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G4 MDD 867 dual -- mega upgrade (help!)

N

Nova77

Guest
Original poster
May 12, 2011
337
1
Hi, I got a G4 MDD 867! Was quite cheap, but I'm looking forward to upgrade it. I want to turn this into the fastest OS 9 bootable machine ever.
If you've got some insane (or reasonnable) ideas about how to get the fastest OS 9 machine, feel free to tell me!

What I want to put in....
- Dual 1.42 processor + copper heatsink (which I got!)
- 2 GB RAM
- Put in good DVD drive
- Add SATA card (or fast SCSI? ...)
- Put in some fast hard drives, and maybe even a small SATA SSD for system boot
- Install Geforce4 Ti 4600 128 mb AGP video card (last one for OS 9, unless you got a better idea)

What to do....
- Overclock bus speed from 133 mhz to 167 mhz
- Install processor upgrade (any1 can give me tips with this??)
- (optionnal) Overclock dual 1.42 processor?? any1 has experience with that? I'd overclock it as long as I can find a way to keep it cool... I want cpu to last long

Any1 can help me?
 
Well, if anyone wants info, I have an MDD also that has been modded to the nuts.

The machine is a SP 1.25 GHz model so it already runs at 167 MHz FSB. So no mod needed there.

As for SATA, I have this card installed which is an identical clone of this card. I have 2 drives running off of it (a 300 GB and a 500 GB) and it is bootable off of the 300.

The cpu I have is the original, but thanks to these boys I was able to overclock it to 1.42 GHz.

The internal fans I have swapped out for better and quieter fans. These are the fans I used, but others may be better for the situation...
PSU Fans...
Internal 120 mm fan...
DVD fan...

And the original PSU was the 360W, which I modded a custom 460W to sit inside the original casing. Images located here.

I also have a modded ATI 9600 video card in my comp too.
All in all, it's a great system, but for my needs, it's too slow hence why i am rebuilding a G5 for it's everyday use.
 
reddrag0n said:
As for SATA, I have this card installed which is an identical clone of this card. I have 2 drives running off of it (a 300 GB and a 500 GB) and it is bootable off of the 300.
Click to expand...

What are your thoughts on SATA hardware RAID? Any cards for this btw? Also, is there any 4 internal bootable SATA card out there? Thanks.
 
Nova77 said:
Hi, I got a G4 MDD 867! Was quite cheap, but I'm looking forward to upgrade it. I want to turn this into the fastest OS 9 bootable machine ever.
If you've got some insane (or reasonnable) ideas about how to get the fastest OS 9 machine, feel free to tell me!

What I want to put in....
- Dual 1.42 processor + copper heatsink (which I got!)
- 2 GB RAM
- Put in good DVD drive
- Add SATA card (or fast SCSI? ...)
- Put in some fast hard drives, and maybe even a small SATA SSD for system boot
- Install Geforce4 Ti 4600 128 mb AGP video card (last one for OS 9, unless you got a better idea)

What to do....
- Overclock bus speed from 133 mhz to 167 mhz
- Install processor upgrade (any1 can give me tips with this??)
- (optionnal) Overclock dual 1.42 processor?? any1 has experience with that? I'd overclock it as long as I can find a way to keep it cool... I want cpu to last long

Any1 can help me?
Click to expand...

FSB mod the info is located here.
Installing the MDD cpu and heatsink
As for the video card, from what i am reading, the Mac ATI 7000/7500, 8500/9000 and 9200 cards are full OS9 ready.

As for the 4 port internal card, the only one that i know of that works is the Seritek 1V4 card. As for Raid, other than the native OS X software raid, i am not sure.
 
reddrag0n said:
FSB mod the info is located here.
Installing the MDD cpu and heatsink
As for the video card, from what i am reading, the Mac ATI 7000/7500, 8500/9000 and 9200 cards are full OS9 ready.

