took two months to arrive eventually, and that was only because I managed to translate the drivel - which would fail a Turing test - of their customer support staff.
The result of this was that they managed to screw things so that it came in two separate orders and two separate postage and tax costs. So much for the reduced marginal costs.
Second, UPS insisted that I pay a whopping 30% of the cost of the goods in taxes and 'fees' before releasing the items. 25% of the extra bill was their 'brokerage fee', which alone was almost half of my original postage cost. Is it any wonder that eBay sellers are doing a brisk trade by using alternative carriers to evade import duties? Some of them even insure against the risk and offer a refund of duties paid - not that I'm condoning the evasion, but it stinks that UPS can charge what they like for the 'brokerage fee' because 'all your goods are belong to us'.
Rant over and on to the surgery.
1. Install 512MB RAM (replaces one of the 128MB cards). Total RAM = 1.2G
2. Replaced MPDD+ card (which has been driving my second 15" display)
with ATI Radeon Mac edition 9200 (which actually cost less than what I paid for the original dual diplay card).
Installed this in a spare PCI slot rather than replacing the orginal AGP graphics card, because the original has an ADC out. Quick check confirmed that a DVI-ADC converter (eg. Dr. Bott) would cost more than I paid for this new card. Upgrade still possible as this card supports up to 2048x1536 dual displays - so faster graphics still to come when I update my monitors.
3. Replaced Pioneer NEC-2500A:
with a Pioneer A-109 (providing up to 16x burning and support for dual layer discs).
4. Replaced the heart of the computer (or should that be the 'brain'? an interesting techno-anthropomorhic distinction) Dual G4/450MHz with Dual G4/1.4GHz.
Removed the heat sink:
Removed the processor:
The coup d'état itself: In with the new processor with an attractive copper heat sink and extra fan:
Viva la Revolution - with not a drop of blood spilt:
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