Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Resolved Heat is the enemy, was: $4 and I'm happy!

noodle654 said:
Who makes the CPU upgrade card? Sonnet? Is there a way to crank up those fans on the CPU (the 2 small ones)? It is hard to see everything, you should take some more pics of the inside!

Have you thought about a manual fan control box? That would probably give you some more control options for the fans.
Click to expand...
It's a Giga Designs G-Accelerator. The fans are actually auto-sensing. I think it's just a matter of being crowded in by the video cards and the PSU.

I will get more pics soon. Right now I have it back on dual under load after having relocated the 120mm fan. Seems to be doing much better. I'm encoding again (I stopped it an hour or so ago) and typing this in at the same time.

Morning will tell…
 
You are insane. You know that, right? Good.

The only problem with removing the stock cooler for a liquid cooling setup is that the heatsink is attached with an adhesive thermal pad. They do not come apart easily. But, hey, once you bank some cash it would be worth it to try. Just imagine, a dual 2.0 GHz G4. Unheard of.
 
Insane…hmmmm, ok maybe. :D

I'm not the one who put in a series of dip switches that allows for 2.0Ghz though. Hehehehehe! :D
 
i have a dual 1ghz QuickSilver and i would like to know if people here fits more fans on their powermacs, i dont think that the stock CPU fan is enought for that processor.
 
ROUND 3:
I was PMed last night with a question about the case fans. Based on that question I decided to try something else. This morning I reveresed the 80mm little fan by the CPUs so that it is drawing air OUT and not pushing it in.

Got home to a Mac that froze about a minute after I left this morning (didn't know it). So, a few minutes ago I decided to reverse the 120mm case fan below the CPU to draw air IN and not out.

Additionally, I found some plastic rails that used to be on my daughter's crib. Hard plastic. I put those under the 2 SATA drives that I have sitting loose in the bottom of the Mac. Doing that dropped the drive temps by about 30º!

The second 120mm fan I again have stacked on top of the SATA drives.

In redoing all this I discovered that the main PSU case fan is a simple 120mm fan. I did not realize this. When I get paid next Friday I will be going back to Fry's Electronics again and purchasing 2 $15 fans I saw that advertise DOUBLE the cooling power of the standard fan. I will be replacing both the 120mm fans in this Mac with those. Hopefully that will help considerably!

EDIT: DAMN! Didn't really help!

I'm 0 for 3, but this game is not over. Next Friday we'll see. Going to get those two 120mm double cooling fans and going to try swapping the smaller fan by the cpus with a larger 80mm fan and then see what happens.

If no success then it's down to liquid cooling!

For now…rollback to dual 1.73Ghz.
 
Last edited:
Lots of trial and error, it's kind of fun though isn't it? I'm disappointed that swapping the directions didn't help out. I think it helped me out but I can't be certain until I get one of those thermometers. Your setup is much more beastly than mine though. Aquamac really amazes me. If only we could make custom water blocks! This idea might draw some criticism here but I'm actually flirting with the idea of trying to move all the internals into an ATX case. Best of luck to you!
 
doctormark77 said:
Lots of trial and error, it's kind of fun though isn't it? I'm disappointed that swapping the directions didn't help out. I think it helped me out but I can't be certain until I get one of those thermometers. Your setup is much more beastly than mine though. Aquamac really amazes me. If only we could make custom water blocks! This idea might draw some criticism here but I'm actually flirting with the idea of trying to move all the internals into an ATX case. Best of luck to you!
Click to expand...

For some of these older ones changing the case is not such a terrible idea. There is some guy that made his old Intel iMac into a ATX desktop (it is for sale in the market place). I think it would be cool to convert a G5 Quad...even though I feel the current design is as good as it can get for such a hot machine, I think it could be improved with better fans maybe?...maybe even rid the water cooling? Idk maybe not even possible.
 
@doctormark77. Yes, it's fun fiddling with this. My hands don't think so, but oh well. I've never been inside a computer to do something without it taking a chunk out of my hands somewhere. I usually find out I'm bleeding some time later.

In any case, your suggestion has actually considerably improved hard drive temps. Before I was running in the range of 110-118º. Now, it seems to be between 99-109º. That's a signifigant drop and I'm sure it's because the big case fan is blasting air right on top of the hard drives. I'm going to keep this setup, just modify it somewhat next week.

As to a different case. No. Sorry if that sounds a little short, but the reason I bought the QS is because to me that is the absolute most beautiful case design for the PowerMac G4 that Apple ever made. something about the way the speaker is at the bottom. So, this is the case it stays in. :D

You sacrafice sometimes for beauty. :)
 
Got a good scare this morning.

