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MDD FW-800 upgrades? whats it like?

VanneDC

VanneDC

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 5, 2010
860
92
Dubai, UAE
Hi all, the dual 1.0ghz MDD fell through as the seller was being an absolute tockley, anyways, so i bought a MDD FW-800 dual 1.25. its only got 788mb of ram in it, so will most likely look to upgrade that for cheap.

I hear that the fw-800 is supposed to be much quieter than the original MDD? (the dual 1.25MDD original i had was just a real wind tunnel :( and would not want that again)?

I am not too sure what will come with this setup, but i am hoping a nice large drive and dvd burner. also unsure of what vid card is in there atm.

looking to fit the airport extreme card from my 1.25ghz emac in there, (will that fit?) cheers and thanks for any info from you guys :)

V.
 
Nameci

Nameci

macrumors 68000
Oct 29, 2010
1,944
12
The Philippines...
1. Max out RAM to 2B.
2. Since it is a FW800, the airport card from the previous MDD would not fit, IMHO.
3. As far as fan noise, the MDD and the FW800 are just on the same level. Most of the fan noise were coming from the PSU fans.
4. I had 128MB ATI 9700 BTO card on mine which equivalent with ATI 9800 pro. I settle for the 9700 due to the DVI connection and I wanted to preserve the authenticity of the setup.
 
VanneDC

VanneDC

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 5, 2010
860
92
Dubai, UAE
well the PM FW800 arrived yesterday...

Bit of hit and miss really, as i got the following specs:

1 PM FW800
Dual 1.25ghz cpus 1mbL3 (Doh!!)
120gb Hard drive (7200rmp)
768mb ram (1 x512 1x256)
Crappy Gefore2 mx 32mb (DOH!!!!)
No airport Extreme or BT.
Combo Drive (doh!)

box is in alright nick, has some serious dust issues... Yuk!

and its bloody noisy!

So, a couple of things if i am going to keep this box.. number one would have to be to quieten the sucker down. Now as most noise comes from the psu, i think a yumcha ATX psu mod might be the go.

The graphics card must be replaced.. properly would be going for a 9800pro or upwards. (are the 9700/9800 pros core image able? if not what is the lowest card that is for one of these?)

Ram, must be upgraded to 2 gig... kinda expensive though for what its worth, ddr2 ram is so much better and cheaper...

Hard drive: properly going to grab a wb black with a el cheapo sata card.

must grab a USB 2.0 pci card.
must grab airport extreme card

can live without BT module.

anything you can think off i have forgotten to mention or think off?

Properly will see if this 1.25 can clock to 1.42....

So i will have to see if its worthwhile investing my time in this project, otherwise i may just pass it on... The bisgest worry i have is the PSU and the wind tunnel effect that it creates... I hate noise!
 
Nameci

Nameci

macrumors 68000
Oct 29, 2010
1,944
12
The Philippines...
Ouch!

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro are core image capable native.

Good luck with the PM G4, I got the dual 1.42 and I have kept it in original config, and yeah, it is noisy as hell.
 
A

applegeek13

macrumors regular
Sep 7, 2009
113
0
Short answer: Upgrading is hell.

Long answer: Mine refuses to copy files, it claims the hard drives are full, but they are in fact empty, it doesn't remember the time, it overheats, it's louder than the jets flying over my house, it's too expensive, it barely runs anything, and it weighs 2/3 what I do. But it's a fantastic computer when it runs. However, the first chance I get I'm buying an intel mac. Sorry if none of that is helpful.
 
uller6

uller6

macrumors 65816
May 14, 2010
1,036
1,663
Mine's pretty much maxed out. 2 Gb RAM, Radeon 9000 pro (not worth the extra $$ to upgrade), intel x25m ssd, 2 seagate 2 terabyte hard drives, and a backup 250 Gb PATA drive. No Airport or Bluetooth. I mean, it's pretty fast and all, and I invested $70 for a sonnet tempo pci sata card (http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_serial_ata.html) to run the sata drives from, but it's not worth plunking huge amounts of money into it. Mine's still pretty loud - i'm almost at the point of putting it in the closet and running cable extenders out to my desk. It's still pretty darn useful though, and I can run hulu (not fullscreen) without stutter...I expect it to put in another few good years of service...maybe I'll upgrade in 2012 when it's 10 years old.
 
VanneDC

VanneDC

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 5, 2010
860
92
Dubai, UAE
Alrighty, please close this thread, I've since sold the box to fund ram/vid card for the dc 2.3 g5. Cheers and thanks for the info anyways guys/gals.
 
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