Powermac G4 MDD cooling and noise reduction
I have owned an awesome Apple Powermac G4 for about two years now. It’s a 1Ghz with dual processors which is commonly known as the Mirror Drive Door model or MDD for short, due to it’s mirror finished optical drive doors. It has been a faithful servant so far for all sorts of stuff like video editing, music production, photo’s, web surfing, email & business duties to name just a few. I noticed when I first got it that it was a bit noisier than my old G4 533 Powermac, but until my girlfriends mother complained one night that it kept her awake all night, I didn’t really take much notice of it. After that though it started to drive me crazy & I started a long campaign to quieten the thing down.
First thing I did was search google for information of how to do it & I found this page which document in detail how to replace the main 120 mm cooling fan.
Here is a link to Apple’s description of how to replace the 120mm case fan
http://www.info.apple.com/usen/cip/pdf/g4mirror/fan_power_supply.pdf
After trying one fan that just didn’t cool the G4 well enough I found on a website called FrozenCPU.com, a “SilenX” 120×120x38mm – 18dBA – 90CFM which is whisper quiet & cools the mac just as well as the original Delta fan that came from Apple, only it’s about 300% quieter. It made a big difference.
I also read about a software modification to Mac OSX called ” Nap Mode” which to cut a long story short, basically cycles the processors down into a “mini sleep” sort of mode, reducing the temperature and therefore the noise from the fans is quieter without losing any speed. This made a massive difference, but also now made a new noisy high pitched sound from the power supply fans. For G4 MDD owners you must download version 3.5.2 of CHUD, later versions do not work with MDD Powermacs. Some other models of Macs come with Nap mode enabled as standard like the G5 Powermacs & the PowerBook G4, so it’s not a risk to use.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/MDD_CHUD_feedback.html#storytop
I also created an applescript that I saved as an application & put in my Powermac’s start up items so that nap mode is automatically turned on every time I turn it on. To do this just download the applescript below, unzip it then open up System Preferences – Accounts – Login Items. Then just drag the nap mode applescript into the Login Items Box. Here is the link to my applescript:
An applescript to enable Nap mode
After more research I found that another main source of noise is from the standard power supply fans that come with the MDD G4, so I found the quietest fans on the net to replace them. I chose the fans that come on the Thermaltake Volcano 5 heatsink and fan combination – the Everflow model F126025DH, which spin at 4550rpm with a maximum airflow of 32 CFM and a noise level of 31 dBA. These are actually the same fans as recommended on the above instructions at www.xlr8yourmac.com, so I was confident that they would do the job. The installation is not for the faint hearted so if your not good with electronics & fixing thing’s I wouldn’t attempt it. This made a big difference once again. I also put in a foam insert between the power supply & the case as instructed below.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/g4_mirrored
Finally I put the Powermac down on the floor under my desk which quietened it down again, so after all these measures I now have a Powermac G4 MDD, which is whisper quiet and much more suited to music production.
GREAT POST! I have a single processor MDD Mac and am also very happy with it. Because mine is a second revision it is not as loud as the originals. However it is anything but quiet and very hot. I have 4 drives in it and some of then can get over the 95 degree mark recommended by most manufacturers. Nap mode helps but I’d also suggest keeping the “Put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible” checked. I noted a significant improvement in overall temperatures when this was done. One other thing I use it a program called “Temperature Monitor” that gives you CPU and hard drive temps (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19994)
One last thing: As I understand it, Apple did recall the power supplies on these things years ago. You might still be able to score a new one on Apple.
Did you benefit of the “Apple Pwr Supply Exchange Program” ?
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/feb03/022103.html#S15126
Yeah, I tried ” put hard drive to sleep” option but this causes the mac to not wake up from sleep due to my USB 2.0 PCI card. That’s another long story that I will be uploading soon… but to summarise, the only way I can avoid sleep hangs & the USB 2.0 connection dropping out is to untick this option & to also set the Put computer to sleep” option to never.
I also found that nap mode would be turned off if you let the computer go to sleep or did it manually from the Apple menu. With sleep option set to never & nap mode enabled at start up this works a charm & keeps the G4 CPU at around 105 degrees F ( 42degC) & the bonus is that it also responds instantly with a touch of the keyboard. I also use temperature monitor & a new widget I just found called iStat nano.
I did benefit from the power supply program as the previous owner did all this under warranty, but it was still just too noisy. Best to carefully change the power supply fans with quiet ones. I hate to think how loud it was before they did that power supply exchange.
The IXtreme Silenx 120mm fan has a 3 wire connection. How did you deal with the fact that the logic board connection has only two pins?
Good question, I just basicly used trial & error to see which two plugs were the right ones for the two pins on the motherboard and which combination made the fan spin. The other wire is not needed.
With other fans that I tried it was easier because there was a red, black & yellow wire. With the silenx fan all 3 wires are a cool silver colour, trendy but not very useful. So I just tried plugging different combinations of two plugs into the two pins on the G4’s motherboard.
If you imagine that on the silenx 3 wire plug there is an underside ( with 3 little square holes on it) and a top which is completely flush. It ended up being on the underside with the left hand wire and the middle wire plugged into the 2 pins on the motherboard of the G4.
From checking the molex connector adaptor for connecting direct to a power source it appears that the center pin is the hot and one of the outside pins is the black.
I have a G4 MDD fw 800. Just didn’t want to blow anything on the logic board
Thanks!
Are you sure about the CFM on the F126025DH? The following page shows that the CFM is only 22.74.
http://www.everflowtech.com/products/product_detail.asp?product_no=F6025N
I’m having a hard time tracking down any 60mm fans that can push 30+ CFM. Thanks
yeah try this page for a review & specs:
http://www.slcentral.com/reviews/hardware/cooling/thermaltake/volcano5/index.php
You have to buy the Thermaltake Volcano 5 Heatsink & fan combo. Chuck away the heatsink & use the fans, which put out 32CFM of air.
From above review. ” The fan that came attached is a nicely designed everflow fan. It moves a solid 32 cfm of air at a respectable 31dBa”.
Excellent topic and posts, great info and right on time :O)
Is there a specific Mac OS that Chud 3.5.2 works with?
I am locked into Panther 10.3.4/9.
Gonna try cutting out and eliminating the fan safety/finger guards, where applicable as some say it helps.
I was also thinking of using this Deflex product as well, even inbetween the side panels, just an idea as it seems to work.
http://www.deflex.co.uk
Apparently CHUD 3.5.2 is much more solid on Tiger 10.4. I’d upgrade to 10.3.9 & see how it goes… You could always pick up 10.4 on ebay, it’s a very worthwhile upgrade.
try this link for more info:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/MDD_CHUD_feedback.html#storytop
Hey Bucky Thanks,
I actually have got Tiger and i,m gonna use it on my Digital-Audio for the internet only.
The reason i am locked into Panther 10.3.4/9 is because of the Protools app i use—-Digi 001 and Protools 6.4.
This is why i got an MDD Dualie, yet i now know that the second proccessor is not so vital on Protools 6.4.
I will try to put your tips to good use and if it is still to loud for recording i will consider upgrading the D.A. and hope it does not increase in loudness also.
Hey – this is great info – funny I was just thinking it was time to fix the fans in my MDD – have you had any problems since the fixes/upgrades?
also – where did you find the Thermaltake Volcano 5 heatsink and fan combination – I’m having some problems finding these
thanks
No problems whatsoever. It’s running like a dream. I found the Thermaltake Volcano 5 heatsink on Google after a fair bit of searching. The online store that I bought it from here in Australia has since shut down, but you should be able to find them somewhere… maybe try ebay too…
It seems as though the fan on the Thermaltake Volcano 6 Cu ( not the Cu+ 7000 rpm copper base model) is also the same as the Volcano 5.
see this page for details.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/volcanoshootout.php
I came across this – (looking for your opinion) what do you think? it should work on the MDD?
http://www.pcsilent.de/en_pd_smartcooler_fan_set_apple_mac_g4_lfs1130m_%20ROOT_APPLESETS_307.html
only has an airflow of 25CFM
thanks
Yeah they dont look too bad, however as far as noise is concerned, the 120 mm fan puts out 38DB compared to 18 DB for the SilenX 120mm at similar air output. The smaller 60mm fans are slightly quieter but have slightly less airflow than the ones on the Thermaltake Volcano 5. Might be worth a try though if you cant track down any Thermaltake fans.
Yeah I went ahead and purchased the 120mm you recommended – just looking for something to replace the 60’s – I like that the DB is lower but worried about the airflow – I have an info email into them asking about the airflow etc.
Bucky, thanks for the great post! I’m tired of listening to my G4 MDD scream, so I’m going to do all three steps you’ve described.
But one problem…
Adroc, I’m facing the same thing you did a week ago — I can’t find the Volcano 5 anywhere … not even eBay, at least at the time I’m posting this.
I was confused … which one did Adroc end up getting? And where could I pick one up? Thanks again!
Actually… I may be REALLY confused!
I already ordered the SilenX IXP 76-18 … 120mm x 38mm. But the Volcano 5 is something different, right? Adroc said “…I went ahead and purchased the 120mm…” is he talking about something similar to the SilenX I got?
If so, I still need that other fan. Is this where you’re saying to try the Thermaltake Volcano 6 Cu+?
Man, I’m really sorry to mess up your forum with a bunch of silly questions…
No worries mate… yes there are 2 different sizes of fans to replace. The first & easiest is the 120mm SilenX fan which you appear to have ordered. I’d wait till you get that & see how you go with that. That may solve all your noise problems combined with installing CHUD 3.5.2 which enables you to turn on “Nap Mode”.
The second set of fans are 60mm fans in the Power Supply.There are two of them in there. I would say that the 60mm fans that adroc ordered are quite possibly not going to put out enough airflow to keep the power supply cool, I hope I’m wrong though. They put out 25CFM of air while the Thermaltake Volcano 5 ones put out 32 cubic feet per minute compared to 37.5 CFM of the stock fans. I personally wouldnt go below 32CFM to be safe.
Ok after a few googles for Thermaltake 60 x 25mm fan heres some links where you can buy fans that will do the job:
here is a Volcano 5 :
http://coolbidnow.stores.yahoo.net/thvo5amdatup.html
Here are some other brands :
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=51&products_id=417
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=51&products_id=419
Hey – yeah I haven’t purchased the 60mm fans yet – I’m worried about the decreased airflow – I asked pcsilent.de about compatibility with my G4 MDD and they said it works….I think I’ll check out the links your found – thanks for the assistance
update – I installed the “SilenX” 120 and for some reason it would barely spin or would just appear to be on low – no air movement. I then connected it to the main power (P5) and now it runs at full speed.
When I had it connected to the 2 pin it was registering in the 70+ (degC) and eventually shut down) now its registering around 58-60 (degC)
The fan is silent – definitely need to replace the 60’s!
what is a good temperature for these MDD’s?
That’s weird that it spun slowly… what’s the P5 that you speak of & where is it exactly? Have you installed & enabled nap mode yet? That reduces the temperature dramatically. With both the SilenX 120 mm fan & nap mode my G4 CPU runs at about an average of 40 – 45 degrees celsius, up to 53 max when doing intensive stuff. This is in Australias summer… at an average of 30 – 40 degrees outside.
It would be interesting to try nap mode & the 2 pin again & see if it runs cool enough… mine does & it seems to spin faster when doing intensive tasks.
I’d go for the first link for 60mm fans. Theyre the same ones I’ve got…. push out heaps of air for the quiet noise they make and are very hard to find.
Sorry the P5 is the last 4pin molex connector (not being used under the front hard drive carrier) – I used the 3-4 pin adapter that came with the SilenX 120 fan to connect it.
I put the original fan back in – I also installed Chud 3.5.2 and am going to monitor the heat (get a good idea what this thing runs at) Once the new 60mm fans arrive I’ll reinstall the SilenX and give it all another shot
I just bought 2 of these delta fans on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=019&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&viewitem=&item=290021085689&rd=1&rd=1
They are pretty much the exact fan already in the power supply but with a lower rpm/cfm/db rating. 23-24cfm and 28db. the originals are 40+db. they even have the same 2 pin connector.
its better to use ball bearing as a power supply needs reliable fans.
Great job btw.
A quick question.. Did you have to take the cover off of the power supply to remove the old fans and install the new ones? I ask because Apple warns about opening it and states a high voltage shock risk.
I am very comfortable working with pretty much all computer hardware but I just have no experience taking apart a power supply.
Please share any thoughts.
Thanks!
I have the dual 867MHz MDD btw..
thanks man, yeah you do have to take the cover off, but thats easy. I was very very sceptical about taking apart the power supply, as I had read about the dangers too. However what I did was turn the computer off & unplug it from the wall for a full day before starting.
Then I got organised with all the tools needed & really took my time, carefully taking the cover off.I made sure not to touch any other parts of the power supply at all which is not hard as the fans are down one end.
The hardest bit for me was swapping over the 2 pin connectors from the old fans onto the new ones as they came with 3 pin plugs, but you’ve got the 2 pins allready so thats easy.
thanks for your reply and advice. much appreciated.
I am having a small issue with the script you linked to.. every 2-3 reboots it won’t launch at startup. it gives an error msg but only to say it wasn’t able to launch. what I do for now is replace the file by dragging it into the same folder and choosing to replace the original. this resolves the issue but only for 2-3 boots as I said. I have been booting more than usual to test how things are happening.
any thoughts?
That’s strange I havent seen that at all… although I only reboot about once a week, maybe every 2 weeks.
Maybe try making your own login script with this hint:
( Save it as an application then add it to login items)
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040601142834620
Well… I ordered fans for both places as recommended. Got a SilenX 120mm and a Thermaltake Volcano 6Cu+ for the 60mm power supply fan. Got both new on ebay.
Just one goof. This morning I got everything disassembled and then discovered I should have ordered TWO 60mm fans. You made it perfectly clear in your description, I just read it wrong.
****
So for those replacing the power supply fans … be sure to order TWO OF THEM! Lest you want to make a mess on a Saturday and then not be able to finish the job.
****
I wrote my own script and replaced the one from the link you posted. problem solved..
bucky: I checked out your flickr gallery. cool stuff.
I am on flickr also if you want to check out my stuff: http://flickr.com/photos/zen_state/
I got the fans yesterday and installed today. System is running well and is a decent amount quieter but still a tad loud. In NAP mode the new fans are a bit louder for some reason but its still better than the old wind tunnel sound of the old fans
Thanks a lot bucky! ..for all your help and inspiration.
hey thanks dude, nice photo’s Jeff, i partculary liked the abstract inside MDD ones… good to hear you’ve had some luck changing the fans. I did have the Powermac on the desk, but after moving it to the floor, it’s even more quiet.
yes, I always keep towers on the floor and under my desk.
I did a small mod to help make up for the lower airflow of the new fans.. I removed the built in speaker on the front since I don’t use it anyway and the hole is so close to the ps fans. the side and back of the ps seem a bit cooler now.
I am still not satisfied with the noise level from my MDD..
I want some thoughts on using 3 x 60mm silent x fans. you may be wondering on how I plan to use 3
2 in the power supply and one mounted on the back of the MDD right over the ps exhaust.
these:http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=16829&vpn=IXP-34-16&manufacture=SilenX%20Corporation
they are only 16db loud but they only blow 18cfm which is why I want to use 3. I figure that 2 x 18cfm fans will take care of the capacitors at the top near the front and the fan mounted at the back will suck heat off the coils that reside close by.
I already have an 80mm silent x mounted on the back outside the heatsink and it sucks a decent amount of air out.
my only concern is that there may not be enough air flow even with 3 fans since as I said they only blow 18cfm.
still not quiet enough? mine is fine for me now…
I’d be very careful putting fans in that only put out 18CFM. The original fans put out 38CFM 7 the ones I put in put out 32 CFM.
Simple maths says that 18 + 18 + 18= 54 total CFM which about 70% airflow of what the original fans put out. I dunno mate, you could try it & monitor it closely however I’d say it would reduce the life of your power supply dramatically. Personally I wouldnt try it.
Did you put insulation material between Power supply & case? Maybe also try insulation material all over the inside of the case first like this person did:
“I went back in and removed the perforated plastic panel on the rear, completely disconnected the small fan in the door that blows into the optical bays, and revamped the plenum completely using more cardboard and aluminum duct tape to seal all gaps and holes that interfered with smooth airflow through the case. Then I covered every surface — sides, bottom, top and interior parts like the optical bays and sides of the psu — with some dynamat (a very dense, self-adhesive vibration-damping material commonly used in car audio) that I had lying around. After reassembling it, I lined the corner where it sits with acoustical foam to further absorb any remaining high-frequency noise.
You can no longer tell it is running at all unless you are sitting right next to it, *censored* your ear and concentrate hard on listening for it. From 4 feet away you can not hear it at all. I can record spoken-word with a hot condenser mic ~10 feet away and have no problems. And all of that is in a completely silent room. With the heat or AC running, or normal house noise, you don’t even know it is there when you are right on top of it.”
where did you buy your fans? I can’t find those thermaltake models. I think my new fans still seem a tad loud because they are dual ball bearing. durable but loud..
I have had a thermaltake 80mm die on me in the past when only about 3 months old. it was a sleeve bearing though.. but still I am now a tad skeptical about the quality of their fans.
I got mine off an aussie online seller who has since closed down but heres a link to a Volcano 5 :
http://coolbidnow.stores.yahoo.net/thvo5amdatup.html
what I ended up doing was just adding lots of anti vibration material on the backside of the power supply where the fans are exposed. they make direct contact with the metal case wall.
worked VERY well and my MDD is now very quiet. Maybe 26-28db overall. i’m happy
I just got a used 1.25Ghzx2 MDD and it’s quiet until about ten minutes of use ,then there’s this sort of chunt-chunt-chunt sound that appears, a bit like a diesel or something. I’ve tried putting silencing padding behind the Power supply fans and under the CPU cooling fan but it made no difference – did yours sound something like that before fan replacement? I even sampled the sound as per the xcelerate-your-mac site suggestions but it doesn’t seem to match their sound analysis. Any suggestions?
Chunt chunt chunt like a diesel eh? It could be a vibration, or maybe it’s the CPU fan, but who knows. I’d try changing the CPU fan with one of those SilenX 120 mm fans first & then go from there as they’re pretty cheap & it’s a 5 minute easy job. They make a big improvement anyway, so you cant go wrong.
Come to think of it, it sounds like your G4 might be warming up for ten minutes & then the big 120 mm Delta CPU fan kicks at full speed to cool it down. Mine was insanely noisy before I changed it.
Also have you tried the Nap mode software fix? You can read about how to do both these things above.
I am currently using a Antec 120mm in my MDD. It has 3 speed settings and blows 39/56/79 CFM for each setting. I run it on low (25db) as its loud above that. I also have a 80mm Antec in the back HD bracket (mounted in front of boot drive) that also has 3 speed settings and I set it to medium which blows 26 CFM @ 24db.
Even though I only blow 39 CFM from the 120mm I also have the 80mm blowing another 26 right through the fins of the heatsink for a total of 65 CFM. Very decent airflow when using NAP. In the mornings when I go to my mac its almost always below 40c and sometimes as low as 29c. Even under heavy load I hit maybe 54c tops. Great fan scheme all round..
I have a question about the SilenX fan you use. do you find it blows the listed CFM and runs at the listed db rating? I ask because some say that they exaggerate their specs.
In case anyone wanted to know, you can get Thermaltake Everflow 60mm fans (just the fan, not a CPU cooler too) at maplin.co.uk in the UK using the product code ZT88, and they cost £7.99. The exact model is the F126025BH (not the DH), but the specs on the Everflow site are identical.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=zt88&source=15&SD=Y
Marcus: The fan at that link only blows 21 CFM and is NOT the same one people have been using.
Just letting you know..
Jeff, good to see you sorted out the noise problem, I think I have a small vibration that hums a low frequency hum now & then.. I’ll try & fix it one day. Regarding the SilenX fan, I’m not sure how to measure the CFM, and it’s very very quiet( no I havent measured it’s db either).
It keeps the Mac as cool as the original Delta which pushes out a total of 152 CFM, so the Silenx seems to put out about the amount of airflow that its manufacturer says it does. I tried a 72 CFM fan before that didnt cool it enough, so it’s gotta be pretty close to 90 CFM.
hi. i’ve followed everything posted here on trying to quiet my MDD 867. but i’m still having problems.
i replaced to the 120 silenx fan, replaced both 60 power fans, covered the power fan slot, added padding to any possible rattle area, downloaded chud 3.5.2 and have the napmode script loaded for startup. but the noise level is still only slightly better than what it was. i’m not sure if i’ve done everything right…
i can say that the temp of my two hdrives are down to 118-127 from 130+. so it would seem that all the fans are working correctly. i’m not seeing how nap mode is helping out, though i do see it activate at bootup… and i’m only finding the nap option in my system prefs/other/hardware. is this correct? also, my comp goes to sleep now, drives shutdown and i have to press the power button for it to come back. and so far, when i do, i get the black box of “hold the power button for restart” everytime i do.
any help?
Hi ej, i’m surprised that these mods didnt make much difference. Maybe the MDD 867 isnt as noisy as the 1GHz MDD G4’s cause mine was sooo noisy. Like the sound a fan forced oven makes. So these mods made a massive difference for me.
