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PowerMac G4 MDD Upgrade Questions

MatthewLTL

MatthewLTL

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 22, 2015
1,684
18
Rochester, MN
I want to upgrade my FW800 model and had some questins.

GRAPHICS - Will the Radeon 9600 PC and Mac Edition work? Do i need to tape the pins since it supports 4x/8x? Does it support Core Image AND/OR HD Video?

Wifi - Is there a PCI bases Wireless N adaptor that will work with this thing?

SATA - I tried using a SATA HDD via a SATA to IDE adaptor. The computer did not even see the hard drive at all. I DO have a Sil 3112 SATA card however when its inside the Mac it will not POST but Chimes fine so i haven't bothered to flash it. is the Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P 4 port PCI-X card bootable?

ATA - to provide same-speed across all drives i wanted a Sonnet Tempo Trio. This is a FireWire/USB/IDE card. 2 or each port. This unlike the Mac is a ATA133 bus. is this Bootable? Will i see a performance increase with the Apple-branded CD-ROM Drive and SuperDrive since they will be on a ATA133 bus instead of a ATA33 bus? also is this a USB 2 card and can I use drives larger than 137GB?

RAM - Would the cheap RAM kits on eBay work (such as Komputerbay) or do i need OWC RAM?

CPU - I want to get the Dual 1.42GHz upgrade. Right now mine is the 133MHz 1GHz processor. Will i get the full 1.42 with this computer since the processor is 167MHz FSB? will this be equivalent to a 2.8GHz processor like the single 2.8GHz G5 or is it only a 420MHz increase? will i notice a difference?

Bluetooth - is the Bluetooth 1.1 Card for this thing better or worse than a Bluetooth 2.0 EDR USB dongle?
 
The PC&Mac ATI 9600 will work without taping. It has CoreImage and can drive a display at 1080p resolutions. There are some PCI WiFi N cards for Macs. Depending on what SATA/PATA adapter you use, your Mac may or may not see it or be able to use it. You will see no speed increase on optical drives when using a faster bus as the optical drives do not fully use all the speed of the ATA/33 bus. Cheaper ram may work, but make sure it is low density and non-ECC. With a 133Mhz bus, a 1.42Ghz processor will not operate at full speed. A G4 is not equivalent to a G5 in processing speeds or abilities. You may notice some slow downs with using a 1.42Ghz CPU on a slower than expected bus. You can put a Bluetooth 2.0+EDR board into that model G4. Look for one from a 2007 iMac. They are the exact same, but blue in colour and are Bluetooth 2.0. A much better solution that using a USB dongle.
 
The Sonnet Aria Extreme supports 802.11n on Power Mac G4 computers. I've never used one of these cards and they're quite expensive.

The Mac probably isn't completing POST with the SATA card only because it isn't flashed. If you have access to a PC, it is very easy to flash these cards and they work great in MDD machines. The MDD G4s have no drive size limitations, regardless of what controller they are connected to. The Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P is not bootable.

MDD/FW800 machines generally won't boot if you try to use a CPU for a different bus speed. If you don't want to modify anything, you can use the dual 867 MHz processor. It's somewhat faster than the single 1 GHz you have. Alternatively, if you increase the bus speed, which involves removing a couple of surface mount resistors on the logic board, you have access to all of the 167 MHz bus processors. I use a dual 1.33 GHz one out of an old Xserve and it provided an enormous performance increase over the single 1.0 GHz I had originally.
 
MatthewLTL said:
CPU - I want to get the Dual 1.42GHz upgrade. Right now mine is the 133MHz 1GHz processor. Will i get the full 1.42 with this computer since the processor is 167MHz FSB? will this be equivalent to a 2.8GHz processor like the single 2.8GHz G5 or is it only a 420MHz increase? will i notice a difference?
Click to expand...

Don't make the mistake of applying basic maths to single/dual CPU frequencies - it never works out :) And making estimates across different CPU types is even worse.

