Potentially buying MDD G4--advice needed.

[sysiphus]

Hello all,

I may be picking up a 1.25ghz (single processor) MDD G4 with 1gb of RAM, ATI Radeon 9000 Pro in the next day or two. Only downer is that the audio out is flaky. No big deal, as I want to get a better audio card for it anyway. Would the M-Audio Revolution 5.1 be ok? Is it stable? I would be running either OS 10.2 or 10.3. Any other random stuff I should know before jumping headfirst into this?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Blue Velvet]

If you're using it for audio work, be warned that the MDDs have noisy fans. Irritatingly so.

 

[ruftytufty]

If you're using it for audio work, be warned that the MDDs have noisy fans. Irritatingly so.

Blue Velvet is correct. And, the noise will vary quite a bit depending on exactly which model you get, whether the power supply has been replaced, etc. Depending on all that, it can vary from just noisy, to >extremely< noisy.

I'm not familiar with that sound card - do a search for reviews.

 

[QCassidy352]

my gf had that very model (single 1.25 MDD) for a few years before upgrading to an intel imac a few months ago. It wasn't noisy at all, and was a good workhorse computer. Not saying that your results will be the same, but we never noticed a problem with noise.

 

[volvoben]

I forgot they ever made a single CPU MDD, but indeed one of the last in 2003 was the only single...anyway, the M-Audio is supposed to work fine (it's supported at least, i have no experience with it).

It's true, the MDDs were not too quiet, I could hear mine in my old office. It isn't terrible, but far more than the G5 cases. It depends on whether the power supply was replaced or not, and if it's a later model which quieted down quite a bit. Replacing the fans/PS is an option, but it's also the case design that makes them louder.

Many would argue that unless you got one heck of a deal (under $500 perhaps) that you should have just gone with an intel mini or similar. While it's true that you can use external HDDs and USB soundcards with the mini, the expandability of the PowerMac is awfully nice. Later on it will still be useful for storage etc. with a sata card and some 2TB HDDs (or whatever they'll be in 4 years).

If you want decent performance that'll keep up for the next few years just be sure it has enough ram. Ram for it is pretty dern cheap (by god, far less than half the cost of Mac Pro ram), so why not.

And in my experience 10.2 is quite a step back from 10.3. Tiger will run great on it, as will Leopard no doubt (assuming it has a gig or more of ram), but Panther is a fine choice and is really as old as you can get and still run modern apps.

All of this could be unhelpful since we don't know the exact purpose of the machine, but hopefully it's not.

 

[sysiphus]

Sorry, yeah, I should have clarified what the machinie is to be used for: basically just a webserver/data storage/music box (thus why I want a better soundcard). I'd be getting it for under 200, so while it would be overkill for just that, it wouldn't be a bad deal...1gig of ram should do fine for that under Panther, I'd think...?

 

[volvoben]

For under $200 you're rockin out with your...well, you did great. Sounds like a perfect machine for your uses, I tried to buy a quicksilver 867 from my old company for the same purpose but they wanted $400.

1gb or ram is fine for panther, or tiger, or no doubt leopard, and will make a quick gigabit server and music machine, enjoy!

 

[synth3tik]

M-Audio is good, but sometime the units themselves flake out. for instance I have an 1814 and every so offen, randomly it will not output any sound. It is recieving signal but does not push it through the path. I guess it has to do somehow with the firewire.