you know, you're going to need to post pictures of this thing at some point, or it didn't happen...best of luck.
Hehe - pix will be coming soon.
mmmm vid cards........
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
New purchase - Apple Power G4 Dual 867 Mhz
- Thread starter jrko
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Hehe - pix will be coming soon.
mmmm vid cards........
My guess is RAM is your biggest issue. I run 1GB in the system in my sig, and while that is adequate in OSX Tiger you're best off maxing the memory.
As for video cards, the Radeon 9000 is probably OK if you're not gaming, but if you are or if you want to take advantage of Core Image functionas then you need something better from this list.
The Radeon 9800 Pro is the default choice for this machine based on performance, availability and cost. If you can find one of the rare OEM Radeon 9700 Pros you'll get a small performance boost. Plus, there are plenty of PC cards out there you can flash (I am running a GeForce 6800GT in my Digital Audio G4). Good luck.
I don't know if this has been mentioned before, or if you're already aware, but G4s can't really handle HD video playback, no matter how many upgrades you install. 480p is fine obviously, but even the fastest G4s fail to deal with 720p video. The G4 CPU simply doesn't have the oomph. Just something to consider.
I would go with the 9800 also. The Geforce 6200 I have doesn't work in MDD's for some odd reason but does work in all other AGP G4 towers. The 9800 will also outperform a GF 6200.
Be sure to get a Radeon 9800 Pro rather than a regular 9800. About the same prices but the Pro is faster.
Be sure to get a Radeon 9800 Pro rather than a regular 9800. About the same prices but the Pro is faster.
dang, totally forgot about that. i've even linked that before. very useful thread! (click the link in his signature)
didn't know that. i've use some 6200s before, but have never owned/used a MDD... wonder why it won't work? did you tape the pins, tried all the other tricks? voltage problem perhaps?!? learn something new every day around here. long live PPC!
I didn't do the pin covering on my 6200. I bought it from that same vendor but reflashed it myself with a faster ROM. He did the pin work and I reflashed it. On both that sellers auctions and others as well as other 6200 for Mac info I have read they all say no MDD support. Must be something to do with voltage or pins. It's AGP 4x like the Digital Audio and Quicksilver which work with the 6200. Strange..
The more common Geforce 6200 ROM's for Mac are downclocked a bit as about half the 6200 Mac market or more are used in G4 Cubes. This is obviously done to lower heat. The GPU runs at 300MHz on the Cube/common ROM and 350mhz on the ROM I reflashed with. The VRAM is 533MHz on both ROM's.
I haven't been up to date on the Mac flashing scene for a couple years now, but when I was last keeping up with it the MDD remained a problem child, and would not accept cards that worked well on the Digital Audio and Quicksilver G4s.
I bought a Radeon 9600 PRO from OWC years ago, it was an OEM card pulled from an AGP G5 tower with pins 3 & 11 taped by OWC. They stopped selling them after awhile because of problems with certain versions of the G4 but it always worked fine for me in my Digital Audio.
The bottom line is, not all cards work in all brands of G4, and the reasons for this are not fully understood in all cases. Your mileage may vary! This is why the Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB is a favorite choice for flashing, because it is one of the few cards that is known to work in all G4s.*
*With the caveat that Radeon 9800s with more or less video memory than the 128MB version don't always work, and other verisons of the 9800 (XT, XL, SE) either don't work or are not proven to work on most machines.
Thanks for the plug! That was a fun project, and the darned card still works.
I bought a Radeon 9600 PRO from OWC years ago, it was an OEM card pulled from an AGP G5 tower with pins 3 & 11 taped by OWC. They stopped selling them after awhile because of problems with certain versions of the G4 but it always worked fine for me in my Digital Audio.
The bottom line is, not all cards work in all brands of G4, and the reasons for this are not fully understood in all cases. Your mileage may vary! This is why the Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB is a favorite choice for flashing, because it is one of the few cards that is known to work in all G4s.*
*With the caveat that Radeon 9800s with more or less video memory than the 128MB version don't always work, and other verisons of the 9800 (XT, XL, SE) either don't work or are not proven to work on most machines.
