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PowerMacs, Laptops and iMac G4 – Oh my!

macinbot

Well-known member
Macintosh Chico Haul 20220103.pngGuy on a semi-local Facebook Marketplace (when your in Far-Northern California 1-1/2 hour drive is semi-local) posted a giant lot of Intel MacPros and some G4 towers for sale. It had sat up there for a few weeks. Inquired if he'd be willing to part out just the PPC towers. After some haggling, ended up trading him some Intel Macs, PC Towers, ThinkPad, and CRTs for this haul:

  • PowerMac G4 MDD (x2)
  • PowerMac G4 Quicksilver
  • PowerMac G4 AGP
  • iBook G4
  • PowerBook G4
  • 21" Cinema Display
  • PC Towers (empty)
  • And an iMac G4 17" 1.25ghz from a different person for $30
I knew going into it that the PowerMac G4 Quicksilver and AGP had dead power supplies. But everything else works. Hard drives were pulled on all the towers. The PowerBook HD is dead. Still not too shabby for some gas money and Intel/PC stuff I wasn't using.

I've got a working G4 AGP tower, so I can check this new-to-me G4 AGP tower and see if it's just the power supply or something more serious.

Anyone know a way of testing the Quicksilver without investing in a replacement power supply? This is the SECOND Quicksilver tower I've got now with a dead power supply. I have the working G4 Gigabit, and both it and the Quicksilver take a 22-pin connector, but I think they use different pinouts.
 

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herd

Well-known member
Nice find! What are the specs on the G4 towers? The high end models are getting pretty hard to find these days.

I've repaired maybe 10 different power supplies for these and they've all just needed a new cap or two. A DA power supply can work in a QS if you add 12v to the CPU. The earlier ones are different connectors, but the pinouts are available or you can compare with your working one. First I'd check the 110/220 setting, and then get out a volt meter and start checking.
 

macinbot

Well-known member
Nice find! What are the specs on the G4 towers? The high end models are getting pretty hard to find these days.

I've repaired maybe 10 different power supplies for these and they've all just needed a new cap or two. A DA power supply can work in a QS if you add 12v to the CPU. The earlier ones are different connectors, but the pinouts are available or you can compare with your working one. First I'd check the 110/220 setting, and then get out a volt meter and start checking.
Gotcha. I just have the Gigabit with its power supply. I looked into the recapping. Parts aren't too much from what I can tell, even for the full monty replacement. But my SMD skills are pretty poor. I'd have to look into sending them off to someone who'd be down for the repair.

I'll post specs on everything in an update post soon!
 

joshc

Well-known member
Nice haul. G4s are great.

What's the tower on the far left? Generic PC case? Maybe one you could build into a Hackintosh?
 

macinbot

Well-known member
Nice haul. G4s are great.

What's the tower on the far left? Generic PC case? Maybe one you could build into a Hackintosh?
Thanks. Yeah just a generic early-2000's(?) PC tower. I had thought about going the Hackintosh route as well, as its a weird mix of Apple-esque aluminum and late '90s Dell vibes. It's actually quite large and amazingly lite. Could be some sort of server. Or a sleeper system.
 

macinbot

Well-known member
Went through and did a thorough testing of the G4 towers. Back story I got from the guy I traded with is that these were from a video production studio in Southern California. I'll do some posts with a rundown of each tower

PowerMac G4 Dual Processor 1.0Ghz MDD

Specs as shipped:

G4 MDD 1.0GHZ.png

What I found inside:
  • 2Gb Ram
  • 20Gb IDE Hard Drive
  • ATI Radion 9000 Pro ADC/DVI graphics card
  • IX Micro Twin Turbo PCI graphics card
  • Media 100 Vincent 601 Video Editing Card
  • Slot Fan
I've been looking for the Radeo 9000 Pro for my PowerMac G4 build (click here to follow). The Media 100 Vincent 601 video editing card was a surprise to find. The card is absolutely massive, and takes advantage of the card retainer slot in the FRONT of the case. The IX Micro Twin Turbo was a bit of an oddball, but I was thinking maybe it's there because some legacy part of the video editing software needs it. Not sure how much good that little slot fan was doing. All of these towers had their hard drives pulled, but the 20Gb hard drive looks like it got missed being tucked away under the optical drive bays.

