Got a Quicksilver 933!

[kharm]

Ok, not much to this post - I’m just excited to share I have picked up a QS 93MHz machine! Bought off eBay even though it was a local pickup in Melbourne and I live in Brisbane. The seller was kind enough to hold onto it for me for a couple of months until I was down in Melbourne. The $45 price tag on eBay was probably at least doubled by the expense of having to bring checked baggage (stuffed with foam for padding!) and I was terrified the bag would be overweight ... but it all worked out ok.

Also picked up a studio display locally for $10.

Have just installed the instant daw.

Has a second 200 GB HDD. 768 MB RAM.

I feel almost as excited as I would have been getting one of these 15 years ago (but a lot less broke than I would have been! Ha)

My only issue now is the bloody noise of the thing. Coming from my fanless indigo iMac it’s a bit of a shock! I see there are a few posts around regarding quieting these things down so I might have to do some modding.

Cheers!

[torvan]

YAY!!!

I quieted down my G4 MDD using Noctua fans(Bought on Amazon) for the PS and Case. Cut the noise in half. Sure, they will cost more than the QS did, but still car people spend more on upgrades than they did on the car all the time!

[kharm]

 
Thanks torvan I didn't know about Noctua fans. Look like they are worth checking out. I wasn't expecting to have to mod this machine, but if I can't get the noise level down it's pretty much a no go for my little one room hobby home studio!

I'll still tell everyone I got the beast for $45 (won't mention the extra baggage cost, fans, monitor & who knows what else!!!)

[Ninester]

I use Noctua fan$ in my gaming rig and are a good choice.  Every time I heat up my 2002 DP QS, I can't help wonder what Apple was thinking? 

Let see, use small thermostatic cpu fan that ramps up to blow across cpu fins..from the outside in.  Now the box is nice and warm,  the thermostatic power supply fan ramps way up to expel cpu and graphic card heat..and it's own heat. We still have the bottom thermostatic fan found blowing outward through the case...the way I found it. Everything stuffed with dust with two locked up fans, cpu and the power supply...and overheated CPUs.  Poor thing still works fine!

Fans changed, some reversed..still runs warm and noisy after heat soaked for several hours.  I'm convinced that a CPU water block with radiator fan replacing bottom fan, blowing outward, is the only way to quieten the beast..closed up.  For now, don't laugh, I run with a low speed box fan blowing across the CPU, wedged in place, with the side door open at 45 degrees. Not sexy! Very quiet with all fans at low default speeds. Cheap and silly looking for now.

So, digging around looking for low cost water cooling solution with copper water block to span two cpu's.

I see that at least one other uses water.

[IIO]

i once did the "side door open" thing a while when it was hot in summer, but then i had to learn that i was wrong and should leave the air flow stuff to those who know better than me.

it doesnt help much to cool the CPU when at the same time your HDs are getting hotter because of that.

[kharm]

I pulled out the cpu and case fans and gave them a good clean, but alas to no avail. Still noisy as all hell!

There is a particular vibration that cycles louder and softer every few seconds.

I saw on YouTube someone suggested rubber grommets when remounting the fans to reduce vibrating the metal casing. Seems a good idea but I don’t have any right now.

The second HDD isn’t secured, just sitting on top of the stock HDD so I suppose I should do something about that too.

Not sure I will be able to make this work ...

[FdB]

Briefly disconnect the case and CPU fans independently
(and together) all while powered down… to isolate and identify
the possible source of your noise and vibration. Still noisy
with both disconnected? It’s the power supply fan.

(Have previously had both the CPU & PSU fans here replaced.)
And temporary placement of foam rubber under your loose HD
 - to eliminate that possible noise source.

[IIO]

The second HDD isn’t secured, just sitting on top of the stock HDD so I suppose I should do something about that too.

all of my 4 internals disks are not fixed to anything.

i wonder if that is better for cooling than using the mount kit, worse, or doesnt matter?

[kharm]

Thanks FdB - good suggestions I was thinking about this too after having had some sleep.

I'll let you know (to my ear there are many sources of noise going on, hence my doubts about getting the noise down to an acceptable level for a one room music studio).

[kharm]

Ok I tried unplugging a few things.

CPU fan: makes just a little noise but not a major contributor to the overall noise (easy to tell this also because it is so far away from the bulk of the noisy components)

Case fan: definitely runs with some vibration noise - but also doesn't seem to be a major contributor to the noise. I'm sure a replacement could be quieter.

Listening close by to the unit for directionality of the noises doesn't seem to pinpoint the PSU fans in particular (eg. listening just outside the PSU outlet grill I can hear the fan whirring but there is a lot more noise (higher pitched) if I move my ear back towards the open internals.

So I kept hunting:

Additional HDD: disconnected the (unsecured) HDD and removed it all together. It was making a bit of noise - things were not particularly quieter per se, but the noise was 'less busy' without this drive whirring and clicking

Original HDD: I disconnected the data but couldn't easily pull out the power connection. I powered the unit on with this configuration and after the drive had spun up and the computer displayed the ''no system folder' icon there was indeed a bit less noise going on.

I also put my ear near the optical drive (actually the very first time I switched on this machine I hoped what I was hearing was a noisy optical drive with a disc in it - alas there was not disc in the drive!). There did seem to be some noise coming from here - only a small amount and it was hard to tell if it was reflected sound (so many hard flat surfaces in here! I haven't tested this drive apart from opening & closing the tray ... but I've been surviving without an optical drive on my DAW for a while now so maybe I can do without it. (I'll try disconnecting some other time as I think the whole housing will need to come out to access the cables properly)

So, my hypothesis so far is that my noisy machine is a combination of several components all contributing to a symphony of whirring and purring - AND - I think the casing is acting as a resonator for all of this noise.

