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” 120x120x38mm – 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 http://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.
Cool Stuff 
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.
Hi, I have a g4 mdd 1.25GHz Dual and mines runs absolutely silent with the original fan configuration.What I did,(do with all computers I service) is to remove the fans, including the 2 in the psu itself as well as the large heatsink one and the other smaller one, clean them thoroughly, get yourself some wd-40 or ideally a heavier spray grease and after cleaning spray this into the fan bearings then tip them up on a tissue to drain the excess,(ensure you spray under the circuit board straight to the bearings, some fans allow removal of the main body), allow excess to drain, clean again and listen to the difference.
Wind tunnel my A**E
I see based on the spelling A**E you’re likely in the UK, too. Could you recommend a specific spray grease and perhaps some points on how to remove the fans? The large main one looks very straightforward, but I haven’t looked into the PSU ones yet. I would LOVE to get my MDD running quietly (this easily!), though.
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 (3x60mm) 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:
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:
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.
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_60x25mm_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 60x25mm 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:
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).
😦 31 aB(A) is loud. And there is a high resonance I will have to find.
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:
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!
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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 1x80mm 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.
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_80x80x25mm_-_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 🙂
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.
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 🙂
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 3x60mm 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 3x60mm psu thing like I did use 4 pin molex to power all of them or you simply won’t have enough airflow.
The 2x120mm 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 2x60mm 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.
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 2x120mm into the mobo and the 3x60mm 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.
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 60x60x25 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 40x40x20 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 60x60x25 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 60x60x25 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 3x60mm 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_60x60x25mm_-_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 :
Close-up of 120mm showing wire attachment method:
Close-up of 80mm showing 60mm-to-80mm adapter and gel silencers:
/2 to follow …
… /2
Speaker removed but still in use, and sound dampening material:
SiLenx 80mm 32CFM 14 dB fan, quieter than a slot fan:
Close-up of closest SiLenx 80mm x 15mm 24 CFM 14 dB front intake fan, there are two, side-by-side:
Front intake fan, showing position with respect to drive cage:
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 as I have explained above at the start of this thread…. this makes a huge difference. Just make sure you set System Preferences – Energy saver to “Never put the computer to sleep”. Also untick ” put the hard disks to sleep when possible”.
I also veeerrrry carefully opened up the case & vacumed the MDD air intakes first with a plastic vacume cleaner nozzle! Then get a can of compressed air & blow out all the remaining dust from inside your MDD. This will reduce the temp by about 5-10 degrees F.
Hi George
The extra hard drives shouldnt be a problem. I have 3 of my 4 slots filled.
Maybe try these fans below, I believe they are the exact 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
I cant understand a dark & penetrating stain on the carpet?… might be dust? try vacuming then a carpet cleaner or scrub with sard wonder soap… it got a whole glass of red wine out of my cream carpet!
Thanks, Bucky. I’ll order the fans from tigerdirect today and let you know how it goes. You didn’t mention anything about the noise from the Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition. Any suggestions there?
Thanks for the advice Bucky,
To address your points:
> By the way I just looked at the website & do
> you mean “Smartcooler”?
Yes, sorry, it was very late when I posted 🙂
> 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.
But if the 103 CFM isn’t cooling the cpu, wouldn’t the 90 CFM one be worse? Unless the fan I received is defective and not really operating at that flow rate. I’ve written to the seller, explained the situation and asked them to advise me whether they want to try a replacement or whether I should just expect a refund instead.
> I would say that maybe your main 120 mm fan is
> not spinning properly. open up the case & make > sure its working.
Yep, it’s working. And it’s blowing in the right direction.
> Otherwise I would try & get a refund & just buy
> a Silenx 120 mm fan instead.
If I get a refund I’ll do that. On the expectation that the main noise would be from the PSU fans, I originally didn’t care that much about the CPU fan with the kit. However it turns out that it’s the CPU fan that was making the most noise in my computer. So now that one defective fan cold make the kit a complete waste of money.
> Also have you enabled nap mode yet as I have
> explained above at the start of this thread….
Yes, I have tried that. If nap mode is enabled, the cpu runs cool enough with the new fan, however it also causes performance issues on my computer related to scrolling. This is really obvious on web pages (tried with multiple browsers), but also in simple system windows. Scrolling becomes jerky and slow. With the scroll ball on the Mighty Mouse it’s really horrible. You don’t see this? This is with CHUD 3.5.2 on a dual-1.0 MDD running OS X 10.4.10.
Also, the nap mode thing, while nifty, is a hack. For most users that’s fine, as all it does it lower some fan noise. But for me it would be a hack that keeps my system alive. If the script didn’t start at reboot, or I booted from a startup disc, it’d overheat and shut down.
> I also veeerrrry carefully opened up the case &
> vacumed the MDD air intakes first with a
> plastic vacume cleaner nozzle!
Yeah, I also gave my system a good clean out. Unfortunately it wasn’t the solution.
Anyway, thanks for your advice. I guess I’ll wait to hear back from the PCSilent guys…
George – I’m not sure about the noise from the Radeon 9800 Pro. Have you tried googling about silencing that? Heres a post from Jeff B above regarding the Radeon 9600:
“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”
Wayne, that’s weird, I have never experienced scrolling issues with nap mode at all. It runs fine for me, just cool & quieter & I’m also on 10.4.10. Some macs like certain Powerbooks & G5 Powermacs actually come out of the factory with nap enabled, so it’s not really a hack as such. Just an Apple software tool to control hardware. If you use the nap mode script I have written above, it comes on at startup every time.
Have you tried increasing your RAM? it’s cheap these days & maybe this would stop the scrolling issues? I have 1.5GB of RAM.
Nap really is crucial to making the SilenX fan work properly as without it, as you say the temperature climbs & the SilenX spins at full speed constantly & is fairly noticeable. ( although nowhere near as loud as the original fan)
Other than that read the thread above ( halfway down) about how Jeff B has installed several SilenX fans to push & suck out the hot air with a 120mm fan on the back of the MDD Powermac’s case. This solution does away with the need for nap mode apparently.
> so it’s not really a hack as such. Just an Apple software tool
> to control hardware. If you use the nap mode script I have
> written above, it comes on at startup every time.
Yeah, by ‘hack’ I meant more the issue of forcing it to turn on all the time using a script. I don’t mean it’s a bad thing. Just that in cases like mine where it’s life-or-death for the computer, it could have unforeseen consequences. Like if I wanted to run the Hardware test from a startup disc… it wouldn’t run then, would it?
But apart from that, I don’t know why nap mode does that to my computer. But it’s definite and consistent. I can sit there with the control panel open and tick/untick the nap mode box and immediately see the behaviour of scrolling change. I can’t imagine why my computer behaves differently. It’s not like I have a bunch of weird 3rd party system software installed. Strange. What graphics card do you have? I still have the Radeon 9000 Pro that came with the machine, so maybe that’s it? I have a new card arriving soon, so maybe that’ll fix it.
> Have you tried increasing your RAM? it’s cheap these days
> & maybe this would stop the scrolling issues? I have 1.5GB of RAM.
I’ve had 1.25 GB from when I got the machine and it’s rarely really been needed, so I don’t think it’s a problem.
> Nap really is crucial to making the SilenX fan work
> properly as without it
Ah, now this is something I didn’t understand before. If that’s the case, I would definitely have to go with Jeff B’s solution if I was going to go that way. Thanks.
This forum has been an amazing source of information, thanks! I know it sometimes sounds like I haven’t read it all, but I have… there’s just so much of it to remember 😉
Well, I really have to compliment PCSilent.de on their good customer service. Very prompt, too, no stuffing about. Upon receiving my email about the heat problems, Andreas immediately credited my account for the full amount of the kit. He didn’t want to mess about with replacement fans, or even want me to return the fans! I feel bad now, since I’m still using the PSU fans from the kit (though I suspect they’re not helping much). But if you order from them, you can know they’ll be more than fair.
I’m consdering what to try next. Since I don’t want to risk something that requires nap mode to work right, I’m thinking of giving a good old Panaflo 120 mm a try. It’s still noisy (41 dB), but quieter than the Papst that’s in there currently, and I’ve heard that it effectively feels much quieter because of different pitch. Anyway, it’s a cheap option, so I’m gonna try it and see if it’s good enough for me before I experiment with fans on the back.
I was also tempted by the Verax M10 kit, but I’m worried whether it’d handle the hot processor in my system. Old reports on the web suggested it had more trouble cooling 2002 MDDs, but that could well have been fixed in later revisions. It’s really hard to find good reviews on it.
If NewerTechnology would adapt their “MAXPower” cpu upgrade for the MDD, I’d be tempted by that as well. Those 7448 processors sound like they run a lot cooler, so it might be worth paying for a cooler system and a cpu upgrade at the same time 😉
pretty impressive stuff. Thats customer service!
Why dont you order a SilenX 120 first & see how it goes… you can always use it on the back to suck out the hot air if it doesnt cool the CPU sufficiently… but I think it will almost certainly do the job as many others have tried it already with success with both Nap or no nap mode.
When I said ” to work properly” I mean totally silently, even at full speed it’s still very quiet & at 18dB vs 41dB, will be quieter at full speed than the Panaflow will be at half speed! 41db is a hell of a noise but not much more airflow at 90 vs 104 cfm.
I installed the Thermaltake fans Bucky recommeded, TT6025A-2B. In doing so, I discovered it’s not necessary to remove the yellow wire as stated in http://www.xlr8yourmac.com above. I merely removed the white divider tabs where the wires attach. Now to get Nap Mode to work.