Thanks for the plug! That was a fun project, and the darned card still works.
I had the exact same card in my dual 867 MDD in 07 and later in the dual 1.42 I got. I loved it. Was my first core image GPU. Bought mine on ebay.
I settled on a Sawtooth in the end as I prefer reliability and they are one of the most reliable Macs ever made. Most reliable G4 tower by far.
mmm - Geekbench score 732. woohoo
temp is sitting at around 46-47 degrees C or 117 degrees F at idle. A bit better than before the MX-2 paste.
Lets see what 2Gb of ram does
temp is sitting at around 46-47 degrees C or 117 degrees F at idle. A bit better than before the MX-2 paste.
Lets see what 2Gb of ram does
Last edited:
just opened 2 films on iplayer, itunes movie, and all the other applications i can find and its sitting about 48 deg C.
Main fan is wired into 12v so at max flow all the time but still not to bad at all
Main fan is wired into 12v so at max flow all the time but still not to bad at all
Last edited:
second that. takes a bit for everything to line up and get useful.
sounding good so far. i would think those temps would come down a bit more after getting set. the fans at 12v (with quiet fans) is a good idea to move as much air a possible, as long as the noise is not a problem of course.
more ram will make everything better, but will also raise the ambient temps in the case as ram does get warm.
can't wait to see how it all ends. and pics.
Well i'm waiting on one of these http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA1V4/ comming from Oz and one of these as well http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet Technology/TSATA/ thats a bit more local!
Both from fleaBay at way less than the OWC prices. The 2 port will run 2x 2.5 inch drives to become the main HD for the G4 and possibly its time machine backup. The 4 port will look after my itunes, photos etc and general backup duties.
I'll post some pix once it looks different from stock with a load of drives whirring away
Just got my ram ordered as well. $26 for 4x 512mb sticks
Both from fleaBay at way less than the OWC prices. The 2 port will run 2x 2.5 inch drives to become the main HD for the G4 and possibly its time machine backup. The 4 port will look after my itunes, photos etc and general backup duties.
I'll post some pix once it looks different from stock with a load of drives whirring away
Just got my ram ordered as well. $26 for 4x 512mb sticks
Last edited:
One other thing you can do is enable "nap mode". It lets the CPUs enter a low power state when they are idle. It does not hurt performance.
It can be enabled with the Processor prefpane included in CHUD 3.5.2.
Note: on some G4s nap mode is already enabled by default.
Well i'm waiting on one of these http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA1V4/ comming from Oz and one of these as well http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet Technology/TSATA/ thats a bit more local!
Both from fleaBay at way less than the OWC prices. The 2 port will run 2x 2.5 inch drives to become the main HD for the G4 and possibly its time machine backup. The 4 port will look after my itunes, photos etc and general backup duties.
I post some pix once it looks different from stock with a load of drives whirring away
Just got my ram ordered as well. $26 for 4x 512mb sticks
Those Sonnet SATA cards are also made by FirmTek for Sonnet. My 2 port card is exactly the same but has a red PCB and says FirmTech rather than Sonnet. This one:
Great card and works 100% seamless with 10.5 and 10.4.
Great price for the RAM!
Oh, I didn't know that. On which ones exactly?
I was thinking that only G5s had it enabled automatically.
OP, if you want 2.5" drives in reasonable pricing, consider WD BEKT (Blacks).
If you'll want to squeeze more juice of your MDD in the future (and you're not afraid of solderin iron), maybe think about overclocking FSB from 133 to 167? It's quite easy, only one resistor to desolder. You'll be able to upgrade CPU to dual 1.25 or 1.42.
I don't know exactly, but on my G4 Digital Audio it's enabled by default.
This page has information about it in MDDs.
prezzies!!!!
Both Sata PCI cards arrived this morning!! Just need some sata cables now
And my apple mouse. Its the white one with a clear outside body and white inner case where the entire body is the button and without the track ball. It matches the white apple keyboard well. I think they are both of the generation that came out with the G5 macs as they are the same as I got with my imac G5 way back when
Both Sata PCI cards arrived this morning!! Just need some sata cables now
And my apple mouse. Its the white one with a clear outside body and white inner case where the entire body is the button and without the track ball. It matches the white apple keyboard well. I think they are both of the generation that came out with the G5 macs as they are the same as I got with my imac G5 way back when
Panic!!