Try also putting the G4 down on a carpeted floor. Some people have even padded the entire inside of the case with DynaMat on every possible metal surface after taking everything out.
It sounds like you’ve done everything right. Can you tell me what temperature your G4 CPU is at? This is the critical temp reading as if it gets to about 70 deg C, the computer will shut down with that black box alert that you speak of. It should be around 40 degrees celcius ( 105 F).
I have set my computer to never sleep as sleep seems to turn off nap mode, then the CPU would heat up & the 120 mm fan would get noisier to cool it down. Maybe your MDD is heating up when it goes to sleep cause nap gets turned off & then when you wake it up it is too hot & so it crashes with the black box alert. Also make sure your running at least OSX 10.4.3. And yes nap mode is in system preferences/ Hardware.
hey bucky, thanks for the help.
well, i’ve had it running now for 4 hours and both drives are now reading 131 & 137F respectively. I suspect that somethings not right then. i installed the silenx first and tested it. the computer was quieter after that install. then the power supply fans. after that, it was back up tobeing fairly noisey. i guess that’s the problem there.
this dual 867 was/is loud as hell.it’s my pro tools computer with a digi 001 interface… which means i can’t push my OS above 10.3.9. 001 won’t work in 10.4+. i’d just really like to finally hush this puppy up. i get excess noise on all mic work which usually i can reasonably gate out, except for dynamic mics on amps. this machine lives close to where all the amps are.
the power supply fans i installed are Delta 2 pin 60mm x 25mm 4250 rpm 23.38 CFM Noise 28dB ball bearing.
Hi there,
coolbidnow.com has been giving me a “Requested quantity not available” when trying to buy either the volcano 5 or 6 cu+. And, I can’t find any way to contact them.
Has anyone found any other place to get these fans? Or have any knowledge as to weather they will come back in stock at coolbidnow? I definitely want a fan that does at least 32 CFM, and the only other fans I can find are just about as loud as the ones that came with the computer.
ej what is the temperture of your G4 CPU reading, not the hard drives? The original fans in both the power supply & the 120 mm CPU fan are delta. Your delta 60mm fans puts out 23 cfm of air but the original ones put out 37 cfm, this may not be enough airflow. Delta dont make the quietest fans so maybe this is where your noise is coming from. If your still on 10.3.9, then there are reports of people having problems with Nap on panther, read it here:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/MDD_CHUD_feedback.html#storytop
Like I said before maybe turn off sleep in system preferences and also uncheck “put hard disks to sleep when possible”.
ej: I am using those exact same delta fans on my mdd’s power supply. because they do only blow 23.3 CFM each I added a 3rd 60mm (silenx 16 db 18 cfm) that I mounted right over the power supply exhaust to help suck out heat.
my power supply now feels cooler now than it did with the original fans. I think it got warmer before because there was more stagnent warm air sitting at the back near the coils. a couple days ago after about 3 hours of heavy system load I opened up the mdd while running and the power supply was hardly warm.
apple is known for overkill when it comes to cooling. look at the giant heat sinks they use or the 9 fan G5. I am VERY confident that with those 2 23 cfm delta fans plus the silenx on the back that I am getting all the cooling it needs and then some.
I just did the math.. 2 of those thermaltake fans blow a total of 64cfm where as the stock fans blow a total of 76 cfm. my setup (3×60mm) blows a total of 60.6 cfm.
even with the super powerful stock fans I hardly ever felt much air coming out the back as once the air blows through the ps and all its capacitors and wires there isn’t much left moving at the back. I like and trust my cooling scheme very much
thanks everyone for the help. i appreciate it.
anyway, i’ll try anything to get this computer quieter and running cooler.
when i get home from work i’ll get the computer up and running for a couple hours and get the temperature reading.
i’ll also make sure sleep and hard disk sleep are off.
as for a third fan, this makes sense looking at the cfm’s of these new fans to the stocks. but how do i go about mounting a fan over the ps exhaust? you’re taking about the cut angle with grill right? and how would i go about powering that fan?
i’m pretty comfortable pulling apart pcs from a stint as an IT guy in the late 90’s. but i only know PCs really… even though i’ve personally have only owned macs for over 20 years now. haven’t ever really had to do much to macs besides add ram or harddrives. never had one breakdown on me
I actually used crazy glue
it works quite well for small fans. since the fan is so quiet to begin with there are no vibration issues. I mounted it directly above the power connector. I also took off the back plastic panel so I could mount the fan as close to the exhaust as possible. I simply ran the wire right through the seem that opens when you open the mac and I secured it with some black tape then ran the wire down and plugged the fan into one of the molex connectors for the back HD bracket.
some pics:
http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/9660/im000307az7.jpg
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/79/im000316qi2.jpg
i’m using temperature monitor and it’s telling me that my CPU board sensor is “disconnected”. the program is only giving me the temps for the drives.
jeff, i ordered the fan you recommended for external installation. should get here in a day or two.
in that second image it looks like you have a fan on your drive… both my drives live in that area, sans fan…. i suppose the power supply is my main concern at the moment. the computer is pushing a lot more air out the back than it was with the stock fans. hotter air.
the fan in front of the HD is pointed at the heatsink and blows air through the fins. I do this because I run a low cfm 120mm (39 cfm) that is very quiet. the loudest fan in my system now are the 2 deltas in the power supply. they are 28db..
my 2 case fans are 24 and 25 db with the silenx only being 16 db.
btw.. check your daughter card to make sure nothing is loose. very odd that it won’t read the cpu temp.
here is a better angle:
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/4792/im000321ma0.jpg
the reason I really recommend putting the fan right above the power connector is 2 part.. in that spot its pretty much right at the halfway point in the hight of the PS so it will more evenly remove heat. the other reason is that once you take the plastic panel off there is a perfect ledge on top of the power connector that is exposed. this ledge is great because that along with a good amount of glue (although not too much) will hold the fan secure for as long as you need.
as for putting the glue on.. what I did was put a thin line all the way around the back contact edge of the fan itself and then once on I pushed down with even force while I glued the seem around it on all the metal (non-hole) areas. just be sure you don’t get any glue inside. you should also have the mac sitting face down so that the back is pointing up. you may have to lean it on something. once all the gluing is done put something small and heavy with a flat edge on it right on top of the fan and leave it for 10-15 min.
one last thing I want to share for everyones reference is the extreme (min. and max.) temp values of my system after 3 days of use.
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/8849/picture1wq6.jpg
yeah, my comp is just not getting enough cooling. it shut itself down again last night. on start up, it actually is pretty quiet until it starts warning up?
i’m thinking here at work… what if i opened my available bay door and attached like 40mm fans to bring cool air into the comp? as well as attaching the external to help draw air out?
very odd that you keep getting random shutdowns.. I think the best place to add another small fan is where the speaker is on the front. I have my speaker out and just have the hole open. the hole is the perfect size for a 40-50mm fan.
are you running nap mode? if not you really should. nap is a must for ANY mdd.
I bought a used a dual 867 MDD about a month ago, was shocked at the noise, and promptly replaced all the fans as outlined here and on xlr8yourmac.com (thanks to all concerned).
The difference is phenomenonal, but here’s a slightly dumb question: is the 120mm case fan meant to spin all the time or just under heavy disk usage? Mine is motionless right now, but the temperature seems well within the ranges mentioned here.
(I picked up two of the elusive Thermaltake fans on eBay just in the past week, by the way.)
hey george, good to see you had some luck. The 120mm fan is supposed to spin all the time, did it ever spin? if not maybe you’ve plugged it in the wrong 2 slots (as there is 3 to choose from). Or maybe it has died. Mine does vary in it’s spinage! Usually its just silently slowly spinning but under heavy usage it spins up a bit to the point that you can actually hear it.
To ej, the random shutdowns are definitely because The G4 CPU is getting too hot, but I dont see why? That 120 mm silenX fan should be all you need as long a Nap is on. I’d make sure the fan is spinning properly & spinning in the right direction ( ie towards the back of the computer & over the G4 CPU). & also check nap mode in System Prefs – Hardware to see if its checked on after start up. Someone else here said that the nap applescript didnt work for them.
Also, If I was you I’d back up everything on your Mac, just to be sure. I nearly lost everything 2 months ago due to a dead hard drive.
i’ll run my comp open cased when i get home and take a look at all that. after reviewing the problems it would most likely seem like i could have screwed up on the prong placement of the 120mm connector to the board and it’s not working.
judging by the air coming out the back, i’m guessing i have the power supply fans in right. plus they were 2 prongers: black up, red dbottom i think.
i’ll try to locate what’s wrong with the CPU sensor on the daughterboard as well.
napmode: i put napmode script in my startup items and it does launch on startup. shows up in my menu for like 3 seconds and disappears. so i’m assuming it’s working… nap has been left checked in my hardware system pref.
i found that article on removing the front speaker for fan placement yesterday. that seems like a good idea. worthless speaker anyway.
I just bought the same 120mm silenX 90 CFM fan off frozencpu.com. the antec 120mm I have now only blows a max of 79 cfm and it does it at 30db. I will lake 18db and 90cfm any day
I have also become a bit of a fan of silenX fans because of the great 60mm of theirs I have mounted on my ps exhaust.
Following up on my question yesterday, I tried reconnecting the 120mm fan in a variety of different wire/prong combos, but to no avail. Instead, I followed Adroc’s method above (March 18/19) and hooked the SilenX fan to the P5 molex. Et voilà. Perhaps now I can get back to work…
George: Is your goal to have the fan run at system controlled speeds based on heat? I think its best to just power it via the 4 pin molex as the fan is so quiet that you won’t hear it even at top speed.
following up: i only had about an hour to mess about with the comp yesterday.. the silenx is not working with the 2 pin connector on the logic board. I’ll try it with the P5 tonight. Hopefully that will work.
I also have no idea where my temperature sensor is. The daughter card connections appear to be sound.
those fans are x86 hardware based (as virtually all are) and should be used with a 4 pin molex on pretty much all macs.
the fans will work 100% if you do that.. trust me.
Reagarding the Silenx 120mm fan (big one in the bottom of the case), I got one from FrozenCPU, installed it in my MDD Dual 867 and watched the temperature spike to 79C before the machine shut down, pretty disappointing. Yanked it out and stuck the stock Delta back in, temperature normal again. Then I read the posts above, reinstalled the Silenx using the provided power passthrough adaptor instead of the direct fan plug on the motherboard, rebooted and all seems to be well – sitting at 61.4C right now – not exactly cool, but my machine is completely populated (4 drives plus 2 optical drives) and a whack of video cards, SCSI cards etc. – not a lot of room for air to move around in there.
Hah, my setup is similar to Michael’s above. Does the Silenx fan make a lot of difference in noise? (as I assume it’s running at full speed most of the time).
I’m thinking maybe I should remove some of the drives and put them in external cases simply in the interest of noise.
Oh, another thing, isn’t there enough space between the PSU and the optical drives to stick another one of those 120m Silenx fans? Then couldn’t you build a simple little thing out of plastic or even cardboard to divert that 90CFM of air into the PSU therefore getting more air through it than the two fans could a fraction of the noise level?
And another question I just remembered: Are there temp sensors in the PSU that will prevent it from overheating? Because of all the power my drives are drawing, I’m wondering if it’s best for me to just stay away from the PSU until I get some of them external.
er, right. well the P5 works, but it seems that my 120mm silenx is also defective. it wouldn’t move without a push then stops before a half rotation. i broke the fan case some to get it some give. well now it works, but is the most noisy fan you’ve ever heard. hilariously loud. like a single propeller engine, lol. gonna try to break it more to make it work right.
you broke your fan and its loud? I think you’re cursed
you should only be able to hear any silenX when you’re within a couple inches of it. I would say send it back for a new one if you hadn’t broke it.
Chris, I would have to say I don’t notice a huge difference in noise after installing the SilenX fan, but it’s probably just because the PSU fans are so damn loud. Plus, the CPU is running an average of 5-6C higher than it was with the stock fan, so I’m not convinced it’s worth the effort yet.
Michael: you must still be using the stock psu fans. any one fan over say 32 db is going to make it useless to have a silent fan.
personally I find anything over 26-28 db loud. the stock psu fans are 40 db+
As far as I know, the PSU and its fans are stock – I’m not the first owner of this machine, it used to be a server at a graphic design studio, and I suspect because of its duties and (presumable) remoteness from any human beings other than the occasional techie, the original owners may not even have taken advantage of Apple’s PSU replacement program.
I think you might be right about the Maplin fan specs – but I think you might be wrong about the spec on your Thermaltake fans. The F126025DH you say you used is also rated at 22cfm, according to the Everflow site: http://www.everflowtech.com/products/product_detail.asp?product_no=F6025N Given that the other bits of the fan spec you give (4550rpm, 31db) agree with their site, I suspect your fans may be pushing less air than you think. If your Mac is still happy, I guess that’s good news…
Anyway, my 120mm Silenx just arrived, so it’s going in.
Hm, I just realised someone else posted the same comment – I’d be inclined to trust the manufacturer’s specs rather than a mention in an article. What’s more, you can *just* make out the product code on the picture of the fans in the article – it looks like they are the F126025BU model, which are 4900rpm, 24cfm, 33.5db.
Silenx is in. I don’t think anyone has mentioned that it’s quite straightforward to connect the 3-pin connector straight onto the motherboard 2-pin. There are only two positions it can go, and one of them will work, the other won’t. You don’t need to extract pins at all.
Overall it’s quieter than it was, however, I think it is still pretty noisy – and I’ve got some soundproofing material in there too, and minor ducting around the PSU intake. Nap mode is noticeably louder, and more annoyingly, variable – PSU fans change speed by small amounts every few seconds. If I turn nap mode on and off manually, the 120mm fan speeds up and slows down immediately – nap mode definitely runs the fans faster.
I think a 120mm mounted sideways in front of the PSU might work better than the 2 60mm fans – one of the links on here showed someone doing that. Need to make ducting for that to work properly though.
Marcus: it makes sense.. I wondered how they could blow 32 cfm at only 400 something rpm. I know this because any 60mm fan that can blow 30+ cfm has to spin @ 6000+ rpm like the stock fans
Well, after opening my computer up it’s clear than another 120mm SilenX fan could easily fit in front of the power supply and a simple rectangular piece of plastic will force all the air it puts out into the PSU (and maybe a couple more pieces to make sure). I’d probably remove the fan so that it would more easily get colder air, but the main point here is that with the 120mm fan you would get 18db for the PSU pushing 90CFM through which is MORE than the stock fans do together. I just don’t want to try this out if the PSU doesn’t have an autoshutoff so the only question remaining is:
Does anyone know if the PSU knows when it gets too hot and shut the computer down?
Yes Marcus & others I think your right about the Everflow fans on the Thermaltake Volcano 5 heatsink being falsely rated at 32 cfm. The Model number on mine is F126025DH and like Marcus said if you go yo their website:
http://www.everflowtech.com/products/product_detail.asp?product_no=F6025N
You’ll find that fan is rated at 22.74 cfm. That seems to be fine in my Dual 1GHz MDD, so I’d say to everyone else that any 60mm fan that pushes out more than 22 cfm will do the job.
Heres a few links to fans 22cfm & over – The first one is the same as the fans as I am using with no problems:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=zt88&source=15&SD=Y
This one looks good too:
http://www.newark.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?SKU=58K2927&CMP=AFC-GB100000001
http://www.hardwarecooling.com/product_info.php/prod/720/Sunon_60×25mm_Fan?s=9dec024898e084f8d068c35910e00a67
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=51&products_id=419
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=51&products_id=417
I think the delta fans that I used are a good choice as they blow 23.36 cfm and they are 2 pin so you don’t have to modify its wiring at all.
opps, forgot the link:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=019&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&viewitem=&item=290021085689&rd=1&rd=1
they are 3 db quieter than the thermaltake models
yeah those delta fans do look like the easiest option due to the 2 pins.
Chris, I’d just play it safe & use these everflow or delta 60 mm fans if I was you. I dont think there would be sensors in the PSU to shut it down if it overheated, I’d say only the CPU has them.
To Michael J & others, I noticed a big difference when I replaced the 120 mm fan with a SilenX fan as the original fan was incredibly loud. However once I replaced the 2 power supply fans & enabled nap mode it made a dramatic difference.
My main concern is that I have my PSU maxed out (i.e., it doesn’t even have enough power to power an external drive through FW) so I don’t know if I want to take any chances. It just doesn’t seem like a great idea to me to replace the fans with other fans that would only push half as much air. If anything I suppose I can just buy a heat sensor and stick it in the PSU exhaust
Chris: keep this in mind.. my stock fans were covered in built up dust and dirt when I replaced them. that will lower their cooling ability by quite a lot. I live in a very clean home and the original owner of my mdd did also yet after 3-4 years of use they are VERY dirty. it would be very hard to clean them also.
trust me chris.. I am using 23 cfm delta 60×25mm that hum along at only 28 db. very quiet compared to the 40+ db of the stock fans and my power supply feels a good amount cooler now than it did with the stock fans.
my mdd runs like a dream in that its very stable, cool and quiet. if you make the effort you can have the same.
Hey, all. Been reading this discussion of the noise issue in MDD G4s and wondered if you might be able to help solve the problem that brought me here in the first place.
Came home today to find my dual 867 MDD G4 DEAD. Yes, DEAD. Left it in sleep mode while the wife and I went out for a few hours to run some errands, came home and, by instinct, hit the power button on the monitor (17″ Studio Display LCD) to wake it. I didn’t hear the drive spin up, and I also noticed the power button wasn’t pulsating as usual. Then I noticed it wasn’t ON. Neither was the power light on the G4. @#$%^&*!!!
Holding either power button gets the light to come on momentarily, then it goes back out. As if not enough power is getting to the circuits. Disconnected all the USB and FW peripherals — none were on anyway, but still — and even disconnected the ADC Studio Display to just leave the power cord in the G4. Nothing. I even switched the cord from UPS tro UPS and then to a wall jack. No dif. And I don’t have a different power cord to try. Could it be as simple as the power CORD? Or the power SUPPLY? The BATTERY? Or…gulp…worse?!!???
No signs of a power outage or spike while we were gone — everything’s on APC UPSes — and nothing else in the office was in the same shape, including this “ancient” Power Computing clone I have running OSX via XPostFacto and using to type this now.
I’m no stranger to the innards of these things, but this G4 box — easy as it is to get into — has me a bit intimidated, and that retangular Power Supply is unlike any I’m used to (the old square boxes of old). I’ve checked to make sure the RAM chips and vid card and plugs are seated correctly, there are no dust bunnies or signs of hot/burnt components, etc. I’m scouring the InterWeb for ideas and suggestions, but until I come up with something, I’m kinda screwed. I’ve only had this a year, but I’ve grown to love it, and had hoped to keep it going a few more years before moving on up to a new(er) one.
The specs: Dual 867 MDD G4, 1.5 GB RAM, Tiger 10.4.8, stock 60Gb hard drive, add’tl Maxtor hard drive, 17″ ADC Studio Display (LCD), external Maxtor 200GB FW drive, Belkin FW hub, Apple Pro Speakers, Keyboard, Mouse.
I was hoping to do one of these cool fan mods, add a Radeon Pro vid card and a USB 2.0 card as well, but right now I’m just concerned about getting it back up and running!
Thanks for your understanding and patience with this long OT post.
–Bill
Bill:
Try this.. take out the battery on the mobo by the video card and leave it out for 15 min or so. then pop it back in and try to reboot.
If that doesn’t work then i’m not sure what it could be. maybe the mobo went.
This happened to me on my old G4 533 “digital Audio” a few years back & freaked me out!. It’s exactly the same symptoms and it happened after a big lightning storm. It seemed to be dead, would try to start up then go back off.
I took it into a mac technition who showed me a tiny little black reset button for the PMU – power management unit. One touch of this button & all was well. It’s labelled PMU RESET.
On my 1 GHz machine it’s near where the 2 extra front hard drives( under the optical drives) plug into the motherboard. Right on the corner of the MB near the little flat fan.
Thanks, guys. Prompt responses much appreciated!
The CUDA reset button did nothing, but when I pulled the battery out and checked it with a volt meter, it was weak. Perhaps the reason why there’s only enough juice for the power light to remain on while you’re holding it, but not enough to do anything else?
It’s worth a shot, and definitely the cheapest fix if that turns out to be it. If not, it’s the methodical process of checking the PS, I guess.
from the apple mdd service manual:
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/9844/picture1rl7.jpg
Thanks, Jeff.
No luck with the new battery, sad to say. Still the same problem.
Now I guess it’s on to checking the PS itself. It that checks out, is it the mobo?
i’m afraid it doesnt sound good. I’d be taking it to your local mac technician if I was you. By the way, what is the ” mobo”…
mobo = motherboard
Last week I reported that hooking the SilenX fan to the P5 molex had done the trick, and it was humming along. As it turned out, it was another spin-n-stop situation, and with the internal temperature in the balmy 70s, I found more useful pointers at too:http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1983473�.
It turns out that the pass-through connector I received with the fan is a male and connects to the yellow and black wires on the (female) loom, not the red and black as it should. The yellow/black provide 12v, and the red/black only 5v, yet the latter work and the former don’t – despite it being a 12v fan. Then again, I’m not an electrical buff so perhaps that’s normal. Duh.