This is a long thread and very confusing!
I’m based in the UK, and have just acquired a G4MDD Mhz Dual.
This is obviuosly one of the fans I require to make it quieter:
SilenX Fan Ixtrema Pro 18dBA 120x120x38 90CFM (IXP-76-18)
Which PSU fans would be the best to obtain? Obviously, the easier the installation the better!
Many thanks,
Robert
Just a follow on – it is a 1Mhz dual machine!
I can’t tell you how excited I am to find this article. I just ordered the SilenX fan from FrozenCPU and it should arrive Monday. I’m going to go home tonight and clean my noisy G4 up and see if removing some of the dust helps in the meantime. The performance of my machine is mostly fine, but I was seriously considering buying a new one because I’m tired of the noise. I’m going to try several if not all of your other suggestions as well. Thank you! 🙂
Hi revrob , Yes it’s a long thread, with a hell of a lot of information for MDD owners, I’ve learnt heaps! – but first try the basics that I originally wrote about, then go from there.
1st – replace the 120 mm CPU fan with the SilenX fan. 2nd – Then enable Nap mode. 3rd – replace the Power supply fans:
try these fans below, I have learnt through this thread that they are the exact same ones I used in my power supply, 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
And you’ve got the same model as I have so it all should work fine and you’ll have a near silent MDD Powermac.
Hey all!
Been a while since I have been around here. How is everyones MDD mods working out?
I sold my dual 1.42 recently to help me pay for a Mac Pro but I still have my dual 867 and use it as a media center.
I have the dual 867 all pimped out now. 2GB RAM, 1.32TB storage and of course a few silenX fans 🙂
Hope all is well with everyone!
Hello!
My MDD dual 867 is still moving along nicely as my main computer.
I just upgraded it to Leopard 10.5 yesterday and so far so good. I would say overall at this point I don’t notice a speedup or a slowdown overall, so I think that’s a good thing. There’s a few bugs here and there, but nothing that’s a show stopper so far. Overall a very solid release that’s going to get much better as 10.5.1 .2 .3 progress.
Chud tools 3.5.2 still installs/works along with nap mode, although it’s still too early to tell if nap brings any instability in this release. So far so good.
The applescript to enable nap mode is once again broken, oh well, maybe someone will get that figured out again soon.
Hope you enjoy the new Mac Pro, I’m going to try and get another year or two out of this 867 before I jump to intel.
I am right in the middle of replacing my PSU fans with the Everflow models from the Thermaltake Volcano 5’s. I’ve got my PSU open and I don’t know how to unplug the Delta fans. I tried pulling the connectors, I tried squeezing them, they won’t budge. This step is skipped over in all the instructions I’ve read. Help! How do I get these suckers out of here?
I am right now in the middle of swapping my Delta PSU fans for the Everflow fans, and I don;t know how to remove and switch the 2-pin connectors.
From the xlr8 instructions:
” I used a small screwdriver to push out the little prongs that held the wires in the connectors. I did this to both the Delta and Everflow fans. ”
I don’t know what this means:
1) I don’t see any prongs.
2) push out from where? from which hole and in what direction?
I have the PSU open and the fans out. I hope someone here can help me soon!
Got it.
Hi Nate I just saw your posts? have you had any luck? I found it quite easy to get the fans out… but tricky to swap & remove the 2 pin connectors.
It’s been a while since I did mine… Maybe try levering them out carefully & gently with a tiny precision screwdriver.
Ok.. just saw your new post come through… good to see you got it… that’s without doubt the hardest part of the whole operation.
Well, I have successfully swapped put my two Delta PSU fans.
I bought two Volcano 5’s on eBay and used the fans from those. One of them was labeled as the Everflow F126025DH. The other one, I was dismayed to find out, was NOT an everflow at all, but some fan I’ve never heard of – a Y.S. Tech NFD 1260257B-1A.
I’m not worried about it – it came out of a Volcano 5 box attached to a Volcano 5 heatsink – it’s got to be rated the same as the Everflow.
I now have my MDD up and running and it is not even SLIGHTLY quieter. Not one bit! I am pissed!
Anyone else have this expereince – ?
Swapped out only the PSU fans with virtually no difference in noise level.
The computer might actually be louder.
Aaargh!
Bummer eh Nate?
You will find that the main noise problem is the 120mm Delta fan that cools down the processor. Once I replaced that, it was a big difference, but then I could hear a high pitched whine from the power supply when Nap mode was enabled, ( which was insanely annoying)… so I then replaced the power supply fans like you just did.
You’ve done the hardest part. The 120 mm fan swap with the SilenX fan is a 5 minute job. Then enable Nap Mode & you’ll be a happy camper!
Dale:
Good to know that CHUD works well in Leopard. My copy is en route. I bought the family pacvk so I can install it on both my macs and may girlfriends macbook.
Man.. this cold I have is really affecting my typing 🙂
*makes more neo citran*
Anyone here seen this?
I got my SilenX fan in the mail last night and installed it this morning. Now I have have two Thermaltake fans in my power supply and a 120mm SilenX in the case.
And my MDD still whines like crazy.
I have CHUD installed and I can’t hear a difference with nap mode turned on or off. I can click and unclick the “nap” box in the Hardware preference panel, and I hear no difference at all.
I opened the machine while it was running, and I physically stopped each fan, so I could tell where all the noise was coming from.
The SilenX makes a big deep whirr,
and the two Thermaltakes in the PSU make a high pitched whine.
The little fan in the door makes almost no sound at all.
You guys are telling me, with the same mods I’ve made, your MDDs are “whisper quiet?”
Do I need to buy 7 yards of Dynamat and go nuts?
N
Nate:
Is the SilenX plugged into where the stock fan was on the mobo or are you using the 4 pin molex adapter?
For it to run quietly you need to plug it into the mobo. To do this you take the 3 pin plug on the end of it and turn it upside down so that the 2 endge guides for the adapter are facing down. Then plug into the 2 pin mobo connector into the extreme left and middle plug when looking at the connector from the fron’t.
To be sure you’re doing it right just look at where both the wire end and adapter connect. You will notice on the adaptor that one of the 3 holes doesn’t connect to a wire. This is the hole that you leave off the mobo connector.
With the fan plugged there it will only get loud under heavy use for over a few min but even then not as loud as when in 4 pin molex.
Great news (for me at least) with my Leopard upgrade it appears that sleep mode suddenly works exactly as it should on my MDD dual 867!! I am running nap mode and all. Also have two third party NEC chipset usb2 pci cards installed as well. It was sporadic at best with 10.4, but now it sleeps every time it should. I’m absolutely thrilled!, plus Leopard performs just as fast and in some ways faster than Tiger, except for firefox which now takes about 4 times as long to load as it did in 10.4? but I think that’s a firefox issue.
Thanks for all the info on this site!
I installed two of the SilenX 120mm fans (the 90 CFM inside, 72 CFM outside) and replaced the PSU fans with the Thermaltake models; the 120mm fans are plugged into the mobo and Nap mode is enabled. Rear plastic was also removed.
Nate: I can’t say that it is “whisper quiet” but it is quieter. Now it seems that the PSU fans are the loudest with the video card fan a close second (ATI 9800 Pro). I have a theory that some of the PSU cases are just loud, either though vibrations or harmonics or something else. (I’m using the 360w PSU.) Even with the door open the PSU seemed to make the same sound level whether attached or not, so I don’t think case vibrations are the culprit.
At this point I’m not sure I want to spend another ~$30 on the three-fan solution for the PSU. I’d much rather put a slow-moving 120mm inside to cool the PSU, but that seems a little beyond my skill level (as does the Dynamat mod).
If you’re considering these mods, I’d say that if nothing else it’s a great short-term project and the end result is that your MDD will run cooler and at least somewhat quieter. You might get lucky and get it whisper-quiet!
I do indeed have the SilenX plugged into the 4-pin molex.
I’ll give the mobo a try, and I’ll keep you posted.
Ok, the SilenX is pluged into the mobo and the MDD is indeed quieter. I opened the case, and the SilenX isn’t even spinning. I can still hear the annoying whine of the PSU fans and I’m going to try the insert mod. We’ll see where it goes from there.
Hi all,
I discovered this blog today when I was searching for solutions to get NAP working in Leopard on my MDD Dual 1 Ghz.
I installed CHUD 3.5.2 wich does allow me to switch on NAP, but it doesn’t actually slow down the fans like it used to do in OS X 10.4.x for the past quiet years.
Besides that i am having another problem. My level 2 and 3 cache are disabled and cann’t get switched on in the Hardware controlpanel.
Does any off you have the same experiences and maybe know a solution for it?
MacCrack,
I own a MDD Dual 867, with 10.5 installed and CHUD 3.5.2
I know what you are saying about fan speed changes. I used to get audible changes to fan speed with 10.4 BEFORE I switched out the fans. After I swapped them with quieter models I didn’t get that change. The fan change for me was annoying, it made my fans sound higher pitched and I hated it!! I’m not sure why they don’t change pitch for you in 10.5 but Nap does work and keeps the processor cool. You might want to consider different fans to lower the noise, it’s much better!
Also, I too noticed L2 and L3 cache set to none, but I ran xbench with CHUD installed and uninstalled and got basically the same results. You would know if cache as disabled because it would seriously handicap the processor performance. It appears CHUD is no longer able to enable/disable the cache so it just defaults to none. I figure no harm done since cache is still actually enabled and 99.5% of people would never want to disable it anyway. Thank goodness nap still works though!!
