Hello again! I thought I'd talk about my latest Apple project which is a Power Mac G4 MDD. I found one locally for $50, and I found a good deal on the fastest video card supported for Mac OS 9, the GeForce4 Ti 4600. It runs GREAT!
The base system is actually a FireWire 800 MDD with the firmware downgraded, because I wanted to have reliable dual-booting with Mac OS X. I did lose AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth, though the FW800 port is still detected. I know this was probably a bit more destructive than helpful in a few respects, but the system does still work perfectly and I would rather have native dual-booting than old wireless cards.
The power supply in this computer was unsurprisingly non-functional. Replacing every capacitor in the unit, including the smaller ones (most of which were actually dying), made the unit come back to life. The PSU in mine right now is actually the 400W AcBel unit with quieter delta fans installed. The replacement fans actually came from a scrap G5 power supply, though I had to reverse the pinout on the 2-pin connectors for them to work. They don't push as much air from what I've heard, but if they worked in a G5, they will absolutely work in an MDD.
The CPU card is a dual 1.25GHz PowerPC 7455A model. Now, I know it is possible to overclock to 1.42 and potentially even 1.5 on the MDDs, though on my card the 7455A chips don't have as much scalability as the 7455B's do. So I settled for 1.33GHz, which is still plenty powerful. Of course I had to apply fresh thermal paste, and I made sure to use good quality paste since these chips do run quite hot! (Protronix Series 9, has 5W/mK thermal conductivity, does a great job for a $10 30g tube.)
The RAM I upgraded to 2GB with 4 512MB sticks. OS 9 will only see 1.5GB and that's okay. I also have 10.4.11 on this machine. As for the GPU, it is a GeForce4 Ti 4600, which is the holy grail of Mac OS 9 video cards. I found one in an 867MHz MDD being sold for $150 on eBay, which isn't too bad of a deal but I do feel a bit dirty whenever I pay quite a lot for a 22-year-old piece of hardware. I'll sell the machine once I further fix it up with the FW800's old 360W PSU and a Radeon 9000 Pro, solely because I don't need it; I only needed the card. I knew damn well the original heatsink on the GF4Ti was garbage. So I did something kinda stupid but also genius... I took a geforce 6600 GT heatsink, removed the rubber feet, extended the fan cable, and installed the cooler upside down. It works pretty similarly to the GF4's stock cooler now, but it's much larger and the fan is more powerful. I had to install it upside down because the BIOS chip got in the way of the heatsink if I installed it rightside up, but since I've upgraded the cooler I have not had any issues and everything works flawlessly.
The rest of the system's components consist of 2 optical drives (I think one is a SD, the other is a combo). I put 4 hard drives in because... why not? Might as well use the space if I'm given the opportunity, especially considering I have a ton of old hard drives sitting around. I also installed a USB 2.0 card to handle... well, USB 2.0 devices. Some sources have said the FW800 has USB 2.0, but even before I downgraded the firmware, I checked system profiler on OS X (10.5 before reinstalling) and nowhere did I see any 480mbps USB hubs without an external PCI USB card.
This is an absolutely incredible system. I get the best of both worlds with the nVidia card as video acceleration on both OS X and OS 9 is very fast. The Radeon 9000 Pro is also a great card, but on OS X it is a little slower. Also I simply couldn't pass up the opportunity for me to get another GF4Ti. I used to have one years ago but it was very well used and the card gave out even with a good heatsink and fan. I wish I had kept it around but now that is past me. The power supply with its fresh new caps should also last me a while too. I currently have this hooked up to a 17" ADC CRT Studio Display. It's not in the best cosmetic shape and I had to remove the anti-glare coating, but it works great. As for noise levels they're not too bad honestly, this is the later model and I did replace the PSU fans with ones that are slightly quieter but will also push air through just fine. Hope you all are well, I'm so happy to have a machine like this. It. Just. Works. And I know that's silly for me to say related to an MDD of all computers, but after the repairs it is rock-solid.
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Topic: Katheryn's Power Mac G4 FW800 MDD Dual 1.33GHz (Read 1106 times)