Off to check out this MDD

[jbarley]

Found this in a local add on Craigslist, young fella couldn't tell me much about it on the phone except it can be viewed running, he's not even familiar with the term "MDD". It's only a 10 minute drive for me so I'm going over to take a look after supper.
It's been listed for some time now so I'm hoping he'll be willing to haggle.
With my luck I'll probably end up regretting giving away all those G4 MDD 1.25Ghz spare parts.

 

[SuperKerem]

Found this in a local add on Craigslist, young fella couldn't tell me much about it on the phone except it can be viewed running, he's not even familiar with the term "MDD". It's only a 10 minute drive for me so I'm going over to take a look after supper.
It's been listed for some time now so I'm hoping he'll be willing to haggle.
With my luck I'll probably end up regretting giving away all those G4 MDD 1.25Ghz spare parts.

Haha, good luck. Hopefully you'll get it for a bargain!

 

[bunnspecial]

Good luck, and I hope you can get it for a reasonable price!

If it's a FW400 model, I more than likely have any part you would need for it(except for a PSU). I could probably put two together-cases and all but not PSUs-from the parts bin. Let me know.

 

[jbarley]

Well I'm back home with the MDD.
Turns out it is a 1.25Ghz FW400 model, etcept for a memory bump everything else is stock.
The outside of the case is pretty good, just needs a bit of spit and polish, can't say the same for the inside though. It never fails to amaze me when folks put their systems up for sale but don't take the time to clean them up. The seller even looked embarrassed when I looked inside and never countered my offer of $65 instead of the $75 he was asking.
Now begins the fun part, upgrading components and setting up the operating system to my likings.

 

[tevion5]

Well I'm back home with the MDD.
Turns out it is a dual 1.25Ghz FW400 model, etc for a memory bump everything else is stock.
The outside of the case is pretty good, just needs a bit of spit and polish, can't say the same for the inside though. It never fails to amaze me when folks put their systems up for sale but don't take the time to clean them up. The seller even looked embarrassed when I looked inside and never countered my offer of $65 instead of the $75 he was asking.
Now begins the fun part, upgrading components and setting up the operating system to my likings.

Have fun kitting that beast out! I just dropped €30 on a Radeon 9200 for my PM 8600

Upgrading PPC components be like:

 

[Hrududu]

Fun machine right there. If the machine has a working power supply, its worth $65 for sure.

 

[jbarley]

Now this is weird, just plugged in a bus powered FW400 external drive for CCC backups and the MDD noise level drops by almost half.
And it's not just my imagination, I tested it by unplugging and re-plugging several times.
This is a bonus because this external will stay plugged in most of the time.

 

[KingKen1986]

If you have been following my thread I just got mine locally off of craigslist as well and saw that one for sale, go for it man!

----------

Now this is weird, just plugged in a bus powered FW400 external drive for CCC backups and the MDD noise level drops by almost half.
And it's not just my imagination, I tested it by unplugging and re-plugging several times.
This is a bonus because this external will stay plugged in most of the time.

Make sure you have firmware version 4.4.8f2, it updates the fan controllers. You can still download it off of apple, but when I plug in my external usb hard drive the fans dip a little bit, but not in half, and they tend to re adjust themselves back up.

 

[KingKen1986]

I actually just double-checked mine to see what it does when I plug in my usb HDD, My fans actually speed up a little, I would definitely make sure you have that firmware update so your machine is getting adequate ventilation.

 

[A.Goldberg]

Congrats, looks like a nice machine. I'm kind of itching to get my hands on a G4 Power Mac.

I was going to make a joke about buying the logic board on credit, but I will refrain. Matt's suspension is over tomorrow, according to our skype conversation.

 

[KingKen1986]

Congrats, looks like a nice machine. I'm kind of itching to get my hands on a G4 Power Mac.

I was going to make a joke about buying the logic board on credit, but I will refrain. Matt's suspension is over tomorrow, according to our skype conversation.

I waited two years looking for one locally on craigslist and just found mine last thursday, Man....the dual 867 MDD with 2 gigs of ram is faster and more capable than my single 1.6ghz Power Mac G5. I would def. recommend one if you are into PowerPC, Because to me it feels soooooo right

 

[eyoungren]

Never mind.

 

[KingKen1986]

For some reason I like the G4 processor more than the G5, and having 2 of them in one machine is like a dream to me.

----------

Never mind.

The quicksilvers are good too man, They have more processor upgrades available to them and are still really good machines, especially with one of those processor upgrades....I wasn't trying to say they aren't good or anything if thats what you were thinking, because I was actually looking for a quicksilver and just happened to come across a MDD.

 

[eyoungren]

For some reason I like the G4 processor more than the G5, and having 2 of them in one machine is like a dream to me.