Sleep is still working like a dream for me in 10.5!! I even tested sleep with an external usb2 drive attached and it was still working. I know this has been a problem in the past for people as well. It’s a WD My Drive, which actually sleeps on it’s own after inactivity. I think this helps probably.
The firefox loading issue is now fixed, it was actually just an addon script that caused the high load time issue. With the latest leopard compatible update all it well and firefox actually loads faster now than in 10.4
Hi folks, thanks for all the help thus far.
I orignally plugged the SilenX fan into the 4-pin molex, and it spun at full speed, buzzing like a swarm of angry bees.
At the advice of a few poepl here, I unplugged it from the molex and plugged it ionto the 2-pin connector on the mobo.
It didn’t spin. At all.
I tried pluggin it in upside down, all different combinations, no spin.
So I went back to the old 4-pin molex and… now it still doesn’t spin. At all.
Computer’s running pretty hot now.
Quieter, but hot.
What’s going on with that SilenX fan you guys love so much?
I took it out and tried spinning it manually, and the blades atually scrape against the sides. It’s made of such lightweight plastic that it doesn’t hold its round shape. Any pressure on it, and the sides press against the blades!
I’ve now re-installed it and it won’t spin no matter what.
Also – I tested the 2-pin connector on the mobo AND the 4-pin molex by pluggin my old delta into each of them. The Delta spun like a whooping siren. I believe the SilenX is dead after just 2 days.
I have PowerMac G4 Dual 1.42GHz and I had Tiger. I installed CHUD and it had a Control Panel called Processor, where I could stop one processor. I live in Brazil and it is very hot here, sometimes my G4 freezes or give me the Kernel panic. Most time it happens when I use a intensive processor task. I used to turn off one processor and I this means less heat in processors so it never crashed using just one processor. I can use 2 processor for a long time as much as I keep doing low intensive use of processors.
Now I installed Leopard and the new CHUD but it doesn’t bring anymore the processor control panel, now my G4 and I are suffering with the crashes again.
Could some one help me?
MarcoB,
You don’t have version 3.5.2 installed! It appears you have a newer version. The correct version will have a hardware control panel, not processor. Try downloading 3.5.2 as it’s the last version that gave us the option to use nap mode on our computers.
Thank you for the great news. After your answer I could get CHUD 3.5.2 FREE at this address ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Tool_Chest/…formance_tools/
I tried CHUD 3.5.2 but it did not work under Leopard. The Hardware.prefPane did not opened under Leopard.
Using Pacifist from http://www.charlessoft.com/ on CHUD 4.5.0 I found out that Hardware preference is included in CHUD 4.5.0, but not as a System preference anymore but as an application.
If you installed CHUD 4.5.0 you can find it at /Library/Application Support/HWPrefs it is called CPUPalette, just double click to run. There is no menu in this app, Apple took off all the good things. Click on the lower processor or on the minus sign to turn it off. Click on the window’s red bullet to close it. Just simple as that.
But I think most of us wont like it. I don’t.
Again using Pacifist I managed to find out that in CHUD 4.4.4 Apple included a System preference called Processor.prefPane and it has many good features. First of all, it works in Leopard, appears in menu bar, it is easy to turn on/off the processor, controls L2 and L3 cache, shows lots of information of your processors and also has the Processor Palette.
So, grab and install Pacifist, grab CHUD 4.4.4 and mount it. Drag to Pacifist CHUD.pkg and you will see the contents of it, click on the arrow of System folder and Library folder. Now you see the PreferencePanes listed, give a single click on the PreferencePanes folder to select it and click Install in the Pacifist Window.
It will ask for your admin password and will install the Processor.prefPane.
I hope this can help many of you.
For any one that may be interested I bought two of the last of the complete fan kits (the more complete kits with all 5 fans and heatsink each) from Verax for the dual processor MDDs. These were never taken out of the boxes.
I’m moving on to more applescripts for the G5 soon so these original kits in boxes are for sale.
Anyone interested can email me at mikebrelef@comcast.net for a picture of the entire kit. Each kit comes in tow boxes with phot instructions.
I can send you a picture of one and its contents if you’re interested.
Nate, it seems to me that you made the big mistake of physically stopping the fans. You should NEVER do this. I’d say with almost 100% certainty, that’s why your Silenx fan stopped working after 2 days… sorry dude, but just get another one, be gentle with it & try all the differerent combinations into the 2 pin Mobo connector & it WILL spin quietly.
It’s not gonna be totally silent… but a whole lot better than before. Also put the Mac on a carpeted floor under your desk. This reduced the noise heaps again for mine.
I’m still not satisfied with the noise level after replacing the PS fans and installing the Silenx processor fan. I tried nap mode a while back and got weird messages about CHAD. Before I try again I have 2 questions: 1. Is there a link to instructions regarding this? I hate to think about reading through this lengthy, but certainly helpful, dialog again. 2. I’m running leopard; will that change any of the instructions?
Thanks.
I’m not sure what I did different with CHUD 3.5.2?
I did an archive and install of Leopard, after that the hardware pane was missing in system preferences so I simply reinstalled and the pref pane appeared. Of course all I care about is enabling nap mode, which works great for me. I am not interested in disabling cache or one of the processors, but like MarcoB found above, if 3.5.2 doesn’t work then 4.4.4 might be your ticket.
bucky, the tip for the carpet should work great, but I just want to mention that this is the #1 worst spot to place a computer because of all of the extra dust it will create in the case. Just be prepared to open the case often to clean it out.
So like I said sleep under leopard is working perfectly! Anyone else seeing an improvement in sleep under leopard?
The link mentioned to download CHUD 3.5.2 doesn’t work and a search of Apple’s website didn’t produce anything on CHUD for me. I need to download 4.4.4. Where can I find it? Thanks.
The link to apple’s FTP developer site with all CHUD versions is:
ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Tool_Chest/Testing_-_Debugging/Performance_tools/
Thanks Dale, I hadnt thought about the extra dust, I might have to have a look inside (last cleanout was about 9 months ago). It seems to be running a few degrees warmer lately so that’s probably why eh? Great to hear that sleep works well under Leopard with USB 2 PCI cards & nap mode.
Can you tell me Dale, does sleep in Leopard still turn off Nap mode like it seems to in Tiger?
Downloaded the AppleScript for napmode at the first of this thread, but was told, “ERROR: nap not supported by this processor type.” I’ve got a dual 1.25. What’s going on?
Previous post was incomplete. I should have mentioned that I’d added CHUD 4.4.4 prior to trying to install script. I removed 4.4.4 and installed 3.5.2 and then tried to open napmode.app. This time I got the following, “ERROR: unable to initialize CHUD.framework – CHUD function: utilGetOperatiingSysteminfo() status: chudBootstrapFailure[-11999] (src/chudUtil.c:432)” Now I’m really confused. When I tried CHUD and NapMode on 10.4 there wasn’t a problem. Has this got something to do with Leopard?
bucky, nap never turned off for me when my computer slept in tiger, it also stays on under leopard. Not sure why it turns off for you. But, it appears things work differently on certain revisions of these machines?
George, I mentioned in an earlier post that after installing Leopard that the script would no longer run. After a little investigation it appears that the error you report above is the same as me under 3.5.2, however if I enable nap in the hardware preference pane nap works fine. It’s a bit of a pain to remember, but I don’t reboot often.
That error sounds like CHUD doesn’t recognize leopard, however it’s still weird that it works fine when enabled in sys preferences.
I also tried 4.4.4 as mentioned above, but it showed and controls even less than 3.5.2 for me (dual 867). But it does also enable nap for me, but the weird thing is if I close out of the preference pane in 4.4.4 and go back in, nap is unchecked, I experimented with this and found that even though it’s unchecked, it’s still enabled based on processor temps, again very weird. In 4.4.4 if I check and then uncheck the box immediately nap is disabled and temps begin to rise again.
The command that is issued by the apple script available for download at the top of this page is basically:
“hwprefs -v cpu_nap=true” or “false” to turn off. You can run that from the terminal to get the same error message in 3.5.2 When I installed 4.4.4 and issued this command I got a different error message(ERROR: unable to initialize CHUD.framework – Error #-11999), but the command still didn’t work.
I just wish I could automate it some way to enable nap mode like it does when you manually do it from the preference pane. I wish I knew of some way of seeing how the pref pane calls this command that works differently than issuing the command in the terminal.
Dale:
I upgraded my dual 867 to Leopard earlier tonight and not only will the startup script not launch properly but once I enable nap mode manually in preferences the machine gets unstable after.
It locks up on me a few minutes after I enable nap. If I run without nap it is perfectly stable. Makes me wonder what you’re doing that i’m not. Any ideas?
My bad. I assumed the script had to be installed to get into nap mode. After checking nap mode in the Hardware pane, the noise level doesn’t seem to be much different; just a different sound. Most of the noise is coming from the power supply. In the next day or two I’ll remove it and see about putting something in the opening as mentioned above using an old Palm Pilot case, if I can find something comparable.
I got my replacement SilenX after returning the broken one (just like ej, above) and the machine is quieter. Those PSU fans are whiny, though. Has anyone found a way to quiet them without replacing them (again) ? Anyone used dynamat between the PSU and case?
good to hear Nate, Id say it could maybe be a vibration making the whine. Try dynamatting the entire PSU first & then the G4’s case. Make sure it’s very thin matting between case & PSU as you might find it hard to re insert the PSU if it’s too thick.