I did more wire and prong swapping (the middle of the three SilenX wires is the red wire) and got the SilenX going while hooked to the motherboard after all.
Well I recieved my 120mm silenx fan yesterday and it seems to be working well. Here are a couple things I noticed for others trying this:
There are FOUR ways to connect it to the motherboard, not two as stated earlier. And out of the four only ONE works. At least with my silenx fan, I need to plug in the connector upside down to the connector on the motherboard which prevents it from plugging in all the way (though it works), if I decide to plug in in there permanently, I will probably opt to splice on the old fan’s connector in place of the 3 pin silenx one. Currently, I’m just using the molex connector converter which works perfectly.
In my computer maxed out computer, it has made it to 64° after 3 hours and it may be continuing (it’s hard to tell when the line appears to be horizontal). I plan to remove the two hard drives right in front of the fan which will no doubt increase airflow.
using a 4 pin molex will also work and its the method I prefer..
This is true, as I said above. The main reason I think I will opt for the motherboard connection over the molex is that when in nap mode my computer doesn’t need nearly 90CFM of air so it would be able to run even quieter.
Aditionally, I’ve found a 120mm x 120mm x 25mm fan which is variable between 20 CFM and 140 CFM and between 20db and 35db which I’m going to try using with the PSU. It even comes with a temp sensor and can auto adjust itself! I figure if it ends up running at top speed for an extended amount of time then I should probably revert back to the 60mm fans, but with 140CFM I would be surprised if it actually needed to use all that! I can post further information once I get home if anybody is interested.
its been proven by myself, bucky and several others now that you can safely get by with 45-60 cfm in the psu. the stock fans blew a total of 72. in the end though you should always do what your more comfortable with. as long as it gets good airflow you’re golden.
I forgot to mention..
I just bought the guts of a dual 1.42 mdd off a friend in the us. he had them in an atx case. I bought the psu with already modified fans (sunon 26db 30cfm fans), motherboard, cpu board, copper heatsink and 1.25GB ram all for only 500! friends with spare hardware rock
I also just bought an empty mdd case on ebay to put all of it in. soon I will be the proud owner of 2 mdd and I can’t wait. going to use my current dual 867 as a media centre and the dual 1.42 as my main..
here is the case I bought: http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=014&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&viewitem=&item=330113497883&rd=1&rd=1
yeah I think the motherboard connection is the best as it is variable speed so 90% of the time the SilenX 120mm fan is hardly making any noise at all. But whatever works for you.
Nice buy Jeff, sounds like it’s gonna be a nice machine once it’s all up & running.
Well, I just finished installing my second 120mm fan and wow, I forgot what hard drives sounded like
and now my hard drives sound TOO loud.
I did a similar install as the following page, but I removed my speaker for improved airflow, and installed the fan perpendicular to how he has it (mainly because I didn’t want to cut away at the metal of the PSU). I taped the temp sensor to the what subjectively felt like the hottest heatsync inside the PSU.
http://homepage.mac.com/dgiessel/PhotoAlbum22.html
I ended up using cardboard and electrical tape to make a makeshift air diverter, but I hope to replace that with plastic or metal soon. (cardboard can’t be a great thing to use inside a hot computer ¬_¬)
Here’s the fan I used:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999145
Hopefully I’m not speaking of success too soon, but the fan seems to have found a nice speed that keeps the PSU at the same temp and isn’t very loud, and the fact that the fan HAS varied it’s speed is a good sign.
glad to hear things went well, chris. you should use plastic cardboard. not sure where to get it but I know it exists and it would work well as a long term solution.
Awesome info here.. I am the original owner of a mdd dual 867 and have participated in the apple exchange back in the day, however always still wanted a quieter solution and remembered the Verax kit. I just never wanted to spend the price they wanted, but was willing to go ahead and just get the PSU (M11) kit and found they are no longer being made, and am unable to find one anywhere. My searching brought be across this:
http://www.pcsilent.de/en_pd_smartCooler_fan_set_for_Apple_PowerMac_G4_quieten_Apple_Power_Macintosh_G4_quiet_powermac_LFS1130_307.html
And taking the specs from the manufacturers website they claim this “M” kit produces an average of about 22 dbA working noise. They also have 3 other kits for the MDD at varying speeds, but this “M=medium” speed kit seems the perfect solution.
Main mac fans page:
http://www.smartcooler.de/frsce-MACL.htm
MDD specific page:
http://www.smartcooler.de/ProdInfo/PIE-LFS1130.htm
Online shop page:
http://www.smartcooler.de/cgi-bin/deimosos.exe?Kategorie3=KSELFMAC&AltHeader=PHE.htm&AltFooter=BHE.htm
Also great news is these seem to be perfect fit and come with power connector adapters plus all fans are dual bearing design and 100,000 hours MTBF. I for one am very scared to put poor quality fans in my PSU!
So pcsilent.de seems to be about the only online distributer I can find that carries these and will ship to the USA. All told the the price with shipping will be 67.53 EUR = $91.85 (at current conversion)
I Guess that’s not too bad, since I am really trying to make this computer last since I like it better than any of the newer Macs thus far, but am really sick of the noise it puts out.
What do you guys think??
Test
I guess there’s a character limit here, let’s try again.. (part 1)
Awesome info here.. I am the original owner of a mdd dual 867 and have participated in the apple exchange back in the day, however always still wanted a quieter solution and remembered the Verax kit. I just never wanted to spend the price they wanted, but was willing to go ahead and just get the PSU (M11) kit and found they are no longer being made, and am unable to find one anywhere. My searching brought be across this:
http://www.pcsilent.de/en_pd_smartCooler_fan_set_for_Apple_PowerMac_G4_quieten_Apple_Power_Macintosh_G4_quiet_powermac_LFS1130_307.html
And taking the specs from the manufacturers website they claim this “M” kit produces an average of about 22 dbA working noise. They also have 3 other kits for the MDD at varying speeds, but this “M=medium” speed kit seems the perfect solution.
(Part 2)
Main mac fans page:
http://www.smartcooler.de/frsce-MACL.htm
MDD specific page:
http://www.smartcooler.de/ProdInfo/PIE-LFS1130.htm
Online shop page:
http://www.smartcooler.de/cgi-bin/deimosos.exe?Kategorie3=KSELFMAC&AltHeader=PHE.htm&AltFooter=BHE.htm
Also great news is these seem to be perfect fit and come with power connector adapters plus all fans are dual bearing design and 100,000 hours MTBF. I for one am very scared to put poor quality fans in my PSU!
So pcsilent.de seems to be about the only online distributer I can find that carries these and will ship to the USA. All told the the price with shipping will be 67.53 EUR = $91.85 (at current conversion)
I Guess that’s not too bad, since I am really trying to make this computer last since I like it better than any of the newer Macs thus far, but am really sick of the noise it puts out.
What do you guys think??
(Part 2)
Main mac fans page:
http://www.smartcooler.de/frsce-MACL.htm
MDD specific page:
http://www.smartcooler.de/ProdInfo/PIE-LFS1130.htm
Online shop page:
http://www.smartcooler.de/cgi-bin/deimosos.exe?Kategorie3=KSELFMAC&AltHeader=PHE.htm&AltFooter=BHE.htm
Also great news is these seem to be perfect fit and come with power connector adapters plus all fans are dual bearing design and 100,000 hours MTBF. I for one am very scared to put poor quality fans in my PSU!
Smart cooler mac fans page:
http://www.smartcooler.de/frsce-MACL.htm
Also great news is these seem to be perfect fit and come with power connector adapters plus all fans are dual bearing design and 100,000 hours MTBF. I for one am very scared to put poor quality fans in my PSU!
So pcsilent.de seems to be about the only online distributer I can find that carries these and will ship to the USA. All told the the price with shipping will be 67.53 EUR = $91.85 (at current conversion)
I Guess that’s not too bad, since I am really trying to make this computer last since I like it better than any of the newer Macs thus far, but am really sick of the noise it puts out.
What do you guys think??
Sorry about needing to break these posts up, but it’s the only way I can post everything..
Here’s the data sheet for these fans:
http://www.smartcooler.de/proddata/PDE-LFS1130.htm
Specific page for the MDD kit:
http://www.smartcooler.de/ProdInfo/PIE-LFS1130.htm
Online shop showing the 4 different kits available for the MDD (scroll to bottom)
http://www.smartcooler.de/cgi-bin/deimosos.exe?Kategorie3=KSELFMAC&AltHeader=PHE.htm&AltFooter=BHE.htm
However I can only find the “M” kit for sale and I think smartcooler only sells in bulk, which is fine since i think the M kit is probably the best one. I am really considering buying this kit, I’ll report back my results if I pull the trigger once I get it installed.
Sorry about needing to break these posts up, but it’s the only way I can post everything..
Here’s the data sheet for these fans:
http://www.smartcooler.de/proddata/PDE-LFS1130.htm
Specific page for the MDD kit:
http://www.smartcooler.de/ProdInfo/PIE-LFS1130.htm
Online shop showing the 4 different kits available for the MDD (scroll to bottom)
http://www.smartcooler.de/cgi-bin/deimosos.exe?Kategorie3=KSELFMAC&AltHeader=PHE.htm&AltFooter=BHE.htm
I am really considering buying this kit, I’ll report back my results if I pull the trigger once I get it installed.
Sorry about needing to break these posts up, but it’s the only way I can post everything??
Here’s the data sheet for these fans:
http://www.smartcooler.de/proddata/PDE-LFS1130.htm
Specific page for the MDD kit:
http://www.smartcooler.de/ProdInfo/PIE-LFS1130.htm
Online shop showing the 4 different kits available for the MDD:
http://www.smartcooler.de/cgi-bin/deimosos.exe?Kategorie3=KSELFMAC&AltHeader=PHE.htm&AltFooter=BHE.htm
smart cooler is not a very well known nor well respected fan maker. you may want to look into more respected and reliable brands. I am a huge fan of silenx.. very quiet and reliable. silenx will be about the same cost or less for those 3 sizes.
i really wish somebody out there made a 40+cfm that runs 25db-.
anyway, got a new 120mm silenx. this one works. last one the fan was defective: one end of the fan would hit the casing causing it too not revolve or scrape on rotation. smashed that one. got the new one. works great.
also, installed a 60mm outside the casing to help draw out the air from the psu (ala jeff b. thanks!) that seems to work well.
also, took out the front speaker and installed a 40mm to draw air in at about 6cfm. poor glue job, not working yet. hopefully tonight.
overall, the comp is quieter than it was. but really, it’s still too loud. i think it’s still the psu fans (replaced with deltas ala jeff b again). my two harddrives aren’t helping out much either.
Well I took the risk and went with the smartcooler kit. It was a bit on the expensive side, but I liked that everything came as a kit tested to work in our machines properly, and had all adapters included as well. So once I get the kit and install it i’ll report back. I’ll try to isolate all the fan’s contact points while I am in there as well. I keep my mdd on the desk next to my monitor and I have never been able to hear the drives. I would welcome being able to hear the hdd any day of the week over the constant drone of the fans. I’m not a big fan of placing fans on the outside of the case or behind the speaker grill, if I still need a little additional cooling i’ll look into a PCI slot cooler.
Dale: a pci slot fan is a good idea regardless. I use one and it really sucks most of the heat off my radeon 9600 and also any heat that makes it up to the top.
ej: glad to hear things mostly went well for you. whats the problem you’re having with the glue?
pci slot fan… didn’t think of that.
i glued the 40mm fan on the inside, to draw air in. uh, the way i glued it on, the blades won’t move. the glue (guerilla glue) expanded to much on drying. so i had to smash the 40mm out last night. broke it to bits. maybe i’ll try it again sometime.
you need to be more gentle and have a good plan going in when you start any hardware install. a 6 cfm fan won’t do much at all for you in the end really but on the other hand you can’t really expect over 10cfm from a 40mm. I don’t have a fan in the hole. its just empty. that alone will help the psu fans draw cooler air. they can only get warmer case air with the speaker in. get a pci fan and you will have the exact fan setup I do which works perfectly. never above 52-53 even after hours of 80-100% load on both cpu.
I doubt many mdd owners even use the built in speaker.. I use 2:1 logitech’s.
Any recommendations on a really quiet and preferably of small form factor PCI Slot fan?
I have a dual 1.25 MDD G4, 2MB L3 cache, with the Verax fan mods. It also has 2-60mm intake fans mounted inside on the front lower, screened, air intake slot. My MDD is pretty quiet, but it is also running pretty hot. With room temperature at 78 degrees F, the CPU is hitting 140 degrees and the HDD is at 104 degrees.
all pci fans are pretty much the exact same size and form. the only real difference really is the fan inside. the 1-5$ pci fans are crap and last about 2-3 months before they start to make an annoying rattling sound. the pci fans that frozencpu.com sell are $9 and are of much better quality than most.
this is the one I have and it sucks out at 42cfm: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/3681/slf-01/Black_Slot_Fan.html
I have this one and it is VERY quiet: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/3681/slf-01/Black_Slot_Fan.html
it blows a lot of air out of the case.
don’t get one of those cheap 1-3 $ versions off ebay or from discount shops. they have a life span of maybe 3-4 months.
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/3681/slf-01/Black_Slot_Fan.html
Hi all!
Thanx for this great article and the many comments.
I bought an installet the SilenX 120×38 and it improved the situation, but not so very much.
Then I bought the Delta Fans Jeff B linked to on eBay on April 28th.
Now both arrived, it took me two hours to install them… and they are louder than the stock fans!?!?
I have a FW800 1GHz MDD. The PSU fans had “Nidec” printed on them, so maybe those were different from the ones you all replaced so sucessfully, but still I find my MD VERY loud, especially coming from the PSU fans. And I even added some foam between the fans and the case as suggested.
Any comments? Where there different revisions apart from the Verax mods?
Just wanted to let you know: the fan built into my PSU is a Nidec BETA V TA225DC, model M34418-16. It moves 25 CFM at 5150 RPM producing a sound pressure of 31.5 dB(A).
It seems like was appeared loud to me is the sound level of your MDDs AFTER those fan replacements you went through.
So I will have to put them back in and live with it until I find a Verax M12 or someone to manufacture me a triangular adapter for a 80mm fan (which is what the M12 is).
strange that the deltas seem louder for you because they are rated at 28db
Hey, guys. Remember me?
It’s been three weeks since my dual 867 G4 passed out cold. After thorough testing of every component — and combination of components — and helpful advice from folks here and on several lists (but still no success), I broke down and took the G4 in to the Genius Bar here in Tampa.
Long story short: It was a frustrating three weeks without the G4, but it’s not because they didn’t try everything. The power supply tested fine several times and under different circumstances, so they went on to things like the mobo and the processor, and at every turn they came up empty. I stayed in touch by phone — I got tired of just seeing the “in repair” notice at support.apple.com — and at every turn they did their best to keep me informed on what was being done, what parts had been ordered, what was on backorder, etc. As days turned into weeks I feared the fix would be prohibitively expensive, so they had instructions to contact me immediately if the bill grew past a certain point.
After getting a progress report Tuesday that they had turned their attention back to the power supply and would “call with an update on Thursday,” imagine my surprise at getting a call Wednesday afternoon saying, “Your unit is ready for pickup.” Even more surprising was the final bill: LESS than the cost of any power supply I had investigated on my own, and that included their bench testing and troubleshooting and labor and the part!
Bottom line: I was disappointed that the process took so long, but I certainly can’t complain about the price or how I was treated. And the unit sounds quieter now! (The noicse isn’t the issue it was for me before, but I may still look into the cooling mods discussed here and on xlr8. Anybody have shots of the innards that show a before-and-after so I can get a sense for what the new fans look like, how they fit, etc?)
Thanks to all.
Thats awesome news Bill! So glad to hear that your baby is back on its feet again
I will look around the net when I have a chance for some pics of the psu fan replacement process. Should have took some snaps when I did mine but I never thought to.
Carl I was considering a pci slot fan until I did the 120 mm silenx fan, evercool, 60mm power supply fans swap & the Nap mode software install. Now i’m not going to bother as my 1Ghz MDD is both cool & quiet. Have you installed the CHUD – Nap mode ? as I think this will help with cooling if you haven’t – without nap mine runs at 140 deg F with it is usually around 100 F.
Just set your mac to never sleep as sleep turns nap off & it then gets hot under sleep mode. Apparently nap mode is a form of sleep mode anyway, so you’ll have no worries. By the way, turning off sleep also fixes my USB 2 pci card problems.
great to hear you sorted it out bill… also good that the apple centre has good customer service & did the right thing by you.
Klaus, maybe try these fans below, I believe they are the same ones I used, made by Everflow & rebadged as Thermaltake, theyre the same as those found on the fabled Thermaltake Volcano 5 heatsink.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=633558&Sku=T925-1058&SRCCODE=PWATCH&CMP=OTC-PWATCH
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ITAG=FAQ&ModuleNo=32137&doy=26m5#faq
sorry about the links.. I guess macmod doesn’t allow guests to view images. I will put the pics on image shack later.
these work:
http://img483.imageshack.us/img483/865/im000334la5.jpg
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/2060/im0003392ce2.jpg
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/9804/im000343oq5.jpg
the text I wrote to explain the empty case was deleted somehow..
I will have all the core hardware to get this up and running soon. I already have a radeon 9600 pro, 320gb hd, pioneer dvr-111 and 3 x silenx fans for it. soon I will have a MDD 2003 mobo, dual 1.42 cpu board, psu with already modified fans (sunon I think he said), 1.25gb ram and a copper heatsink.
I have done some reasearch and a dual 1.42 will be about 1.8-1.9X faster vs. my current dual 867. the 867 will be a media box.
I downloaded napmode.app but when I try to run it, I get the following message. “sh: line 1: hwprefs: command not found.” Any suggestions on how to correct this would be appreciated. Please reply off line to ghozey@sbcglobal.net. Thanks.
you need to install CHUD before that script will run
Now that my dual 867 is working properly again. knock wood, it’s time for me to again assess the upgrades which brought me to this site in the first place. I’m looking to swap out 256MB sticks for 512s to bring me up from 1.5GB RAM to the full 2GB, swap out the original 32MB GeForce vid card for a Radeon 9600 Pro (256MB) and add a USB 2.0 PCI card. The questions?
Right now the machine is pretty much as I got it early last year: two optical drives, the RAM and the stock vid card; The only diff. is a larger HD I added earlier this year. (And that new PS, natch.) Will the upgrades I’m talking about practically FORCE my hand in doing the cooling/noise mods (less space for air to circulate, more juice used to power more stuff)? And, given the scare I had when the machine failed to power up after being put to sleep, I guess Nap mode and CHUD are necessities also?
Jeff B: Would you recommend the Radeon 9600 Pro? Does it require plugging into the mobo like the 9800 Pro does?
Bucky: What USB 2.0 card gave you sleep problems? (Sonnet even addresses this about their Allegro, yet I’ve been told “this isn’t an issue any longer” and I’ve read reports of success with the plain-Jane StarTech cards from compusa.com.)
Thanks in advance, guys.
Bill:
The Radeon 9600 Pro does not need or have a mobo plug. I think this is mostly because it has no fan. The 9600 is a good middle ground card in that you get very good performance and at the same time less heat vs the 9800 etc. Mine has a 400MHz GPU and 620MHz memory. very respectable..
Also, since the 9600 has no fan its totally silent
Okay, finally got the smartcooler kit from silentpc.de late last week and got it installed last night in my mdd dual 867. I am pretty impressed, there’s quite a difference in noise and everything hooked up really easily. Air output out of the back feels very close to the stock fans. The biggest thing is now I can finally enable nap mode, because when trying this with the stock fans they would begin making a higher pitched noise. The smartcooler fans do not change when it’s enabled. I can finally hear my hdd, but since it’s so quiet anyways it’s still a struggle. I now notice the most annoying sound is the high pitch whine of the fan on my 9800pro, but I guess I’ll live with that for now.
The smartcooler fans where of a nice quality it appeared, I could tell they were rebadged, but I am not certain what brand they use as they removed any original branding. I can of course still hear the fans, but the thing for me is now it’s more of a soft wooshing sound instead of that plus high pitched whine.
I also purchased a PCI slot cooler as recommended above, but need to get a power splitter to wire it in, I hope it’s as silent as they say.
While I was in the case I took almost everything apart and dusted, it really needed it. I open the case up about twice a year and blast it with canned air, but that just doesn’t get everything.
I also pulled the two 256mb ram sticks and replaced with 512 sticks to max out at 2gb. Installed a new Hitachi deskstar t7k500 320gb hdd and cloned over the boot drive to it. I now have a freshly upgraded computer that should serve me for several more years.
Now the one thing bugging me is it appears when I enable nap mode I have a ground loop issue that causes my speakers to output static. Anyone else notice this? I guess I’ll just pick up a ground loop isolator from radio shack and give that a go.
I have mixed news and a question.
I got the Sonnet Upgrade i’ve been dreaming about for some time now: MDX Dual 1.6 GHz. It#s actually quite nice, especially coming from a Single 1GHz.
But they don’t seem to support nap mode… At least that’s what the Applescript tells me. Those are 7447a PowerPCs. Any chance he only the Applescript has to be altered? CHUD is installed.
