Sometime being a PC is a good thing

[HW-Hack]

After my G5 iMac fried its hard drive (the machine was 18 months old) and I determined (after opening the iMac up) that the thermal design was both defective and insufficient ...... I sold the iMac and have gone back in time to a dual G4 Power PC - MDD model - 2GB Ram - 867MHz CPUs - 250GB IDE drive. The machine is fairly peppy and I will eventually upgrade to a used dual 1GHz CPU card.

And while I love OS X - I will not own a all-in-one design like the iMac again - however the venerable Power PC is very loud -- which I knew going in. And after doing invasive mods on the power supply fans (quieter fans) -- it is quieter but still annoying.

As I type this I have 2 machines below my desk A newer Dell runing a Pentium 4 dual core 2.8GHz (not a Core CPU) - 2GB RAM - dual 200GB drives - and the PC is virtually silent - even being thrashed it barely emits a whimper of noise. The only problem with the PC is its not running OS X. Then there is the G4 Power PC humming along at about 35 - 38dB
contently running OS X.

As an ex-PC designer (Intel) I have to give Apple full marks for designing an elegant machine but the ideas of cooling used are very dated - as were the PCs of that era. I had hoped to "honor" the old girl and keep her fairly intact but I can see that invasive surgery is needed - primarily on the powersupply.

One of the first rules we learned are that large fans move air - small fans suck and whine. The second rule is to get cool room temperature air (and lots of it) into the machine and to the CPU/Graphics core.

So I will now ponder invasive haking / slashing / hole drilling to quiet the old girl down while bringing in cold air.

In essance I'm going to have to create the machine that Apple refuses to deliver ----- basically an elegant Mini-Power PC that sells for about $1000. Its fast - offers some custimization for the user - and allows the user to put whatever display or disks etc. are desired by the end user.

There is no way I would or could ever shell out $2k or more for a PC like design that is the current Power PC.

I'd happily pay Apple for such a machine -- but until then I'll patch together old technology to run OS X ......

 

[TBi]

FYI the new Mac Pro's are just as quiet as the quietest Dells. I have a Dell XPS410 (Dimension 9200) which is as quiet as my friends Mac Pro. Unfortunately for my friend his system was about 4 times the cost of mine

 

[sananda]

After my G5 iMac fried its hard drive (the machine was 18 months old) and I determined (after opening the iMac up) that the thermal design was both defective and insufficient ...... I sold the iMac

did you tell the person to whom you sold the imac that you had "determined that the thermal design was both defective and insufficient" and that it had "fried it's hard drive"?

 

[FF_productions]

The G4s were infamous for being loud as hell, that has changed lately with the newer machines (some G5s were loud).

My Mac Pro is quiet, all you can hear is the 5 hard drives inside of it.

I run SETI@Home 24/7, the processor is taxed all the time, I haven't heard it get louder at all.

 

[HW-Hack]

did you tell the person to whom you sold the imac that you had "determined that the thermal design was both defective and insufficient" and that it had "fried it's hard drive"?

Nobody at the Apple store warned me the nice looking iMac had a really marginal thermal design !!! As a guy who used to over-see thermal - acoustic - and electrical designs I was sure the iMac was "pushing the limits". It was not until I was forced to crack the case I learned the really ugly truth. Being a G5 iSight model - cracking the case is not for amatuers.

But nice guy that I am I had the service work done at one of the best Mac shops in our area - and had them - vacuum - blow out dust - and test the thermal system while they were replacing the HD. Hopefully the new owner has better luck ... maybe a better HD.

Apple needs to design and deliver a well integrated "Mini-Power Mac" --- the equivilant of an iMac but in a stand-alone upgradeable case.

I respect Apple / Jobs and their products - but they can be just as profit motivated - greedy - and short sighted as Microsoft / Dell / HP / etc.

 

[contoursvt]

I've encountered two dead or failing HDs in the PPC imacs (20" i think). I shut one down and immediatly opened it up which only took a couple mins and then I touched the hard drive. I think I screamed like a girl and left a bit of skin on the drive. No drive in existance I've felt has been that hot. Ever....

The cooling in that machine was the worst thing I've ever seen.