Heat question- Digital Audio

I also have a 733 D/A and am convinced that shoving money into that old technology isn't a wise choice. If you want to run modern apps, get a modern CPU. Have you priced a replacement power supply for the G4? Ouch! The PS will go sooner or later. Even a Mac Mini will run a lot faster than an upgraded G4.

Hi

I have / had a DA 533 Dual processor Mac which I first bought in May /2001.

Excellent machine! I ran Protools 6.4 (Digi001) and FCP 4.5 HD. In 2005 I was finding that it wasn't quite cutting it in the Plugin department and FCP was struggling a bit.

I was faced with shelling out another $10k to update my Protools rig and keep up to date with everything that I was running ie, buy a G5 etc.

You firstly have to ask yourself, where am I going / doing with this machine?

In 2005 I opted for a Gigadesigns (No longer doing business I believe, but Sonnet provides same upgrade, PPC 7447 chips) dual 1.8GHZ upgrade card.

Best thing I ever did for my old Mac.

But it doesn't stop there.

I bought an ATI Radeon 9800 Graphics card that was a heap of absolute C_ _ P, until I bought and installed a Zalman 700 CU (Copper) fan assembly and fitted it to the graphics card, I cooked three of them because their cooling fans kept falling off.

Anyway once I sorted out the the graphics card problem I ended up with a really reliable Standard Definition / dual screen / Video / Audio workstation that worked and still does work great.

However there are problems that you can't circumvent. Protools ('001) is a PCI card and won't let you use Quicktime in Protools v 6.4 any greater than QT v 6.5.2 and won't let you use any other version of OSX greater than OSX.3.9

Because of my equipment I was stuck in an OSX time warp, but then again I didn't want to upgrade to Protools '002

I live in Australia, it gets bloody hot mate! Our last heat wave in March this year gave us a new record heat wave. 15 days in a row of above 35 degrees celcius. The house got really hot and we don't have airconditioning, ambiant temperature in the house was 32 degrees celsius.

This was an an extreme weather event even for us, yes the the Mac did get a little bit glitchy and freeze up about 5 times. In the end I just put a fan blowing air over the machine and it solved the problem.

I can't give you temperatures, but the new dual 1.8's do run a little warmer, but even in an extreme weather event it still ran well with the help of the fan.

I've now decided that I can't avoid HDV anymore and the treasurer (my wife) has given me the go head to finally upgrade.

So I'm now the proud owner of a early 2008 MacPro 2.8 GHZ machine, FCS2 and a really good little Firmtek 5 Bay PM enclosure with 5 x WD 500GB HDD'S and 2.3TB RAID 0.

Now I'm waiting for a Digi004 to hit the market or at least a '003 that will run off OSX.5.2

Sorry about the rant, but I feel a little frustrated with having a really nice Dual 1.8GHZ G4 (all be it a little noisier than my Macpro) that still is a great machine.

Good luck

O

was in that boat too...

A while back I was looking at my DA 500 Mhz dual and thinking about upgrades. I priced out a decent dual G4 (1.6 Ghz), a better video card, maxed RAM, etc. I then looked at used prices for G5's and found that just on money alone, it would be only a little more for the dual G5, and I would be getting a lot more. I ended up going for one of the last model dual core G5's, and it runs very quiet and cool, better than the earlier models. Once I sold my old G4, it ended up being a cheaper move, and I got a lot more power! That's what I would recommend.

I'm an owner of a significantly-upgraded Digital Audio (with 4 hard drives + ATA 133, see sig) and there are no heat issues.