Continuing from my initial post...
I've had my eye on the MDD ever since around 2016, when I saw one in person while visiting the local Mac fixit shop (had I known they were going to recycle everything "obsolete", I would have asked if they needed it). At the time, I instead opted for a G5 as I knew they were faster and more future-proofed, but I could never fully shake the idea, combing through eBay every once in a while to see if I could find any listings worth pursuit.
To cut a certain chain of events short, I found a rather good deal, decided to jump on it, and behold, the machine was filthy, neglected, and semi-rusted when it arrived. Had heavy tape residue on the drive doors, a crimped and crackling speaker, sand-like material on the fans, and choked with dust bunnies galore. The best I could gather was that the thing was stuffed into a garage for years and never revisited, which its slight smell and nature of layered dust confirmed. Had I not come across it, who knows what it might have faced in the future...
After giving it a quick blow over, I plugged it in, turned it on, and it booted right up, chime and all. After some examination of the OS (Tiger) file dates, I deduced that it was last in service during 2011, and likely spent about nine years - almost a decade dormant - probably in said garage.
So over the past couple of weeks, I sanitized all surfaces, removed the rusted pieces (including the Airport caddy, ODD bay back cover, and front I/O board top cover), glued the speaker crimp gap, replaced its slightly yellowed, cloudier handles with my Quicksilver housing's pristine handles, polished the outer case and mirror doors, brushed and washed out all detachable plastic and metal pieces (including the handles, heatsink, etc.), cleaned out the entire front panel / dust underneath (back panel didn't need it), repasted the CPU, relubricated the fan bearings, replaced the PRAM battery... Essentially no different from 'the works' any one of us would have given.
I also threw in a taped, cleaned, and repasted Radeon 9600, and Adaptec AUA-4000 USB 2.0 PCI Card. Will also be on the lookout for dual CPUs if the opportunity arises.
This machine is currently quad-booting Mac OS 9.2, 10.3, 10.5, and Debian Sid.
So... all things considering, looks like he's a happy Mac.
Not bad at all.
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