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Questions about Power Mac G4 MDD Dual 867

P

powerpcguy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 22, 2012
22
0
Hi, all--

Despite my username, I am a bit of newb when it comes to PPC macs. I recently bought a dual 867 Power Mac and have a few questions.

1. It came with a black power cable, which states it is a 300v cable. I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be the cable apple originally sent with the machine... I was expecting the original cable--which I believe is a 400v. Could this be the replacement cable that apple sent out to make the machine quieter 10 years ago? Should I not run the machine on 300v and wait to find a 400v?

2. Two of the expansions slots are open (image below) and it seems like it could be a dust problem. Are these open to keep the machine cooler? Should I close these off?

7I46w.jpg


3. Is this machine a power glutton? I was thinking about keeping it running constantly, but the fan doesn't seem to ever go off. It is loud, super loud! I didn't know that it was nicknamed the "windtunnel" when I bought it-- now I know. Oh well, if I wanted the quietest machine available, I wouldn't be working with PPCs.

4. I am looking to buy a AirPort card with bluetooth. Is this possible, can anyone point me to the card I need (on ebay or elsewhere)?

Thanks for all of your help in advanced! This is my third PPC, and my first desktop PPC and I'm stoked to get it up and running.
 
The power cables are all standard power cables. The voltage rating on them is the most the cable can carry. Macs in America don't use more than 120v and most non-American Macs don't use more than 240v. Having a different cable won't change a thing.

You can use any old computer expansion slot blank to cover up those holes. Having them open does disturb the designed cooling within the machine.
 
Thanks for the info!

Also, just realized I can't get the AirPort Extreme card for this machine. Only the older AirPort cards will work. Arg.
 
You can buy a wireless USB dongle and use that. I know that Mac has USB 1.1 slots, you should have no problem finding a USB 2.0 PC Card to install if you want to also. Someone one here can recommend a brand or two to look for.
 
powerpcguy said:
2. Two of the expansions slots are open (image below) and it seems like it could be a dust problem. Are these open to keep the machine cooler? Should I close these off?
Click to expand...

Stock "slot covers" for MDD are looking like below:

4649986772_7d35d4b9d2.jpg


Holes are to exhaust heat from the case. If you want to preserve original cooling design, you should have to use such "covers", not the ones you have now. Or just leave these 2 open.
 
666sheep said:
Stock "slot covers" for MDD are looking like below:

Image

Holes are to exhaust heat from the case. If you want to preserve original cooling design, you should have to use such "covers", not the ones you have now. Or just leave these 2 open.
Click to expand...

If all the expansion slots were filled, those would be blocked anyway, wouldn't they? I don't think those can be a dedicated, necessary part of the cooling if they are designed to be blocked when the expansion slots are used. Am I missing something? That machine should have 4 PCI slots and the AGP slot, if I remember correctly, hence the 5 expansion slots. :confused:
 
I currently have PCI USB 2.0 card and compatible BT USB stick installed to it, this USB Card has one "internal slot" which I use for the BT:

http://aijaa.com/RPq7ju

Despite the lighting being awful on that pic, you can see the most important thing when buying compatible card and that is the chip type, click the magnifying glass on that, down right. This card works in Tiger and Leopard flawlessly and it was cheap. The BT stick cost 1 dollar so they cheap.

For wireless I recommend Airport compatible PCI card (I beleive Apple uses Broadcom chip?) or of course, the actual Airport card. There are many compatible USB WLAN sticks but the problem with them often are the awful network management software they have, like my RaLink based stick, a window pops up every time the OS starts and that's annoying.
 
All that power cord is telling you is that its not capable of supply power at three phase voltage, but standard appliances are either 120 or 240v around the world and your standard wall socket will be one of the two.

The blanking plate will allow dust in if you don't fill it, but it won't disrupt airflow enough to make any sort of difference to the airflow of the machine what so ever.

The cheapest/easiest way to add a wifi card is actually to get a USB2 PCI card and a USB dongle. While you are at it you can also buy a SATA2 card to attach fast and modern hard drives to.
 
spork183 said:
If all the expansion slots were filled, those would be blocked anyway, wouldn't they? I don't think those can be a dedicated, necessary part of the cooling if they are designed to be blocked when the expansion slots are used.
Click to expand...

Yep, if all slots will be occupied, heat inside the case will increase. But I still think that blanks have "chease greater look" not without a purpose (other than good looking OFC). Cool air is pushed from the front (holes at the bottom of case, just over front leg) and exhausted at back. With such airflow there's no possibility for dust to get inside by PCI slot blanks. Anyone who has disassembled MDD should notice how air is pushed through the casing.
If you'll block all PCI slots with cards (which are generating their own heat too) it will also affect CPU temp and its fan will be running a little faster (and noisier).

MDDs were first Macs equipped with CPU thermal sensor (AFAIK) and first ones with OS controlled fans (by kext). If CPU temp increases, CPU fan speeds up. But TBH, all MDD heat management wasn't that perfect, especially for DP versions. SP are running cool and quiet (relatively OFC).
 
666sheep said:
MDDs were first Macs equipped with CPU thermal sensor (AFAIK) and first ones...
Click to expand...

All G3s and G4s have temperature sensors built into the CPU daughtercard. But starting with Mac OS 10.3.5 Apple removed the ability for the system to read the temperatures.
 
Intell said:
All G3s and G4s have temperature sensors built into the CPU daughtercard. But starting with Mac OS 10.3.5 Apple removed the ability for the system to read the temperatures.
Click to expand...

Really? Can you elaborate on this? Links would be great too. I didn't notice any temp sensor on Sawtooth and QS daughter cards, I must look again then if you say so.
And most important: what those were used for if fans in these machines were controlled by thermistors? Only thing what comes into my head is some OF functionality for prevent overheating. But it kinda didn't work well if it was any - I had few DP Quicksilvers with burnt CPUs, heat was big enough to deform daughtercards.

OP, sorry for OT :eek:
 
Thanks everybody for all the help.

I have another question that I think you all might know.

I went to install iLife '09 and everything went as planned except for (you guessed it) iMovie '08.

Apparently it doesn't want to run on my G4. I was going to do the hack-workaround via editing the code lines, but wanted to make sure my graphics card supported Core Image... I have a ATI Radeon 9000 Pro installed, and I've googled it a bunch only to find conflicting advice. Some say it does support Core Image, some say it does not.

Anyone know for sure?

It's not worth editing the iMovie install code if I can't get it to run properly on the machine.

Thanks!
 
9000 doesn't support CI.
You'll need one of following cards (I list only these which will work in MDD, flashed or Mac ones):
ATI 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800, X800/FireGL X3
Nvidia 5200, 7800GS

5200, 9600, 9800 and X800 must be non-ADC versions.
 
Last edited:
powerpcguy said:
Thanks everybody for all the help.

I have another question that I think you all might know.

I went to install iLife '09 and everything went as planned except for (you guessed it) iMovie '08.

Apparently it doesn't want to run on my G4. I was going to do the hack-workaround via editing the code lines, but wanted to make sure my graphics card supported Core Image... I have a ATI Radeon 9000 Pro installed, and I've googled it a bunch only to find conflicting advice. Some say it does support Core Image, some say it does not.

Anyone know for sure?

It's not worth editing the iMovie install code if I can't get it to run properly on the machine.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

You'd be better off running iMovie HD 6 as iMovie '08 isn't supposed to be too good.
 
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