As for the 4 port internal card, the only one that i know of that works is the Seritek 1V4 card. As for Raid, other than the native OS X software raid, i am not sure.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the infos
Might stick to that SATA card if I don't go with RAID 0
As for the graphic card, ATI radeon 9200 is good, but the Geforce4 Ti 4600 is better.
ATI 9200 PCI for OS 9, coupled with a better AGP for OS X would be an option though... but people seems to have a hard time getting the ATI 9200 PCI edition to work under OS 9... reviews are pretty bad...

You posted fans in your other post... Do you know a good cooling mod without losing PCI slot or hdd bay?
 
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I have a PCI slot fan hooked up to the DVD fan power so i don't hear it. It works well for my needs, but yours might be different. Also i have an extra 120 mm fan on the outside of my case helping exhaust the internal hot air from the cpu. if you want, i can try to take pics or something like that showing all i have done to my MDD
 
oh, and with the aftermarket fans, you will have to do a mod on the connectors. Since Apple used different plugs for their Delta fans, you will need to mod the 3 pin plugs. Leave the RPM wire alone but swap the + and - wire and the fans will run in the MDD.
 
reddrag0n said:
I have a PCI slot fan hooked up to the DVD fan power so i don't hear it. It works well for my needs, but yours might be different. Also i have an extra 120 mm fan on the outside of my case helping exhaust the internal hot air from the cpu. if you want, i can try to take pics or something like that showing all i have done to my MDD
Click to expand...

Yeah, some pics would be pretty cool! As for my needs, I'd like to cool my MDD without losing PCI slots because I want to keep them for audio hardware... So if you got in mind a good way to use fans to cool it down w/o losing expansion slots, please tell me! I've never installed fans before so I don't know where to put em (ok I'm logical lol but you know...)

Actually, I want an OS 9 beast, because I find it challenging to try whats never been done with such an old OS, and also because of old pro audio equipement, and I want to run classic games....
 
Ok, in that case, we will lose the PCI slot fan. But we will put 1 to 2 fans for CPU exhaust. It's going to be difficult since the MDD's were the hottest macs out there heatwise.

As for pics, my MDD is in use right now so tearing it apart right now is not an option.

As for the OS, is your MDD the FW400 or FW800 model? Meaning do you have a Firewire 400 or 800 port? If you have a FW800 model G4, there is no way OS 9 will install on that machine. Only the FW400 models could run 9.
 
reddrag0n said:
Ok, in that case, we will lose the PCI slot fan. But we will put 1 to 2 fans for CPU exhaust. It's going to be difficult since the MDD's were the hottest macs out there heatwise.

As for pics, my MDD is in use right now so tearing it apart right now is not an option.

As for the OS, is your MDD the FW400 or FW800 model? Meaning do you have a Firewire 400 or 800 port? If you have a FW800 model G4, there is no way OS 9 will install on that machine. Only the FW400 models could run 9.
Click to expand...

Yep I know... The 867 mhz model is FW 400, the 1.42 is FW 800. But if you put processor daughter card in FW 400 model, it will boot OS 9 (well it is supposed to, haven't tried yet... Some ppl say it worked for them... thermal grease is on its way... we will find out soon)
 
Once you do the 133 to 167 mod, then you can use the DP 1.42.
If not then your CPU will be running at around 800 or 900 MHz.

Also upgrade the ram from PC-2100 to min PC-2700 or PC-3200. (PC-3200 will run at PC-2700 speeds)

The one link i sent is a rewrite from a different website and they safely overclocked the CPU to a DP 1.58 GHz.

But yes, the FW400 models all booted OS 9.

Here is where i got the discs so mine would boot for testing since my official OS 9.1 and 9.2.1 wouldn't boot the mac.
 
reddrag0n said:
Once you do the 133 to 167 mod, then you can use the DP 1.42.
If not then your CPU will be running at around 800 or 900 MHz.

Also upgrade the ram from PC-2100 to min PC-2700 or PC-3200. (PC-3200 will run at PC-2700 speeds)

The one link i sent is a rewrite from a different website and they safely overclocked the CPU to a DP 1.58 GHz.