Speaking as a user who used a 1.8Ghz (single processor) PowerMac G5 with 4GB ram and 2 500GB HDs for 8 years (from original purchase Feb. 2005 to 2013) I am in agreement with you.

The G5s are nice, I do want a G5 Quad at some point, but I have never cared for the cheese grater look of these Macs.

So, I guess for me it's style. I like my Quicksilver. As to some quantifiable reason as to why I prefer the G4 over the G5 I can't really put my finger on it right now. The G5 at work performed (and still performs) exceptionally well and for that reason alone I like that particular G5.

But my preference is G4s over G5s.

----------

The quicksilvers are good too man, They have more processor upgrades available to them and are still really good machines, especially with one of those processor upgrades....I wasn't trying to say they aren't good or anything if thats what you were thinking, because I was actually looking for a quicksilver and just happened to come across a MDD.

Oh, no no no. No worries.

That response was to something else and because of the way the posts entered the system it looks like I was responding to you, which I was not at the time.

I said something snarky in response to Goldbook's post that I had second thoughts about.

It's cool!

P.S. The one thing I do NOT like about the QS is that it has a 1.5GB ram limit. Even the Yikes and Sawtooth have a 2GB limit and they are nowhere near as powerful as the QS stock.

 

[KingKen1986]

Speaking as a user who used a 1.8Ghz (single processor) PowerMac G5 with 4GB ram and 2 500GB HDs for 8 years (from original purchase Feb. 2005 to 2013) I am in agreement with you.

The G5s are nice, I do want a G5 Quad at some point, but I have never cared for the cheese grater look of these Macs.

So, I guess for me it's style. I like my Quicksilver. As to some quantifiable reason as to why I prefer the G4 over the G5 I can't really put my finger on it right now. The G5 at work performed (and still performs) exceptionally well and for that reason alone I like that particular G5.

But my preference is G4s over G5s.

I'm the exact way too, I can't put my finger on it either but I think it was just a better designed processor overall. The G5 was a "thermal nightmare" quoted from apple and I think they should have stuck with motorola. I think those are some of the reasons I like the G4 over the G5 but like you I can't really put my finger on it, my G5 isn't even hooked up to anything.

 

[SuperKerem]

I said something snarky in response to Goldbook's post that I had second thoughts about.

Haha...cough*Matthew*cough.

----------

Matt's suspension is over tomorrow, according to our skype conversation.

Great...news.....*insert crying emoji*

 

[bunnspecial]

I might have a few G4-powered computers lying around , and even a few loose processors if one were to look hard enough. I have them in all kinds of packages-processor cards for pre-G3 PowerMacintoshes, ZIF sockets for G3 PowerMacs/PowerMacintoshes, and cards for all the G4 towers.

I have two dual 1.8ghz upgrades-I have the one Erik use to own running at 1.6ghz, and the recently acquired Sonnet that works perfectly at 1.8ghz(G4s get HOT running that fast-I'd say hotter than a 1.8ghz G5).

My dual core G5 kicks butt all day for everything, although a dual 1.8 G4 beats my single 1.8 G5 for many tasks. Using a program optimized for the G5(such as CS4 or Aperture) combined with the greater memory capacity(my 1.8 G5 has 6gb of RAM, compared to 1.5gb for my dual 1.8 QS and DA) give the G5 an edge. Plus, my single 1.8 has a GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics card that kicks the pants off of the Radeon 9600s that I'm using in several G4 towers. Of course, one can put a flashed FireGl X3(a slightly better card than the 6800 Ultra) in an MDD, although the 8x AGP bus on the G5 still gives that card an advantage in a G5.

That still doesn't change the fact that I absolutely love G4 towers, though-and Powerbook G4s for that matter. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head how many G4 towers I have, but they make up a significant part of my 54 computer PPC Mac collection.

 

[Gamer9430]

Off to check out this MDD

Congrats, looks like a nice machine. I'm kind of itching to get my hands on a G4 Power Mac.



I was going to make a joke about buying the logic board on credit, but I will refrain. Matt's suspension is over tomorrow, according to our skype conversation.

Woo... Hoo...

Anyway, it is a very nice system Jbarley, same as mine. I don't use it too often, but when I do it functions as a nice media machine for my room's entertainment system.

EDIT: mine is the FW800 model, so it's slightly more advanced, however I think your's can run OS 9 without hacks.

 

[redheeler]

Woo... Hoo...

Anyway, it is a very nice system Jbarley, same as mine. I don't use it too often, but when I do it functions as a nice media machine for my room's entertainment system.

EDIT: mine is the FW800 model, so it's slightly more advanced, however I think your's can run OS 9 without hacks.