Also my craphics card broke some time ago: the glue sticking the fan motor to the fan chassis (which was the screwed onto the heatsink) was dissolved by the heat apparently and the fan stopped spinning. I installed a Titan copper replacement heatsink/fan and now the Geforce 6600 GT AGP (flashed by the strangedogs team – I don’t have a PC) is running again.
But because of this I started looking at temperatures: CPU 60°, HD 40° and GPU 65° (all Celsius) – that seems quite hot to me. Is it tolerable? Mainly the HD is worrying me, another pair of it are running in the cage left to the 120mm fan at 31°-33° Celsius.
And, the good news: the Verax kit is up for ordering again! I ordered the M12 which replaces the PSU fans, it pratically inaudible but EXPENSIVE: 90 EUR !! the CPU cooling solution would make for another 155 EUR…
Still, thats good news for me.
I whish I could edit all those typos
my english is better than that, believe me
hey all,
now that it’s hot where i live (north eastern us), i’m starting to have problems. got the black screen last night. shutdown. waited a minute, startup, chime, login, blink… computer shutdown internally, nothing on monitor, but it’s still on. had to unplug it altogether.
i let it chill for a little and got it back up and running. but the drives were reading 120F after sitting for 20 minutes. then it got cooler from there. down to 114 for the next few hours. not sure what that was all about.
anyway, i max my computer out pretty much full capacity whenever i’m using it. usually running huge Reason sessions into huge Protools sessions. Dually G is always climbing a sheer faced mountain with just his hands with me on it’s back like Yoda yelling “Do or do not, there is no try” . I’m not really sure what else I can do that I haven’t already done to keep him cool.
Klaus,
You say the verax kit is available for ordering again, but veraxfans.com still says it is no longer available. Care to link to where you read that? I know the verax kit would be the best solution for quiet and cooling, but I am pretty pleased with the smart cooler kit so far.
As far as nap mode, are you able to enable it from system preferences? If you can, then it appears it is supported and possibly you need a special script. If you can’t then I guess you are out of luck, sorry.
I wish I could figure a way to cool this 9800 quietly, but there’s just no room in our mdd cases for anything but a basic cooler.
ej,
Is the silenx even running!!? Your computer is shutting down due to extreme heat, it’s only a matter of time before your hard drives begin to fail at that heat.. do you have air conditioning? It honestly doesn’t sound like that silenx fan is living up to expectations. If I were you, I would swap back in the original 120mm and see if that helps. A loud computer is better than a dead computer!
[...] http://coolstuff.wordpress.com/2007/02/19/powermac-g4-mdd-cooling-and-noise-reduction/ [...]
Dale T,
I cannot link directly to it, but at http://www.verax.de they say they are accepting binding preorders, I then phoned them up and they said that they had a bunch of M10 in stock now and M12 would be available within 3-4 weeks.
Also regarding the graphics card: I was considering the Revoltec Graphics Freezer Pro, which has gotten nice reviews. It cooling device mounts at the back of the card which in our case is facin up, towards the PCI slots. I am guessing that it could work out if you are willing to sacrifice one PCI slot…
Has anyone tried this?
the silenx is running. i think it’s the psu fans that i swapped. might have to put the originals back in.
ej:
it can’t be the psu fans because a psu thats too hot will just die and not simply shutdown the system and work later. It sounds like you main issue is room temperature.
What I am going to do soon is add another 120mm silenX on the back. That is something you should consider as it will help keep only cool air around the heatsink. With just one fan inside I notice a lot of warm air can stay inside.
I bet you the cost of the fan it will help you out as it seems you are really maxing out the system a lot and you really need lots of air going through the heatsink.
Pretty much any ATX case is designed so that the fans can push air in the front and right out the back. Its a very proven method.
Jeff B: Thanks for the Radeon 9600 Pro info. That’s my card of choice for the reasons you mentioned, but apparently AMD is having problems producing new cards. OWC says, “They have switched to Rohs standards in order to be sold Internationally,” and this is causing delays. And so I wait…
Dale T: Sounds like you’re doing everything to your MDD 2×867 that I want to do to mind, so I’ll be keeping an eye on your reports.
Everyone: I have Temperature Monitor installed, and it’s currently showing CPU temp at 130.9F and my HDD at 107.6F, this with about 10 apps running in the background — ranging from Safari and Mail to Photoshop and Quark. Are those good readings, considering I don’t have any of the silencer/cooling mods installed? (It’s 1 a.m. here in Florida, and temps in the house are holding steady at 78F.)
My kingdom for a mind.
That should’ve been “…that I want to do to MINE.”
Yeah, that M12 would have been nice, but very expensive. I think I’m pretty happy with my current setup now. I got the PCI slot fan wired in and it’s moving some serious air while being virtually silent. With nap mode enabled my processors idle at about 94-95 degrees now, down from about 127 with a room temp of 70. But I just don’t know how much I value that over sleep because even though my mdd doesn’t auto sleep (thinking due to the add-on usb 2.0 pci card) it had absolutely zero problems manually sleeping or awaking, but since I have had nap enabled I have already had a problem where it stuck somewhere between sleep and wake and needed to be shut down to resolve.
I can’t really give up a PCI slot for a silent cooler for the 9800 because I have a wireless g pci, usb2 pci, and a pci slot fan cooler in the top slot (facing down) which needs an open slot below it to get good airflow.
But, as I already said, i’m pretty happy for now. I think this will get me by for a couple more years until I decide to get a new system. I like owning a tower computer with a separate display, but current mac pro cases are just too large, and I still think the MDD was one of the best looking towers apple ever made. I hope the next generation mac towers are a little smaller.
Dale,
I second that. Nothing much more to say
Bill:
Try ebay for the 9600 if you don’t want to wait for AMD.
Here is one for 200:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ATI-RADEON-9600-PRO-PC-MAC-EDITION-256MB-DDR-VIDEO-CARD_W0QQitemZ220118995240QQihZ012QQcategoryZ25449QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
200 ouch, I flashed my own 9800 pro a couple of years ago in a pc. I paid $130 for the card on newegg at the time. Glad I jumped early before these cards were almost impossible to find. I would have probably been in the same boat, but my vid card had died at the time and I was looking for a replacement, so I chose the 9800 because it was the most powerful option at the time.
I paid 200 for a Radeon 7000 in 2003.
The 64MB version of the 9600 goes for 100+ on ebay so I think a 256MB version is well worth the 200.
Unless Bill wants to flash a card dor x86 boxes.. there can be issues and you risk wasting the money on the card if it ends up not working.
Pretty much anything engineered for any platform smaller other than windows is going to be more expensive. A sad reality but a reality none the less.
Dale:
What are the clock speeds of your gpu and memory on your 9800?
Yeah, you can bet I’m keepin’ an eye on those 9600s on eBay. Thanks, Jeff.
For now, I’m grabbing a coupla 512 MB sticks to swap out my 256s and a USB 2.0 PCI card. Then I’ll tackle the vid card. (Money’s a little tight, plus the vid card will require a DVI-to-ADC adapter (more $$$) so I can hook up to my Studio Display (LCD).
Always watchin’ that Temp Monitor in the menu bar,
Bill
jeff:
where do you exactly mean when you mentioned installing another silenx in the back? out side the case to draw air out?
also, i’ve been contemplating buying an external drive, a glyph to be specific. they’re apparently build specifically for audio/video workflows, especially pro tools. my drives have been registering temps over 120F consistantly while i’m taxing them. and closer to 105F when i break for a half hour and come back while said applications are open. pro tools and reason are pushing and pulling all audio off these drives. i’m thinking, but not sure, that possibly getting an external to keep all my source material wouldn’t tax my two drives as much and keep the temps down?
ej:
Yes, thats what I mean about the fan. I know another MDD owner in my town and he has put one on the back and his heavy load temps went down 10-14c. Plus adding the fan will be much cheaper than getting an external and I bet it will also be more effective.
Think of it like this.. with just the single 120mm inside I find that at least 40-50% of the warm air inside stays in there. With another 120 mounted right outside the heatsink and back HD bracket there will always be cool air comming in the front.. pushing through the heatsink and HD’s and then another on the back to suck out all that same air that has now been made warmer from the heatsink and HD’s.
hey guy’s…
EJ, I loved the comment about Yoda, classic stuff…
“Dually G is always climbing a sheer faced mountain with just his hands with me on it’s back like Yoda yelling “Do or do not, there is no try”
I think in your situation, Jeff’s idea of a silenx 120 mmm fan mounted on the back sucking the hot air out could be the go. Instead of glueing it, you could always use double sided foam tape so that you can remove it one day.
Also how did you connect the Silenx? on the motherboard or with molex connectors? It just doesnt sound to me that it’s putting out the correct amount of air like it should be. Maybe if you order another one, try the new one inside & the old one on the outside!
I won’t be gluing the 120mm like I did the 60mm. I have these great little rubber and plastic fan mounts that fit perfectly in the metal holes on the back. ej, if you need a couple of these fan mounts I can mail them to you.
best thing to do is get a 120MM fan silencer/gasket like this one: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2745/fss-04/120mm_Rubber_Fan_Silencer.html?tl=g33c111s200
then take the gasket and place the left side of it right next to the I/O ports then cut off the exess that hangs off the right edge when the case is open. That way the fan is raised a tad higher and won’t hit the non-door part of the back when you close the case.
Just be sure and put it as low as you can and line it up with the internal fan as best as you can. That way you will get optimum air flow.
I will upload some pics of my friends rear MDD fan as this is exactly what he has done and I will be going there in the next couple days.
Bill, regarding what USB 2.0 card was giving me sleep problems, mine is a generic brand 5 port card that I got on ebay for $12 with the NEC chipset. Like this:
http://www.mp3playerstore.com/stuff_you_need/PcAccessories/usb2-pci-card.htm
I have read that all mac compatible USB 2.0 cards are based on the NEC chipset( adaptec , sonnett etc) and all have sleep problems but I cant confirm this. The main problem with it is when you put the computer to sleep( or allow it to go to sleep automtically), most times it locks the G4 up & wont wake from sleep, requiring a restart. This usually only happens when you have storage peripherals connected into the USB 2 plugs, like iPods, mobile phones etc. Also without the iPod/mob phone connected when it goes to sleep, even if it would wake up from sleep, the USB 2.0 connection would break, reverting back to USB 1.0 speeds & requiring a restart to get up to speed again.
As Nap mode also turns off after hard disk sleep I fixed both problems by setting in System Preferences – Energy saver ” Put the computer to sleep” – to “Never”. Now the iPod is always connected, everything is quiet, cool, and the display wakes instantly from it’s sleep with a touch of the mouse or keyboard.
Here is some more information on USB 2.0 cards & sleep problems:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/firewire/fw_usb_card_deep_sleep.html
Bucky:
You are exactly right about NEC chipsets. Both my dual 867 and dual 1.42 MDD’s have auto sleep issues but I only know that because I tested it once I heard about this on xlr8yourmac.com. I don’t use sleep at all anyway other than for my LCD’s and that works fine. Just stay away from system and drive sleep.
Its really worth it for me to have usb 2.0 as I have a couple ipods and filling one on usb 1.1 is a horror. I bought a brand named Bytech that uses a NEC chipset.
ej:
To be safe try using the 4 pin molex adapter on your fan and see if temps improve.
HAHA
Sorry bucky.. I didn’t realize you said many of the same things I did.
I read the part about NEC USB chipsets and simply replied to that before reading on. silly me..
Hi Bucky et al,
Thanks for this great resource. Fascinating and eminently useful stuff for anyone with a G4 MDD.
My Mac is a dual 1.42GHz FW800 with the 360W power supply. The fans are louder than those in my PC, and might be bearable if I were not using the machine in my songwriting/recording studio.
I am definitely considering replacing the fans. However, I can’t use Nap mode as I am running Pro Tools (Digidesign will not support the software if Nap mode is used).
I’d like to begin by getting a few opinions on how much cooling I might need without Nap turned on. I could add a PCI fan and possibly an external rear fan, but don’t want to cut the computer case up (thinking resale).
I downloaded Temperature Monitor last night and left the system on all night. The CPU Board sensor is maxing out aroung 128 deg F, and the two HD sensors around 96 or 98 deg F (that’s with the AC on in the next room, but with both tightly closing studio doors closed.
One additional question for Jeff:
Assuming the first 120mm fan gets its power from the motherboard, where is the best place to get power for the external 120mm fan?
Also, do you find the external 120mm fan at 18dB, much louder than the internal unit?
And, Bucky:
On April 24th you wrote:-
Did you put insulation material between Power supply & case? Maybe also try insulation material all over the inside of the case first like this person did:
“I went back in and removed the perforated plastic panel on the rear, completely disconnected the small fan in the door that blows into the optical bays, and revamped the plenum completely using more cardboard and aluminum duct tape to seal all gaps and holes that interfered with smooth airflow through the case. Then I covered every surface — sides, bottom, top and interior parts like the optical bays and sides of the psu — with some dynamat (a very dense, self-adhesive vibration-damping material commonly used in car audio) that I had lying around. After reassembling it, I lined the corner where it sits with acoustical foam to further absorb any remaining high-frequency noise.
You can no longer tell it is running at all unless you are sitting right next to it, *censored* your ear and concentrate hard on listening for it. From 4 feet away you can not hear it at all. I can record spoken-word with a hot condenser mic ~10 feet away and have no problems. And all of that is in a completely silent room. With the heat or AC running, or normal house noise, you don’t even know it is there when you are right on top of it.”
That’s definitely the solution I’m looking for. But looking inside the case I see very few places where the Dynamat could go. Any idea how the fellow you are quoting did it?
Thanks again for this great thread. Looking forward to joining the discussion.
Cheers,
–Wayne
Wayne:
The external will be powered by 4 pin molex. Same power connector HD’s use..
I have not done this to my own MDD’s yet but I did it to my friends with the same 90cfm/18db fan we all here have been using. Can only really hear it if you try to. The 18dba rating is only really possible if you use the included silicone mounts but they don’t work inside or out since there are no standard fan mounting holes. The internal 120mm just slides in and out. Anyway, the fan is 20-22dba tops and I find anything below 25 quiet. 2 of these will give you a total of 180CFM.
Also coming with the 2 120mm for the backs of each of my MDD are 2x 60mm and 1×80mm silenx for my dual 867 psu because I still find the new fans too loud. I will end up getting about 75-80 CFM from the 3 fans yet the loudest (the 2 60mm) are only 16dba. The 80 is 14dba.
My dual 1.42 came with nice quiet Sunon fans already in the psu and I am quite happy with its noise level but these delta 28dba rated in my dual 867 seem more like 35dba~
Hi Wayne
I orignally set about reducing the noise on my MDD so that I could do a few music recordings however it sounds like your a lot more serious & professional about it. My MDD is now easily quiet enough for a studio situation. Especially if the computer was in the control room & the recordings were in another room.
You said that Digidesign do not support their software if nap mode is enabled. How could this be? The single G4 MDD, the G5 Powermacs & most late model Powerbooks all come from the factory with nap mode enabled as default!
I could not recommend the use of nap mode enough. Combined with the fan swaps, the G4 MDD is probably around 2/3rds quieter than it was. With nap mode turned off the temperature gradually rises & the SilenX 120mm fan spins up to where you can actually hear it humming. Too hot & too loud in my opinion for music production. Still quieter than the factory fans, but it does run hotter, and therefore the mac will be less stable like EJ has found.
Surely you dont have to tell Digidesign that you have installed CHUD & therefore enabled nap mode? Worst comes to worst & if Digidesign have to troubleshoot Protools for you, you can always uninstall CHUD & get rid of nap mode in about 1 minute.
I’ve found that nap mode does not affect the stability of the Powermac at all, in fact the opposite is true as it runs a lot cooler. So if I was you I would first try the 120mm Silenx fan swap & enable nap mode. Like me, you will probably then find that the power supply fans are now the noisiest things emmitting sound, however maybe your newer 1.42Dual MDD has better, quieter power supply fans. The main reason I changed them was an annoying high pitched whine when nap mode was enabled.
I havent done the full dynamat insulation thing, but I did put insulation between the power supply & the case as this is a major source of vibration. I imagine that person that did, gutted everything out of the Powermac, then covered every possible surface with it, including the optical drives & the power supply. A big job, but worthwhile if you have the time.
If however you really dont want to enable nap mode then Jeff’s solution of another 120mm silenx fan on the back sucking out the hot air might do the job.
By the way Jeff I did use the included silicone mounts to dampen the 120mm silenx fan vibrating on the slide in fan holder, it’s a tight fit with them, but I now get no vibration at all.
Bucky: can you possibly show me a pic of what you mean with the mounts? I don’t quite understand what you mean.
I say use NAP and the 2 120mm silenx. You can never have enough cooling.
jeff, without taking the optical drive out then the fan out, it’s hard to photograph. But if you can imagine you fit the 4 rubber grommets that come with the silenx fan into the 4 holes at each corner of the fan. Then this creates a very snug fit into the slide in fan mount ( in fact it took a few minutes to fit it back in properly so that the optical drives fit back in). I also put some very thin rubber under the fan to further absorb vibration.
Hi guys,
Thanks for your responses. All suggestions are going to be seriously considered, at this point.
If I might respond more specifically:
Jeff:-
I don’t understand why the two Delta 60mm fans you installed seem so much louder than their ratings, especially when Bucky’s Thermaltakes are rated higher, but sound quiet to him.
I’m not sure your 3-fan solution will be quieter, at least according to the values the dB calculator at http://www.mcsquared.com/dbframe.htm spits out (sorry, don’t know the code for adding a link).
Or am I thinking incorrectly?
Have you measure the SPL on the fans when they are not installed in the computer? Separately, and together? Just curious.
Bucky:-
Thanks for the additional info and ideas. Of course, I will try nap mode, but I suspect there could be a problem.
Though I couldn’t find the Digidesign reference I was looking at the other day, I did come across several others.
Two of them described a high-pitched frequency-related whine that seemed to depend on processor load with nap enabled. No solution was offered, other than turning nap off.
The other reference stipulated that the processor performance level must be set to “Highest” not “Automatic” while Pro Tools is in use. This makes sense, as processor load can vary dramatically from moment to moment when producing music (these control panel settings are apparently offered on the G5). If I understand how nap mode functions, the effect on a G4 would be similar to the “Automatic” setting on a G5.
Thoughts?
I should probably try enabling nap mode with my existing fan setup, before ordering the new units.
Cheers,
–Wayne
Wayne, I have noticed a slight high pitched noise in both Garageband & Cubase SX when Nap is on. It’s just a little bit annoying really, and it is still a lot quieter than the stock G4 MDD noise emmitted and it goes away when the processor is being taxed or by turning off nap mode. It also goes away when you choose single processor setting in the CHUD – “Hardware” preferences in system preferences.
At the very least I’d try the big Silenx 120mm fan swap first, that combined with nap mode really makes the biggest difference than anything else.
It sounds like you may be right about nap mode being like the “automatic” setting on a G5. All you can do is try it and see how it goes. If nap mode isnt possible with protools then Jeffs idea of the 2 silenx 120mm fans , one inside & one on the back, might be your best option, combined with some dynamat sound proofing on the inside of the case.
Jeff B,
I run stock speeds on the 9800 pro and they are 378mhz processor and 338mhz memory.
I thought I was loosing my mind, but since I had installed that pci cooler I kept thinking my machines was louder. I popped it open tonight while everything was running and unplugged the pci cooler and it makes more noise than I could live with. I unplugged it and it will not be back. I also unplugged the gpu cooler while I was in there and found that it was audible, but not too bad, the PCI cooler was louder. Needless to say I am not happy with the PCI cooler and it will not go back into the system.
The two 60mm fans are still the ones making all the noise, even though they are more quite than the stock “apple quiet replacement” fans, they still contribute at least 85% of the fan noise. I know this is simply the nature of 60mm fans needing to move enough air to cool these power supplies, there really isn’t much more you could do with a 60mm. Boy how I wish I could find and get a good deal on one of those verax m12 kits that uses a single 80mm fan to push air through the power supply. This would be the ultimate ideal setup.
Dale:
I got my PCI cooler from frozencpu.com for $9 and it is very very quiet. Try one of theirs maybe..
Bucky,
I tried nap mode using CHUD 3.5.2 last night. The fan noise is slightly louder with nap on (in fact, the pitch goes up in frequency, suggesting that the fan was actually speeding up). Does leaving nap mode on for an extended period make a difference?
Thanks for responding to my concerns.
Dale T,
Did you follow up on the Verax M12 supply situation as Klaus’ suggested? It looks like an excellent solution.
I may go with the Verax M12 and either one or two of the Silenx 120mm.
Will report back when I get more info on the Verax.
Cheers all,
–Wayne
Jeff B,
Sorry. I had mis-remembered the noise specs on the Delta’s (was think 18 dB instead of 28 dB).
Of course, your 3-fan solution will be much quieter (I calculate around 19 dB).
Sorry for mis-directing the discussion.
Cheers,
–Wayne
Wayne, with my MDD I noticed that my main 120mm fan noise went way down, as it was very noisy. However then I was able to hear the high pitched whine of the 60 mm power supply fans whose pitch did actually go up a notch in frequency. This made it annoying to have nap on so I went & changed them too which fixed the high pitched noise, resulting in a very quiet MDD.