Jeff B,
All I did was archive and install with the option to import accounts checked. Then after that was complete I checked and it had of course not imported CHUD, so I just ran the 3.5.2 install again and even without reboot nap was up and running again. I have zero stability issues. What types of add-ons particularly PCI and graphics card do you have? I have a 9800 pro (pc flashed) 128mb, 2 NEC chipset USB 2.0 pci cards, and Motorola wireless G pci card (that tiger recognized as an airport card, but leopard reports as a “Third Party Wireless Card”). Other than that I have 3 IDE HDD’s, and have 2 DVD drives, one is the original combo drive and the other is a pioneer dvr-107d dvd burner.
Great to find a resource with recent updates.
I did a little research and heard about the noise/cooling problems with the g4 MDD’s. I picked up a Dual 867 on craigslist for under $300 and tossed in a Superdrive, another HD from an old Emac and maxed it out at 2gigs of ram. Also found on craigslist a nice 20″ inch apple display cheap. I love craigslist. My question is: Has anyone found a solid alternative to the discontinued Volcano 5 fan? I found one on Ebay but can’t locate another. Runs cool in mid 30’s C.
Dale:
I did an upgrade install. I plan on doing a clean install soon though.
I have 3 cards in the dual 867.. a radeon 9600 agp, pci ethernet and like you I have a nec chipset usb 2 pci card.
With the other 120mm silenx on the back I am doing fine without nap anyway but I still want to get it working for the sake of energy conservation.
I will try nap again once I do a clean install of Leopard and CHUD.
rob_c:
I put in a pair of Akasa AK-192BKT-Bs, they are really silent and seem to keep the PSU a lot cooler than the originals.
Glad to hear that nap works even better with Leopard, I’m planning to upgrade soon. But before that I think I’ll get myself a faster graphics card (currently a modified Geforce FX 5200 from a G5). I’ve pretty much settled on a flashed Radeon 9700 Pro, but I’m a little concerned about the extra noise it will create with the stock fan. As I run dual displays and Leopard seems to use the GPU a lot, I reasoned that I need to find a more effective way to cool the Radeon, but in a quiet way. Any suggestions? As the MDD’s case is a bit cramped, conventional cooling solutions from manufacturers like Arctic Cooling or Zalman are unfortunately out of question. I might opt for a pci slot cooler, but will I find a reasonably quiet unit that will keep the Radeon alive?
Hi all,
Just spent the last 2 1/2 hours reading this blog… Wow! It’s alot to digest! My SilenX 120 arrived today, so tomorrow I’ll open up my Dual 1.25 G4 MDD to start to quiet the jet engines! Thanks for not only the info, but the confidence to do this myself!
Bucky,
Instead of using carpet, try the compressed foam that is made for placing under sleeping bags when you camp. It used to be called “ensolite” some years back. It works great for lots of stuff, but particularly under my MDD.
So. I have the new SilenX installed, running off the mobo.
(the old broken one got sent back)
I have the Volcano 5 fans in the PSU, whining like two colicky babies.
This weekend I did the “PSU insert” mod using 1/8″ sheet rubber.
The machine seems a little quieter.
I also stuck some under the SilenX fan,
and I wedged some between the edge of the fan and the drive cage.
The silenX fan isn’t as big and cluncky as the old Delta, and there’s a lot of wiggle room there.
Has anyone else put sheet rubber in their case, and is this a safe thing to do?
OK… I have installed the SilenX 120 fan (checked and it works) and have Nap mode enabled… At this very moment, the only programs running are Firefox and Temperature Monitor and my CPU temp is 139.9F!!! All time high was 140.3F before I put in the new fan and enabled nap. It is alot quieter, but this temp has me really worried!
My bad! I re-read through this blog to see if I missed something on the “Nap mode”. I thought all I had to do was stick the line of code into the Accts Login Items screen… but, nope… went into Prefs, Hardware and “Nap” wasn’t checked. As soon as I checked it, the temp started dropping. It’s been just 5 minutes and already it’s at 120.9F and still dropping. Here’s hoping that my little mistake helps someone else!
I may have spoken too soon… downloading some updates has taken me back up to 138.9f…
what sort of updates cloudhorse?
Nate, someone in this thread above( up at the start) completely covered every metal surface in their MDD Powermac with Dynamat, not rubber ( dynamat breathes, rubber doesnt). They said that stuff made it a fair bit quieter again – in fact they said their MDD Powermac ended up becoming almost totally silent for a music recording studio… but they did all sorts of funky modifications to the inside of the case.
If your keen, you could always try Rob C’s idea of using a pair of Akasa AK-192BKT-Bs in the power supply. As he said ” they are really silent and seem to keep the PSU a lot cooler than the originals”.
Have you also tried putting the mac under your desk on carpet or some sort of compressed foam like cloudhorse said. That makes a big big difference than having it at ear level on the desk.
Script to enable nap mode for MDD G4’s with CHUD 3.5.2 installed:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071101231643321
A comment mentions that they crash if nap mode is enabled and they have 2 procs enabled as well. I have zero issues on a dual mdd 867 with both procs on.. maybe I’m just a lucky one?
Forgot to mention above, that’s for people running 10.5 and finding that the old script no longer works.
Dale:
I reinstalled CHUD on a fresh Leopard install and have both nap and the boot launch script working perfectly now.
Hi Jeff hows it going? Did you do an “Archive & Install” of Leopard, or an erase & install? I’d want to know that nap mode works on 10.5 with the archive option as I couldnt handle doing a complete erase again…
I saw that comment on MacOSXhints too Dale, was that guy saying that with Nap mode & selecting two processors, that it crashes Dual processor MDD Powermacs on 10.5? … because mine doesnt crash on 10.4 with two 1 ghz processors! How about your Dual MDD Jeff? I wouldn’t want to upgrade to 10.5 if that was the case.
We have a dual Powermac G4
sn: XB238139MXD
Model: M8570 EMC:1914 from 2002.
My son is using it now.
It seems like the power supply gave up.
Can you advise me, how to find the right power supply part, possibly with a quieter fan. I found an article describing how to replace it…
it seems do-able even for me. Although the shape of the power supply in the article looks different from the one I have in my computer…
anyway…any help is appreciated
susie
Jeff,
glad to hear it’s working for you!!
bucky,
I did archive & install, which basically disabled/uninstalled the previous CHUD install. I then just ran the installer again and it worked perfectly!
Now that I have a script again to auto-enable nap mode, I am very pleased! I am loving Leopard.
bucky,
I was simply downloading the Tiger 10.4.11 update (don’t want to go to Leopard yet either) and an iTunes one… the temp started to rise really fast. I’ve read other forums that say some other folks run their MDDs to 130-135, but this climbed over 140. Then somewhere (sorry can’t remember where exactly… I was surfing loads of links) I read that Apple gave a max operating temp of 146! About my system:
Machine Name: Power Mac G4
Machine Model: PowerMac3,6
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.3)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per): 1 MB
Memory: 1.5 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Vers: 4.6.0f1
Serial Number: XB31702KP6W
I saw it once, but can’t find it again… where is the date of manufacture located?
yeah your right cloudy, it’s only supposed to go up to 146 maximum, then it will shutdown by itself. Just so you know, if you put it to sleep, or it goes to sleep automatically, some MDD powermac’s like mine turn off Nap mode. Is that a possible reason for the temperature rise?… cause otherwise I cant see why downloading & surfing the net would make the temp rise that dramatically… see if you can replicate the problem & when it starts rising dramatically again check to see that nap mode hasnt been turned off…
bucky,
I will look at that and report back… right now, it’s been idle for about 3 hours, never went to sleep, nap is still enabled and the temp is at 112.7F. I have some photoshop work to do and will see what happens.
well… after doing about 1/2 hour of Photoshop, I maxed out at 139.8F… that temp stayed pretty consistent while I worked for about 4 more hours. Maybe that’s just where I can expect to be and I guess as long as it stays below 146F I should be happy? I don’t know what to do or if I should even be concerned.
On a brighter note, it is MUCH quieter with Nap and the SilenX! and I have you and this blog to thank for it!!!
well… after doing about 1/2 hour of Photoshop, I maxed out at 139.8F… Nap mode still enabled… that temp stayed pretty consistent while I worked for about 4 more hours. Maybe that’s just where I can expect to be and I guess as long as it stays below 146F I should be happy? I don’t know what to do or if I should even be concerned.
On a brighter note, it is MUCH quieter with Nap and the SilenX! and I have you and this blog to thank for it!!!
Just did a re-install of Leopard keeping the previous system. Installed CHUD 4.4.4. Tried to move Hardware pref. from previous system to new. It won’t open so I can set Nap Mode. Tried to install the Nap Apple Script mentioned at the first of the article, but got a message saying it wasn’t supported. Any suggestions?
Here is a previous post from Dale:
I did archive & install, which basically disabled/uninstalled the previous CHUD install. I then just ran the 3.5.2 CHUD installer again and it worked perfectly! Now that I have a script again to auto-enable nap mode, I am very pleased! I am loving Leopard.
Script to enable nap mode for Leopard MDD G4’s with CHUD 3.5.2 installed:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071101231643321
Interestingly enough I installed 3.5.2 and didn’t even have to do the Apple Script. Without rebooting I went to Sys. Prefs. after installing 3.5.2 and Hardware was activated, so I just clicked on Nap Mode. Thanks Bucky and Dale.
George:
Thats what the script does though.. it simply enables NAP right after startup. The hardware preference pane will always be there as long as CHUD is installed no matter if NAP is enabled or not.