But yes, the FW400 models all booted OS 9.

Here is where i got the discs so mine would boot for testing since my official OS 9.1 and 9.2.1 wouldn't boot the mac.
Click to expand...

I've got the original restore CDs! Currently running OS 9.2 and OS 10.2 but I will upgrade the OS X to 10.5.8.

As for the CPU, I've read lots of stuff about it, but theres one thing I don't know... Do I have to mod the voltage? Or just swap daughter cards and boot?...
 
Nova77 said:
I've got the original restore CDs! Currently running OS 9.2 and OS 10.2 but I will upgrade the OS X to 10.5.8.

As for the CPU, I've read lots of stuff about it, but theres one thing I don't know... Do I have to mod the voltage? Or just swap daughter cards and boot?...
Click to expand...
can boot the original 867 without an issue. as for the 1.42, you need to mod the FSB on the motherboard in order to run that. then you need to get faster ram, or else the 1.42 and the modded mobo won't boot at all. once that is done, read this forum on modding the cpu speed and voltage. once that is done, then we can go onto the next steps.
 
reddrag0n said:
can boot the original 867 without an issue. as for the 1.42, you need to mod the FSB on the motherboard in order to run that. then you need to get faster ram, or else the 1.42 and the modded mobo won't boot at all. once that is done, read this forum on modding the cpu speed and voltage. once that is done, then we can go onto the next steps.
Click to expand...

Thanks for help! Keep taking a look at this threat, as I will post work in progress. I'm now getting 2 gb PC2700 RAM and Arctic cooling MX-4 thermal grease.
 
Last edited:
I would use PC-3200 because it's cheaper and more easily accessible.

Also, these configurations can be used...

4 - 512 MB sticks...
2 - 512 MB sticks and a 1 GB stick...
2 - 1 GB sticks...

Any of those combinations will work. just nothing more than 2 GB altold.

As for grease, i use Arctic Silver 5 paste and it does the job.
 
reddrag0n said:
I would use PC-3200 because it's cheaper and more easily accessible.

Also, these configurations can be used...

4 - 512 MB sticks...
2 - 512 MB sticks and a 1 GB stick...
2 - 1 GB sticks...

Any of those combinations will work. just nothing more than 2 GB altold.

As for grease, i use Arctic Silver 5 paste and it does the job.
Click to expand...

PC2700 cost me $45 for 2 gb, I've not seen anything cheaper than that!

As for the grease, I've heard Arctic Silver is pretty classic, but the one I bought is better. It says there is no curing time and it lasts for 8 years. Plus, you get an extra couple of degrees cooler cpu. Yeah, it was more expensive but... $15 is not that much.
 
Ok, you have the ram, good.

As for the thermal grease, well, whichever your preference is. Now it's time to do the solder mods to the logicboard.
 
reddrag0n said:
Ok, you have the ram, good.

As for the thermal grease, well, whichever your preference is. Now it's time to do the solder mods to the logicboard.
Click to expand...

Actually, I don't have the ram, but I should receive it soon via mail. Same goes with thermal grease. Got it from ebay...

Btw I just missed a deal for a Geforce 4 Ti 4600 mac edition... Do you have any clue of where I could find another?? I don't want to pay $100-$140 for a card that is 9 years old! (yeah... most sellers are crazy)
 
The fastest MacOS9 bootable machine would feature a Dual 1.8GHz CPU, though. :)

But I really like this kind of projects.

img0242t.jpg

:rolleyes:
 
666sheep said:
Nope. Dual 1.42@1.67 GHz 7445 with 2MB L3 will eat it for lunch ;) Cooling is the issue, though :)
Click to expand...

Cooling shouldnt be an issue since I got the copper heatsink ;) Add to that the better thermal grease (supposed to lower the temp a bit) and some fans, and it should be cool enough!


---->well... didn't read carefully enough... 1.42@1.67 would have heating issues yeah... Still, Dual 1.42 w/o overcloking will eat dual 1.8 for lunch because of the L3 cache... Thats what I've read.
 
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