Jeff: Here is a picture I just took with the silicone mounts fitted.
http://www.gourmetcookies.iinet.net.au/images/silenx.gif
You just fit the 4 rubber grommets that come with the silenx fan into the 4 holes at each corner of the fan ( but they stick in rather than out ) and then pull them right through. Then slide it back into the fan carrier for a very snug fit.
bucky:
Thanks for the pic! Now I totally understand what you mean. Those mounts are hard to pull through though.. did you use plyers like silenx says to on the instructions?
Also, I would really like to thank you for giving all us MDD owners a place to get and give cooling ideas. It really helps me also and I enjoy helping others with my ideas.
Jeff B,
Unfortunately that’s where I ordered my pci cooler from as well and I just am not happy with the noise it put out. It was a ‘galaxy’ brand I think is what was on the package. I think I’ll continue to look around for something quieter. Maybe I can find one that doesn’t move quite so much air that I could live with.
Wayne,
Verax fans are nearly impossible to buy in the US, the one US distributer currently still says they are no longer available at their website. http://www.veraxfans.com/
I’m sitting here looking at this PCI cooler fan and seeing on the website it states 42cfm, I am wondering if it would work mounted sideways and secured to the case (double sided tape possibly?) in front of the power supply. Then create something to route the air directly into the power supply. You would of course need to remove the existing fans. I think it would fit in there, but I have not had a chance to look. You might need to dremel off some of the plastic. I think it would have enough airflow, I just do not have the tools or materials (or time with a 17-month old daughter) to give it a shot right now.
Anyone got any thoughts on this? I wish I had the time and skills of that guy over at aquamac!
Dale:
You got sent a crappy one.. what did they charge you for it?
I see the galaxy brand on ebay for $1-3. Cheap ones are not only louder to begin with but they almost always develop a rattling noise after 2-3 months.
Mine just came in a clear plastic bag and has no brand listed on the part or bag. Its quiet and works well though. Maybe 22-24dba..
Jeff B,
I followed the link listed above and ordered that one so it was $9 plus shipping. The problem is they do not list the brand OR the dba rating of the fan in the specs. It lists as being quiet, but that’s subjective. Since you got a good one and I got a cheap one, I would seriously recommend people not order from them. There’s really no telling what you will get.
I purchased the PCI Slot fan from Frozencpu. The fan was packaged as a Galaxy model GC 510. I reversed the fan in its mount (to get the intake facing down) and installed it in one of the open, upper PCI slots. The noise from the fan is imperceptible with the case closed and it is very quiet even with the case open. I taped up the perforated PCI slot shields on my unused PCI slots as I found the fan was pulling in outside air through them. Now the exhaust out the PCI fan is downright “hot”.
Now for the bad news, even though the PCI Slot fan is obviously sucking hot air out of the case, it hasn’t made much, if any, difference in CPU temperature. However, since it is quiet and is obviously doing a good thing, I plan to leave it in place.
Regarding USB2 PCI cards and Sleep mode, I use an ADS Tech DLX180 Dual Link USB2/Firewire card. Leaving anything that is powered-up and “senses the USB network”, either continuously or periodically, causes Sleep mode to freeze up. However, I found that installing a powered USB2 hub ($20 @ WalMart) between the powered device and the PCI card will allow normal Sleep function with some devices. For me, the biggest offender that I wanted to keep connected all the time was my Epson scanner. Once the scanner was connected through the hub, Sleep function was normal and the scanner communicated at USB2 speeds.
I don’t own an iPod, but I do have a SanDisk memory card reader. Leaving it connected, even through the USB2 hub, was hit-or-miss. Sometimes it didn’t affect Sleep mode, but once in a while it did. So I leave it and my USB2 hub on my desk and connect them when I need to download photo files. I suggest the USB2 hub configuration to those who want Sleep mode, but need or want to keep things like scanners, printer, and drives connected to their USB2 circuit all the time.
The Internet boards used to say it was only certain PCI cards that caused the Sleep problem, but I don’t think that is true. I think it has to do with the attached device and its need to interface with its USB2 connection. That’s why the hub configuration works. If all else fails give the hub a try.
I purchased the PCI Slot fan from Frozencpu. The fan was packaged as a Galaxy model GC 510. I reversed the fan in its mount (to get the intake facing down) and installed it in one of the open, upper PCI slots. The noise from the fan is imperceptible with the case closed and it is very quiet even with the case open. I taped up the perforated PCI slot shields on my unused PCI slots as I found the fan was pulling in outside air through them. Now the exhaust out the PCI fan is downright “hot”.
Now for the bad news, even though the PCI Slot fan is obviously sucking hot air out of the case, it hasn’t made much, if any, difference in CPU temperature. However, since it is quiet and is obviously doing a good thing, I plan to leave it in place.
Regarding USB2 PCI cards and Sleep mode, I use an ADS Tech DLX180 Dual Link USB2/Firewire card. Leaving anything that is powered-up and “senses the USB network”, either continuously or periodically, causes Sleep mode to freeze up. However, I found that installing a powered USB2 hub ($20 @ WalMart) between the powered device and the PCI card will allow normal Sleep function with some devices. For me, the biggest offender that I wanted to keep connected all the time was my Epson scanner. Once the scanner was connected through the hub, Sleep function was normal and the scanner communicated at USB2 speeds.
I don’t own an iPod, but I do have a SanDisk memory card reader. Leaving it connected, even through the USB2 hub, was hit-or-miss. Sometimes it didn’t affect Sleep mode, but once in a while it did. So I leave it and my USB2 hub on my desk and connect them when I need to download photo files. I suggest the USB2 hub configuration to those who want Sleep mode, but need or want to keep things like scanners, printer, and drives connected to their USB2 circuit all the time. The Internet boards used to say it was only certain PCI cards that caused the Sleep problem, but I don’t think that is true. I think it has to do with the attached device and its need to interface with its USB2 connection. That’s why the hub configuration works. If all else fails give the hub a try.
As an aside, you can buy the Galaxy GC510 fan elsewhere on the Internet or on ebay for $5 or less. I also have reason to doubt the 42 CFM claim. I think it is much lower than that, which would explain the lack of noise.
I left a long message before this message, but for some reason it never was posted. When I try to re-post it, it says I already submitted that message. Hmmmm!
I’m posting the long message again in 2 parts. I purchased the PCI Slot fan from Frozencpu. The fan was packaged as a Galaxy model GC 510. I reversed the fan in its mount (to get the intake facing down) and installed it in one of the open, upper PCI slots. The noise from the fan is imperceptible with the case closed and it is very quiet even with the case open. I taped up the perforated PCI slot shields on my unused PCI slots as I found the fan was pulling in outside air through them. Now the exhaust out the PCI fan is downright “hot”.
Now for the bad news, even though the PCI Slot fan is obviously sucking hot air out of the case, it hasn’t made much, if any, difference in CPU temperature. However, since it is quiet and is obviously doing a good thing, I plan to leave it in place.
Here is Part 2. Regarding USB2 PCI cards and Sleep mode, I use an ADS Tech DLX180 Dual Link USB2/Firewire card. Leaving anything that is powered-up and “senses the USB network”, either continuously or periodically, causes Sleep mode to freeze up. However, I found that installing a powered USB2 hub ($20 @ WalMart) between the powered device and the PCI card will allow normal Sleep function with some devices. For me, the biggest offender that I wanted to keep connected all the time was my Epson scanner. Once the scanner was connected through the hub, Sleep function was normal and the scanner communicated at USB2 speeds.
I don’t own an iPod, but I do have a SanDisk memory card reader. Leaving it connected, even through the USB2 hub, was hit-or-miss. Sometimes it didn’t affect Sleep mode, but once in a while it did. So I leave it and my USB2 hub on my desk and connect them when I need to download photo files. I suggest the USB2 hub configuration to those who want Sleep mode, but need or want to keep things like scanners, printer, and drives connected to their USB2 circuit all the time. The Internet boards used to say it was only certain PCI cards that caused the Sleep problem, but I don’t think that is true. I think it has to do with the attached device and its need to interface with its USB2 connection. That’s why the hub configuration works. If all else fails give the hub a try.
Regarding USB2 PCI cards and Sleep mode, I use an ADS Tech DLX180 Dual Link USB2/Firewire card. Leaving anything that is powered-up and “senses the USB network”, either continuously or periodically, causes Sleep mode to freeze up. However, I found that installing a powered USB2 hub ($20 @ WalMart) between the powered device and the PCI card will allow normal Sleep function with some devices. For me, the biggest offender that I wanted to keep connected all the time was my Epson scanner. Once the scanner was connected through the hub, Sleep function was normal and the scanner communicated at USB2 speeds.
I don’t own an iPod, but I do have a SanDisk memory card reader. Leaving it connected, even through the USB2 hub, was hit-or-miss. Sometimes it didn’t affect Sleep mode, but once in a while it did. So I leave it and my USB2 hub on my desk and connect them when I need to download photo files. I suggest the USB2 hub configuration to those who want Sleep mode, but need or want to keep things like scanners, printer, and drives connected to their USB2 circuit all the time. The Internet boards used to say it was only certain PCI cards that caused the Sleep problem, but I don’t think that is true. I think it has to do with the attached device and its need to interface with its USB2 connection. That’s why the hub configuration works. If all else fails give the hub a try.
Really frustrating! Here is Part 2 for the second time. Regarding USB2 PCI cards and Sleep mode, I use an ADS Tech DLX180 Dual Link USB2/Firewire card. Leaving anything that is powered-up and “senses the USB network”, either continuously or periodically, causes Sleep mode to freeze up. However, I found that installing a powered USB2 hub ($20 @ WalMart) between the powered device and the PCI card will allow normal Sleep function with some devices. For me, the biggest offender that I wanted to keep connected all the time was my Epson scanner. Once the scanner was connected through the hub, Sleep function was normal and the scanner communicated at USB2 speeds.
I don’t own an iPod, but I do have a SanDisk memory card reader. Leaving it connected, even through the USB2 hub, was hit-or-miss. Sometimes it didn’t affect Sleep mode, but once in a while it did. So I leave it and my USB2 hub on my desk and connect them when I need to download photo files. I suggest the USB2 hub configuration to those who want Sleep mode, but need or want to keep things like scanners, printer, and drives connected to their USB2 circuit all the time. The Internet boards used to say it was only certain PCI cards that caused the Sleep problem, but I don’t think that is true. I think it has to do with the attached device and its need to interface with its USB2 connection. That’s why the hub configuration works. If all else fails give the hub a try.
Third try for Part 2. Regarding USB2 PCI cards and Sleep mode, I use an ADS Tech DLX180 Dual Link USB2/Firewire card. Leaving anything that is powered-up and “senses the USB network”, either continuously or periodically, causes Sleep mode to freeze up. However, I found that installing a powered USB2 hub ($20 @ WalMart) between the powered device and the PCI card will allow normal Sleep function with some devices. For me, the biggest offender that I wanted to keep connected all the time was my Epson scanner. Once the scanner was connected through the hub, Sleep function was normal and the scanner communicated at USB2 speeds.
I don’t own an iPod, but I do have a SanDisk memory card reader. Leaving it connected, even through the USB2 hub, was hit-or-miss. Sometimes it didn’t affect Sleep mode, but once in a while it did. So I leave it and my USB2 hub on my desk and connect them when I need to download photo files. I suggest the USB2 hub configuration to those who want Sleep mode, but need or want to keep things like scanners, printer, and drives connected to their USB2 circuit all the time. The Internet boards used to say it was only certain PCI cards that caused the Sleep problem, but I don’t think that is true. I think it has to do with the attached device and its need to interface with its USB2 connection. That’s why the hub configuration works. If all else fails give the hub a try.
Maybe in 3 parts and this is Part 2. Regarding USB2 PCI cards and Sleep mode, I use an ADS Tech DLX180 Dual Link USB2/Firewire card. Leaving anything that is powered-up and “senses the USB network”, either continuously or periodically, causes Sleep mode to freeze up. However, I found that installing a powered USB2 hub ($20 @ WalMart) between the powered device and the PCI card will allow normal Sleep function with some devices. For me, the biggest offender that I wanted to keep connected all the time was my Epson scanner. Once the scanner was connected through the hub, Sleep function was normal and the scanner communicated at USB2 speeds.
And now Part 3. I don’t own an iPod, but I do have a SanDisk memory card reader. Leaving it connected, even through the USB2 hub, was hit-or-miss. Sometimes it didn’t affect Sleep mode, but once in a while it did. So I leave it and my USB2 hub on my desk and connect them when I need to download photo files. I suggest the USB2 hub configuration to those who want Sleep mode, but need or want to keep things like scanners, printer, and drives connected to their USB2 circuit all the time. The Internet boards used to say it was only certain PCI cards that caused the Sleep problem, but I don’t think that is true. I think it has to do with the attached device and its need to interface with its USB2 connection. That’s why the hub configuration works. If all else fails give the hub a try.
Carl:
I like the idea of the hub. Makes sense..
About the CFM of PCI fans.. mine is easily 42CFM if not more. When I place my hand in front of the exhaust I feel a decent amount of airflow. I’d say its 40 minimum if not 45-50 CFM. I have mine 2 slots above my vid card pointed down with nothing in the slot between. With it in the slot directly above the vid card it makes contact with it. I don’t want vibration on my nice new radeon 9600 pro.
My experience with the galaxy pci cooler was the opposite. I use nap mode and I found that when checking it I was just getting at best luke warm air out of the case at all times. I had an empty pci slot below it, and below that was a pci wireless-g card, USB2 card, and the radeon 9800 pro. I also was getting significant airflow out of the cooler, easily 40cfm or more, but the dang thing added noise to my system that I just could not deal with. It brought the annoyance level of the sound back up to almost where it was before my fan swap with the smartcooler kit. I just couldn’t deal with it myself. I have noticed my power supply now puts out warmer air again once I removed the pci cooler. I would really like to get a more silent unit, but I’ll continue to look around and see.
Two cents,
I once bought an Orange USB2.0/Firewire card designed for the G4, but used it in my old G3 desktop with excellent results. When I got my G4 Dual 1.42 gig, I thought great! – and threw the Orange card into it. Nothing but problems. The system would hang continually. Although the ports seemed to work, they wouldn’t show up correctly in the system profile. I replaced it with a D-Link USB hub. Problem solved.
Dale T,
I contacted Verax in Germany by e-mail, a couple of days ago. They replied to say that the M12 is out-of-stock, but that they are working “very hard” on getting new stock in and will contact me when it arrives. Will update everyone at that time.
BTW guys, I ordered my Silenx 120mm and it’s on the way. My Papst 4212H CPU fan is rated at 49 dBA, so I’m looking forward to the peace and quiet!
Cheers all,
–Wayne
49dba??? THATS INSANE!
The silenX will be a HUGE change for you. Use the mounts like bucky shows above.
Dale,
When you used the PCI Slot Fan, did you tape shut the perforations on the PCI shields on your unused PCI ports? Makes a big difference in the effectiveness of the PCI Slot fan. Without sealing those shields, the slot fan sucks in outside air as well as case air, which obviously reduces the amount of hot case air being discharged. As far as the noise issue, I think you just got a “bad” fan. As I noted previously, you can buy exactly the same fan for $4 or $5 elsewhere, so the financial risk of trying the Galaxy GC510 again is minimal.
Wayne Rose,
Be advised that if you also opt for the Verax M10 kit, the SilenX 120mm fan will not be useable. While the included 92mm Verax main fan and adapter plate can be replaced with other fans, the SilenX 120mm isn’t one of them. I know, I tried it this month and, from a cooling standpoint, it was a complete failure. The SilenX is quiet, but it isn’t compatible with the Verax CPU cooling configuration. I ran it off the MoBo, straight 12 VDC, and 7 VDC. The 7 VDC was useable, but didn’t keep my Dual 1.25 GHz 2MBL3 MDD G4 as cool as the fan it replaced.
A bit about my Dual 1.25 GHz 2MBL3 MDD G4. It was manufactured in August 2003, making it near the end of the line and it came with all of Apple’s sound “upgrades”. I bought it from the original purchaser, a Linex system administrator and semi-pro music processor, last fall. It came OEM with the 120mm Pabst 4212H main fan and twin Minebea 2410ML-04W-B60 60mm fans in the 360 watt power supply. It was noisy, so he installed the Verax M10 and M12 kits (his M12 included 2-60mm Verax fans, not a single 80mm fan). He didn’t like the cycling noise of the Verax 92mm main fan in the adapter plate (MoBo hookup) and replaced it with an ANTEC 120mm SmartCool fan running off a 12 VDC connection. His main concern was noise because of his music work, but he did add 2-60mm VANTEC Stealth SF6025L fans to the inside of the intake grill for more supply air. He wired them to 7 VDC because of noise. This Mac was quiet running when I bought it, except for some vibration noise from the ANTEC fan. I fixed that last fall using small pieces of soft gel material against the intake plate and under the fan frame (similar to what Bucky described doing to his SilenX fan). My issue is that this Mac still runs hot. The original owner has since told me that 62 C in summer under heavy load was not unusual for this Mac, either as-built by Apple or after the fan modifications. I’ve since replaced the VANTEC supply fans with 2-60mm SilenX fans. They are quieter at 12 VDC than the VANTEC fans were at 7 VDC and deliver far more air at any voltage. However, the extra air has actually caused the CPU temperature to rise 1C to 2C. Rather than re-wire them to 7 VDC, I just disconnected one and I’m currently doing about as well or better temperature-wise as I’ve done since summer arrived. The supply fan configurations are still a work-in-progress. I’m now looking at adding another 60mm fan to the case discharge behind the Verax heat sink and under the Verax CPU fan shroud. If that brings down the CPU temp, I’ll probably invest in another 60mm SilenX fan as the permanent setup.
Carl:
Which silenX 60mm? Is it the 18cfm 16dba model?
Carl B.
Thanks for contacting verax. Also, my machine is a first gen MDD with dual 867’s therefore does not have the perforated PCI shields. I think those were introduced when the FW800 models shipped. I did however leave the perforated shield that came attached on that pci fan in the case and only removed the fan. It appears this is helping to keep the top of the case cool by allowing the power supply to exhaust any hot air at the top of the case like apple designed in their later revisions. I really need a good quiet pci fan. I might take the risk again and order a $4-5 galaxy soon.
Jeff B
SilenX 60-mm fans that I used for front supply fans were Model IXP-34-12, which is 14 cfm and 12 dBA when operated at the designed for 12 VDC.
Bucky
I’m reluctant to experiment w/ CHUD tools Nap mode as I have read about many problems on the newer MDD G4s with dual processors when using it. I consulted the prior owner of my MDD G4 and a long time OS X user and he said he had heard too many horror stories of problems with Nap mode. He told me he pondered using it and decided the risk was too great. I feel the same way and I like and use Sleep on my Mac daily.
gee, horror stories with nap mode? Apart from a few reported crashes on OSX 10.3 on xlr8yourmac.com i’ve only heard good stories. Nap has been enabled for the past 6 months on my first gen MDD 1ghz on 10.4.8, with absolutely no problems. In fact it helps cool the mac so much better that it would be much more risky to turn it off as it heats up too much without it!
I’m with bucky on this one.. I really can’t see how NAP could ever actually harm your system.
Also, there is very little difference between early and later MDD models other than CPU speed and FW800.
Carl,
Thanks for the details on Verax – very informative. I contacted them again, a few days ago now, to request specs on the M12 80mm fan. This time they have not responded.
Do you or does anyone know the specs on the 80mm fan used in the Verax M12 setup?
BTW, has anyone thought to ask Apple why nap is turned off by default on the MDD FW800 Macs?
It cannot be said too often – much thanks to Bucky and everyone. This is a fascinating thread. Impossible to find this much info on cooling the MDD’s anywhere else.
Cheers,
–Wayne
regarding USB 2.0:
I bought a cheap 4+1(internal) PCI VIA card off ebay after I chekced for drivers (my name should link to them).
The chipsets VT6202, VT6212, VT6214/L are supported
for OS X, apparently.
I have no problems, but since I have a flashed Geforce, I cannot use (or test) any form of sleep anyway.
Wayne Rose,
As I noted before, the Verax M12 kit in my MDD G4 simply had two replacement 60-mm fans for the two OEM 60-mm fans. There wasn’t any 80-mm fan involved with the M12 kit. The M10 kit has a 92-mm fan on an adapter plate that fits where you all are putting that 120-mm SilentX fan.
The issue with Nap mode that I’ve heard about is its proclivity to interrupt when one is running a processor intensive application that takes several minutes to complete. That’s why the original owner of my MDD wouldn’t use it. He feared a processor interruption in the middle of cranking out a 20-minutes of music composition. So it isn’t necessarily a “system harm” thing, but it is something that will make your MDD G4 seem buggy when doing certain activities.
Carl B,
I think you are confusing the verax M11 with the M12. The M11 was the first version of their kit for the power supply which included two verax 60mm fans. They later revised the design with the M12 that actually uses a single 80mm fan to cool the power supply.
