PowerMac G4!

[quinterro]

If you remove the outer plastic side panels, you might find a disgusting amount of hair and dust wedged between the panel and inner metal case, blocking airflow in from the bottom. As others have said, the MDDs are noisy. Mine was marginally less sporadic with the fan RPMs once I thoroughly cleaned the case. It might also be worth a peek into the PSU to see how much junk is insulating the parts that want to radiate their heat away.

I have not checked recently but there has been a seller on eBay with SATA IDE cards with the right Silicon Image chip to work on these. I am shocked at how fast a good Samsung SATA SSD is on on these machines. One version with 2 SATA ports will support OS 9 and the one with 4 is 10.x only. An AirPort Extreme card will connect to contemporary Wifi.

USB 2.0 PCI cards also work well and improve the experience. Enjoy the MDD!

I removed all outer plastic parts from the case, and there was some hair and dust. Most of it was near the air intake holes on the front panel and behind the optical bay fan, but eww .

I bought a StarLink SATA to IDE adapter instead of a SATA PCI card. Given how small 2.5" SATA drives are, there was plenty of room for the adapter to be installed.

Somewhere in my office I have two USB 2.0 cards - one has USB 2 and FireWire with an Ali chipset, the other just has USB 2 with a NEC chipset. I know where the combo card is, but I also remember once installed there is a gap between the card bracket and the slot's screw hole. The NEC card didn't have this issue.

Not knowing if the optical drive worked, I cloned a Tiger install from my iBook G4 1.33ghz. It booted, but reported the processor as a 1ghz G4. This could be due to the replacement logic board not being the same as the original - I think it is from an older MDD. I burned a DVD+R disc of 10.4 to install. The MDD booted the disc slowly, then flaked out after formatting the SSD and partially installing Tiger. After that the text on the install dialog was garbled.

The original 80GB drive still boots, but some of the apps appear to be corrupted like Disk Utility. The icon is missing and the app won't start when double-clicked.

 

[LaPorta]

Those SATA to IDE things work great. I used the same in my QuickSilver, and even more recently to install a replacement DVD drive in my Mac Pro.

 

[s_pupp]

In my main MDD G4, I’ve also taken to using a SATA to IDE adapter. I use my SATA PCI card for external drives.

 

[geerlingguy]

Those SATA to IDE things work great. I used the same in my QuickSilver, and even more recently to install a replacement DVD drive in my Mac Pro.

Another echo of that sentiment, but I've found the Startech.com model (I bought it on Amazon) works most reliably, and allows setting Cable Select—a couple other ones I've tried don't have that and only allow choosing Master/Slave... which would cause my MDD to not boot sometimes (not sure why).

Also, if you still have the original power supply, consider cleaning it up or selling it—people with the Apple Cinema Display love having the ability to plug it into the Mac directly, and there's currently no other way besides using the built in PSU, despite its shortcomings.

 

[quinterro]

Another echo of that sentiment, but I've found the Startech.com model (I bought it on Amazon) works most reliably, and allows setting Cable Select—a couple other ones I've tried don't have that and only allow choosing Master/Slave... which would cause my MDD to not boot sometimes (not sure why).

Also, if you still have the original power supply, consider cleaning it up or selling it—people with the Apple Cinema Display love having the ability to plug it into the Mac directly, and there's currently no other way besides using the built in PSU, despite its shortcomings.

I sent the power supply back to the seller of the ATX adapter cable for a credit. It didn’t work and having someone else service it was going to be around $90 - a bit much for me at the time.

I ordered a couple of SATA to IDE adapters that plug directly in the logic board, but haven’t tried them yet. Based on its size, it would only fit on the ATA-66 connector at the front of the logic board.

 

[geerlingguy]

I sent the power supply back to the seller of the ATX adapter cable for a credit. It didn’t work and having someone else service it was going to be around $90 - a bit much for me at the time.

I ordered a couple of SATA to IDE adapters that plug directly in the logic board, but haven’t tried them yet. Based on its size, it would only fit on the ATA-66 connector at the front of the logic board.

Ah, good! That seller will hopefully be able to give the PSU a second life.

I haven't tried one of that kind of adapter, but I imagine they should work okay too.

 

[tecneeq]

I do have some SATA to IDE adapters, so I should be able to use an SSD with it.

If these are generic and widely available, post a picture. I seem to have little luck with the adapters i got so far.

Bought a stack of 32GB Sandisk SATA SSDs a few years back and i would love to see them used in some IDE machines.

 

[Phipli]

Bought a stack of 32GB Sandisk SATA SSDs a few years back and i would love to see them used in some IDE machines.

I've generally had more luck picking up cheap SATA PCI cards and replacing the ROMs.

 

[Unknown_K]

I must be the only one using newer and somewhat faster than OEM IDE drives in my G4 towers. OS9 runs fast enough on IDE and OSX 10.4.x is still usable.

Now if somebody made a bootable PCI-X card (ok fine a 64 bit 33mhgz PCI slot) for a G4 with a SATA NVME slot I would probably get one. You are still stuck at 266MB/sec max on that but still better than half of that using a standard 33Mhz 32bit PCI slot.

My single Sonnet PCI SATA card sits in its box until I need it, and I do have an IDE to SATA adapter that seems to work fine if I need SATA on an old PC/Mac.