Check this useful table and compare Geekbench scores (not reliable but a rough guide) between machines:

http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-comparison-chart/?compare=all-macs
 
Thanks for all the info. There is some things i left out that my help with things.

1st off i do not think the fact the SATA isn't flashed isn't the issue as I have put this card in the Mac before and booted it as i was trying to use the Mac OS X Flash Utility to flash the card to begin with. I think its more to do with not enough power to work it. I have 2 Optical drives and 4 hard drives in there PLUS i have my USB 2.0 Card plugged into the power supply as well as a 60mm PC fan for the back, 70mm rear fan from a TiVo 2 DT plugged into the 12v fan port on the motherboard (the fan connecor nearest the AirPort Extreme slot) plus the 2 system fans powered on the motherboard from their original ports.

I was not comparing the preformance of a G4 and a G5, I was simply stating that as a example that would a Dual 1.42 equal the speed of a single 2.8.

Seems modifying the board is pretty simple i can just take a plyers and yank off that resistor. Question is will my Single 1GHz still operate after i do that? and also the board isnt as simple as just "removing a screw and pulling back" the thing dont even move i cant get the board out of the computer i had it out once to rip out the Bluetooth and Wifi antennas (do to me rigging up my own method to get better wifi signal) and even then it was next to impossible to remove.

Do i NEED the copper heatsink of can i get away with the Allumium one i have now?
 
Dont get the 1.42 cpu's without the heavy copper heatsink

For CPU performance, a dual 1.42 MDD using a multithreaded app, seems a bit faster than a single G5 2ghz imac if they have similar ram, software and vid card.

You cannot just add the ghz of the 2 G4 cpu's together. There are things like bus overhead, software optimizations, memory sharing, and other factors that slow down any cpu after the first one. My ballpark guesstimate is the second G4 in a MDD will give 50-80% of its performance depending on what software and task your running.

PC & Mac 9600 works great on the MDD and one of its dvi ports is dual link, so can run the 2560x1600 30" cinema.
 
Surrat said:
Dont get the 1.42 cpu's without the heavy copper heatsink

For CPU performance, a dual 1.42 MDD using a multithreaded app, seems a bit faster than a single G5 2ghz imac if they have similar ram, software and vid card.

You cannot just add the ghz of the 2 G4 cpu's together. There are things like bus overhead, software optimizations, memory sharing, and other factors that slow down any cpu after the first one. My ballpark guesstimate is the second G4 in a MDD will give 50-80% of its performance depending on what software and task your running.

PC & Mac 9600 works great on the MDD and one of its dvi ports is dual link, so can run the 2560x1600 30" cinema.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the added info. I cannot do any upgrades this month due to unforeseen expenses but starting in March i will in deed get parts. I will start with the PC & Mac 9600 as i can get that on eBay for 60 bucks. The fact it requires no pin taping makes it the best choice. I will then either get the Copper heatsink of the CPUs 1st it depends on if i can GET a copper heatsink. If i cant get they copper heatsink ill just modify the system fan again to run like a jet to cool the CPU with the current heatsink. The 1GHz in there now is so cool that i can run it for hours with the lid open and the heatsink barely gets warm.

Also, I plan on upgrading ALL the fans in the system. I want to get 2 matching 60x25mm for the rear and 3 60x10mm for the front and side fan as well as a 120mm fan for the main. Will a standard 120x25mm fan fit in the bracket that holds the huge 120mm fan in now?
 
harrymatic said:
The Sonnet Aria Extreme supports 802.11n on Power Mac G4 computers. I've never used one of these cards and they're quite expensive.

The Mac probably isn't completing POST with the SATA card only because it isn't flashed. If you have access to a PC, it is very easy to flash these cards and they work great in MDD machines. The MDD G4s have no drive size limitations, regardless of what controller they are connected to. The Sonnet Tempo SATA X4P is not bootable.