Woke up to find the Mac locked up. Was fine for the last day and a half at 1.73Ghz. It's stable! So, WTF!

Rebooted the Mac and it got as far as a white screen. So, I'm figuring heat. So, I put the case fans back the way they came from the factory. Still a white screen. Even with DiskWarrior, a white screen!

But my second monitor is nothing but multicolored pixels. Every time I boot.

So after calming down and thinking, I figure my Radeon 9200 is toast. So, I take it out.

Voila, normal booting. Running DW right now.

Great, now I need another PCI graphics card. Oh well, the 9200 was only $15 so I can't complain too much.

The big relief is that it had NOTHING to do with the CPUs!
 
eyoungren said:
Got a good scare this morning.

Woke up to find the Mac locked up. Was fine for the last day and a half at 1.73Ghz. It's stable! So, WTF!

Rebooted the Mac and it got as far as a white screen. So, I'm figuring heat. So, I put the case fans back the way they came from the factory. Still a white screen. Even with DiskWarrior, a white screen!

But my second monitor is nothing but multicolored pixels. Every time I boot.

So after calming down and thinking, I figure my Radeon 9200 is toast. So, I take it out.

Voila, normal booting. Running DW right now.

Great, now I need another PCI graphics card. Oh well, the 9200 was only $15 so I can't complain too much.

The big relief is that it had NOTHING to do with the CPUs!
Click to expand...

Shame about the 9200 - it's a nice card. Seeing as it's dead, you might as well try the oven trick, it worked for me on Friday with a dead nVidia GeForce 6800GT :D
 
eyoungren said:
Explain please…:D
Click to expand...

This will sound really strange...

Preheat your oven to 200C (about 390F). Remove the heatsink from the card and clean off any remaining thermal compound. Put the card on a baking tray supported by aluminium foil balls (about 1cm diameter) - one in each corner, component side facing up. Put the card on the tray in the hot oven for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes has gone by, turn off the oven and open the door. When it has returned to room temperature, remove it and reassemble the heatsink. This fixes a surprising number of dead graphics cards.

Basically what is happening is that the hot air fixes tiny cracks in the solder joints on BGA package ICs. 200C is not enough to fully melt the solder, but it will reflow tiny gaps. I didn't believe it until I tried it and it worked.

It's worth a go, it's not like you've got anything to lose!
 
Last edited:
Thanks I'll take a crack at it!

No more crazy than baking a logic board. Same principle, I just didn't have the details.

And, no more crazy than freezing a hard drive. If you didn't know that trick, if you have a dead drive you can freeze it for a few hours. Plug it back in and if it works, get your data off fast because this is your last chance.

What happens there is that the cold contracts the parts inside the drive. This can result in unsticking the drive head which is a major reason for drive failue. But this is a one and done type trick. Refreezing won't work. Once you take power away again the drive is gone - period.

EDIT: When you say "component side up" do you mean the side the heatsink is on?
 
eyoungren said:
Thanks I'll take a crack at it!

No more crazy than baking a logic board. Same principle, I just didn't have the details.

And, no more crazy than freezing a hard drive. If you didn't know that trick, if you have a dead drive you can freeze it for a few hours. Plug it back in and if it works, get your data off fast because this is your last chance.

What happens there is that the cold contracts the parts inside the drive. This can result in unsticking the drive head which is a major reason for drive failue. But this is a one and done type trick. Refreezing won't work. Once you take power away again the drive is gone - period.

EDIT: When you say "component side up" do you mean the side the heatsink is on?
Click to expand...

Correct, die side up. Depending on the size of the card it will start to bend in the middle when it gets hot, consider adding support in the center too to prevent this.
 
If you're not going to be using OS 9, get a PCI GeForce 5200 and flash it. It'll give you native CoreImage on Leopard (not hacks required).
 
Intell said:
If you're not going to be using OS 9, get a PCI GeForce 5200 and flash it. It'll give you native CoreImage on Leopard (not hacks required).
Click to expand...
OK. The 128MB or 256MB one? And what would I flash it to?
 
The 256MB ones have a 128-bit lane. Some of the 128MB ones are 128-bit, but most are 64-bit. You would want to flash it to a GeForce 5200, look here under the "Modified NVIDIA PPC ROMs" section for the 5200 ROMs http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2. I'd suggest a 256MB model mostly because they have the best chances of properly flashing, plus they're the fastest ones. You can get them with DVI and VGA, but the DVI ones are a bit more expensive.
 
