PM G4 motherboards

[ArmorAlley]

I feel as if I have asked this question before and apologies if I have.

I'm setting up a Black & White G4 (that is, a PM G4 with the white case plastics from a Blue & White G3) as a gaming machine for turn-of-the-millennium games (and a bit beyond that too).
I have 3 G4s * that I can use: 1x Gigabit Ethernet (GE), 1 Digital Audio (DA) and a Quicksilver (QS).
The GE has been taken apart and the other two machines are intact.
The DA has a Sonnet Encore 1400MHz in it and I'll be using that processor. The B&W G4 will get the Sonnet Encore.

When I weigh up pros & cons:
GE: PC-100 | 2x AGP slot | 3 PCI-slots | C13 & C14 (power in and out) but it means the DA & QS won't have to be taken apart.
DA & QS: PC-133 | 4x AGP slot | 4 PCI-slots | C13 (power in) and it means either the DA & QS won't have to be taken apart.

I've acquired up over the years a Ti 4600, a Sonnet Tempo SATA, a Tempo Trio & an Adaptec APD-29160 and they'll be all be going into it.
I have Harman Kardon SoundSticks for sound and I'm looking forward to hearing the ambient sounds from Diablo II on it.
I'm almost certainly going to reassemble the GE (on the grounds of the faster AGP & bus-speed) and use either the DA or the QS as the basis for the B&W G4.

The question is: is there any reason not to use the DA over the QS?
Is there, say, anything in ROM of the QS that allows more functionality, more stability that makes it a better candidate?

* Weeelll, I also have a Yikes! but this is not nuch help here and 2 MDDs both of whose PSUs have blown. I am not a fan of ADC.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Now I need some help.

I have moved a Giga designs processor from a DA to my QS und put the 733MHz CPU from the QS [820-1282-A] into the DA.
The QS boots up (and takes an age to do so) but not the DA.
On pressing the power button of the DA, the big fan at the side spins up, the red light on the motherboard lights up but there is no startup bong.
Do ye have any ideas as to what may be the problem(s)?
I did put thermal paste on the processor before putting the heatsink on it.
Have I inadvertently shorted something?

 

[macuserman]

Now I need some help.

I have moved a Giga designs processor from a DA to my QS und put the 733MHz CPU from the QS [820-1282-A] into the DA.
The QS boots up (and takes an age to do so) but not the DA.
On pressing the power button of the DA, the big fan at the side spins up, the red light on the motherboard lights up but there is no startup bong.
Do ye have any ideas as to what may be the problem(s)?
I did put thermal paste on the processor before putting the heatsink on it.
Have I inadvertently shorted something?

You are trying to put the stock QS processor into the DA? I don't think that works without some modification if I recall. Herd would know for sure.

 

[treellama]

QS provides 12V to one of the three screws(!) on the processor card. So you would need to supply that for it to work in a DA.

 

[ArmorAlley]

You are trying to put the stock QS processor into the DA? I don't think that works without some modification if I recall. Herd would know for sure.

It didn't work, oddly enough.
I seem to remember reading on a post that the processors in the DAs & QSs were interchangeable.
So, aside from third-party cards (such as the Sonnet Encore), can I only use processor cards that came from other DAs to power up this DA?

 

[treellama]

Here's the mod to get the QS CPUs to work in older models, from the archive:

iTuned

Look for the 12V connector section

 

[CircuitBored]

The others are correct, you have to apply 12V to the fourth standoff on the Quicksilver cards to get them to work in a DA. The pre-QS cards have three standoffs but the QS cards have four.

The QS boots up (and takes an age to do so)

Is your QS displaying the correct amount of RAM once booted? The RAM and expansion slots on the QS are a bit of a problem area and slow/erratic behaviour could indicate an issue with them. For reference: my dual-1GHz QS with 1GB of RAM takes about thirty seconds to get to the desktop when cold booting Tiger.

I've acquired up over the years a Ti 4600

FYI the Ti 4600 has a very poor-quality heatsink with a fan that loves to silently fail and cook your card to death. Whatever machine you put that card in, make sure that you also upgrade the cooling accordingly. I'd consider replacing the heatsink with something more substantial.

 

[demik]

Here's the mod to get the QS CPUs to work in older models, from the archive:

iTuned

Look for the 12V connector section

Done similar stuff in the past (Dual 800 CPU in a Sawtooth / GE). It worked well, until the logic board was cooked by the G4 heat

The QS Processor board will need +12V on the fourth standoff @CircuitBored said. You may also need to trim/remove the secondary IDE connector

Also if it's the cacheless 733 Mhz, a 450 Mhz with cache might be of similar speed.

 

[ArmorAlley]

FYI the Ti 4600 has a very poor-quality heatsink with a fan that loves to silently fail and cook your card to death. Whatever machine you put that card in, make sure that you also upgrade the cooling accordingly. I'd consider replacing the heatsink with something more substantial.

Thanks especially for this. This is very good info. Time to head off to the Noctua website.
These are pricey cards to replace and while it weren't cheap when I got it, the price for them has since risen sharply.

 

[CircuitBored]

Thanks especially for this. This is very good info. Time to head off to the Noctua website.
These are pricey cards to replace and while it weren't cheap when I got it, the price for them has since risen sharply.

My 4600 Ti warped a significant amount with the previous owner. It's fairly miraculous that it still works... One of these days I'll find the energy to drill some new air holes in the underside of the Quicksilver. It's rather shameful that Apple ever sold that card in such a toasty system.

I recommend finding a good tutorial on removing heatsinks that have been glued on. It's been more than a decade since I put the new cooler on my Ti so I'm not the best person to write a guide. IIRC I used acetone and a Stanley blade very slowly. I saw an enormous performance difference when I swapped to the fancy copper Zalman heatsink - be excited! The noise difference was huge too.

 

[joshc]

removing heatsinks that have been glued on

Not done it myself but I thought the safest way is heat?

 

[cobalt60]

You may also need to trim/remove the secondary IDE connector

is that ever the case for Digital Audio? I thought that was just when installing DA/QS CPUs in a Sawtooth/Gigabit Ethernet

 

[bigmessowires]

QS provides 12V to one of the three screws(!) on the processor card.

That's the wackiest thing I've heard in a long time.

Junior engineer: We need to add a 12V supply to this card but all the I/O connector pins are already used.
Senior engineer: Hold my beer, I've got this.

 

[treellama]

That's the wackiest thing I've heard in a long time.

Junior engineer: We need to add a 12V supply to this card but all the I/O connector pins are already used.
Senior engineer: Hold my beer, I've got this.

For a long time I thought I had a bad QS, because I would test it without all four (not three) CPU module screws...

It is certainly unusual.

 

[GRudolf94]

That's the wackiest thing I've heard in a long time.

Quite common across the industry. SiliconGraphics did it too, off the top of my head - Indigo2s have had their CPUs powered off the screwed-down standoffs ever since first designed. There's some other machine I have that does it and I'm not recalling which.