setting up a G4 Tower Quicksilver 933 MHz

[Phipli]

Quick question: what's the key combo for forcing boot from CD of Graphite/QS and MDD?

Still 'c', but also option brings up the boot select menu.

 

[croissantking]

I had a Radeon 7000 that none of the electrolytic caps had any capacitance at all. Amazingly it still worked, but the VGA output shimmered. Replacing them fixed it.

I had exactly the same with a NOS R7000.

 

[Ncc74656]

i thought i would chime in with my QS - i have two of them now. got them a year ago and that was my first entry into this kind of mac. id had a performa as a kid but once windows 98 hit; i was a PC kid.

so i have a 800mhz QS that came with an 8500 and 4 scsi drives. i havent used any aftermarket 3rd party stuff to upgrade it with because of all the cost involved there so i just modified existing mac/PC hardware.

so i ended up with a Dual 1.4Ghz, 150Mhz FSB, upgraded to 3MB L3 cache, 512GB SSD, blueray drive, X850XTPE, and 1.5gb 150mhz SDRAM. i run 9.2.2, 10.4.12, 10.5.9. mostly os 10.5 and 9 is what i use. i keep a 9200 PCI radeon in there too for OS9 games that i want to play. the X850 does about as well as a rage 128 wtih no drivers.

my second 933QS is stuffed into a Performa 6300CD case. it runs a 1.42Ghz single core, 150Mhz FSB, ti4600, 1.5GB 150mhz SDRAM, 256GB SSD, and blueray drive.

i keep both of these on my network where i have most of MR and MG downloaded as well as all my physical MacAddict CD's ripped to - so i run/install what ever from a 150TB NAS over the network.

at some point i plan to stream OBS to YT with this setup.

 

[Ncc74656]

I've also had better luck with ATi cards than the nVidia cards, both on Mac and PC systems. The nVidia card in my original G4 Digital Audio failed within a month of my getting the computer. Bought my second G4 DA off of craigslist, then combined the two into one machine that I then used for another five years. That one had a Rage 128 Pro in it. Near the end of my time with it, I was mainly using it with OS X, rarely booting into 9.2.2, so the Radeon 9700 and 9800 cards I used were fine. Current G4 has the ATi Radeon 9000 Pro that came with my last MDD.

I've had a couple Dell laptops with failed nVidia chips. One was an Inspiron 8600 that worked once I swapped a Radeon 9600 in place of the geForce 5200(?), the other was a Latitude D830 that had its Quadro GPU fail. Replaced that machine with one that had the Intel integrated graphics chip. We have another that's rarely used, but seems ok. Did replace the thermal paste on both the GPU and the CPU when I replaced the 2.2GHz merom C2D chip with a 2.5GHz penryn C2D chip, so it probably will be fine for a bit longer.

just wanted to say that ive seen that on Nvidia cards as well. on mine it was a simple reball of the memory chips and they started working again. incase you still have yours - seems the solder joints break from heat cycles id guess?

 

[Phipli]

my second 933QS is stuffed into a Performa 6300CD case. it runs a 1.42Ghz single core, 150Mhz FSB, ti4600, 1.5GB 150mhz SDRAM, 256GB SSD, and blueray drive.

Any photos of this? I'm amazed it fit! Interesting idea though.

 

[volvo242gt]

just wanted to say that ive seen that on Nvidia cards as well. on mine it was a simple reball of the memory chips and they started working again. incase you still have yours - seems the solder joints break from heat cycles id guess?

Interesting. Got rid of the card in March 1999, though. Current G4 DA runs a Radeon 9000.

 

[Ncc74656]

Any photos of this? I'm amazed it fit! Interesting idea though.

yea, i 3d modeled it roughly before i took the plunge

https://imgur.com/UHOrRAg

making the front performa panel buttons work on the G4 board was a project:

https://imgur.com/NnxK6AX

some work in layout:

https://imgur.com/a/6LWqWNI

wiring in the new front speaker. dayton audio on a 50W class D amp in a ported fiberglass enclosure up front.

https://imgur.com/zGNsrPZ

custom power supply and removal of all I/O including 24v rail.

https://imgur.com/a/pPEHqbw

the computers location - juxtaposed with the modern.

https://imgur.com/KhzA3r7

final testing:

https://imgur.com/FOY6zo7

software that is all preloaded (ripped to drive)

https://imgur.com/vtbeqaB

more overclocking and thermal testing:

https://imgur.com/a/VsEbYJj

all its videocards that ive tested

https://imgur.com/N2NXoaW

tools used: hot air solder, pen, oscope, mig/tig welder, plasma, 3d printing, lots of DMM and reball station.

made a custom back panel for all the usb and such, looks mostly factory. plastic still fits over.

p.s. doom3 at 47fps on high

https://imgur.com/l8zN2jW

 

[Ncc74656]

Interesting. Got rid of the card in March 1999, though. Current G4 DA runs a Radeon 9000.

i do not own a 9000 but maybe i should buy one to try it out. i see some on ebay right now for 20 bucks

 

[volvo242gt]

i do not own a 9000 but maybe i should buy one to try it out. i see some on ebay right now for 20 bucks

It's a nice card. Has both DVI and ADC ports on it. At least, the Mac version does.