Covering half of the CPU core seems to be enough after all. I don't recommend anyone to do this, but it does work just fine

That's somewhat surprising! I'm glad it can work like that.

I confirm GaryN's observations.. in fact I had made them too (see at the beginning of the conversation of this post). visibly seen after placing and observing thermal paste on copper heatsink. Half CPU not covered.

@GaryN I see, so you meant horizontal alignment, and I assumed you meant vertical. Yeah, now that is a problem. I suspect even Sonnet didn't realize the copper heatsinks were a thing early enough in time or, if they were aware, they assumed the alignment and all would be the same for all the heatsinks. In short, what most likely happened is that Sonnet got Apple'd!

I keep thinking there must be something we could do about this, but I guess that would be ugly, nasty and convoluted...

Y'know, it might be worth a look to see if you can perhaps find a 3rd party copper heatsink that will fit and also not have this issue. Some people tried that, and I don't know if they succeeded. I know I tried years ago, then gave up and went for the Apple one (as I wasn't affected by the MDX problem since I never got one). Or, probably better, it also seems like liquid-cooling might be your best friend to address that very issue you pointed out.

Then again, a dual 7447 @1.83GHz is more than good enough for just about anything.

@DieHard I honestly think the pre-Quad-core liquid-cooled G5s were engineered precisely to lead people into accepting the upcoming switch to the generic IBM-PC-compatible Intel-based architecture. Even the MDD's power supply wasn't on the bottom. I don't think their engineers were incapable of seeing the issue with that design from the get-go.

I wonder if the power supply of a G5 could be externalized... But that'd be a different topic.

Hello everybody.
Im setting up two G4s to try and run VST system link betweeen them. (Using an old Korg 1212io in the one and a Echo Layla on the other to link by SPDIF).

Can anyone reccomend a KVM switcher? is/ was there a good one to look out for so that I dont have to use a pc one with lots of turnarounds...

Many thanks!

@GaryN That's a good point with regards to the processor height difference in the MDX, in terms of getting the copper heatsink to do its job properly. However, you should still be able to use it properly for both CPUs if you add copper shims (one or multiple). Using 7448 and 7457 processors, and/or interposer boards, instead of the usual 7447 or 7455 with MDX and stock daughtercards also leads to those kinds of height concerns. The opposite is also true: Washers/spacers also help with when the CPUs are too high for the heatsink. Quoting one of my linked comments:

I'm afraid you misunderstand the problem. Height has nothing to do with it.

The procs on the MDX board are in a different position than the Apple boards. If you look at the pic, you can see the contact surface is just large enought to cover the procs and transfer the heat up the pipes.
The white rectangles are the location of the original 7450s on the Apple boards. The red are the 7447s on the MDX. The problem is obvious.

(Nitpickers: Don't hold me to absolute exact-ness here. I'm not 100% certain that this is exactly where the procs align. This is only from memory but it clearly makes the point. I would have to pull the MDX out of my MDD to check precisely where they land and I'm not going to do that.)