If you don’t mind opening system prefs and clicking the NAP checkbox manually every time then I guess you don’t need the script. I prefer to just use the script as it just makes it automatic.
I forgot to add (wish there was an edit feature) that NAP doesn’t stay enabled. It will turn off every time you restart. The script keeps it running.
Done. Thanks for the explanation. Now I have one less thing to remember when I have to restart.
A little update in case anyone’s interested: just got a pc Radeon today, now I’ll only have to get it flashed. I chose a Hercules Prophet Radeon 9800 Pro as my new graphics card, mostly because TheMacElite says that it’s much better cooled than stock Radeon 9800 Pros are. I’ll test it first without any additional cooling, but if things get a bit too hot inside my beloved MDD I guess I’ll have to install an additional quiet 80 mm cooler near the Radeon. Time will tell..
By the way, any more comments on Leopard and Nap on these dual FW800 machines?
Hi all
I have spent a better part of the morning reading posts on this site and got really excited about making my Dual 867 MDD a little quieter. I have a dual 867 MDD with stock Nvidia GF4 32 Meg Video card and original combo drive. I also have 3 HDD’s, two 80’s mounted in the bracket below optical drives and a 250 mounted where original 60 was (below PS). All drives are 7200’s which makes them a little noisy, but I can live with that. I also have an SD installed below the combo drive and a USB2.0 card in one PCI slot and and a PCI wireless card in another. Case is quite full by now, and the noise level is higher then my old clone PC box I had before going Apple. My question is: Can anyone suggest a good widely available set of 80mm as well as 120mm fans that can cut the noise by at least 30%? I have read that some have gone and spent up to a 100$ for fans, I could not justify that for myself. I bound my Mac used, and I believe it’s using stock fans. Currently, my CPU is running at approx 55 degrees, HDD’s are going between 32 and 38 degrees. I live in Canada, any advice would be appreciated.
Hey all
Just a quick update, since ordering fan’s takes couple of days, I went and installed Chud 3.5.2 on my Mac running Leopard. I am watching the temp monitor in amazement as I’m typing this message, my regular idle temp of the CPU has dropped to 40 degrees and keeps on going down slowly. I did experience the high pitch noise as some users described it here, but I either got used to it and can not hear it anymore, or it has gone away after few minutes.I can hear two types of noise right now, a “windy” type, I assume a power supply fans, and a “low tone” one, I assume 120mm. I’m going to order the SlienX 120 mm next, looks like NCIX.com in canada sells them for 25$ and see how it compares to the stock. As I’m typing away, I just dropped below 39 degrees on CPU, it does not seem to affect the level of noise coming from the MDD however.
Marek,
I got my SilenX 120 off ebay from “compkenn” got it fast and it’s working great… silently!
Marek, to answer your question. It seems that you have ordered some fans, but here goes. Get a 120 mm Silenx. That makes the biggest difference.
Then you could try Rob C’s idea of using a pair of Akasa AK-192BKT-Bs 60 mm fans in the power supply. As he said ” they are really silent and seem to keep the PSU a lot cooler than the originals”. I havent tried these so I cant say whether they work well in a MDD or not.. but they seem to have the right specs & also have an automatic RPM speed control via a thermal sensor. So in theory they will be very quiet until the PSU temp goes up & they kick in at full speed.
Anyone know whether this variable speed is a good thing or is it bad & will it reduce the lifespan of a PSU?
http://www.akasa.com.tw/akasa_english/spec_page/fans/spec_ak_192bkt.htm
Buy them here:
http://businessforce.ltd.uk/D.asp?AK-192BKT-B
or you could try these fans below, I have learnt through this thread that they are the exact same ones I used in my power supply, 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
Bucky,
Actually it was MY idea to use the Akasa fans, as you’ll notice if you scroll back a bit.. 8)
I’m confident that a pair of these Akasas won’t significantly reduce the PSU’s lifespan if your MDD isn’t crowded with powerhungry add-ons. But I’m planning to install an additional 60 mm fan (different make) on the rear exhaust of the PSU, mostly because of the new Radeon card I just got. That should keep the PSU cool enough..
Vesa:
With NAP enabled you don’t need to worry about less airflow since the PSU is under less strain and in turn produces less heat.
Dual PowerPC CPU’s use a lot of power and NAP would really cut down on the overall power consumption.
Thanks Bucky
I have ordered SlienX locally, it will take a week on special order, but I’m avoiding 20$ shipping on a 25$ fan. Once I install it, I’ll post results back.
In my search for cooler alternatives, I have come across one this site, guy installed 4 additional quiet fans that are installed inside the case (which is important to me) and appear to be doing good job cooling whole setup. I am considering installing ATI 9800Pro, which I hear acn heat up quite a bit, so I may look into additional fans.
Something that gets me thinking is why have we not seen someone take on a project to develop a cool and quiet kit for MDD. I am not talking about couple of fans replacements, rather a new approach (maybe new heatsink design with heat pipe, water cooling, maybe new PS), seeing how many people on the net are looking for a solution, it’s a wonder no one has picked it up yet. Another thought, I believe it’s a lot better to pull hot air out of the case instead of trying to push cold air in.
Anyway, check out what this person did, I’ll post back once I decide on if I do anything else is needed once SilenX goes in.
http://bitsandpieces.info/MDDG4CoolingMod.htm
Thanks for all the info found here…
I plan to change the fans of my MDD 867 with the SilenX solution (one 120/38/1400 and two 60/25/2200 for the psu). It is stacked with four hard disks and one usb2 card. I plan to add a ati 9600.
Will the SilenXs be ok or I should place also two more externals (SilenX again)?
I am asking just to order them all at once (living in Greece).
JiMacOs,
For me it seems that one 120 mm fan is not enough, the temp stays around 50°C with Nap enabled. Under load the temp starts to rise rapidly, and I don’t trust the single 120 mm fan to take care of it effectively enough. That’s why I now plan to install two silent 8o mm fans on the rear, there’s a perfect place for them just next to all the connectors. I’ll stack them so that the upper one aids in cooling my Radeon.
By the way, Leopard is very nice on this machine. 🙂 But I did have some trouble installing it, blue screen even though I didn’t have Application Enhancer installed, and some other annoying problems. But now everything’s running smoothly. Just need to make that script so that Nap will automatically start with boot..
Hey all..
I have 4 brand new and never opened SilenX 60mm fans if anyone is interested.
these: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/4271/fan-232/SilenX_60x60x25mm_-_16dBA_-_18CFM_iXtrema_Pro_Fan_with_Fluid_Dynamic_Bearings_IXP-34-16.html?tl=g36c15s57#blank
make me an offer.. zen.state@gmail.com
Just reinstalled CHUD 3.5.2 and the Apple Script on my Dual 1.25 MDD running 10.5.1. When I uncheck Nap, machine runs quieter. This seems backwards to me. Any ideas out there?
I should have two spare Volcano 5 60mm fans in about 3 days – email me if interested (see above “the Everflow model F126025DH, which spin at 4550rpm with a maximum airflow of 32 CFM and a noise level of 31 dBA”). 10 bucks each, shipped in the U.S. – will post here too when they are gone – email is the letter “jay” (not the “ay” part) + timleck, all one, no spaces + at mac dawt come.
Fans are sold 🙂
For those of you looking… Search ebay for Volcano 5 (and 6) and heatsink – I saw three more there two days ago. gl, Andrew
Whisper quiet G4 dual 1.42…..
I finally after hours trying on the web looking for a good solution, and almost as much time with my nose in the cabinet… I got my G4 quiet! I bought a second hand dual 1.42 to run as a second machine and 24/7 running FTP server(in my living room). But I had forgotten how noisy these things where. After reading this forum and some others (allready linked to in earlier posts). I decided to change main fan to a silent x and try to change power supply fans to some more quiet ones. The silent X is great, cant hear it running! the power supply fans i got hold of (thermaltake bought in maplin) where still way to noisy at 28db and 21cfm. After testing i found them to be almost exactly as noisy, and having almost same airflow as the original fans in the PSU.. So i probably had a “quiet” version to begin with. Since i found it to noisy i decided to try running 4x60mm fans to the PSU, sticking the two old ones in front of the PSU and the running them all on lower speed.. Went back to maplin and got a zalman fan mate, 3x three pin cable splitters. Two 60mm fans where already in the PSU, the other two i mounted together on the front side of the PSU (I just used gaffa tape for now, but if you want it to look beautiful, its only your imagination and handiness holding you back..) I’m connecting all four fans to the power supply that goes to the hard drives. Then connecting the fan mate allows you to regulate fan speed to your own liking. I cut out the metal plating on the back (and grid in front) of the PSU it almost has the same airflow on minimum setting as i could feel the two original fans giving on full blast..! Finally My G4 is quiet enough to run 24/7 in the living room! 😀 A 120mm silent x two 60mm thermaltake a fanmate later!
I’m considering to order four 60mm silent x fans and run them instead, that should make my computer completely quiet.
Setting up CHUD question…
OK, so everyone says wonderfully “I set up CHUD and it made my processor cooler!”. OK, so, um, I got the 3.5.2 version of CHUD from Apple. I opened it. Now what? I see Shark, MONster, Bigtop etc. I don’t see any information on how to actually set up the processor to nap (and I couldn’t find anything in XLR8yourmac, apple, etc. A “step by step” would be helpful anyone 🙂 Thanks
BTW I installed the SIlenx 120mm fan, 2 themaltake volcano 5’s and it’s whisper quiet (makes my Quicksilver sound like a locomotive!) I also attached a spare 120 mm fan on the rear after removing the plastic grill covering to make the air pressure more negative on the rear.