My MDD happens to be the very same model mentioned in this thread (Firewire 400, but bottom-spec dual 867), and although I don't use it all that often either, it works great as a music or 480p YouTube player connected to Apple Pro Speakers.

 

[jbarley]

Now this is weird, just plugged in a bus powered FW400 external drive for CCC backups and the MDD noise level drops by almost half.
And it's not just my imagination, I tested it by unplugging and re-plugging several times.
This is a bonus because this external will stay plugged in most of the time.

Further to this issue...
methinks this external enclosure is drawing enough juice to pull the power supply down, hence the noticeable sound level drop.
Anyhow I had to give up on it, don't need to mess with a MDD power supply and because I was experiencing disk corruption when in use.
The external works fine from a FW400 port on a card I installed and the built in FW400 ports work OK when used with a powered FW400 external dock.

 

[KingKen1986]

Bump her up to 2 GB ram and you'll be extremely happy with the results, use 333 Mhz on the dual 1.25 GHz, I'm jealous as you have 2 MB backside level 3 cache as my dual 867 MDD only has 1 MB backside level 3 cache.

Per processor of course...

 

[jbarley]

Bump her up to 2 GB ram and you'll be extremely happy with the results, use 333 Mhz on the dual 1.25 GHz, I'm jealous as you have 2 MB backside level 3 cache as my dual 867 MDD only has 1 MB backside level 3 cache.

Per processor of course...

My MDD is only a single 1.25, does make me sorta wish I wasn't in such a hurry to give away the parts from a previous dual MDD.
I bumped the ram to max right away, and today I exchanged the combo-optical drive for the super drive I still had from the earlier dual MDD. I also replaced the large case fan for a quieter unit, with good results I might add.
All in all, just really having fun messing around and keeping busy.
Really looking forward to installing a FireGL X3 video card that was very kindly donated by a member of this forum (thanks Erik).
I'm surprised that this system, at least for now has replaced my G5 quad for daily duties. Time will tell.

 

[eyoungren]

My MDD is only a single 1.25, does make me sorta wish I wasn't in such a hurry to give away the parts from a previous dual MDD.
I bumped the ram to max right away, and today I exchanged the combo-optical drive for the super drive I still had from the earlier dual MDD. I also replaced the large case fan for a quieter unit, with good results I might add.
All in all, just really having fun messing around and keeping busy.
Really looking forward to installing a FireGL X3 video card that was very kindly donated by a member of this forum (thanks Erik).
I'm surprised that this system, at least for now has replaced my G5 quad for daily duties. Time will tell.

You're welcome! Have fun with the card. It's brand new so it should serve you a long time.

 

[KingKen1986]

My MDD is only a single 1.25, does make me sorta wish I wasn't in such a hurry to give away the parts from a previous dual MDD.
I bumped the ram to max right away, and today I exchanged the combo-optical drive for the super drive I still had from the earlier dual MDD. I also replaced the large case fan for a quieter unit, with good results I might add.
All in all, just really having fun messing around and keeping busy.
Really looking forward to installing a FireGL X3 video card that was very kindly donated by a member of this forum (thanks Erik).
I'm surprised that this system, at least for now has replaced my G5 quad for daily duties. Time will tell.

My dual 867 MDD replaced my single 1.6 GHz powermac G5, and I'm happier than a kid in a candy store..haha. The dual processors make multitasking so much nicer than the single G5, and it just feels all around snappier, plus I like the looks a heck of a lot more than the cheese grater G5. Not to mention I don't even have to move it to work on it, just fold down the side door and BAM, there's the logic board.

 

[eyoungren]

My dual 867 MDD replaced my single 1.6 GHz powermac G5, and I'm happier than a kid in a candy store..haha. The dual processors make multitasking so much nicer than the single G5, and it just feels all around snappier, plus I like the looks a heck of a lot more than the cheese grater G5. Not to mention I don't even have to move it to work on it, just fold down the side door and BAM, there's the logic board.

I can remember sitting there at work around the time that the G5s were rumored and looking up info on them in Netscape Navigator under OS9. This was on what was probably a G4 AGP (I was not paying attention to Apple at the time).

Once I saw a pic it was instant dislike. I've never cared for the cheese grater look. About the only thing good I could say at the time was "Well, at least Apple is finally moving to full-sized towers." Being a PC person at the time that built my own PCs this was one of my standards then.

Fast forward to now and while I still don't care for the look, I've used a G5 for over eight years daily and I have respect for what the machines can do. Even my 1.8Ghz (single) G5 pulled this off without breaking a sweat. Which is more than I can say for the repeated annoying, niggling issues I have with the cheese grater Mac Pro on my desk (did I mention I hate Yosemite?).

All the way around I much prefer the look and design of the G4s, even the early ones which are really not my cup of tea.