Dual G4 1.25ghz MDD what to look out for?

[VanneDC]

Hi, got an unknown (bloke didnt know what was inside) MDD 1.25ghz of ebay a couple o streets down from where i live.

turns out it has following specs:

Dual 1.25ghz 256KL2 1MbL2
1.25GB ram (i upped it to 1.5gb)
Ati 9000pro 64mb

and no HD, but i stuck an old 60gb drive in there.

What are the ups and downs of this box? is it worth while modding to 1.5ghz? what OS will run best on this mofo?

oh its mint, no scratches and it came with pro keyboard + mouse and Apple's 17 inch studio lcd

all that for 85 aus. 🙂

 

[ThunderSnake]

What are the ups and downs of this box? is it worth while modding to 1.5ghz? what OS will run best on this mofo?

)

Hmmm. I'm not usually a big fan of overclocking, but read through the CPU database at Xlr8yourmac.com. It appears to be the case that Apple ran low on the dual 1.25's for a little while and substituted some dual 1.42's (clocked to run at 1.25). I have no idea how many machines were sold like this, but you could be one of the lucky ones. It wouldn't really be overclocking to set the processor module to run at it's rated speed. I'd still look for one of the copper heatsinks, though.

Personally, I would stay on the lookout for an actual dual 1.42 module with 2MB L2 per processor. I think this would give you better performance than the 1MB L2's running at 1.5.

What OS? I run Leopard on mine. Tiger might be a little faster. Leopard might make you want to upgrade to a card that provides hardware support for Core Image (like the Radeon 9800 Pro). Either should work fine, though.

 

[666sheep]

Nice catch VanneDC 🙂 You got nice FW800 as I see from CPU specs.

If you're good in soldering, you can OC it to 1.5 GHz. You'll get 20% CPU power increase. But more heat too. I'd recommend to improve cooling if you want to do some OC job. See this site for some cooling ideas.

 

[ThunderSnake]

Nice catch VanneDC 🙂 You got nice FW800 as I see from CPU specs.

If you're good in soldering, you can OC it to 1.5 GHz. You'll get 20% CPU power increase. But more heat too. I'd recommend to improve cooling if you want to do some OC job. See this site for some cooling ideas.

Yeah, despite what I said earlier, I really can't argue with that. Most people seem to find this stable with some additional cooling.

I always like to sharpen my soldering skills on an old PC motherboard for a good hour before putting the iron to a Mac. Even if you've done it before, it never hurts to take a little time to get back in the groove. 🙂

 

[VanneDC]

Afirm to that TS 🙂

but i dont recon ill bother, i recon iam gonna flog it off, I dont really have the room for 3 Towers in my nerd room. That and the damm USB 1.0 is a dead set deal breaker for me.

Oh one more thing, are these MDD's always so loud?

more noise than my Quad g5 makes.

 

[ThunderSnake]

Afirm to that TS 🙂
Oh one more thing, are these MDD's always so loud?
more noise than my Quad g5 makes.

Heh. Yeah. The OEM fans are pretty loud. You're probably hearing the ones in the PSU. Apple had an exchange program for a while to provide quieter PSU's (and quieter customer complaints).

The main 120mm OEM fan isn't much better.

However, there are good replacement options for all of these and once you install CHUD, it can be a very quiet machine.

Sorry about the bad USB. Bummer.

 

[raysfan81]

The fans really aren't THAT bad... But they don't really move much air at all. When I get the chance I'm going to change mine out.