Andrew, it’s been a while since I did it, but without uninstalling mine & doing it again, I think you just double click on the CHUD_3.5.2.pkg file & go through & install that. After it’s installed your looking for a “Hardware” preference pane which when installed will end up in your system preferences.. then go into that hardware preference pane & tick ” nap mode”
so your G4 sounds like a locomotive now instead of a 747… after nap mode is on it’s a lot quieter.
Hey bucky,
Thanks tons – I found that the nap script was what did it – launch the script and it just starts the nap – now I suppose it’s calling up the CHUD components then that are already installed then (but I couldn’t open the script as it was “sealed” so I couldn’t see what it was scripting exactly) and the bottom line is it works. I’ll add it to my start up login items and I think I’m set (temperature dropped from running at 59/60C to a comfy 34 in minutes – way cool).
Oh, and sorry I have a MDD **and** a Quicksilver – bought the MDD as an upgrade and with all this info you posted now know how to silence that beast. The MDD has but a slight “hum” to it – a thing of beauty. Thanks for keeping this conversation going.
Cheers, Andrew
Here’s a link to a pic I took and posted to flickr that shows the tick box that appears in the Hardware Preferences Pane when it is called up by the Nap Script (see above). As I understand it the script should be added as a login (start-up) item and it will then automatically load the “nap” box as “ticked” and you’re set. Thanks all!
Great and very useful article!!
I have a problem as Thermaltake Volcano 5 is hard or not possible to find in Germany anymore. Can you suggest couple of the alternative models that can do the job like Volcano’s Everflow model F126025DH?
(I am asking as it’s hard to get airflow data on web shops & google search for fans)
Volcano’s 31 dB is not noticeable in Powermac?
What about some other silent models(14db – 18db) 60x60x25mm models? (silenX or papst)
Thank you! 🙂
Hey all
So after purchasing SilenX last November I was just able to get it installed couple of weeks ago. I have also installed Radeon 9800 Pro at the same time, and here are my findings:
Install of SilenX in place of old “wind tunnel” fan has made my MDD very quiet at boot compared to the old fan, The “wind tunnel” sound is completely gone, 767 is not taking off anymore. That’s the good part.
Now to the bad. Idle/load temps have increased by about 7 degrees Celsius. I though that part of it was the fact that the video card throws fair amount of heat, so I removed Radeon and went back to the original passive cooled Nvidia. The temps dropped by about 2 degrees, so not a huge improvement. I proceeded to reinstall Chud since I use Leopard, I could not go with the latest version. from the temp point of view, it’s good, idle at approx 36 degrees, heavyload (6 hour video encoding) peaked at at 61 degrees, but on average ran at 59 degrees. The most annoying thing is the fact that CHUD appears to make it actually louder. The moment I enable it, the noise changes to a higher pitch whining sound, no doubt coming from fans in power supply. Since this thread is a mile long by now, does anyone have recommendation for replacement PSU fans that are available in today’s market?
I also replaced a week ago the main fan with the SilenX in my MDD 867 (10.5.2. nap on, 4 HDs, 1 optical, MX4, 1 USB2 card, 2 Gb ram).
I connected it through molex to the power of one optical (not used) so it runs full all the time. Mac was more quiet. What I see is that it max at 60 C with idle at 35 C and is cooling more slowly from heavy load to idle but it seems to be ok.
Yesterday I installed two SilenX in the PSU (actually my bro who is a technician in electronics). Both through Molex to the power of the not used optical, so they run at full speed all the time. Well that was a huge improvement. MDD is now quiet. Before I was able to listen to it from everywhere in the apartment, now I can use it a media center (finally).
My bro thinks that the PSU airflow is ok cause the psu (400 watt) isn’t fully loaded. The original fans (maybe over engineer by Apple) should take care the PSU on a fully loaded MDD (all HDs, 2 opticals, 4 pcis, external firewire devices) on the upper functional external temperature.
We ‘ll see in the summer (here in Greece). May I’ ll add two more fans (external).
Thanks to everybody in this blog, specially to Bucky…
Hi everyone and thanks for the very informative forum.
I installed a (very quiet) Scythe 120 instead of the Silenx… and ran into a couple issues that I wonder if anyone can help me with. I pulled the black & red wires from the new fan connector (3 wire), inserted them in the original 2 wire connector. I started the machine (dual 1 gig) with the door open to observe… no fan action.
So and pulled the wires out of the connector and tried touching them to the prongs on the mobo… (this may have been a mistake.) I found that a red & yellow combination got the fan to spin, shut the machine down, refastened the connector with red & yellow and it didn’t work again.
After a couple more variations, I plugged the new fan into the Molex connector, I fired up the machine, the fan spun very fast (the first time I’d seen that) so I closed the case and watched my temps.
My CPU hit 123F under load, generally a degree or two less with no load. And my office is cool (60F) tonight. The Scythe claims to push 64cfm, but it isn’t half the Delta.
I gave up on the Scythe, pulled it out, reinstalled the Delta and plugged everything back in. Problem.
Now the Delta isn’t firing. I’m afraid I shorted something when I touched the wires to the prongs on the mobo. Any suggestions? are there fuses?
I figure I can switch to a Silenx and the molex connector, but I’m sort of bummed not to have sensor control.
thanks,
Colin
Okay, all the mods were done per the many, many posts and the machine sounds (or doesn’t) great! One issue, though…
I updated to Leopard and now the napmode script doesn’t work. Any ideas?
Thanks!
Hey phil, I think a couple of people worked this out up before. Here it is:
“Here is a previous post from Dale:”
I did archive & install, which basically disabled/uninstalled the previous CHUD install. I then just ran the 3.5.2 CHUD installer again and it worked perfectly! Now that I have a script again to auto-enable nap mode, I am very pleased! I am loving Leopard.
Script to enable nap mode for Leopard MDD G4’s with CHUD 3.5.2 installed:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071101231643321
Found the script! Still getting that nasty buzz from my speakers when it’s enabled, but I can live with it. Thanks!
Hi all,
thank you for posting your experience and getting this long column going. I just acquired a MDD as a slave to an Imacon scanner, and am annoyed by its fan noise. the 120mm fan was not hard to find, but the 60mm fans are proving difficult. Since I live in the UK, i have been unable to find most of that which is discussed on this forum, sadly. The one item that i like the sound of, however states lower airflow:
http://www.yoyotech.co.uk/yoyo-new-demo/beta/product_info.php?products_id=12819&osCsid=6223fd6bb8
Xilence HDD cooler. I wonder if the fans actually have a higher axial output than they would blowing against a flat surface. And also I wonder whether the PSU actually needs all of that air. and whether it has a heat switch in it to save it from overheating.
at the moment the machine has not got too much hardware in it, apart from 2gig of ram, however I have been considering putting 3 large drives in it to use as time machines from my macbook pro’s external drives, though i am disappointed that you cannot get 1TB ATA drives for this.
Have you any thoughts? shall I risk a lower airflow? or duct 80mm fans, maybe.
thanks,
t
Hi tobias
Those twin HDD fans sound like they are way too low airflow compared to the stock standard ones Apple put in the power supply so the thing would overheat & shutdown all the time.
Here are some 60mm fans at a place called Maplin in the UK:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ITAG=FAQ&ModuleNo=32137&doy=26m5#faq
These are identical to what I have used & they fit in perfectly.
You should have no worries putting 3 HD drives in the Powermac so long as your power supply fans are up to the job.
I have 3 in mine with no worries.
Hi Bucky,
So you are using these ones from Maplin which only output 21 CFM and they are ok, despite it being considerably less output than the originals? I guess if yours is ok, this is testament of truth.
Thanks,
Tobias
I have just written to Xilence to ask about the axial performance of those fans in the HDD cooler. I shall let you all know back.
t
yes I have learnt through this thread that they are the exact same ones I used in my power supply, made by Everflow & rebadged as Thermaltake, theyre the same as those found on the fabled Thermaltake Volcano 5 heatsink. Much quieter, they fit inside the power supply perfectly & they do the cooling job. I’d say any less airflow & they wouldnt be up to the job though.
Also install & turn on nap mode as this reduces the noise considerably too.
Right, i just replaced the 120mm fan with a Xilence which claims 68CFM at 21.2dB. Thing is, with the PSU fans still in, it makes no difference. another thing i did while i was in there was to remove the shiny decoration under the 4 finger hole things at the front, thus allowing a direct flow of air through the machine. before, for some reason, little air could get through them 4 things. what ever was that decoration for?
I shall look into the Thermaltake fans. i dont really understand what is happening with the PSU fans, as they essentially pump a lot of something that they get from over the graphics card, as there is no direct airflow to their intakes. thus i would have thought a generic 120mm fan up at the top without a duct would do as much as them. but i won’t risk it.
how does one monitor the temperature of the G4 chips, and what should it be at?
t
incidentally, I heard back from Xilence, and those fans in the HDD cooler do only output 15CFM, thus are probably unsuitable.
t
found another source for fans… but now there is choice, as the ones Bucky installed have an output of 21CFM, and here they go from 21 to 26.5.
http://www.selwyn.co.uk/Computer+Products/Fans/DC+Case+Fans+17-140mm/60mm+Fans/60×25mm
t
There are programs like temperature monitor that you can use to monitor the Mac’s processor temp:
http://www.bresink.com/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html
Mine runs at around 103 – 108 degrees F
That 120 mm fan of yours isnt putting out nearly enough air. The Silenx 120 puts out 90 CFM. I would not leave it in there if I was you! You will cook your processor. Apples original puts out about 120 CFM.