I have also had zero issues with nap mode thus far, except for sleep which I no longer do and the efi noise increase that can be heard through the speakers when it’s enabled. These are obviously some of the reasons apple never enabled it by default. I see it as trade offs and the extra cooling it provides is certainly nice. I can live without sleep, and as far as the efi noise goes, I purchased a ground loop isolator from radio shack that helps with that.
Dale T,
You are correct, the Verax power supply kit on my MDD G4 is an M11. BTW, my power supply is inaudible and puts out lots of hot air.
Thanks for the clearing up the confusion guys.
At this point in time, the M10 and M11 are no longer posted on http://www.verax.de. The M12 seems to be their only current offering.
Guess I should have read a little more carefully. The fan used in the M12 appears to be the Verax VB802512VW-3M, specs here: http://www.verax.de/catalog/b8cbcb7b0c0babe21e253750387e6bf3.pdf.
Interesting. This fan turns at up to 3800 rpm but drives only 20.32 CFM of air. No noise spec is given. Verax does offer a couple of other 80mm fans that presumably would fit in the M12 mount, but none of them drives more than 20.7 CFM, though their Globefan S0802512LD-3M operates at only 18 dBA (see specs here: http://www.verax.de/verax.php?SID=3004674064bd3e89&template=catalog_entry&entryid=120).
It doesn’t seem like the M12 fan would drive enough air to cool the MDD effectively, though the revs are certainly high enough. Does the Verax mounting scheme somehow actually increase airflow through the PSU? Hmmmm …
Carl, I agree with your assessment of how nap mode could be potentially disastrous for processor intensive applications such as audio – not worth the risk, IMO.
Cheers,
–Wayne
Posting message in 2 parts (didn’t come up the first time, and is now giving me the “duplicate message” error – here goes …)
Part 1:-
Thanks for the clearing up the confusion guys.
At this point in time, the M10 and M11 are no longer posted on http://www.verax.de. The M12 seems to be their only current offering.
Guess I should have read a little more carefully. The fan used in the M12 appears to be the Verax VB802512VW-3M, specs here: http://www.verax.de/catalog/b8cbcb7b0c0babe21e253750387e6bf3.pdf.
Cont’d …
Interesting. This fan turns at up to 3800 rpm but drives only 20.32 CFM of air. No noise spec is given. Verax does offer a couple of other 80mm fans that presumably would fit in the M12 mount, but none of them drives more than 20.7 CFM, though their Globefan S0802512LD-3M operates at only 18 dBA (see specs here: http://www.verax.de/verax.php?SID=3004674064bd3e89&template=catalog_entry&entryid=120).
It doesn’t seem like the M12 fan would drive enough air to cool the MDD effectively, though the revs are certainly high enough. Does the Verax mounting scheme somehow actually increase airflow through the PSU? Hmmmm …
Carl, I agree with your assessment of how nap mode could be potentially disastrous for processor intensive applications such as audio – not worth the risk, IMO.
Cheers,
–Wayne
Doesn’t seem to be working … I’ll try breaking it up further (hope we don’t get a bunch of duplicates) …
Part 2:-
Interesting. This fan turns at up to 3800 rpm but drives only 20.32 CFM of air. No noise spec is given. Verax does offer a couple of other 80mm fans that presumably would fit in the M12 mount, but none of them drives more than 20.7 CFM, though their Globefan S0802512LD-3M operates at only 18 dBA (see specs here: http://www.verax.de/verax.php?SID=3004674064bd3e89&template=catalog_entry&entryid=120).
It doesn’t seem like the M12 fan would drive enough air to cool the MDD effectively, though the revs are certainly high enough. Does the Verax mounting scheme somehow actually increase airflow through the PSU? Hmmmm …
Cont’d …
Still not working … I’ll post the remainder, just in case it the server puts it up later …
Part 3:-
Carl, I agree with your assessment of how nap mode could be potentially disastrous for processor intensive applications such as audio – not worth the risk, IMO.
Cheers,
–Wayne
Hmmm … worked that time … I’ll try Part 2 again …
Part 2:-
Interesting. This fan turns at up to 3800 rpm but drives only 20.32 CFM of air. No noise spec is given. Verax does offer a couple of other 80mm fans that presumably would fit in the M12 mount, but none of them drives more than 20.7 CFM, though their Globefan S0802512LD-3M operates at only 18 dBA (see specs here: http://www.verax.de/verax.php?SID=3004674064bd3e89&template=catalog_entry&entryid=120).
It doesn’t seem like the M12 fan would drive enough air to cool the MDD effectively, though the revs are certainly high enough. Does the Verax mounting scheme somehow actually increase airflow through the PSU? Hmmmm …
Maybe the link is too long … try again …
Part 2:-
Interesting. This fan turns at up to 3800 rpm but drives only 20.32 CFM of air. No noise spec is given. Verax does offer a couple of other 80mm fans that presumably would fit in the M12 mount, but none of them drives more than 20.7 CFM, though their Globefan S0802512LD-3M operates at only 18 dBA.
It doesn’t seem like the M12 fan would drive enough air to cool the MDD effectively, though the revs are certainly high enough. Does the Verax mounting scheme somehow actually increase airflow through the PSU? Hmmmm …
Ok.
Sorry guys. Read Parts 1 & 2 in order to get the gist.
I had considering making my own M12 type mount and just ordering the fans. Now I’m not sure.
Any thoughts?
Wayne:
SilenX has an 80mm that blows 32CFM and is only 14dba
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5354/fan-265/SilenX_80×80x25mm_-_14dBA_-_32CFM_iXtrema_Pro_Fan_IXP-54-14.html
We should all buy one of these and somehow fit the MDD guts in
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5273/cas-341/FrozenCPU_Hurricane_Black_Lian-Li_PC-G70_Full_Tower_Case_-_21_dBA.html
11 SilenX fans and only 21dba overall!@#
To clear things up:
the Verax M10 and M12 are not available on their site. But when you phone them up you will find out that some M10 are in stock and will be produced again at some later time and the M12 will be available in some weeks.
Wayne:
I am pretty sure that the M12 moves a sufficient amount of air. I talked to the tech guys at Verax and they knew very well what they were talking about, it was one of my most pleasant phone calls to a company selling computer parts ever!
I also was thinking about building my own M12 at first, and I even came about something very closely like it on the web, but cannot remember the link
The important part seems to be to seal the airflow tighly.
Klaus:
So they told you that 20 CFM is enough to properly cool the psu?
If so it really opens up many quiet cooling possibilities for all of us.
I just wanted to show off a photo of my sexy pair of MDD’s
http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/4881/indexphpvo8.jpg
hey guy’s, nice pair you’ve got there jeff!
If some of you have posted comments and they havent come up on this page( me too!) it’s just wordpress’s automatic spam filter that sometimes get’s it wrong. I’ve just recovered a few comments that were languishing in spamville, so dont think that I’m deleting your comments.
thanks bucky but wait till you see my B&W G3 once its painted. I took off all the plastics and mailed them to my father who has access to a proper painting booth. He will be using high grade car paint plus adding a glossy clear coat on top of it. The aqua blue parts will be the tone of black coffee and the clear parts will be white. I got this B&W on ebay for $20! I use it as a bit torrent machine and with only about 200 I found a G4 600 cpu upgrade on the cheap, upped the ram to 640 and bought a new 80gb. once I get more storage in it I will use it for torrents and file serving. btw.. file sharing is not illegal in Canada. its legal to share for personal use and not to sell. software piracy is the only thing thats illegal here from p2p.
it will look like this one but the black will be more a black/brown and the whole thing will be much more glossy. The one pictured was upgraded to a G4 500 and given to my aunt.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/48/150042906_98b7e22699_o.jpg
The “quieter” fans Apple used in the downsized 360 watt PSU were Minebea fans rated at 25 cfm and 36 dbA. So far I’m unable to ascertain what the specs are of the two Verax M11 kit fans, but I’d be a little concerned that 20 cfm would be sufficient. I’m sure it won’t be sufficient if your PSU is the original 400 watt PSU.
Just for grins I’ve downloaded and installed CHUD Tools 3.5.2 and have activated Nap mode for my web surfing and email exhange. So far, the only thing I’ve noticed is that cold startups seem to take a few seconds longer even though Nap mode isn’t active until I set it. It did significantly lower my CPU temperature, about 33 degrees F.
Carl:
What I don’t get is why Apple used 38cfm fans in the 400watt version yet only used 25cfm fans for the 360watt. A PSU with only 40 more watts doesn’t need that much extra cooling.
The fans I used to replace the 60mm’s in my 400watt PSU are only 23CFM and they do a very good job of cooling.
I think its just overkill on Apple’s part to use such high CFM fans.
I agree with Jeff, Apple way over-engineered the cooling originally. I’m dumbfounded they let that kind of noise maker slip by quality tests originally, The original fans were out of control noise wise. I can’t say if dual 25cfm fans are still overkill, but I do know that even with those the PS still pumps out pretty warm air with no real stress on the system and nap mode enabled. It’s odd that the verax m12 kit is only rated at 20cfm total. It honestly doesn’t matter how much you seal the air in as verax claims. 20cfm is all it’s ever going to be, period (unless the fan is underrated). That tells me verax is okay with 20cfm to the PS, even if they will not come out and say so. That might be a clue that the dual 25cfm still represents over-engineering on apple’s part, or inexperience on the part of verax, but from what I gather verax has quite a bit of knowledge in the cooling department. I still wish someone that was more stateside friendly had shipped a 80mm or 120mm PS kit (silentx comes to mind). I would love to build something of the sort myself with about 40cfm, which would still be much quieter than dual 60mm fans, but I just do not have the time, tools, or materials.
Now on a totally different note regarding sleep. I have my power mac set to auto-sleep after 20 min inactivity, regardless of the fact that it usually never does so. I have tried unplugging everything but the power cord and doing a safe boot even and still have it not auto-sleep. Yesterday, with no changes and no reboots the computer started sleeping as expected. It did this on it’s own 4-5 times and would resume from sleep with no problems (with Nap enabled). Today, it refuses to sleep again. It has on occasion in the past month auto-slept a handful of times as well. I am dumbfounded at this point, like I said nothing changes.
Also, I know I have read above a few times about sleep running things hotter than leaving it on with nap, but I don’t see that at all. After resuming from an hour or more in sleep and checking temp monitor immediately I see a 10-15 degrees drop in hdd and processor temps. I really wish I could get sleep working as expected all of the time.
Also, nap mode is still enabled when it resumes from sleep.
Dale:
If 20cfm really is enough then 2 silenx 18cfm 16dba silenX 60mm would be a great solution. 16dba is almost inaudible.
typed silenX twice haha
Jeff B wrote on 6/18/07: What I don’t get is why Apple used 38cfm fans in the 400watt version yet only used 25cfm fans for the 360watt. A PSU with only 40 more watts doesn’t need that much extra cooling.
Jeff, maybe the question to ask is why Apple reduced the cfm on the PSU fans by 34%, when they only reduced the PSU rating by 10%. Given possibly better electronics in the360 watt PSU, that’s still a big drop off in cooling air flow.
I’m guessing two things here. First, the cooling on the replacement, 360 watt, PSU was probably dead nuts, with little fudge factor because Apple was trying to deal with the noise complaints. Second, the MDD G4s have a reputation for going through PSUs in fairly short order (3 years for some folks), which may or may not be the result of marginally effective cooling of the PSU.
Dale T, have you considered just replacing your Apple PSU fans with a couple of the 18 cfm, 60-mm SilenX fans? That would give you 36 cfm or almost double what Verax is offering with the 80-mm single fan in the M12 kit.
Oops, Jeff B, sorry I copied your suggestion to Dale T. I hadn’t read down far enough when I wrote my comment to Dale T. Great minds in similar channels though, right?
At the moment, I am okay with the improvements I got with the smartcooler kit. IF in fact the fan used on the M12 is only 20cfm, then the dual silenx 60mm fans should work fine, but it’s hard to tell. I would still like to find a quiet PCI cooler as it really seamed to reduce the amount of hot air blowing out of the PSU. The PCI cooler I think would be a must with the M12 or the silenx fans in the PSU.
Look what I got in the mail today
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/4407/im000354ql4.jpg
I’m starting to see what some of you mean about NAP mode on later model MDD’s. I have had my first gen dual 867 running NAP for 7-8 months now and I have never had an issue.
I have been using NAP on my dual 1.42 for about 3 weeks and I have been starting to see odd things. Finder hanging, more beach balls in general and sometimes at the start of a reboot it will hang on the blue screen with the spinning circle that you see when your system has a few things to log to the drive before a restart. So I only continue to use NAP on my dual 867.
So far with NAP off on the dual 1.42 all is well. I have the 120mm 90 cfm silenx on the back also and never seem to go above 48-49c even when I was at about 70-80% cpu use for a good 50-60 min. 90 cfm into the heatsink and 90 cfm sucking it out. Very effective.. active cooling all the way!
btw..
My dual 1.42 is not the FW800 model. This is actually a 2003 model (last of the 3 MDD series) dual 1.25 that has been overclocked to 1.42. The chips ended up being under clocked 1.42 so its not really even an overclock since its already a 1.42 rated set of cpu.
Just an FYI as I don’t know if the 2003 model has more issues vs. the FW800.
Jeff B
How did you determine that the chips in your 2003 model MDD G4 were actually under-clocked 1.42 chips?
Anyone use Arctic Silver heat sink compound on their G4 processor to heat sink interface? Any significant improvement noted over generic Heat Sink Compound like that sold at Rat Shack?
Carl:
It says right on the chip itself. Its hidden by the spacer and its plastic film that sits on top of the cpu.
I use arctic silver and have for about 3 years now. Great stuff. many claim between a 3-7c drop after a week depending on cpu. Since I have never used anything else on either of my MDD’s I can’t tell you the difference it makes with 7455 G4’s vs. other stuff.
Its normally only a couple bucks more and well worth it in my opinion. It works best after 1-2 weeks once it gets a chance to mold in there better.
Jeff B,
Thanks for the information. I’ll pick up a tube next time I’m in CompUSA (~$10 USD there) and I’ll check my processors when I go in to apply the Arctic Silver compound. My MDD G4, dual 1.25 GHz, 2MB L3, was manufactured the week of August 5, 2003 (from the System Information provided by Temperature Monitor), which was pretty late in the game for that unit. Maybe it is also an under-clocked 1.42.
Carl B.
Carl:
Mine was made very close to the time yours was (I think its late July) so I have the exact same system I would imagine.
Apple has a history (at least with PowerMac G4’s) of using under-clocked CPU’s. I will never really understand it. Must have been low supply on the slower chips.
Keep in mind that to overclock an MDD you have to get out a soldering tool and remove a couple of very small resistors. Its not simple jumper or firmware thing unfortunately.
Jeff B,
Which MDD you planning to install the silenx fans inside? Let us know how it goes!! I am very interested to know how this solution will perform.
Dale:
Those will be in my dual 867. It already has a silenX 120mm inside and the new one is for the back. the 2 60mm silenX are only 16dba and will replace the 28dba deltas I used to replace the stock fans back in March. Although the new deltas are noticably quieter vs. the stock fans they are still too loud for me. The dual 867 also has another silenX 60mm mounted outside the PSU exhaust (pics above somewhere). So the 867 will be all silenX other than the delta optical fan but its super quiet anyway.
The dual 1.42 has 2 x silenX 120mm 90cfm (one inside and one on the back) and has sunon 60mm in the psu. They were already in there when I bought the syetem and I would say they are about 25-26dba. I will replace them with 3 x 60mm silenX as well but the 867 is louder so it goes all silenX first.
I have done months of research and know for sure that 3 x 60mm fans each pushing 18cfm is more than enough cooling. And all at only 16dba..
Jeff,
Are both the 3rd 60mm AND the 2nd 120mm fan mounted on the outside of the case?
Dale:
Yes
This place has really been dead for a few days
Lets get talking MDD cooling and noise reduction again! I need my fix! haha
Jeff,
Get us started, have you installed those silenx fans yet? What’s the results?
Hey guys,
I received my first siLenx 120mm 18dB fan, fan silencer, Black Slot Fan (fingers crossed), and damping material two weeks ago. My 2 Delta 60mm fans arrived yesterday!
However, Jeff, after having followed your logic in arriving at your 3 siLenx 60mm 18CFM 16dB fan solution with interest — I’m now considering following your lead, as I’d prefer not to hear any fan noise at all in my application.
With the only 36CFM being driven through the PSU from the front end, though, I’m a little concerned about whether the external 18CFM fan on the back will make up the necessary difference in air flow.
Couple of questions:
Jeff, in the images you posted previously, it looks like you removed the plastic from the back of the G4. Did you encounter any problems with doing that, and can it easily be reinstalled?
How do you intend to mount the 60mm fan to the outside of the case (do the holes match on the 60mm the way they do on the 120mm)?
Is there any sealing or damping material between the back of the PSU and the inside of the case (if not, adding some might improve the external 18CFM fan’s ability to draw air through the power supply – FrozenCPU sells a slim c-molding that might do the trick)?
How about using the siLenx 80mm 32CFM 14dB Ixtrema with a 60mm to 80mm fan adapter for the external PSU fan – or do you think that would be overkill?
I’m fairly experienced inside computers (built a PC from the ground up, replaced the CPU in my old P3, that sort of thing), but since I use my G4 in the studio every day, I can’t afford to screw up any mods I might do.
Jeff, I really appreciate you’re testing the water for us, and like Dale, look forward to seeing the results you accomplish – and of course, to kicking ideas back and forth.
The 3×60mm psu fans work great so far. Been about 2 weeks and the air coming out the back feels slightly cooler but i’m sure the fan on the back has something to do with that. The overall noise level coming from the psu now is totally inaudible. I have to mute the system and put my ear close to the tower on the floor to hear it. I do have some sound dampening material between the psu and case wall. Honestly the only things I can hear now is a slight hum from the external 120mm but its very faint and my HD. An important note.. don’t try and plug the the fans power into the psu because after much testing the fans simply don’t spin as fast no matter how they were plugged in. What I did was run the wires of the 2 60mm strait down the sides of the fans wrapped in electrical tape (so has not to be pinched) and right out the bottom of the psu. After this I just plugged both into one of the optical molex connectors with a Y adapter. Trust me.. if you’re doing the 3×60mm psu thing like I did use 4 pin molex to power all of them or you simply won’t have enough airflow.
The 2×120mm is extremely effective. So effective that the temp never rises more than 2-3c higher vs. idle speeds (seriously) even when I have been gaming for 2-3 hours or working in photoshop for hours or just stressing it for testing reasons. I really recommend the 2×120 more than anything.
So before I go on answering Wayne’s questions I just wanted to say that going all SilenX and adding 2 extra fans is VERY effective and really really quiet. The external sound of the case is maybe 20-22db overall and thats only when i’m really trying to hear it. The biggest sign of a quiet system is when you have to TRY and hear it.
Wayne:
The panels on the back can be put back on. I took them off because it puts the external fans can sit closer to the inside for more effective suction out of the case. The panel on the non-door part of the back is the easiest to remove. Just remove the allen screws on the back then the back top and back bottom handles. You really need to pry it off the back spring case lock but its all about angle and pulling. The back panel on the door part of the back will only come out if you remove the door side panel. It sucks but you only have to do it once. You will never be looking at the back anyway and it really does help airflow for both the external fans.
The 60mm on the back now has a 2mm thick gasket/silencer on it and is still attached with krazy glue. It sounds silly to use glue I know but its very effective. The holes on the back don’t match up with the 60mm and anything you stuck in it would be sort of poking into the psu exhaust area.
I have some very thin sound dampening material between the psu and case wall. Just out of curiosity give me a link to see that C molding you saw.
I really think an 80mm would be overkill on the back of the psu. The adapter would be very hard to mount and it would just be a lot of wasted effort in the end.
The key to having a smooth experience with this kind of modding is to have a good plan going in. This IS NOT the kind of thing to just go into and make it up as you go. Any other help you need to have a good plan just ask.
No worries about testing the water and giving the results. I love helping people in the same situation as myself.
Another thing.. I used the stock screws and stock rubber corner silencers on the 2×60mm SilenX inside the psu. No extra quieting at all on the fans themselves.
hey great stuff Jeff! is there any chance you could provide a drawing with photos indicating where you have placed the various fans and their size & CFM airflow. Maybe even with a few arrows showing the actual airflow in the G4 tower. It certainly appears that you’ve negated the need for nap mode as a few people have wanted. Well done mate…
Hello folks –
I have a G4 MDD, duel 1.25GHz/duel 120GB HD. I have just recently upgraded to 1G RAM, Tiger OSX, and purchased a Belkin USB network adapter wireless G plus mimo. I had a couple questions, any input would be greatly appreciated!
I am about to order the Silentx 120mm, and am still searching for a couple good 60mm fans to substitute for the stock.
Okay so here is what I am confused about…
I installed Tiger on both HDs, and on HD2 it updated to 10.4.10. from the original 10.4.6 that was installed from the purchased Tiger box. HD1 still has 10.4.6. on it. I want to use CHUD, but the .img is not being recognized. Also I am wondering how to upgrade HD1 to 4.10., or if that’s a good idea or not?
Also, the USB wireless network adapter works great, I had to DL the mac driver from their website though, it only came with the windows XP driver ha! However… for example if I restart my computer it doesn’t recognize the device unless I un-plug and re-plug it back in. Is there a way around this?