Media 100 Vincent 601 video editing card:
G4 MDD 1.0GHz Vincent Capture Card.png

IX Micro Twin Turbo:
G4 MDD 1.0GHz Twin Turbo copy.png

20Gb hard drive that got missed:
G4 MDD 1.0GHz 20Gb IDE HD.png

Goofy case slot fan:

G4 MDD 1.0GHz Slot Fan.png
 

olePigeon

Well-known member
Nice. FW400 MDD is the good one since you can still boot directly into MacOS 9. That Radeon 9000 is pretty insane. Nice score.
 

macinbot

Well-known member
Nice. FW400 MDD is the good one since you can still boot directly into MacOS 9. That Radeon 9000 is pretty insane. Nice score.
Thanks. The MDD really are a gem if you're looking for top-tier OS 9 performance. I don't have a real-world need, or nostalgic desire for that level of performance. For me even my mid-tier G4 DP Gigabit handles all PPC MacOS & OS X installs, games, and product application demoing with more than enough gusto for what I'm after. And now that I've got that newly acquired iMac G4 1.0ghz in the mix (which has been a hack-ported version of OS 9 available), I feel I'm pretty set on Classic MacOS and PPC hardware for my wants and needs.

Getting that Radeon card for my G4 Gigabit build was the real draw for picking up these towers. Now that I have that, all of these machines will be moved on to someone who can put them to better use.

And on that note... Here's the next tower...

PowerMac G4 Dual-Processor 867MHz MDD

As shipped:

G4 MDD 867GHz.png

And what I found inside:

  • 1.45Gb Ram
  • No HDD
  • Nvidia GeForce4 MX 32mb ADC / VGA graphics card
  • That's about it
Pretty uneventful. The ram was bumped from the stock 256mb to 1.75gb, which is a solid jump. Otherwise pretty stock as from the factory.

Screen Shot 2023-01-12 at 4.24.52 AM.png
 

CircuitBored

Well-known member
Great haul!

One thing you can try to get dead Quicksilver PSUs running is heating them up with a hairdryer. Just blast some hot air into the exhaust for twenty seconds or so and you may find that the supply magically works again. The Delta brand units have bad caps that respond well to a little heat boost. I did this fairly frequently back when my QS was my daily driver.
 

macinbot

Well-known member
Great haul!

One thing you can try to get dead Quicksilver PSUs running is heating them up with a hairdryer. Just blast some hot air into the exhaust for twenty seconds or so and you may find that the supply magically works again. The Delta brand units have bad caps that respond well to a little heat boost. I did this fairly frequently back when my QS was my daily driver.

Thanks! I'll give that hair dryer trick a try. I have a heat gun, so I'll carefully use that and see if it can get at least *one* of them to work. 🤞


Next up...

PowerMac G4 867MHz Quicksilver

G4 Quicksilver 867MHz.png

What I found inside:
  • 1.5Gb Ram
  • 128gb SSD and IDE to SSD adapter
  • Nvidia GeForce2 MX 32mb ADC / VGA graphics card
  • Lacie 3-port Firewire-800 card
  • Reported bad/dead power supply
SSD and adapter was a nice addition. The guy I traded with was using it when trying to resurrect this Quicksilver and left it in there in hopes it would help making it getting up and running a bit easier.

G4 867MHz Quicksilver FireWire 800.png
 

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macinbot

Well-known member
And last stop on the "freshly acquired G4 towers" section of our tour is...

PowerMac G4 400MHz AGP tower:

G4 AGP 400MHz.png

The secrets it held inside:
  • 2Gb Ram
  • ATI plain old boring Rage 128 (not even pro brah)
  • Belkin 3-port Firewire 400 PCI card
  • Another Media 100 Vincent 601 video processing card
  • A reportedly dead power supply
The mix of cards in these is interesting. I'm wondering if the machines were upgraded, and then deprecated to make room for newer models, or if each tower had a specific use case and was constantly kept in service.