Just fitted my 2 new Sata cards and booted her up only to receive a Kernal panic.
I had noticed that there was a ticking sound coming from the unit when I reconnected it to the power supply this afternoon. Could it just be a busted HD?
Just fitted my 2 new Sata cards and booted her up only to receive a Kernal panic.
I had noticed that there was a ticking sound coming from the unit when I reconnected it to the power supply this afternoon. Could it just be a busted HD?
Any sound certainly wouldn't be from the SATA cards. A "ticking" sound must be either a drive or fan.
EDIT: Also try emailing FirmTek's support. I have used it via email in the past and they are very good and usually email back within 10-15 min. This is the URL. The first contact with them is via the site and it's all email after that.
BTW.. the Sonnet card you bought is exactly the same as a 1S2 FirmTek model so you can contact them about both. Just say it's a 1S2 as it is anyway. FirmTek makes the Sonnet SATA cards as I said earlier.
Too bad you can't boot to see what firmware you have. Boot from a PATA drive with the cards in and look in system profiler. An MDD should be using the newest firmware.
Last edited:
Try this as well -
Take both cards out and power the computer up. Any ticking? How about the kernel panic?
If everything is fine, try just one of the cards. If everything is kosher, pull it out and try the other. If it's fine again, I would assume that they can't work together.
Have you called Other World Computing to ask them if they will both work together?
If they will, I would start checking power supply lead voltages, you could be experiencing a power supply failure causing an undervoltage occurrence to the cards, thus causing a kernel panic.
EDIT - Just noticed that you also ordered memory. Where did you order it from, and was it listed as Mac compatible?
Also, are the SATA cards installed with new hard drives? That again could cause an undervoltage situation if the supply is failing.
Take both cards out and power the computer up. Any ticking? How about the kernel panic?
If everything is fine, try just one of the cards. If everything is kosher, pull it out and try the other. If it's fine again, I would assume that they can't work together.
Have you called Other World Computing to ask them if they will both work together?
If they will, I would start checking power supply lead voltages, you could be experiencing a power supply failure causing an undervoltage occurrence to the cards, thus causing a kernel panic.
EDIT - Just noticed that you also ordered memory. Where did you order it from, and was it listed as Mac compatible?
Also, are the SATA cards installed with new hard drives? That again could cause an undervoltage situation if the supply is failing.
Last edited:
He didn't buy them from OWC and they also don't support the card near as well as the manufacturer even if he did buy it there.
A few hard drives with stock video is never going to be too much power for a 400 watt PSU. Even with the full 6 drives he wants to use thats only maybe 75-90 watts. The dual 867 card would use maybe 55 watts tops. All thats left is the stock geforce 4 MX, optical drive and the system fans which wouldn't add up to anymore than maybe 120 watts. 90+55+120=265 watts. Because there were more powerful video upgrades out at the time of the MDD they allowed an extra 150 watts or so for power hungry cards. ie. 9800 pro and Geforce 7800.
Hmm, yeah that sounds correct, never realized that hard drives used so little power (Now that I know I am putting 2 40 gigs I have in mine!). But like I said, if the power supply is slowly failing, the cards or hard drives could be throwing it over the top, especially with the ticking noise present, indicating something could be failing in the supply.
I've had similar situations with regular PCs, upgraded a few things and would lock solid at the POST screen or BSOD in Windblows, only to find out the supply was failing and wasn't supplying enough voltage to the added components.
I've had similar situations with regular PCs, upgraded a few things and would lock solid at the POST screen or BSOD in Windblows, only to find out the supply was failing and wasn't supplying enough voltage to the added components.
The only drives that really go above 15 watts are the 10,000+ rpm like the raptor but even then it's maybe 22 watts. The WD black I boot from is about 14 watts but the green from WD or any low powered drive can be as low as 8-9 watts. The average would be about 12.