I was just wondering if anyone knew if there was a slide in logicboard upgrade for an LC 575. What I know right now is that the logicboard of an LC 575 can be used to upgrade a Color Classic. And also I know that the LC 580 can be upgraded with a PowerMac 5200 board I think, but is there one for the LC 575? The reason I was wondering is because a teacher at my school is going to give me his LC 575 when he retires, and in the tech area there is an old PowerMac 5200 lying around.
Thanks in advance,
Mr. Goodbytes
In short, no, there is no "slide in" upgrade for the 575. To put that 5200 logic board, you would have to replace the whole wiring harness inside to connect the logic board. you would be better off just using the 5200.
In long, a Mac mini could slide in...
now THAT would be cool !!!
The lc575 is a direct descendant of the color classic, so boards from the cc, cc ii, lc 520, 550, and 575 all interchange. The LC 580 is directly compatable with logic board from the lc 5200, 6200, 5260, 5300, 6300. As for 5400 and 6400 boards - I really don't know. Personally, I consider the lc 575 to be a classic. They were the new hot thing when I was in Junior High School. The LC 575 is what I consider to be the last of the quality built all in one macs. A sharp trinitron crt, scsi for the hard drive and cd-rom, and a strong sturdy feeling of robustness that hasn't been met since. I'd try to upgrade the ram, but leave it as is. I'd say a fast 040 lc 575 is better than an lc 5200 (quite possibly one of Apple's worst machines ever)
LC580's screen is shabby compared with the 575 screen, but IIRC a 580 can use a 5500/6500 MLB with no mods. As others have said, upgrading the MLB of a 575 is basically like doing a Color Classic Takky mod..
However, you can still upgrade a 575:
IIRC RAM can go up to 128MB.
CPU can be upgraded to a 66MHz or 100MHz 601 PPC, allowing use of MacOS up to v9.1. Sadly, in PPC mode the Mac can only see up to 36MB RAM.
Large fast HD can speed things up a bit, just watch the heat.
dan k
To use another board in a 580 you need to swap the rear port cover/bracket/panel to the one that come with the 580. The 5xxx/6xxx and IIRC the 630 have larger rear panels. I made a post long ago about doing it. It really just needs the removal of the two screw anchors on the SCSI port and the two screws holding the bracket to the board and they can be swapped easily. I've put a 5500/250 board in my 580CD before without any actual hardware cutting, as others did who didn't know about the super simple panel swap. Using a plasma cutter to overcome a 4 screw problem is overkill...
I like the true compacts better, so I used the 575 mobo as a slide-in upgrade for a CC.
I really wish Apple would have ended the 68k line with a compact. It would have been a nicely nostalgic/poetic closing to that era. It could have been so easy, too. Take a CC/CCII chassis, a 575 mobo with a 35MHz full '040 chip, tune it to display 640x480, and there you go. Stick in 384kiB VRAM and call it a CCIII. Or cheap out with only 128kiB VRAM and a grayscale CRT and have a SE/40 for business use. Basically, Apple could have marketed the Mystic. I think it would have been a hit.