G4 AGP 400 ATI Rage 128.png

G4 AGP 400 Belkin Firewire 400.png

G4 Gigabit Media 100 Vincent 601.png
 

chelseayr

Well-known member
these media 100 cards sure are quite long just like the targa pci (say I just have to wonder if the media 100 itself is also roughly 12" long too? asking in name of as far as these "6 or 12 inch pci slots" sort of mac specs went for certain models yeah)

sorry to be a little ot here but I wonder if the media's breakout is anything special wiring-wise or its just straight one-for-one pins? (I mean I haven't really looked up the media 100 much compared to having a few notes&pdfs for the targa itself as of yet but mm yeah)
 

macinbot

Well-known member
Next step was testing these units to see what their current status is. As I said, I knew going into these that the Quicksilver and AGP units were reported to have dead power supplies, but otherwise fully functional.

I started out with the G4 DP 1.0GHz MDD. Connected my 40Gb IDE testing hard drive with OS X 10.4 and MacOS 9 on it. Hooked the machine up to both Apple 17" ADC Studio Display and a Dell flat-panel via the Radeon 9000 Pro on the ADC and DVI ports. Booted into 10.4 Tiger very quickly without issue. Confirmed the memory as 2Gb. Tried booting into OS 9, but wouldn't take to booting the 9.2.2 install on the hard drive. After some researching, I discovered that the MDD machines take a very special version of MacOS 9 that can only be found as a hidden folder on the restore CDs included with the machine. After locating that, it booted into OS *almost* as fast as it boots into OS X.

Next up was the G4 DP 867MHz MDD. Because I wanted to do a quick boot check, I decided to just hookup the Dell FP to the VGA port of the GeForce4 MX card. Press power button, it lit up for a second, fans started spinning and then powered off. Tried it again, but power button lit for just a fraction of a second. Next press, nothing. Check power cable. Everything looked good. Gave power another press and it booted. DIdn't like it being a little sketch like that.

After checking processor and memory specs (yes 1.75Gb ram), I shut the machine down, opened it up, check all the cable connections, and then tried booting again. Same issue as before only this time it didn't boot. Hmmmm.

I had this issue with a Geforce4 card in the G4 Gigabit build I've been working on. On the hunch it was something similar, I swapped the Dell FP on VGA for the 17" Studio on the ADC port. Pressed power and booted right up.

This led me down a rabbit hole of using both the 867MHz DP MDD and the 1.0GHz DP MDD to roll a bunch of video cards and comparing which cards and monitors allowed booting on which machine. Eventually all of this led to the theory that the power supply on the 867MHz MDD was getting flakey. The MDD have a mild reputation for failed/flakey power supply and ADC. I guess the working theory is that the power connect through ADC somehow allows voltage on a circuit line that can't be completed by the failing power supply alone. So I ended up pulling the power supply out of the 1.0GHz DP MDD and connecting to the 867MHZ DP MDD. And I was correct. With the power supply from the 1.0GHz connected to 867MHz machine, it booted any graphic card and monitor configuration without issue.

G4 MDD Power Supply Video Card testing.png

Next, I tried powering the G4 AGP 400MHz, and it was indeed dead. So I swapped in another power supply form a late B&W G3 (208 vs 200 watt) and it booted no problem. With that confirmed, I did a quick processor, ram and OS check. Everything flawless.

The Quicksilver didn't get tested yet because of the now confirmed dead power supply. I'm going to try @CircuitBored idea for heating up the power supply and see how that goes.

***********

One VERY interesting thing I found while testing out the two MDD machines, is the 867Mhz DP had a 1Gb memory module in it. I didn't think these machines could use that size without some firmware hackery (tricking it into thinking it's a G5). Playing around I did a quick swap of the same module into the 1.0GHz DP, but it wouldn't see it. I may go back and see if using the 1Gb module and some 512Mb modules, I can get the 867MHz DP to register more than 2gb memory.

Now I have two confirmed solid working machines -- the G4 1.0 GHz DP MDD and the G4 400MHz AGP. The 1.0GHz DP MDD is certainly the star of the show. Too bad it's little sibling, the 867Mhz DP MDD is having a go with its power supply. Would be nice to have both the MDDs fully functioning. But of course the good news is that it is a confirmed power supply issue and not something more serious with the motherboard.