Hi Bucky,
the fan output issue is confusing as hell. The first post on modifying the fans which i found had suggested replacing the 120mm fan with one which output 50CFM, so i have one which outputs 68. the processor is running around 41c (105f) at present, which is very low compared to the processors in my macbook pro which range from 47c to 76c.
then the fans in the psu, the originals output 37CFM, and you are running at 21cfm, so the fans i have found for that output 23.7cfm, and should be more than sufficient.
as long as i monitor the heat, i should be fine, i am sure.
oddly it suggests that the original fan was variable speed, which should be incorrect, as it only had 2 pin connector, unless the stepper can vary speed based on voltage, which i guess may be possible.
t
Hi tobias hows it going?
I dont know where you got 50CFM from? the first post I did said this:
“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, ”
I tried another 120mm fan first, I believe it was some chinese brand which put out 68 CFM. The G4 was Ok for a week or so but then started to do weird crashes & it was then I had a look at the temperature & it was at 150 F! Once these G4’s gets to 155 they shutdown before it does damage. So just watch it carefully especially when doing intensive stuff.
The PSU fans were supposed to put out 32 CFM. They were on a Thermaltake heatsink( the fans were made by evercool). But after several people in this above thread suggested that this is unheard of in a 60mm fan I had a look at the fan manufacturers specs for that model & sure enough it only puts out 21cfm. So basicly Thermaltake were exaggerating which is what a few others said they have also done in the past. Had I known it was only 21 CFM I wouldnt have tried it, but they are doing the job fine, & importantly they are quiet, unlike the original Delta’s.
Lastly…. yes the original Delta 120mm fan was variable. When it spun up as it got hotter it sounded like a hairdryer! I believe it’s the motherboard which enables it to be variable. Thats why I also connected the Silenx 120 to these two pins as it is 99% of the time whisper quiet, but spins faster & a bit louder occasionally when doing intensive tasks.
hope this all helps.
bucky
Hi Bucky,
I still have no memory of where i got the lower output data on the 120mm fan, but the processor is running at an acceptable temperature, so I shall not worry about it for now. But also I currently only have two HDD in the case.
I wish there were a 90 degree 120to 60×120 duct somewhere, as the 60mm fans are a pain to source. I have my mind set on these Evercools that have a slightly higher output than the Thermaltake, but most stockists don’t actually know what model they carry.
t
A friend, last night, suggested running a small application that sampled the fan noise, and produced a cancelling sound that would be played through the onboard speaker of the MDD. I would be curious to know if this would work, however I have not found any such application.
t
If anyone needs 60mm 24CFM 32dBA fans, let me know, i have a few extra. They do make a difference, though the MDD is not silent, as such.
t
Great article Bucky. Thanks!
This info is about a fan from http://www.smartcooler.de. 14.95 euro’s.
What do you think?
LFM1560UV
60x25mm SmartCooler© ultra high speed 4-hole fan with speed signal, 3-pin connector, auto restart, 5.000 R.P.M., 31.29 CFM, two ball bearing, input voltage 5-12 Volt, 100.000 h. MTBF, size: 60x60x25mm, according to input voltage noise about 15-32 dbA – [More]…
Or this one from frozencpu.com?
Cooljag Everflow 60mm x 25mm PWM Fan (F126025BU) $ 9.95
Dimensions: 60 x 60 x 25 mm
Rated Voltage: 12V
Operating Voltage Range: 7 ~ 13.2V
Rated Current: 0.26 Amp
Rated Input Power: 3.12W
Rated Speed: 4900 RPM
Max. Airflow: 24.49 CFM
0.69 m^3/min
Max. Static Pressure: 5.38 mmH2O
Sound Level: 33.5 dB(A)
Bearing Type: Two Ball Bearing
Material: Housing Plastic (UL 94V-0)
Impeller Plastic (UL 94V-0)
Protection: Current Limit / Impedance
Operating Temp: -10° ~ 70°C
Weight: 63g
Hi, been searching for answers to cutting down on the noise my MDD makes. This blog site is a god find! I loaded 3.5.2 of CHUD and the napmode applescript into the login items pane. problem is, every time i restart, the napmode check box is unchecked in the preference pane. Can anyone help. Thanks.
I think you have the Nap mode script still on your desktop.
That was the case with me when it did not work.
If you put it in with the other scripts, it will work on start up.
Put it somewhere in scripts. There may be a better place, but I put it in Library=> Scripts => Basics.
Check the Nap mode box again and restart. It should work.
I dropped it with the Photoshop scripts first by mistake and it also worked.
Good luck!
Save the script as a .app and put it anywhere.. then open system prefs and select the script as a startup item.
I have some Evercool EC6025M12S 60mm 23CFM 32Dba fans listed on ebay, if anyone is in need.
http://cgi.ebay.com.sg/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=170224671109&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=007
i have several extra, however I will be away, and unable to post from the end of june through most of july.
t
I have read with interest most of the posts here. No-one it seems has commented on or tried better ducting for the CPU fan to get more airflow over the heat sink. Try card on the 3 sides of the heat sink (held with duct tape) so that the air from the fan blows straight through the heat sink and out the back. Make sure the card is tight against the back of the case so the air does not ‘leak’ out within the case. One other area the PSU. This seems to have air blown through by the 2 fans but the exhaust area allows the hot air to return to the inside of the case. Try blocking the area of holes on the bottom and the top (at an angle) so that air blows only through the middle area and thus straight out the unit. Otherwise hot air cycles in the case and may be then blown over the CPU which causes the overheating which in turn cause the speed up of the CPU fan which is where the 747 etc noise comes from!!! I would welcome comments.
test
My single CPU 2003 produced MMD G4 Power Mac is continuing to serve me well but I dream of having it modified so that it becomes whisper quiet. I have no experience of fiddling inside computer casings so all the suggestions here seems to be a bit complicated. It seems realistic for me to be able to replace the CPU fan with some care and some re reading of this informative but long post.
I have concluded that the main problem is tackling the Power Supply Unit fans as the ones I got are of the “new” type and replacing them will not do much good except for the solution found by
Gunnar on February 2, 2008
“Since i found it to noisy i decided to try running 4×60mm fans to the PSU, sticking the two old ones in front of the PSU and the running them all on lower speed.”
Gunnar any chance of you posting a picture of what you did? or email me
skog44 AT yahoo.no ?
I am sticking with OS 9 for music production ( still the fastest music production environment known to man ) and plan on buying second hand OS 9 bootable 2003 MMD machines in the future. Now if I could find a simple to follow formula for making them quiet life would be perfect.
Does any one else have some information about the method used by Gunnar, using four fans at low speed for the PSU?
Would it be possible to buy a power supply that is specially made to be quiet from suppliers serving the PC building crowd and use that instead?
I am looking for an easy formula and do not care about the aesthetics of the result.
The whole problem comes from getting rid of the heat that is produced inside the cabinet, so what if I could I remove the heat problem caused by the Power Supply Unit by replacing it with an external general purpose Power Supply Unit. These I assume you can buy at somewhere like:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/
I could get someone that understands this type of thing to solder on the correct power socket on and to set the right combination of wattage and voltage for me. I could leave all possible openings uncovered and remove the internal hard disk to remove it as a heat source booting into a fire wire drive instead. Also I could remove the internal Optical Drive and disconnect the fan devoted to its cooling.
With all possible openings left open, remove speaker, remove front drive panels and leave the hole from the removed PSU uncovered, there would be optimal airflow and the only noise challenge would be removing heat from the CPU.
With such an approach the most challenging stage would be to connect a silent fan for CPU cooling to the motherboard without damaging anything.
Would such an approach be possible?
Excellent blog!!! And due to everyones experiences shared here, there is anoother whisper quiet Dual 1.25GHz Power Mac G4 (In comparison to the roar it use to make – its a dream).
Bucky – many thanks for setting up this blog.
I ended up getting my fans from http://australia.rs-online.com/ there is a great selection of fans here and they were delivered the same day – I was amazed.
I wasn’t concerned about price – only noise and performance so you might find the price ticket on the ones I chose too steep for your taste – there are many others there that you could chose.
Something I found useful was the imperial to metric converter for airflow found here: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/flow-units-converter-d_405.html
For the power supply i used Sunonwealth magnetic levitation fans – 56m3/hr & 6dB : http://australia.rs-online.com/web/search/searchBrowseAction.html?method=searchProducts&searchTerm=5440958&x=0&y=0
For the large 120mm fan I dropped down to an 80mm Sunon Wealth fan that I mounted in the hard drive cage as per one of the previous posts – 204m3/hr 7dB : http://australia.rs-online.com/web/search/searchBrowseAction.html?method=searchProducts&searchTerm=126234&x=0&y=0
I installed nap mode but I must admit I’m not seeing that it does much for me.
Finally, I dampened the vibration of the power supply with a corner cut from my yoga mat – a small sacrifice.
After 3 days solid of video compression and format conversion, the CPU temp sat constantly on 59.1 degrees. In idle state is stays at about 29 degrees or less.
It’s been running for about a month now and all is good.
Thanks again for a great blog.
