I love my PowerMac G4! ...but it's in pain :(

[AnyKey]

:-d

:-D

Hi everyone! I'm back! Thank you so much for all of your help. I'm convinced it must be the power supply at this point. Also, it does actually seem to crash more often with two 512's in the ram slots compared to just one. I must run for now, but after checking the forum here, I'm sooo happy to see that there might be hope.

Thanks a lot, guys! I'll keep checking back. I was away for a while because of final projects and exams for college, hehm but now I'm on winter break. It's fun being a freshman.

I'll be in touch!

 

[AnyKey]

Do you think that a power supply from a single 500MHz G4 would be swappable with my dual 1GHz G4? I didn't think so, but I thought I'd ask anyway. I might be able to get my hands on one, but I'm not sure.

 

[Sawtoothdude]

I beleive the QS Models have different power supplies from the rest of the G4s.
The 500Mhz G4 does not have the same amount of power as the QS02. You can try it at your own risk but I am pretty sure it won't even power up.

 

[AnyKey]

Ah, ok. Thank you. I'll take a look at the outputs on both of them, but you're probably right.
I'll keep on the lookout for a real one or I'll try the suggestion about converting another power supply.

 

[apple_iBoy]

:-D

I'm convinced it must be the power supply at this point.

I had a dual 1GHz Power Mac G4 (still have it, actually, but I'm giving it to my folks). A couple months after I got it, Apple replaced the power supply with a supposedly quieter model. I still have the original power supply, which saw very minimal use, boxed up at my parents' house.

They live a couple hours away, so I don't have it right here at my fingertips. But there are probably tons of those MDD power supplies in closets all over the place.

 

[AnyKey]

I think I'll try to find a friend with a G4 and I might swap out the power supply to see if my G4 works with a good supply. Then if that's the case, I'll try finding one on ebay, or if you're looking to sell I might want to buy.

Thank you again, everyone! I hope that someday I'll be able to tell all of you that my G4 Quicksilver is up and running smoothly once again!

Do you think there's any chance that apple might replace the power supply for free with that quieter model if I never found out about the replacement? Hmm...maybe not. Can't hurt to ask though. ^^

 

[apple_iBoy]

I think I'll try to find a friend with a G4 and I might swap out the power supply to see if my G4 works with a good supply. Then if that's the case, I'll try finding one on ebay, or if you're looking to sell I might want to buy.

Not sure when I'll next visit my folks (and trust me, they'd never find this thing in my closet). But if the time comes that you feel you need one, and I happen to have been by their house, I'd "sell" it to you for the cost of shipping.

I need some good karma to come back around my way.

 

[AnyKey]

Oh, wow, thank you.

This is why I love mac people. They're always so helpful and kind.

If I see any karma, I'll make sure to send it your way.

 

[apple_iBoy]

FYI - I'm at my folks' house for the weekend and found my original MDD power supply in my closet. I had packed it up in the box that Apple used to ship the quieter model. Let me know if it's needed.

 

[apaxton]

Oh, My, Gosh

this is the first time i've posted on these forums, and also the first time ever READING these forums. I stumbled upon this site searching for ways to doctor my own G4 , litterally a brother to the g4 in question(same creation date), which in turn is my own birth month and day, 12/21. i have just read the 2 pages preceeding my post and my jaw is still dropped at the the fact that someone is haveing the exact same issue as me. my g4 JUST started to get the infamous grey box with the universal power symbol instructing to restart teh computer.

previous to the crashes, i had installed World or warcraft and the expansion, and added a stick of 256 ram, and replaced my original 128,with a newer.

the ram originally installed does not SAY "apple ram" but there is an A on is with a saturn ring going around it.

the game was running beautifully and i was loving it. I even just bought me a new 32 in LCD with an ATI chip in it to play on. I was in heaven.

after a few days of playing, i recieved the grey box of doom.

restarted, worked fine, the game crashed, leaving my computer on, restarted game, worked fine

the grey bow screen kept becomeing more and more frequent, until yesterday i was playing WoW and it froze up....displaying the black bars jutting from the left of the screen as the original poster described.

since then when i boot my computer it sits at the loading screen, running its check and then finally gettin stuck at "loading login window"

i've tried putting my original RAM combination back in and still no luck.

After reading these past 2 pages it seem as if i can skip ALOT of heartache my simply replaceing my power supply. I dont want to intrude on the original posters issues but any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[apaxton]

in addition i wanted to note that if i attempt to safe boot by holding shift, the computer will just restart over, and over, and over.

i was wondering if this was a totally differant issue altogether

 

[AnyKey]

FYI - I'm at my folks' house for the weekend and found my original MDD power supply in my closet. I had packed it up in the box that Apple used to ship the quieter model. Let me know if it's needed.

apple_iBoy, if the offer is still available, I'd really appreciate it.