Did some parts swapping with the video cards, peripheral cards and ram. Current setups:

PowerMac G4 1.0GHz DP MDD
  • 2gb Ram
  • 160Gb IDE Hard Drive
  • Nvidia GeForce2 MX ADC/VGA video card
  • Lacie 3-port FireWire 800

PowerMac G4 400MHz AGP
  • 1Gb Ram
  • 30Gb IDE Hard Drive
  • Rage 128 AGP VGA video card

PowerMac G4 867MHz DP MDD
  • 2Gb Ram (added in additional 256Mb module)
  • NO HDD
  • ATI 128 Pro ADC / VGA video card

Like I said earlier, Radeon 9000 Pro goes toward my G4 Gigabit DP build. I have a 17" Flat panel ADC Studio Display, AND I have an ADC CRT Studio Display in the works. So I can definitely make use of the ADC functions of that card. And I think the only OS 9 compatible ADC card that beats the Radeon is the GeForce4 Ti4600, so I'll be sitting pretty on that front.

Other than the G4 1.0GHz MDD (which I'm trying to keep closer to its powerhouse reputation), I used the minimum video cards for functionality, as I figure people who get those machines with work toward a video card that meets what they want the machine to do. I also harvested some memory modules for other Macs that I want to get ready to move onto other homes, and in that shuffle some machines got downgraded and others upgraded.

Here's some screenshots of the MDD units and more shots of the gigantic Media 100 Vincent 601 video editing cards, and a shot of the Twin Turbo 128 too.

G4 867MHz MDD with 1Gb module.png
G4 867MHz MDD with recognized 1Gb module

G4 1.0GHz MDD No See 1Gb module.png
G4 1.0GHz DP MDD with the 1Gb memory module NOT being recognized (even through the 867Mhz MDD can see it).


G4 400 MHz AGP RAM.png
G4 1.0GHz DP MDD with maxed out memory.
 
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macinbot

Well-known member
Here are shots of the massive (12-1/4" long) Media 100 Vincent 601 video editing cards:

Vincent 601 Capture Card Front.png
Media 100 Vincent 601 front


Vincent 601 Capture Card Back.png
Media 100 Vincent 601 back


From the small amount of research I've done, the Media 100 Vincent system were used in non-linear video editing, and was a combo of the above processing card and outboard gear for capturing from source and storing produced video. It appears the Vincent 601 systems were supported up to OS X 10.4 Tiger.

Media 100 Vincent 601 outboard.png
 
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macinbot

Well-known member
IX Micro Twin Turbo 128 card. Hadn't see one of these since the PowerMac 8600/9600/Mac Clone days. I believe that these cards have some early 3D support.

QUESTION: The header marked "VSA" above the Twin Turbo ROM... Is that a display header? If so, I was thinking about putting this into my PowerMac 5400/200 and connect the internal monitor to the card header for a nice era appropriate video upgrade.

IX Micro Twin Turbo 128 front.png

IX Micro Twin Turbo 128 header.png
 

macinbot

Well-known member
these media 100 cards sure are quite long just like the targa pci (say I just have to wonder if the media 100 itself is also roughly 12" long too? asking in name of as far as these "6 or 12 inch pci slots" sort of mac specs went for certain models yeah)

sorry to be a little ot here but I wonder if the media's breakout is anything special wiring-wise or its just straight one-for-one pins? (I mean I haven't really looked up the media 100 much compared to having a few notes&pdfs for the targa itself as of yet but mm yeah)

Posted a little about the Media 100 system above (didn't see your reply until after). But they had a breakout box that connected via the port. From what I understand, it was both connecting to source devices like video cameras, and also for storing data in RAID or other configurations.

And measuring the two Vincent 601 cards I have they measure 12.25" long from circuitboard front to back (a bit longer if you count the slot hardware).
 

3lectr1cPPC

Well-known member
Sounds like it's time to recap that MDD supply, which should get it running properly again. And nice systems!
 

macinbot

Well-known member
Sounds like it's time to recap that MDD supply, which should get it running properly again. And nice systems!
For sure. After reading a little about the PSU repair on this machine, it looks like there’s a decent amount of SMD to be dealt with. Not particularly adept at that kind of soldering.
 
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