I was reading through the posts above about the 4 port USB PCI card and CHUD mode and energy saver mode and all that. Does anyone recommend a solid inexpensive PCI USB 2.0? I assume that with this USB 2.0 it will transfer data at an accelerated rate? The good thing about the MIMO card is that i recognizes 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 obviously.
Thanks again, if i think of any more questions i’ll aim them your way!
Hey Jeff,
Thanks very much for the detailed response.
Here’s the link to the c-molding on FrozenCPU:
http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g36/c121/s662/list/p1/Fans-Fan_Accessories-Fan_Molding-Page1.html
Will take your word for it on the power connections. Do you have the interior 120mm connected to the motherboard or molex?
To clarify, when you say “remove the door side panel”, do you mean the plastic panel on the outside of the door. Does doing this interfere with the pull-ring latch at all? Do the handles and door panel go back on and fit properly once the back panels have been removed?
The results you are getting indicate that you’re probably right about the 80mm being overkill.
I can’t abide by gluing anything to the case. What I’m thinking of doing instead, is cutting an adapter out of 2mm acrylic sheet with holes matched up to those in the case. The adaptor would be screwed or fastened to the back using a gasket/silencer between adaptor and case. The fan would be krazy glued directly to the adapter. Just curious though, did you have any problem crazy gluing the 2mm gasket/silencer to the fan or case?
Apart from the minor issues I’ve mentioned, looks like I’m ready to proceed. Am ordering the additional components required today.
A couple of months ago, I dropped into a local Mac dealer just to listen to a MacPro Quad 3.0GHz, as I had heard they were extremely quiet. There was a soft rain that day. All you could hear from the machine was the main drive, and even that was virtually inaudible over the sound of the rain hitting the store window.
That was my initial inspiration to quiet down my G4. This is so cool – that “bucky” has made this forum possible, and that others have contributed so much of their knowledge and experience.
Isn’t it amazing when the Internet lives up to the original altruistic vision that spawned it?
–Also regarding the graphics card: I was considering the Revoltec Graphics Freezer Pro, which has gotten nice reviews. It cooling device mounts at the back of the card which in our case is facin up, towards the PCI slots. I am guessing that it could work out if you are willing to sacrifice one PCI slot…–
It mounts at the front, just like any other coolers.
http://www.technic3d.com/article/pics/318/DSCN21620001.JPG
Hey guys.. I will upload some pics with added info asap. Really busy till mid next week.
Wayne:
Yes I do mean the side panel on the door. The mobo pops out super easy and the clamps holding the door in the middle are right under it. Do you have the .pdf of the MDD service manual? If not leave an email I can send to you.
Yes I did glue the gasket to both the case and fan. I used more on the seam than the contact area. It holds very well and because I did it very carefully it looks very clean also.
Bucky:
Thanks for your kind words. Much respect to you for having this blog for us.
I have a great idea! How about we start an irc channel?
Jeff,
I did manage to find a pdf of the MDD service manual online. It hadn’t occurred to me before you mentioned it. Great help. Thanks.
It appears from the manual that to get the door side back panel off, you do have to pop the motherboard, but you don’t have to remove the door’s plastic side panel. Please correct me if I’m wrong about this.
The manual says to remove everything from the mobo first, but I assume all I have to do is remove the retaining screw and lift the board up to get at the plastic locking tabs holding the back plastic panel.
Do you have your interior 120mm fan connected to the motherboard, or to the PSU via molex?
Wayne:
Maybe you don’t HAVE to take off the side panel but I just felt safer doing so. Do whatever works best for you.
I have both 120mm fans plugged into the mobo. The internal fan is connected to where the original 120 was and the rear fan is connected to where the optical fan plugs in. These 120mm SilenX fans are simply too loud and always run at full speed when plugged into the molex. When they are plugged into the mobo they have variable speed and you can only really hear them when the system is under heavy load for a long while.
So just to be clear.. plug the 2×120mm into the mobo and the 3×60mm into 4 pin molex. The 60mm’s are still more than quiet enough when always at full speed and you need them blowing like that to have enough airflow.
Forgot to mention..
If you still want to use the optical fan just get one of these:
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1090/cab-05/3-pin_Y_Cable_Splitter.html
I have a question for all of you..
Do any of you have the grounding issue many MDD’s have? For example when I use expose, mouse over dock apps put video in and ou of full screen mode and other similar things I often get a slight high pitched purr-like sound coming out of the tower. This is the case with both of my MDD’s. Its not through the audio as it still happens when audio is disconnected.
I guess I only notice it now because they are SO quiet. It is a tad annoying though when the room is quiet it kind of stands out.
Do any of you have a solution for this? I thought I would ask here before doing a lot of research.
Jeff B,
Wasn’t there a noise during operations issue with using CHUD Tools NAP mode? I seem to remember reading something like that somewhere.
BTW, please point me to a web site for the MDD Service Manual or send me a PDF at beutler_mac at comcast dot net.
Thanks,
Carl B
Test
Hi Jeff,
I posted an earlier message thanking you for your most recent response, and offering a few suggestions for fixing your ground hum problem.
The message didn’t come up so maybe it got stuck on the server. No matter.
As I said earlier, I only occasionally use the audio from the Mac’s output, but at those times often hear what sounds like ground hum modulated by the movement of the mouse.
I just tried using a hum eliminator on that line, and it completely removed the annoying buzz, so maybe that’s your solution.
Check out the Behringer HD400 ($19.95) here:
http://www.zzounds.com/item–BEHHD400
Now here’s my original post (WordPress seems to require that url’s be formatted in a certain way ???):
Jeff,
Thanks for your latest response. I’m certain I have all the info I need now (except for that 3-pin Y-cable, which I’ll try and pick up locally, as they charge me $20 USD every time they ship to Canada from FrozenCPU).
Re your high-pitched noise issue:
What makes you think it’s a grounding issue, if you can’t hear it through the audio (by definition, ground-loop hum is 60Hz usually heard in an audio line, caused by a difference in ground levels, which theoretically should all be at zero potential but aren’t).
If you define the sound you are hearing as “high-pitched” it isn’t pure 60Hz (which is near the bottom of the audible spectrum).
If it was an audio ground loop, I would suggest using an inexpensive stereo hum eliminator, such as the Behringer HD400 ($19.95 USD):
http://www.zzounds.com/item–BEHHD400
I use several of them in my studio, and they work like a charm.
Since it’s not coming through your speaker (?), and is more of a high-pitched sound, I’m guessing it’s probably resonance, perhaps coming from your system drive (I don’t know if the apps you have referenced are pre-loaded into memory, but it’s likely they aren’t — so the OS would have to access the drive to call them up). The obvious solution, of course, is to damp the hard drive.
I normally only listen to audio through the Digidesign hardware (in my case, a Digi 002) which of course does not use the Mac’s audio out. However, occasionally when I need to hear a separate CD track while I’m working in Pro Tools, I will switch to the Mac’s built in audio which I have patched through my mixer. I have noticed a noise which sounds like grounding noise, but appears to be modulated by the movement of the mouse.
I will try isolating the audio path as I have described above to see if that fixes the problem and let you know.
The problem could be RFI/EMI. Are you using a CRT monitor or TV anywhere nearby? Do you have lights on a dimmer nearby? Check for nearby devices which might be causing interference.
If none of the above applies, then the only other solution I can think of would be to use power conditioning, to smooth out the AC line. There’s a lot of hype around power conditioners, so it’s hard to tell which technology actually works. I’ve been researching them for awhile, but haven’t yet found a cost-effective solution I could recommend. If nothing else works, smoothing out your AC could be the answer, especially if you live in an older home.
Hi guy’s, hey great info on sound isolation wayne!
I have some mid to high pitched noise on my MDD also. The mouse doesnt make any noise moving it around. I hear it with full screen video in iMovie. When I use expose, it makes an initial purr, then again when expose is turned off. I also have the noise in full screen slideshow in iPhoto and when I put my photos as full screen screensavers and it stays on until the screen goes out of the screen saver mode. I’ve just learnt to live with it as I thought that was normal… It sounds like the hard drive to me! I dont think it’s anything to do with audio. I have an M-Audio Delta 2496 audio card. I noticed this sound well before I enabled nap mode, actually it was on my old G4 533 tower as well. I wonder if a better graphics card would stop the noise? I have a Geforce 2 Twin view with 64 MB of VRAM ( 32 for each display)
Incidently thanks everyone for the incredible amount of imformation here. Not in my wildest dreams did I think that this little post on my blog would recieve such an amazing response … 266 comments so far…
Wayne:
I live in Canada also.. I’m in Vancouver. Where are you located?
I solved the feedback issue with an $8 grounding wire from radio shack. Works perfectly as I just cut it in 2 and used it on both my MDD’s
I don’t have any kind of CRT in my home (only use LCD) nor a dimmer. Might have been the fan I use to cool the room. Anyway, the issue is solved now. Thanks guys!
Also I just want to let you all know that I am off to Vancouver Island for about 2 weeks so the pics of my new fan setup etc. will have to wait till I get back. Sorry guys but i’m super busy the last while. You all have my word that once i’m back it will be a first priority.
hey jeff, how did you attach the grounding wire? From which part of the MDD to where? I’m happy to be proved wrong!
Jeff, I live in Toronto.
And yes bucky, I’d like to know too, where did you run that ground wire Jeff?
Carl, did you try googling “apple service manuals”?
Bucky and Wayne:
I connected one end to the metal frame of my desk then through a hole in the back and attached to the inner case wall of each MDD.
I emailed the service manual to Carl BTW.
googling “apple service manuals” just got me a bunch of sites that were either dead links or noted that Apple’s lawyers had prohibited them from posting Apple Service Manuals.
Hey for the sound issue I did find this
Didn’t take to my link that time.
One more try.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75408
Ok — I bought the SilentX 120mm and it runs great! I also purchased 2 Evercool CL6025 fans… the LED lights pop on, however the fans aren’t actually spinning… Any ideas as to why this is? When I got the package, one of the fans had been opened already it looks like. Not sure if they are junk or I installed them wrong. Obviously there is power to them… please help!
Here is a short report on my use of Nap mode in CHUD Tools on my dp 1.25MHz MDD G4. I am only manually enabling and disabling Nap mode. So far, I haven’t seen any negative effects from Nap mode during normal operation of my MDD G4.
We (wife and I) try to disable Nap mode before the Mac can go to Sleep and before turning it off. When we have forgotten to do so, Sleep and Wake from Sleep have not created any problem the 3 or 4 times it has occurred. If Nap mode is left enabled at shutdown, then upon cold boot the bootup process takes almost twice as long. I guess Tiger has to sort out its expected startup conditions from the state it was in when last shutdown. This is kind of an annoyance.
If a few more Deep Sleep tests go off without problems in Nap mode, then I may pursue making Nap mode a startup item. That is if I can find a script that works with OS 10.4.10. However, if doing that permanently prolongs cold starts, I’ll just keep doing the manual enabling/disabling.
Carl I have found that with the nap mode enabled as a startup item using the above script that I found & modified, that the startup process is no longer at all.( the nap script just pops up for about half a second on the dock then disappears.)
I did have sleep problems with it though, however maybe it was also due to my generic USB 2 pci card as this messes up sleep totally?
devin, sorry I cant offer much advice other than to try different connections like the 4 pin molex ones & the original motherboard one. Try restarting the mac cause my fan didnt appear to work until I tried a few different combinations of the motherboard 2 pin plug position & a restart.
Hi all,
I am finally back from Vancouver Island now and just want to let you all know that I will have pics of my fan setup on here at some point this weekend. Most likely Saturday afternoon..
here are 2 pics.. more to come.
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2530/im000359pq8.jpg
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/2682/im000361tm9.jpg
Keep in mind that I have not cleaned up the wires yet. I will probably deal with those via sleeving and cable ties.
Ok guys, here’s my story:
Not too long after my last post (July 11th) the rest of my replacement fans arrived from frozencpu.com — I was now ready to install all the new siLenx fans for the CPU heatsink and external case (120mm 90CFM 18dB x 2), PSU intake (60mm 18CFM 16dB x 2) and external PSU exhaust (60mm 18CFM 16dB x 1), as well as the BlackSlot PCI fan.
As you might remember, I had decided to use the approach adopted by Jeff B. (thanks again, Jeff, for your generous advice).
While I was at it, and because I had to remove the plastic side panels anyway, as well as take out the motherboard to get the plastic panels off the the back of the case, I decided to apply dampening material wherever physical vibrations might occur, and where bare metal had air rushing past it — still ensuring that all existing paths were kept clear to allow the required air flow, of course.
The mod went fairly smoothly, but I can’t say it was exactly simple. Getting the upper plastic panel off over the locking tab on the back of the case was especially tricky. After repeated tries at simply pulling it off, I decided a little more force was needed. I pushed a couple of 6-inch scraps of 3/4″ x 3/4″ cedar (i.e., softwood) stock under the panel on either side of the locking tab, so that they fit quite firmly and would not shift. Then using a third length of the same stock as a drift, and a rubber mallet, I pounded away on the top of the locking tab until I managed to force it through the racetrack shaped hole in the plastic panel. Of course, this technique requires some forbearance — pound too hard and you crack the panel, don’t pound hard enough and nothing happens. The method worked, without leaving any visible marks on the plastic!
Ok, here’s where I was about to screw up! Never having taken a G4 apart before, I was a bit trepidatious when it came to putting it back together. Everything went well until it was time to seat the processor daughterboard on the mobo. I couldn’t get the *@%@&! thing to click in place, and of course didn’t want to push too hard for fear of cracking either board. What’s more, I had never applied Arctic Silver before; the verbal instructions I had gotten from the sales guy at the computer store were all I had to go on (though I later found detailed instructions and pics on their website).
The processor board eventually seemed to seat correctly, and I reinstalled the heatsink. I got the machine back together — side panels installed, fans installed, drives back in and connected, PSU connected to the mobo, etc. Trembling with anticipation, I connected the AC cable to the power supply and plugged it into an outlet, then pushed the power-on button on the front of my G4. A brief flash of white light from the LED, then nothing. Try again — nothing. Oh shit!!! Tried resetting the PMU — nothing. Oh oh! I’m screwed.
Visions of having to purchase a new motherboard off eBay flashed through my mind. In embarassed desperation I called my local Mac shop. Three hours and a brief tongue lashing later I had my fully functional G4 back. I had not seated the processor fully, and applied too much thermal paste to the processors. In addition, the service tech had switched the pins on the 3-pin fan connectors (nice fellow). BTW, later, when installing additional fans I tested the leads using a 9-volt battery (though the silver plastic is nice, it would be helpful if siLenx would somehow mark the two + and single – leads on their fans).
Immensely relieved, extremely grateful, and excited to run Temperature Monitor on my modified Mac, I got it home and set it up. The CPU was running at normal, pre-mod temperatures (127degF to 131degF). The drives were running below 100degF. Time for another stupid mistake! Though I had backed up my system drive, I had not backed up my audio data drive. I attempted a 12-hour burn in overnight — some time during the test, my data drive apparently overheated. Of course, I now had to test all the ATA busses, try the drive in an external enclosure, etc. to determine the problem. The computer is ok. However, so far I haven’t been able to get the data off the failed drive (yes, I’ve researched various methods, put it in the fridge, etc. — my friends at my local Mac store said they’d have a look at it).
But there’s more to the story. I’ve recently installed a software audio sampler as part of my studio setup. Audio samples require copious amounts of drive space, so in addition to replacing my failed audio data drive, I installed a dedicated sample drive (both 500MB). Now, if anything, overheating would be even more of a concern. In addition, the PCI fan (though it seemed to be functioning correctly) was noisier that I would have liked. I decided to cool my G4’s jets once and for all!
A little research brought up this link on installing additional fans on a G4 MDD: http://homepage.mac.com/paul74/MDDG4CoolingMod.htm. Since the Verax 60mm fans are no longer available, I decided to go with two siLenx 80mm x 15mm 24CFM 14dB fans, installed inside the case between the lower front air inlet and the ATA-66 drive bay. They fit perfectly! I replaced the PCI fan with a siLenx 80mm x 25mm 32CFM 14dB fan, and now opted to replace the new external 60mm siLenx on the PSU exhaust with a 60mm-to-80mm adapter and another 80mm x 25mm 32CFM 14dB siLenx (all fans mounted on gel fan silencers).
I should note here that in opting not to use glue of any kind (my case has been kept pristine and can be returned to its stock configuration at any time), I developed a method of attaching all the extra siLenx fans using a combination of screws (where possible) and 20ga galvanized wire. The wire is easy to weave through the holes in case, can be twisted quite snugly, and also cuts easily. So now all my fans are securely fastened, vibration free, and can withstand moving the Mac around the studio, should that be required.
I’ve been running the machine in audio applications, at a variety of ambient temperatures (depend on how much other gear is turned on) for more than a week now. CPU temperatures are running around 125degF or slightly above (very rarely reaching 126deg), and the system drive (ATA-100 master drive) temperature runs around 98.6degF or so. And this is before the temperature reduction that Arctic Silver reportedly provides after its 200-hour required burn-in time.
Oddly, and I haven’t looked into this yet, Temperature Monitor is not giving any readings for the two new data drives (one is a slave on the ATA-100 bus, and the other is a master on the ATA-66 bus), though it recognizes and verifies both drives. Does anyone know where the drive temperature sensors are physically located, and how to individually test them or change them out?
The upshot of my story is that I am extremely happy with my cooling mod. My G4 now runs about 5deg cooler and much quieter than before. I can still hear the machine, but could easily damp the sound externally during recording and critical mixing sessions. This will do nicely until I get my 8-core 3GHz MacPro with 16TB of RAM (not likely any time soon).
Hope my tale has been of some help and inspiration to those considering the cooling mod for their G4’s. You can do it! But as Jeff has said, get a copy of the service manual, and plan your every move before you start.
One more thing, in response to those who have been getting siLenx fans that rattle or vibrate: two of the eight siLenx fans I installed gave off a slight rattling sound. SiLenx’ fan cages are lighter than other brands, and can easily twist slightly when installed. The twisting is very slight, though it’s enough to allow the fan blades to hit the cage under rotation. In both instances, simply allowing the fans to run-in for a while seemed to wear the tips off the fan blades and the rattle stopped (if it had not, I would have tried inserting a thin strip of sand paper between the fan blade tips and cage, with the fan under power). Otherwise, I’ve found the siLenx fans to be excellent. In response to those who complain that siLenx overspecs their CFM ratings, I find this unlikely. They describe their testing method in detail, and they have recently improved their bearing design to make their fans even more efficient. It’s an excellent design!
Cheers to all,
Wayne
Sorry guys. Appears the link I provided requireds a .Mac membership (which I don’t have)!
Try this Google page, and click on “MDD G4 Cooling Mod”: http://www.google.com/search?q=MDD+G4+Cooling+Mod&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8
Wayne:
Glad to hear things ended up working well for you. You mind taking some picks? I will be taking more pics very soon but right now I am stuck with my crappy HP backup camera (hence the bad quality of the 2 pics I recently posted) because my Canon is in the shop. I plan to take some of the inside.
I would like to see how its different from my method as new ideas are always good.
Hi Jeff,
My method is not all that different from yours. All three PSU fans are powered via molex connectors, as is the 80mm exhaust fan in the PCI area (btw, I did unmount the speaker, though I left it connected, and placed it on top of the optical drive cage on a square of dampening material). The CPU fans, including the two intake fans that blow through the ATA-66 drive cage, the main CPU fan, and the 120mm external, are all connected via various 2-pin connectors on the mobo.
The 12ga galvanized wire works really well as a mounting method. I cut the lengths several inches long, so I could weave them through the holes in the case by hand. After, placing the silencer and fan holes over the wire, it can easily be hand-twisted to hold the fan in place. I then cut the ends off, and used a small pair of vice-grip locking pliers to twist the wire more tightly, holding the fan more firmly. You do have to be careful not to over twist the wire, as it is fairly soft and can break.
One thing I forgot to mention about the front intake fans: Unlike the approach in the google link above, I mounted the fans inside the case. When I first tested them after installation, they were quite noisy, however the sound didn’t seem to be coming from the fans themselves, but from the air being drawn into the case. I pushed one strip of dampening material up inside the front plastic panel to seal the four air intake holes, and another to cover the inside lower surface of the plastic panel itself. With the air intake effectively damped, the noise was considerably reduced (you really just hear the 14dB fans now). It’s true that less air is being drawn in, but the net effect is less than 1/2deg higher temperature. Undoubtedly, the two 24CFM fans are drawing in much more cool air than the main CPU fan can do by itself, even with the intake area partly damped.
Hi guys, great Post.
Anyone can help me finding the Everflow F126025DH Fans? Any site? Any Equivalent?
Thanks
I just found this discussion through a web search. Thanks guys… there’s so much useful info here!
Based on Dale T’s info, I think I might just spend the extra and get that Smartcooler kit from pcsilent.de. It saves me more agony over which choice of fans
Anyway, thanks again to everyone who has posted their findings here.