I tried checking out a couple of different power supplies in other G4's (digial audio, I believe), but unfortunately, they had different connections to the motherboard, so they wouldn't have been compatible even with rewiring, it seems.
Are you sure that the MDD power supply is compatible with the Quicksilver 2002? If so, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

 

[AnyKey]

in addition i wanted to note that if i attempt to safe boot by holding shift, the computer will just restart over, and over, and over.

i was wondering if this was a totally differant issue altogether

Hmm...I'll make sure to try that and I'll tell you what happens. I don't recall that happening when I tried it, but I hadn't tried safe mode in quite a while.

 

[AnyKey]

this is the first time i've posted on these forums, and also the first time ever READING these forums.

Welcome to the forums! There are a lot of wonderful people here who know tons of stuff and are very helpful as you can see.

previous to the crashes, i had installed World or warcraft and the expansion, and added a stick of 256 ram, and replaced my original 128,with a newer.

How much ram do you have total? And how much did you have originally?

the game was running beautifully and i was loving it. I even just bought me a new 32 in LCD with an ATI chip in it to play on. I was in heaven.

after a few days of playing, i recieved the grey box of doom.

With the new ATI chip, do you mean that you put in a new video card? If so, have you tried it with the original video card and a different monitor?

the grey bow screen kept becomeing more and more frequent, until yesterday i was playing WoW and it froze up....displaying the black bars jutting from the left of the screen as the original poster described.

Yeah...that part happend to me a lot. When playing music, upon freezing, I would even get a repeating split second of a note that would just repeat over and over until I did a hard shut down.

since then when i boot my computer it sits at the loading screen, running its check and then finally gettin stuck at "loading login window"

Hmm...that part didn't happen to me, actually. I've gotten through the loading screen or I haven't. It never really just sat at it and then lagged. Although I sometimes got the horrible gray curtain of death in the middle of while I was at the loading screen. Is that what you mean? Or are you getting no kernel errors (gray screen with gray box in the middle) while you have the frozen loading screen?

After reading these past 2 pages it seem as if i can skip ALOT of heartache my simply replaceing my power supply. I dont want to intrude on the original posters issues but any help would be greatly appreciated.

I really hope that you can find help here! Please post here if there's any change in your computer's behavior because I can tell you if I had the same problem so that we can determine if it is the power supply or not.

Good luck!

 

[apple_iBoy]

Are you sure that the MDD power supply is compatible with the Quicksilver 2002? If so, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

Actually, I guess it's not. When I googled "MDD quicksilver power supply" I did come up with some sites on how to mod the MDD supply to work in previous G4s. :/ You might be better off seeking out a Quicksilver part.

 

[AnyKey]

Actually, I guess it's not. When I googled "MDD quicksilver power supply" I did come up with some sites on how to mod the MDD supply to work in previous G4s. :/ You might be better off seeking out a Quicksilver part.

Oh, ok. I've done some soldering before and a bit of wiring, but I don't know if it's out of my league. I think I saw that article online too. I'll take a closer look. Thanks!

 

[AnyKey]

Oh, ok. I've done some soldering before and a bit of wiring, but I don't know if it's out of my league. I think I saw that article online too. I'll take a closer look. Thanks!

I wonder if it's right to quote myself...lol.

Anyway, I've been looking around online and after reading several success stories about converting MDD power supplys to work in quicksilvers, I think it's something that I might actually be able to do.
From what I've read, it seems that the MDD power supply can be converted to work in just about any G4 made, but models like the Digital Audio and Quicksilver have been specifically mentioned.

I think this was the link that you were talking about before, apple_iBoy:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/MDD_ps_mods/MDD_PS_Mods.html

Might I ask your opinion on the conversion? Do you think it looks pretty much doable? It seems to be.

Thanks!

 

[MacBass]

What about your power supply? That's what's causing me to have panics right now. Too much flashy stuff plugged in.

I don't think a power supply would really contribute to kernel panics. I think it sounds more like a RAM issue, but I'm not sure.

And $600 for a new hard drive is ludicrous.

 

[tuartboy]

I don't think a power supply would really contribute to kernel panics. I think it sounds more like a RAM issue, but I'm not sure.

It sure can. If the power being supplied by the power supply is either insufficient or unstable (fluctuating due to a failing supply) it can bring the whole system down as the individual components reach their tolerances and fail due to what essentially is power starvation.

I'm no electrical engineer, but I've seen it enough times to recognize that it can be a serious issue.