Well…baked the card. Didn't work. It's worth the sum of it's plastic and stuff now. So, into the recycle bin it went.

Going to try Intell's route when I get a little cash. The 5200s don't seem all that expensive. I just don't have it right now.

Poor me! I have to suffer with two monitors for the time being. :p
 
eyoungren said:
Well…baked the card. Didn't work. It's worth the sum of it's plastic and stuff now. So, into the recycle bin it went.

Going to try Intell's route when I get a little cash. The 5200s don't seem all that expensive. I just don't have it right now.

Poor me! I have to suffer with two monitors for the time being. :p
Click to expand...

Oh well, it must have been a more serious fault then. At least the card was pretty cheap in the first place as you said. Those 5200's look really nice - I'm having to talk myself out of getting one too, my MDD's already crowded enough inside!
 
I think it was marginal to begin with though. I had some issues when I first got it. That's ok, I got my $15 out of it I think.

Trying to talk myself out of buying TWO 5200s. :)
 
eyoungren said:
I think it was marginal to begin with though. I had some issues when I first got it. That's ok, I got my $15 out of it I think.

Trying to talk myself out of buying TWO 5200s. :)
Click to expand...

It would make a huge improvement on the Rage 128 you're running at the moment. How many monitors are you planning on running now? 6? :rolleyes:
 
harrymatic said:
It would make a huge improvement on the Rage 128 you're running at the moment. How many monitors are you planning on running now? 6? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Well, that's a thought, but no. I'm planning on running 4+1. What I mean by that is two off the AGP card and two off the PCI card. The third card I plan on being a TV-Tuner card. So, technically, 5 displays, but the 5th one would be driven by the tuner card.

The Rage 128 will stay until I get the tuner card.
 
I had twoo of these Dual 1,8GHz 7447 Sonnet Upgrades. One was overheating. The reason was the thermal paste.

eyeongreen: Maybe you try applying new thermal paste.

Getting the fan+heatsink assembly off is a pain in the a... You need a torx screwdriver with a hole in it.

---

Other cooling options:
- There is the small rear fan behind the stock CPU, is there any place left between the heatsink and the case?
- you can use a 80-120mm fan at the "Intake" of the PSU. I find that the PSU exhausts the moust heat and produces a lot, too.
Like: Fan -> PSU -> stock fan inside PSU.
- add PCI-Slot cooler
- try mounting a Silenx 120x35cm fan http://geizhals.de/silenx-ixtrema-pro-120mm-ixp-76-18-a214841.html on it. Together with a Zalman FanMate or similar. I am not sure if it fits, I remember that the heatsink has a lenght of 10cm, right?

A Sonnet Technichian told gave me theeese specs once:
Has a rating of 13.3 CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute). It is a 12V fan, 5500 RPM. The same fan is used on the Duet.

and

> The fan we used was a Sunon KDE1205PFB1
>
> Here are the specs:
> +12V
> 0.11 Amps DC current
> 1.3 Watts power consumption
> 5500 RPM
> 13.3 CFM (cubic feet per minute)
> 0.15 static pressure (inches of H20) - that is, inches of water
> 31.0 dba noise
>
> I wouldn't recommend going to lower CFM fans, as we used the quietest one we could, and a lower CFM fan will probably not cool the unit well enough.

That actually looks like you can use just any big fan that has more cfm than 2x 13.3cfm.

--
Alos, are you sure that 2GHz is in range? Sonnet sold the 7447 at 1,8GHz max, as far as I remember and they had a lot of problems with the "burning" 1,8GHz version, which is why many people slow it down to 1,7GHz. (The thermal compound issue seems quite often the reason for problems, though.)
 
Hey there!

E!!!

What is going on with the heating issue????? I read the thread so I know what's going on but I wanted to ask that anyway.

Anyhooooo, I have an idea that might work. I don't know where you relocated the new fan that you bough for the CPU, but if it's still centered over the CPU and directly on top of the other fans, I would say that's bad placement. Sure it makes sense with the car open, but since that PM was originally designed to draw heat out the back and then that was changed by the original CPU upgrade when you bought it from me, I think you need to adopt a multi-unit cooling method instead.

I would use longer screws to raise the smaller fans off of the CPU and then surround that with some sort of vented aluminum col that allows for airflow and will also allow excess heat that is not picked up by the fans to exit the area and cool the CPU. THEN I would make something else out of a harder aluminum and then attach that to resemble a funnel that draws the heat up. Have the new fan attached to the end of that where the original vent to the back of the machine was and that should allow for much better cooling without going too crazy. You could even use the EMI shield from a broken laptop for the vent and it "should" work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back