Hi have been looking around for 60mm fans and found these Evercool 60mm X 25mm Crystal LED Fan at Performance-PCs.com does anyone know if they will replace the psu fans. Tryed to find without LED but Evercool dont seem to make them. They are right size and CMF seems good please tell me they work thanks
Well I finally got up the courage to set up Nap mode for continuous operation and after a week, no problems noted. CHUD Tools, Nap mode has in fact got me through this summer as all of my other cooling improvements haven’t amounted to much. My most recent efforts were to clean off the old Radio Shack thermal compound and apply Arctic Silver, and to try to mount an exhaust fan inside the Verax housing over the CPUs and RAM.
The Arctic Silver effort went off without a hitch, but I’m really not seeing any change in maximum CPU operating temperature with Nap mode turned off. Maybe after the 200 hour break-in period? I did confirm that my processors are 1.25 GHz and not de-tuned 1.42 chips, even though my MDD G4 was produced very late in the final production cycle (8/5/2003).
I tried to mount a 60×60x25 SilentX fan within the Verax housing, but no way could I make it fit. The fan has too much depth for its size to fit under the housing. I’ve considered trying a 40×40x20 SilentX fan, but at 6 cfm it hardly seems worth it. I’ve concluded via my various fan configurations and testing that if you have the Verax cooling on your CPUs, the only way to lower CPU temperature is to increase the exhaust out of the Verax shrouded area. All other efforts to increase air flow to the fans on the Verax housing don’t lower CPU temperature. In fact, too much air flow and pressure toward the shroud and fans will actually increase CPU temperature. I think the extra air pressure is robbing the Verax fans of inflow, maybe creating somewhat of a vacuum near the Verax fan intakes.
I pulled out one of the two SilentX 60×60x25 fans that I had mounted on the front air intake grill. I tested and it didn’t affect CPU temperature at all if I had two fans or one fan running. Even one fan at lower voltage provided all the additional air flow that my Mac could use downstream.
I did kept the 42 cfm PCI slot fan in place as it is blowing a lot of hot air out of the tower case, even though its affect on CPU temperature is negligible.
Thanks Nathan, those 60 mm LED fans are interesting!
I, too, would like to know if anyone thinks they’re suitable. Their stats look a bit too good to be true (31.62 CFM, only 26 dB). Almost like the cfm and dB were reversed. The manufacturer’s page is here:
http://www.evercool.com.tw/products/cl6025.htm
I never bothered to look at them, because I assumed the best performing fans would be their less gimmicky ones… there’s nothing equivalent in their non-led range at all. I wonder if you can pull the leds out?
Those EverCool fans would probably work in a MDD G4 power supply since the stock Apple fans in the revised (i.e., quieter and 360 W versus the 400 W original power supply in the “wind tunnel” MDD G4) were rated at 25 cfm and 38 dB. They would probably be alright in the original 400 W MDD G4 power supply as well.
However 26 dB each isn’t exactly silent, so while it would be an improvement, I don’t think it would match the sound reduction of the original Verax M11 kit. The SilentX 60×60x25 fans are much quieter, 12 dB, but at only 18 cfm, I wouldn’t use them in the 400 W power supply, maybe in the 360 W version.
Carl:
I use the 18cfm silenX fans in my dual 867 and dual 1.42 MDD PSU. Been a good 2 months or so now and no issues at all. My trick is adding a 3rd on the exhaust at the back.
I admit I’m not sure how it works exactly, is the noise purely additive?
According to the SilenX site, the noise level of the 60 mm 18 CFM fan is 16 dBA, not 12. So if the noise is additive, then three of those would add up to 48 dBA, which isn’t much lower than the 2×26 = 52 dBA if you used two Evercool fans. Perhaps even a bit higher since the third fan is more exposed?
The point may be moot, however. The EverCool fans that were mentioned as being 26 dBA are actually rated at 32 dBA on most commercial sites, and a guy from pccasegear.com confirmed for me that that was the rating written on the packaging. So it sounds like Evercool’s website may have a mistake.
Wayne Woods:
You are right about the 16dba spec but the noise is not additive as you say.
My psu is inaudible unless I put my ear within a few inches.
Thanks Jeff
I should have bothered to look that up before asking.
I found a noise calculator here:
http://www.insulation.com.au/calculators/noiselevel.htm
In rough terms (assuming no difference in insulation, etc.), 3 x 16 dB = 21 dB, while 2 x 26 dB = 29 dB.
Or, as is apparently really the case, 2 x 32 dB = 35 dB.
It is worth a look though at the rating of the MDD G4 power supply on which one is considering fan modifications. Apple didn’t back down the 400 watt power supplies for no reason. They apparently generated enough heat such that re-designing them to a 360 watt maximum output was necessary to allow the use of quieter (comparatively speaking) fans. I seem to have lost the cfm and dB rating for the original Apple fans in the 400 watt power supply, but I think it is noted somewhere earlier in this blog.
Actually Carl Apple used the 400 watt PSU for 2 of the 3 MDD series.
First generation MDD (dual 867 – dual 1.25) used a 400 watt PSU
Second generation MDD (FW800 models) used a 360 watt PSU
3rd and last generation (2003-04 models) used the 400 watt PSU again.
So they started with the 400 watt then went with the 360 and then went back to the 400.
Apple used the same fans in the 2nd 400 watt PSU as they did in the 360 watt. The second 400 watt PSU is identical to the first one used other than the fans.
Some people have cooled these 400 watt PSU’s with only 40-45cfm. My 3×60mm silenX solution gives a total of 54cfm.
Also, as I have said it has been 2+ months since I put these in both my MDD’s and I have no issues. I certainly would have seen some problem by now if the cooling was not sufficient.
Hey guy’s, As I said sometime before It looks like the Everflow fans that come with the Volcano 5 Heatsink are incorrectly labelled as putting out 32 CFM of air. The Model number is F126025DH which according to Everflow’s website the CFM is only 22.74. So my 400 watt PSU has been running fine & very quiet for 6 months now on a total output of 45.48 CFM.
To Nathan Knob & others:
maybe try these fans below, I believe they are the same ones I used, made by Everflow & rebadged as Thermaltake, theyre the same as those found on the fabled Thermaltake Volcano 5 heatsink.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=633558&Sku=T925-1058&SRCCODE=PWATCH&CMP=OTC-PWATCH
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ITAG=FAQ&ModuleNo=32137&doy=26m5#faq
Jeff, your information is incorrect. All MDD models produced by Apple after the announced power supply swap program were 360 watt units. The first 1.42 GHz MDD units were the first to receive the “lower noise” 360 watt power supply. That increased the public outcry over the previously sold “wind tunnel” MDD units and finally pushed Apple over the edge on the noise reduction swap. My dual 1.25 GHz MDD was produced in August 2003 and came from the factory with the 360 watt power supply and the Papst main case fan in place of the Delta. Of course the foregoing refers to MDD units sold by Apple in the USA, the process could have been different elsewhere.
BTW, you can check the production date of your MDD G4 in the system info screen of the Temperature Monitor utility. Also, some of the MDD G4 obtained through resale (e.g., ebay) are cannibalized versions (i.e., they have been repaired or modified using parts from other MDD G4s) and are not representative of what Apple actually sold in the USA after the noise swap was announced. Apple did use more than one fan brand and model 400 watt power supply and power supply fans before going to the “quieter” arrangement starting with the 1.42 GHz MDD G4.
Carl:
The info I gave is from the application named “MacTracker”
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10816
It shows the following:
MDD First Gen 400watt PSU
MDD FW800 360watt PSU
MDD 2003 400watt PSU
Either way.. Bucky, myself and many others have proven that the 400watt PSU’s do just fine with 45-50cfm of total airflow.
The MacTracker data for the 2003 MDD G4 doesn’t even agree with Apple’s posted specifications database.
The MDD G4 that Apple released in July of 2003 was a re-release of the Dual 1.25 GHz 2MB-L3 MDD G4 first released in August of 2002, but with the power supply and fan modifications for quieter operation already installed. It is possible that the singe 1.25 GHz MDD G4 released in January of 2003 had the carry-over 400 watt power supply, but the top of the line MDD G4’s released that January had the 360 watt power supply. It was the dual processor models and those with 2MB-L3 cache that gave Apple problems with heat and thus noise.
And yes, 3 of the 60mm SilenX fans probably is more than enough air flow for the 400 watt power supply. My caution was with a direct swap of 2 60mm SilenX fans for the OEM fans in a 400 watt power supply. Adding a 3 fan takes care of that caution.
http://support.apple.com/specs/powermac/
I don’t know what I have been thinking.. In my 2 MDD’s I have one of each PSU. My dual 867 has the 400 and my dual 1.42 has the 360. The 400 has 3 x silenx as you know and the 360 has 2 x sunon that the original owner installed. The sunon are very quiet (maybe 24db) and blow about 24-25cfm each.
I was thinking both my PSU were 400 but I really did know one was a 360. A busy life does this to your mind I guess
Hi Jeff B. What about the solution with two DELTA 60mm Fans? Did you find your PSU to get too hot, or do you think it’s ok?
I’ve found an ebay reseller wich have some 60×25 2 pin, 23 cfm. i GOT A 400W Samsung Psu in a Dual 867 MDD.
The delta fans cool well but I find them too loud.
I strongly recommend using 3 x silenx fans. They are very quiet and 3 of them provide plenty of airflow.
These: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/4271/fan-232/SilenX_60×60x25mm_-_16dBA_-_18CFM_iXtrema_Pro_Fan_with_Fluid_Dynamic_Bearings_IXP-34-16.html?tl=g36c15s550
Ok, thanks. Have you used any 3->2 pin adapter?
I suppose you’ve used the 4 pin molex for the third fan, but what about the two internal fans?
Anyway, thanks a lot for the answer.
What an amazing thread. Thank you for doing this.
Until yesterday, I had figured my Dual G4 867 MDD was going to have to be sold or given away- as the noise was bad and it was hot- heating up my room by 5 degrees (with the door shut).
I don’t want to get rid of it- I loved having this computer through the years.
Question- I don’t know Mac hardware at all. I worked on PCs years ago and do most of my work on the Unix OS (various flavors). The question is- can I take this to an Apple Store and have them change out the fans? Is it worth the cost of having them do it? I do not have any type of Apple Care for any of my Apple products (iPod Mini, Nano and this Mac). Is this the best route for me, or should I grab those fans from pcsilent.de?
Sadly my mac is in storage until the end of this month when I can finally move into my home and get that office I’ve yearned for. So all my efforts will have to be staged and then executed later.
rppp01a,
I don’t think the apple store would be able to do that. Apple would only replace with original hardware and would charge a fortune. Your best bet is do-it-yourself. You should see a significant drop in temp with just the nap mode modification.
The pcsilent.de route is a good choice if you want an all inclusive kit, The silenx fans are proabably quieter, but will take extra tinkering to accomplish.
Yes.. Dale is right. You should do it yourself as its not hard at all other than the PSU.
NAP mode will help you more than anything. It will go from idling at 57-60c to about 40c.
The great thing also is that NAP seems to work best on dual 867 machines.
Ok. Thank you. I do want to quiet it down. I guess I just need to have the box in front of me and opened up. Else I simply over think things. I won’t have it unpacked for a few weeks, so I can’t report on this, yet.
Hi Guys, anyone can help me finding the CHUD Tools 3.5.2?
I don’t know how to download them from apple ftp site.
Many thanks
Attempted to send this the other day, but it never showed up, so I’ll try it in sections:
Hey guys,
Sorry it’s taken so long (see my last post on July 31st), but better late than never. I’ve gotten very busy with the studio since doing my cooling mod.
Here are the pics of the final mod on my G4 Dual 1.42 GHz FW800 (see full story, July 30th).
Rear fans, SiLenx 120mm 90 CFM 18 dB & 80mm 32 CFM 14 dB with adapter :
http://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=g4rearfansdl4.jpg
Close-up of 120mm showing wire attachment method:
http://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=g4120mmwirecg8.jpg
Close-up of 80mm showing 60mm-to-80mm adapter and gel silencers:
http://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=g480mmadapthg5.jpg
/2 to follow …
… /2
Speaker removed but still in use, and sound dampening material:
http://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=g4spkrpr5.jpg
SiLenx 80mm 32CFM 14 dB fan, quieter than a slot fan:
http://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=g480mmpcija9.jpg
Close-up of closest SiLenx 80mm x 15mm 24 CFM 14 dB front intake fan, there are two, side-by-side:
http://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=g4frontintakeps1.jpg
Front intake fan, showing position with respect to drive cage:
http://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=g4frontcagelt9.jpg
It’s possible both 80mm fans in the lower front intake are not needed, but removing one would only improve the noise spec by about 1 dB — not really worth the trouble.
/3 to follow …
… /3
I’m considering replacing the external 120mm SiLenx on the back, maybe with the 120mm 72CFM 14 dB version. Right now my G4 is running about 5 degrees cooler than it ever did, and I haven’t completed the Arctic Silver 200 burn in period.
The computer is not especially noisy — way quieter than with the original fans (I have the 360W PSU), but I still need to place insulation around the machine in order to record in the studio (then you almost can’t hear it) — so any reduction in SPL would be a bonus.
Hope this helps.
I may drop back once in a while to see what’s what — but basically I’m a happy camper.
Much thanks to Bucky and Jeff and all who helped me through the emotional rough spots.
Cheers,
-Wayne
To those that switched to the Arctic Silver thermal paste, did you also replace the “thermal pads” that surrounded the processors or did you just clean them or did you apply past to them? I saw an item in an Apple Discussions thread where someone stated that if you removed the heat sink, you needed to replace the thermal paste and the pads. Changing the paste is obvious, but I’ve not done anything to the pads but clean them. I don’t even know where one would find replacement pads.
Comments on this?
Has anybody seen these?
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2431/fan-119/Evercool_80mm_4_LED_Aluminum_Fan_-_Multicolor.html
Just ordered 2 for my 400 watt PSU that I installed so I could run my 7800 GTX Graphics Card on my MMD 1.25 Dual
Has anybody seen these & What you think?-Really need 2 good slot coolers but FRZNcpu doesn’t give a cfm/dBA stat. for thiers.
http://www.macpro.com/s.nl;jsessionid=0a0004471f435a40ff70918841f2bae9e84a03653571.e3iKaNePch4Re34Pa38Ta38OaNz0?sc=2&category=151&it=A&id=2489
Of course with the above order got 2 SilentX fans to go with the rest of my fans/puters.
Really want to thank you guys for all the info. After sweating a fan swap for days this was where I needed to be all along!!! Thanks again-Smeegle
Anybody have a live link to the apple script to enable cpu nap mode at login? The link above and the link over at xlr8yourmac seem to be dead.
Sorry Dale, I updated my business website:
http://www.gourmetcookies.iinet.net.au
and the nap mode got automatically deleted, so I’ve re-uploaded it for you… it seems to work well on Dual 1Ghz machines too!
…and thanks Wayne for all your pics you’ve uploaded showing the mods that you’ve made.
Trevor Buckenara
Bucky
Okay, maybe I’m just lazy, but I need help with the replacement of the fan… this is a darned log thread! Like others, I’m grateful it exists at all and have gone the lengths to do my best to quiet my Duall MMD 1Ghz machine.
I’m doing voice-overs in my home office, and obviously my un-modified machine is way too loud to do so. I’ve gotten the CHUD fix with the Nap mode applescript (board averages 42°c now) and have sound proofing foam between the side of the MDD and the desk and under the computer (space limitations in the office).
I just received the SilenX Ixtrema 128 to replace the Delta fan, and have come across the 3 pin/2pin dilemma. Cool thing is this fan comes with a 3 pin/4 pin adapter, which made ID of the proper wiring a snap. Now all I need are recommendations as to how to adapt the 4 pin plug to the 2 pin board connector. Is it best to buy a 2-pin plug and rewire, strip the housing on the supplied adapter and go bare wire to board (yikes!), or ???.
Any guidance and help in this area would be greatly appreciated! I’ve included a link for others to see what my question is: http://www.artistikvision.com/mdd/mdd.html
Thanks again!
P.S.
Has anyone else noticed a nasty static coming after installation of CHUD? I get it both on my MDD and my Powerbook. I’ve uninstalled CHUD on the Powerbook and the static has disappeared there… no go on the MDD, though.
Phil
Phillip, I answered this 3pin 2 pin dilema up near the top of the thread( your right it is long). No need to strip wires. You simply use the original 3 pin plug & plug that into the motherboards 2 pins.
I just basicly used trial & error to see which two of the 3 plugs were the right ones for the two pins on the motherboard and which combination made the fan spin. The other wire is not needed.
With other brand fans that I tried it was easier because there was a red, black & yellow wire. With the silenx fan all 3 wires are a cool silver colour, trendy but not very useful. So I just tried plugging different combinations of two plugs into the two pins on the G4’s motherboard.
If you imagine that on the silenx 3 wire plug there is an underside ( with 3 little square holes on it) and a top which is completely flush. It ended up being on the underside with the left hand wire and the middle wire plugged into the 2 pins on the motherboard of the G4.
I too have noticed a static type noise while screen saver & slideshows are on… read above to see how Jeff B solved it…
bucky, thanks for re-uploading the script!!
My thanks for the reply. I’d read the thread on the 3 pin/2 pin issue you addressed, but it made no mention of the adapter cable I received with the fan (check the link from my previous post). There’s no need for trial and error with the provided adapter… you can clearly see which wires are the working ones. I was just wondering if anyone took the extra step to “adapt’ the adapter.
Re: the static noise: I couldn’t find anything in the post that resemble my issue other than it occurs when nap mode is enabled. It’s not affected by mouse movement, and comes whether my speakers are on or muted in the system preferences, which tells me it’s electrical intereference.
I purchased a computer sound/vibration dampening kit from Dynamat and will install where needed when I put in the new fan. I’ll let you now how it goes.
Well, everything went well and in less than 30 minutes. Installed the Dynamax dampening material between the new fan and it’s housing, and between the power supply fans and the side of the case. Come to find out I have an extremely noisy slot/graphics card fans. Still running tests on it… 49° without slot fan, 48° with, so losing the slot fan wouldn’t be a biggie. I’m not doing a whole lot of graphic stuff, but I do need ultra quiet for voiceover work. I’m interested in seeing how it does when I do heavy video editing.
Thanks to all who’ve provided instruction and encouragement. Any suggestions on making it a tad quieter (short of putting it in a different room) would be appreciated!
No worries Phil, I just had a look at the photos in your link, so did you connect the fan using the adapter? I took the adaptor off & used the 3 pin plug to connect it the way the original is connected to the motherboard. This way the fan is able to use the motherboard to cycle up & down in speed & is usually extremely quiet due to the fact that it doesnt have to run at full speed.
If you use the adaptor & connect it to a spare Molex connector in the G4 MDD somewhere, it runs at full speed all of the time & is therefore noisier.
I would also suggest putting it under your desk on a carpeted floor. This made a huge difference for me.
I installed the “SilenX” and found a significant noise reduction. But, discovered that Termaltake no longer makes the Volcano 5.
Four questions:
1. Since installing the SilenX I’ve installed two SATA hard drives in the optical bays behind it. Is this going to be a problem noise wish and/or cooling wise?
2. I couldn’t find anywhere that carries the Everflow F126025DH for the power supply fans. Does anyone know of a comparable substitute and where to get it?
3. Recently I installed a Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition. Since then my noise level is back to where it was or worse. Does anyone know of a solution to this problem?
4. Bucky suggested putting the unit on the carpet. I have mine on a piece of 3/4 wood to keep from staining the carpet. I recently moved and when I picked up the unit there was a very dark and penetrating stain.
Thanks for any and all help.
Well, I finally received and installed the “Silentcooler” fan kit from PCSilent.de. The fans ran really quietly. It seemed almost too good to be true. It was.
The cpu overheated within about 20 min of use, despite me only using it for mail and web browsing. It reached 72oC (around 161oF) before going to emergency sleep mode. I reinstalled the original cpu fan and it’s sitting at borderline now (62oC, which is the upper temp limit defined). The fan is whirring along like an aircraft engine again.
From what I read, I always thought it was the cpu fans that were the noisy ones, but it seems it’s the cpu one. I’ve never used Temperature Monitor today, so I don’t know what to expect from the cpu temp. I don’t know if it’s always been at this temp or not. It’s rather worrying. What temp should I expect from a dual-1GHz MDD for just web and mail use?
I hope I haven’t wasted a lot of money on these fans
Cheers,
Wayne
Sorry, two things:
- the SilentCooler fan was definitely sending air in the right direction. But it didn’t seem like enough of it.
- By “I’ve never used Temperature Monitor today” I meant “I’ve never used Temperature Monitor TILL today”
Hi Wayne, After all the fan swaps that I have detailed above & after enabling Nap mode my 1 GHz dual MDD runs at between 105 – 115 Degrees F. I dont know much about these “SilentCooler” fan kits that you speak of. By the way I just looked at the website & do you mean “Smartcooler”?
I think the SilenX 120mm fan at 18db & 90 CFM are going to be much quieter than the 120 mm one that you got that makes 38db of noise at 103CFM. I would say that maybe your main 120 mm fan is not spinning properly. open up the case & make sure its working. Otherwise I would try & get a refund & just buy a Silenx 120 mm fan instead. They are fairly cheap anyway!
Also have you enabled nap mode yet a