MDD/FW800 machines generally won't boot if you try to use a CPU for a different bus speed. If you don't want to modify anything, you can use the dual 867 MHz processor. It's somewhat faster than the single 1 GHz you have. Alternatively, if you increase the bus speed, which involves removing a couple of surface mount resistors on the logic board, you have access to all of the 167 MHz bus processors. I use a dual 1.33 GHz one out of an old Xserve and it provided an enormous performance increase over the single 1.0 GHz I had originally.
Click to expand...

So i tried to flash my card with the method mentioned above however as it turns out i have a Sil3512A chip not a Sil3112 chip so the flash utility will not flash it. Is there a flash for the 3512?
 
Intell said:
The PC&Mac ATI 9600 will work without taping. It has CoreImage and can drive a display at 1080p resolutions. There are some PCI WiFi N cards for Macs. Depending on what SATA/PATA adapter you use, your Mac may or may not see it or be able to use it. You will see no speed increase on optical drives when using a faster bus as the optical drives do not fully use all the speed of the ATA/33 bus. Cheaper ram may work, but make sure it is low density and non-ECC. With a 133Mhz bus, a 1.42Ghz processor will not operate at full speed. A G4 is not equivalent to a G5 in processing speeds or abilities. You may notice some slow downs with using a 1.42Ghz CPU on a slower than expected bus. You can put a Bluetooth 2.0+EDR board into that model G4. Look for one from a 2007 iMac. They are the exact same, but blue in colour and are Bluetooth 2.0. A much better solution that using a USB dongle.
Click to expand...

so a Bluetooth A1115 from a iMac and Mac Pro will work?
 
It depends on from what model iMac and Mac Pro, but it will work if it fits into the slot on the MDD logicboard.
 
Last edited:
That will work in any USB 2 eMac as well. They aren't special screws. If it fits, it'll work. The antenna should be placed between the plastic side panel and the metal frame wall.
 
MatthewLTL said:
Seems modifying the board is pretty simple i can just take a plyers and yank off that resistor. Question is will my Single 1GHz still operate after i do that? and also the board isnt as simple as just "removing a screw and pulling back" the thing dont even move i cant get the board out of the computer i had it out once to rip out the Bluetooth and Wifi antennas (do to me rigging up my own method to get better wifi signal) and even then it was next to impossible to remove.
Click to expand...

I've removed and swapped plenty of MDD logic boards(I've lost count of how many MDDs I have-I think I have four stacked in the closet at the moment and a couple others scattered around).

The key is removing the heatsink first(four screws) and the processor card. Once those are out, the plastic "support" for the processor card lifts off the two screw posts it sits on. You then-literally-just remove the one screw out of the logic board and the whole board slides over and up.

(BTW, I find the stock WiFi antenna on the on G4 case to generally be pretty good-probably the best of any PowerMac case).
 
bunnspecial said:
I've removed and swapped plenty of MDD logic boards(I've lost count of how many MDDs I have-I think I have four stacked in the closet at the moment and a couple others scattered around).

The key is removing the heatsink first(four screws) and the processor card. Once those are out, the plastic "support" for the processor card lifts off the two screw posts it sits on. You then-literally-just remove the one screw out of the logic board and the whole board slides over and up.

(BTW, I find the stock WiFi antenna on the on G4 case to generally be pretty good-probably the best of any PowerMac case).
Click to expand...

I realized how simple it was to have the Board out as i removed it to route my Rear case fan wires under the logic board. I also somehow managed to break the plastic support for the processor (Though I have no clue how) I took it out and set it down went to put it back in and one of the holes that go thru the posts for the heatsink was broken off. Seems to work just fine with only being supported on one side.

In my case (Due to how loud the PSU fans are) I put the MDD on the floor under my desk. With it being in this position the internal antenna were only giving me 24Mbps connection rather than 54G. (Which when downloading updates and programs is WAY slower than you'd think) Rigging it up how i did gave me 48-54Mbps.
 
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