What can be done? You tell me but here are my theories:
- replacing all fans
- disconnecting the optical drive
- replacing HDDs with SSDs (I've been putting up with the HDD noise in my G3 iMac for a while so not sure I'll actually do this)
- using rubber mounting to decouple components from the metal casing
- what about removing the plastic side covers from the machine? Has anyone ever tried this? Seems that blowing air into the cavity between the metal case and the plastic side wall is a bit weird and I suspect these gaps give some acoustic resonance.

*if* I can do all this (I'm pretty nervous about the yellow warning sticker on the PSU!! ), *and* I find an out of the way place in my room with a bit of baffling (eg. behind the main desk sitting on a rubber mat, maybe with some acoustic foam nearby reducing the noise in some directions while still allowing airflow) then *maybe* this machine could be the workstation I've been dreaming of!

I definitely don't have time to do all of the above but I have been bitten by the bug now and REALLY want to try - it just seems to put me that much further off from actually making any music - I can't quite figure out whether this matters or not as long as I'm having fun 

I welcome all your thoughts!

[Ninester]

i once did the "side door open" thing a while when it was hot in summer, but then i had to learn that i was wrong and should leave the air flow stuff to those who know better than me.

it doesnt help much to cool the CPU when at the same time your HDs are getting hotter because of that.

What makes you think I run my HD's hot? The side thermostatic fan is also running..SLOW.

[Ninester]

What I don't see are post from users who {just} replaced fans and now have a very quiet closed up QS or whatever for DAW work? Lots of drilling and cutting of inner box posted...

My other idea is to think outside the box with the caseless builds seen on PC's. Slow fans on my PC makes for a whisper quiet box. I also use positive ventilation for a near dustless interior. On my QS I just don't have a free flowing air path over the (DP) CPU heatsink unless box opened.

Cheers

[Roman78]

Hi there: Here is someone just doing the same on a QS: http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,4936.0.html

And this is also interesting: http://www.thorburn.se/henrik/quicksilver/index.html

I also use Noctua fans for almost everything. Maybe i'm going to mod one of mine QS this weekend... reading all this about the QS makes me wooohohoooo....

[kharm]

Roman78 I have been scouring around this topic for a bit now and hadn't seen your second link. Ninester is right that there is quite a bit of talk about changing fans to reduce noise but few topics that detail the process and claim satisfactory success.

For now I have cleaned 2 fans but I may need to attack the PSU fan and see if that does more. New fans also an option. Removing the redundant finger grills (outside PSU and internal side of case fan) is also popular & I may give this a crack.

The 'Quicksilver Thread' (http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,4667.0.html) is also quite informative.

[IIO]

What makes you think I run my HD's hot? The side thermostatic fan is also running..SLOW.

that is what happened with mine. i have 4 hds loosely in the case, and when i open tze side door they gert hotter because the usual airflow from front to rear is almost nonpresent with doors open.

even worse with MDDs btw.

[Ninester]

What makes you think I run my HD's hot? The side thermostatic fan is also running..SLOW.

that is what happened with mine. i have 4 hds loosely in the case, and when i open tze side door they gert hotter because the usual airflow from front to rear is almost nonpresent with doors open.

even worse with MDDs btw.

Ouch, 4 drives. I see a lot of drives rated no higher than 60C(!), which I try to keep no higher than 40C if you can monitor them.  My Hitachi 3.5"- 2G has over 35,000 hours via HDD Guardian..would kill for Power PC version...yet fan cooled at a constant 31C for reference sake.
c

[kharm]

Current state of affairs on my QS. (Thanks FdB for a very helpful PM BTW)

I have:
- cleaned all fans including PSU fan (Case fan and PSU very dusty - CPU not so bad)
- disconnected DVD drive
- disconnected 2nd HDD

I'm still not happy with the noise level.

I realised I could position the machine behind a wall (glad the Apple Studio Display has a decent length cable!) and this does help when sitting at my studio desk but in the areas of my room more exposed to the machine it's still pretty noisy (eg. where the piano is which I like to mic up from time to time!).

I think I'll try a new case fan and hopefully that will get me over the line. Otherwise I will sell the QS and go back to my Indigo iMac.

I'm looking at this one:

Noctua NF-A12x25-ULN 120mm 3 Pin 1200RPM Fan (https://www.umart.com.au/Noctua-NF-A12x25-ULN-120mm-3-Pin-1200RPM-Fan_45769G.html)

Any thoughts?

[macStuff]

congrats i got the same quicksilver;
i never had any problem with the fans in the 933; the 933 is one of the best models to get if you want quiet no-fuss powermac g4
i got a griffin gport in mine aswell as a 64bit ATA133 controller.

[Philgood]

Nothing beats an G3 iMac in Noise levels 

I just rebuilt my old 400Mhz DV model from 1999.
I changed a big Cap, Resistor for the Flyback transformer and
the flyback itself and replaced the dead mecanical hard drive for a CF card.

[kharm]

So I'm up and running with the QS - with the machine somewhat behind a wall I can ignore the noise enough. Over time I may mod it further (fan/s, SSD/s). Now that the iMac is off the desk I'm really enjoying the larger screen of the Apple Studio Display and the extra space on the (actual not virtual!) desktop.

Nice to have the extra grunt of the G4 over the G3 too of course.

My little studio now has a new lease of life thanks to a 17 year old computer! I'm pretty happy - thanks everyone for the advice