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G4 533MHz ZIF - $20

okay, dumb question time again-

If it says it will arrive via "register airmail", does that mean I should check my PO box, or wait for UPS/FedEx/DHL to come to my door?

 
The last thing I got from him came with the regular mail. If you have any stamp collectors in the family, save the package as he usually plasters it with all sorts of stamps.

 
Oh yeah. Some of those Chinese stamps are beautiful. My girlfriend has commandeered the last few packages from him

 
I got some stuff from ELBOX Computer (Amiga hardware add-on makers) in Poland once and it was tied with string and had a lead seal stamped over the join in the middle. It was rather quaint in it's 'old skool' kinda way [:)] ]'>

 
okay, dumb question time again-If it says it will arrive via "register airmail", does that mean I should check my PO box, or wait for UPS/FedEx/DHL to come to my door?
'Registered post' means different things in different countries. For me it means that a card arrives in my letter box telling me that something 'registered' (ie, listed and tracked with a number beginning with 'R', and automatically insured) awaits me at the local PO, to which I then have to haul myself and sign for the article. It may be completely different where you are.

de

 
ZIF arrived yesterday. Packed safely and matches the listing precisely.

One little surprise - in the corner it has a trim dial with numbers around it, presumably something to do with speed setting. So it must be a 3rd party upgrade.

/edit/ All hail Google image search. It looks precisely like this (Warning: large image)

And it's actually a 550MHz part - the markings on the sticker are:

PFG4/Z550/220/1M

Z405020191

And the chip die itself indicates a 7410 G4

Going on the hunch that PF=PowerForce by PowerLogix, it seems we have a positive match.

The lower-octane PPC7410 is employed in the PowerForce, in order to reduce heat and power consumption. The 7410 will run at 533MHz on the Beige's 66MHz bus, while the 100MHz B&Ws let the CPU run to 550MHz.
"The card scores very favorably against models like the PowerMac G4-733 / " said Robin Howdershelt, Marketing Director for PowerLogix. "/ hits 1581 on the MacBench CPU scores and blows the doors off the 733MHz Apple machine with an FPU score of 1520 (vs. 1424 on the 733)."
 
I'd have said so, dialy things for speed are not anything I've seen on XLR8 or Sonnet ZIFs...

He does sell 3rd party upgrade parts, the G3/500 I bought was a Sonnet labelled unit.

To report, the G4/400 didn't work on my XLR8 ZIF carrier. It powers on but I get no chime. Now it *might* be an issue with the RAM in the machine, apparently G4s are fairly unforgiving at best apparently. But alas as it's an 8550 I'm not getting into stripping out the RAM and all that jazz.

I put the G3/500 in instead, which has picked it's skirts up more than somewhat (as you'd expect for doubling the CPU clock speed). Still got nothing to use if for but hey.

 
I can't find diddly squat in the way of user manuals or tech support for that particular model. All I really want to know is what to do with the adjustment dial. The only markings on it are the numbers 0 through F around the screw.

/edit/ So far I've found this:

set at 6 and it booted up at 550 Mhz, when i set it at 7 it did not boot, and when i set it at 5 it booted at 650./Ive got a copper bottom, hand lapped pentium heatsink with a fan on it. Got the G4 CPU in it running cool now at 650Mhz. Made my own chart.

See ya.
and this:

For B/W G3: 6=550, 2=500for Beige G3: 7=500, C=533
 
And this

Code:
Dial  Beige  B&W  Binary

 0                ----
 1                ---|
 2          500   --|-
 3                --||
 4                -|--
 5          650   -|-|
 6          550   -||-
 7    500         -|||
 8                |---
 9                |--|
 A                |-|-
 B                |-||
 C    533         ||--
 D                ||-|
 E                |||-
 F                ||||
I'll update this as I find more info.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
ic-china's offerings have included many Sonnet ZIF daughtercards, both G3 and G4 at '500MHz'. The CPUs have generally matched the '500' in their on-chip manufacturer's numbers. I have G4/500s in a Beige DT and MT, the chief advantage there being no necessity for jumper-twiddling on the MLB. The second advantage is that the machines fly in OS 9.2.2. The G4 ZIF card that I bought out of the offering that prompted this thread was listed by ic-china as a 400MHz, which the Motorola marking confirms, but it is on a Sonnet-made card with labels claiming 500MHz as well as the the 1MB cache. I haven't yet installed it into anything, but I shall be interested to see what speeds it settles on in 50MHz and 66MHz bus systems.

de

 
I got my G3/450 yesterday too and installed it in my beige G3 and it runs well. I have the bus at 75mhz. Boot times in X dropped 5 seconds, but booting to OS9 gives timebomb errors and hangs, but it'll boot to 9 okay with extensions off.

I think I might OC it to 466, just because. I need a better thermal transfer setup though. It gets kind of hot... My old G3 chip had some kind of thermal transfer "pad" ontop of the processor, but the new one does not... is there somewhere I can buy a new one? I can't get the old one off. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

 
You're better off using thermal paste than a transfer pad. Arctic Silver is the supposed best, but there are others. You only need a tiny smear of it on the CPU.

 
I suppose you could get it off with a single-edged razor blade if you were very very careful not to damage the old CPU. A new box cutter blade might do as well. Your risk, it's only a suggestion.

 
Here's my reply from OWC tech support re the Powerforce:

I am sorry but that is a discontinued product produced by an earlier Powerlogix group. The settings are not available any longer.
 
a trim dial with numbers around it, presumably something to do with speed setting. / It looks precisely like this (Warning: large image)
I have a 500MHz G4 that is just like that. I just kept turning the dial until the system profiler reported a speed of 500MHz. It's running in my 8500 with a ZIF Carrier card. Took me about 6 reboots before I got it, but its working, is stable and is very fast.

 
You're better off using thermal paste than a transfer pad. Arctic Silver is the supposed best, but there are others. You only need a tiny smear of it on the CPU.
Thermal paste is always, both notionally and in practice, better than thermal pads. The function of the paste is to displace the air in the minute crevices, craters and valleys of the machined metal surfaces of CPU and heatsink, and to provide 20+ times better heat conductivity than air can. Even water can do a good job, but heated water doesn't hang about for as long as good-quality thermal paste. Thermal pads, not being metallic throughout, and much thicker than a smear of paste, sacrifice conductivity for plug'n'play convenience.

Take special note of Bunsen's 'tiny smear'. You are just filling invisibly small spaces that are much less deep than a smear is thick. More is decidedly not better than less in this context.

de

de

 
It's not that I have an issue with applying thermal paste.

I've just never seen one of those pad things before and the heatsink wobbles without it. I tried putting a little bit of extra bend in the clamp so it would hold it more firmly, but it still seems to be pushing down in the wrong spot... It holds the heatsink at a slight angle at the contact point of the processor.

Any suggestions?

 
A few—very few up to G4, in my experience, and those are usually third-party daughtercards—came with a stabilizing hollow square of compressible material to fit the perimeter of the CPU. The spring-tensioned heatsink rested on the central 'land' of the processor—between which and the heatsink the heatsink compound was applied—while the heatsink was prevented from wobbling by the hollow square of compressible material. If time and use have caused the heatsink not to perch on the CPU's land in a stable manner, with a little care and ingenuity you could fashion something suitable.

de

 
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