 

[Phipli]

I must be the only one using newer and somewhat faster than OEM IDE drives in my G4 towers. OS9 runs fast enough on IDE and OSX 10.4.x is still usable.

Now if somebody made a bootable PCI-X card (ok fine a 64 bit 33mhgz PCI slot) for a G4 with a SATA NVME slot I would probably get one. You are still stuck at 266MB/sec max on that but still better than half of that using a standard 33Mhz 32bit PCI slot.

My single Sonnet PCI SATA card sits in its box until I need it, and I do have an IDE to SATA adapter that seems to work fine if I need SATA on an old PC/Mac.

A £5 PCI card plus a £6 120GB SATA SSD comes in cheaper when I've looked. Plus it's nice to not buy a second hand disk. And they also work in SCSI machines.

My collection is more beige than acrylic.

 

[Unknown_K]

I rarely had issues with second hand hard disks (I test them when I get them). One guy shipped me a whole bunch of SCSI HDs with no packing between drives and most got wacked bouncing around in shipping.

Most of my problems were HD shipped with computers that were dead when I get them (at least the mounting hardware was still there).

You can find decent bulk IDE/SATA HD lots where drives are $5 each (especially laptop drives) after shipping if you look hard enough. Granted you're not getting 1TB+ drives for that much but for older machines you just play around with 500GB drives are good enough.

Save the pricey speedy stuff for your main machines.

 

[CircuitBored]

My collection is more beige than acrylic.

Jobs would roll in his grave. It's not acrylic, it's polycarbonate. It's the same stuff that bullet proof vests are made of

 

[Phipli]

Jobs would roll in his grave. It's not acrylic, it's polycarbonate. It's the same stuff that bullet proof vests are made of

I suspect the top of the Mac mini is acrylic, which is what I had in mind

 

[Unknown_K]

Jobs would roll in his grave. It's not acrylic, it's polycarbonate. It's the same stuff that bullet proof vests are made of

Older vests were made of Kevlar (aramid fibers), newer ones are made of Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) plus metal/ceramic plates. None that I know about are made from polycarbonate which won't stop a bullet unless it's as thick as a Kardashian butt.

 

[Phipli]

Older vests were made of Kevlar (aramid fibers), newer ones are made of Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) plus metal/ceramic plates. None that I know about are made from polycarbonate which won't stop a bullet unless it's as thick as a Kardashian butt.

They're perhaps thinking of bullet "proof" glass - some is made of very thick polycarb I think.

Problem with plastics is the mix of trade names and chemical names used.

 

[Unknown_K]

They're perhaps thinking of bullet "proof" glass - some is made of very thick polycarb I think.

Problem with plastics is the mix of trade names and chemical names used.

Most bullet proof glass is made from thick glass layered with plastics in between, the glass is hard and flattens the bullets while the plastic deforms and spreads out the force stopping it (or at least keeps the glass from shattering and causing splinters).

Trade names only exists because you can't trademark chemical names (or pronounce them in many cases).

 

[Phipli]

Most bullet proof glass is made from thick glass layered with plastics in between, the glass is hard and flattens the bullets while the plastic deforms and spreads out the force stopping it (or at least keeps the glass from shattering and causing splinters).

Trade names only exists because you can't trademark chemical names (or pronounce them in many cases).

Yes... But sometimes, people call polycarb bullet proof glass. It isn't glass, and it isn't "proof", but it is true that people call it that, even if you describe thick, laminated glass back at me?

 

[CircuitBored]

Older vests were made of Kevlar (aramid fibers), newer ones are made of Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) plus metal/ceramic plates. None that I know about are made from polycarbonate which won't stop a bullet unless it's as thick as a Kardashian butt.

I was just riffing on a rather obscure joke from Apple's early '00s keynotes. Pretty much every time Steve mentioned that something was made of polycarbonate he would mention bullet proof vests. I think the first time he does it is when unveiling the B&W G3 and the last time he does it is at the launch of the Intel MacBook.

 

[dust bunny]

Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE), also known as high-modulus polyethylene (HMPE) and Dyneema.
UHMWPE is lighter, more UV resistant, more abrasion resistant, more thermally conductive, has a higher tensile strength than Kevlar, and doesn’t absorb water - unlike Kevlar.
Used in racing boat sails, high end ropes, bomb proof composite lining material used to line aircraft holds (Gillfab, although it’s often incorrectly called Gilliner - which was actually it’s woven glass fibre based predecessor)

---

PCI card SATA/adaptors…
Yes, there are PCI-X cards, I found and flashed one (I think it had a Sil3124, rather than a Sil3112*). However, I could not find 64bit bios only a 32bit bios, the card worked but I couldn’t boot off it.
PCI card speeds are faster on paper, but if you have things plugged into the other PCI slots, like a USB2 card or a second graphics card, performance suffers.
I ran a 256GB Samsung SSD on a no name SATA/IDE adaptor on the IDE100 bus, it was bootable and I was very happy with performance.





* Do I remember Sil3512 is flashable?

 

[quinterro]

I finally ordered a SFX power supply made by a company I have actually heard of. I'm hoping I will use it more once I don't have to worry about the ATX power supply falling off the top of the case.