Hi to All and a great thankfull salutation to Bucky. I love to be in flea markets so I found and bought a MDD Pwr Mc G4 for 300dlls here in my hometown Tijuana, Mx. I’ve been upgrading it for the past week with super cheaper ad-ons, like a Linksys PCI for 10dlls, an Apple Display for 15 and so on… The thing is that while searching for information about how can I make my “new” member less noisy I ended it up in here. And as I was reading all the great ideas in how to change the fans. I promptly ran to a nearby Fry’s and bought the 120mm fan (SilenX iXtrema Pro 120mm Case Fan IXP-76-18 SilenX: FRYS.com #: 5525410) and the two 60mms (SilenX iXtrema Pro 60mm Case Fan IXP-34-16 SilenX: FRYS.com #: 5525440)… Put them out of the shelves and got home to aply what i’ve learned from you guys! It works! It’s a lot quiet!!!So I’ll give you a hint on how to identify the polarity of these silenX fans cables… Marker in hand observe that in the package is an 3 to 4 pin converter. That converter is the clue. Conect the converter to the silenX fan. On the side of the converter there are two wires matching the fans cables (those are the useful cables) and one fan cable is left alone (that one doesn’t work at all)… Mark the middle cable of the silenX fan’ conection, the one that match the converter: That’s your general RED wire to connect with the red one on the computer. The other cable that matches with the side of the converter is your Black or blue cable (depending). And the third cable is the one you’ll eliminate. Unplug the converter of the fan and you’ll have a wire that is marked as you Red wire, ready to be plug into the computer power suply so your silenX fan can work. What i did next is up to you: I cuted off the conections of the new fans wires and put the conection of the Old fans into the new ones doing my match experiment and now I am enjoying of beautiful peace surfing the iternet and making music.
So, is there anything that I’m missing so my g4 mdd gets better??? Hope So. Jejeje
Well, I hope that you understand my english and to be helpful as you have been to me. Thank You Very Much!!!
Hi all…just want to say **THANKS** for this great reasource of know-how, shared experience and advice!! I’ve completely overhauled my MDD (120 and PSU fans, nap mode, Arctic Silver) having suffered through too many long years of outrageous noise! (Since ’02!) It’s a great machine and still has a lot of life left in it, so I’m happy to have sunk some time and tinkering and not that much cash, actually, to get it to a much better place. It was great was to be able to take advice and experience from different folks here and find a solution that worked for my needs/set-up!
Overall I’d say even the functionality of my machine is beginning to show improvement/difference…running hot (in addition to loud) for so long made for some unhappy, finicky processors. So now I’m much more in tune to it’s inner workings and general well-being, which I like. We can’t even believe how different it sounds too…in the past I knew it was powering up by the ol’ wind-tunnel sound, so the quiet is taking a little getting used to. (I’m definitely not complaining!)
Thanks so very much once again!!
Hi Bucky
Are these PSU fans suitable for the G4 Dual MMD machine
SilenX Fan Ixtrema Pro 12dBA 60x60x25 14CFM (IXP-34-12)
Many thanks
Scott
Thanks for all the info on this site 🙂
I’ve just fitted my SilenX 120 in my Dual 1.25 MDD but it has made only a little difference as the fan is running all the time even when the machine is idle.
I’m getting an idle temp of around 140-145°F even with Nap enabled. Machine is clean inside as well 😦
Scott:
The 18CFM version of the same fan would be a better choice.
Jeff, Scott:
I just bought two SilenX iXtrema Pro 12dBA, ready to be installed in my PowerMac MDD 867.
Will this be sufficient?
My system is not fully loaded, only 2 hard disks, all the rest is standard…
Oh, and I also bought the SilenX iXtrema Pro 120 to replace my system fan…
TheBT:
I would really go with the 18CFM version as you need as much airflow as possible and its the highest CFM 60mm that SilenX makes.
Hi!
I’m just getting in the process of making my dual 1.25 MDD quieter.
I found this 120mm fan in an electronics store nearby and I was wondering if the specs were good enough to replace my stock 120mm fan… here they are:
Thermaltake TT-1225A
78 CFM, 21 dBA, 2000 RPM
Thanks for your input!
Phil it doesnt quite measure up to the 90 cfm & 18 DB of the SilenX fan. I tried a generic 70 cfm fan first & it wasnt enough!
Smoothhound : you need to use the 2 pin connectors on the motherboard to power it as these regulate the fan speed up & down depending on the heat of the mac. It then usually spins slow , hence quietly.
I am using the motherboard pins but the machine is running at an idle temp of around 140-145°F with Nap enabled so the fan is spooling up quite regularly. Not sure how you guys are getting such low temps generally. I’ve not done the PSU fan mods but my PSU is under 6 months old as the previous one died!!
I still have a few Evercool EC6025M12S 60mm 23CFM 32Dba fans if anyone is interested.
t
I have perused this blog for an hour and my head is spinning.
Could someone summarize please.
I have Dual 1 G MDD, 2G ram, 9800 Pro (onboard Arctic Cooler), PCI slot fan. Think that’s all the relevant info. Oh still running 10.4.11.
Would like to replace the main 120mm and the two PSU fans and install the CHUD script.
Hope this isn’t too lazy on my part … just having trouble parsing all the info here. Thank you
Bucky and Jeff B,
Thanks for all the great details about your exploits in MDD modding! I’ve been reading and reading and reading! Yesterday, I removed the internal speaker and ordered a copper heat sink, two 60mm PSU and one 120mm SilenX fans. Today, I installed CHUD 3.5.2 and turned on “nap.” After following this thread even further today, I’m considering adding the external fans to the back of the case as well.
I have been debating replacing the machine with a PowerMac, but there is something very fulfilling about getting more life out of my dear MDD. Thanks again.
Tobias,
How much do you want? email me at gatorjimbo at cox dot net
Marshal V:
Glad all the info helped!
Macbuz,
Can you provide more detailed info on the “Artic Cooler” you’re using on your 9800 Pro? Mine is running beastly hot and I’ve turned myself inside out to cool it down.
This is a great blog! Probably the most extensive collection of tips for G4 MDDs I’ve found. Thank you to all.
My problem? I have a flashed AGP Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb that is running very hot. I’d like to ditch the stock fan and install a better fan/heatsink, but there’s the issue of space and finding a fan/heatsink that fits the Radeon card and inside the MDD.
Am running a dual 1.25ghz FW800 (January 2003) with two hard drives, two CDRW/DVD-R burners. Bluetooth board, Airport Extreme, 1.75GB RAM. I have the processor heatsink with the thinner aluminum fins, USB 2.0 PCI card and M-Audio PCI card. I’ve pulled the front hard drive carrier, put a fan in the front, removed the speaker to open that up, have a PCI slot fan at 42cfm. Also removed the front bottm panel and the plastic cover at the back of the machine.
Any assistance, thoughts, ideas are greatly appreciated.
Happy New Year everyone!
Is this thread still active?
Nightwriter …… sorry I hadn’t been back in a while to see your question. The url below is to an Apple Discussion thread regarding 3rd party cooling of 9800 Pro’s and MDD. There are links to 14mm and 15mm fans that fit the MDD nicely. I have had the 15mm running in mine for a while now – np.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1692923&tstart=60
HTH
Trying once again for a summary of this thread. It’s just too much for me to go through.
I have a Dual 1G MDD with a 9800 Pro. The 9800 has a 15mm Vantec cooler (very quiet).
I need to quiet my MDD as it sits in our living room and is quite audible. The best I can determine is the original ‘how to’ at the top is dated due to later and better fans.
Is it possible someone could summarize the ‘fans of choice’. I believe once I know which fans to get I can find details I may need afterwards.
Thank you.
macbuz:
Not to be rude but anyone who has posted advice here didn’t do it so they can do it again. The info is all there.. look through it.
I personally have spent many hours of my life here in the past trying to explain my techniques and then you come along and ask for a summary just so you don’t have to take the time to look through it. What you’re asking is rather ballsy and disrespectful.
Mac buz & others
Sorry dudes Ive been so busy lately ( last year) that I havent had time to come back here & summarize it. Like Jeff said, it’s all there… It would be good to summarize it one day, but at the moment I’m just too busy doing other stuff.
but basicly use the how to up the top and search google for fans that have the same size & speed specs. For eg the google search ” silenx 120mm fan ” brought up this;
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=silenx+120mm+fan&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
just buy one that has 58cfm & 14 Db of noise… they do the job in a MDD.
As for the Power supply fans:
heres an old post of mine that still offers links to shops where you can buy the right 60mm fan with the right specs for your power supply. The top Maplin link is the exact model that I used.
” 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
hope that all helps.
Hello Bucky,
Well …. 16 months later I finally got around to it …. and wondering what I did wrong :(.
For the 120 mm I used …
http://www.silenx.com/ixtremaprofans.asp?sku=ixp-74-14
and for the 60 mm(s) I used …
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1190&ID=1732#Tab1
Prior to starting I used a db meter to get a benchmark reading. Before the fan swap I was getting consistent readings of 56 – 60 db.
After the fan swap, using the fans linked above, the readings have not changed, still in the 60 db neighborhood.
Gotta say I’m fairly disappointed and have to assume I’ve done something wrong. But what?? Any ideas?
Gonna blow my socks off if anyone replies … been a while.
Hi macbuz good to hear from you
I cant work out why it’s not working for you? The fans you got seem to be much quieter than the original ones. Are these the 60mm ones as I couldnt open that link?
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1190&ID=1732#Tab1
Also try vacuming all the dust out of the case, especially the air vent holes on the front & back.
Other than that, maybe you havent installed & enabled “napmode”, which is crucial to the whole silencing process.
download CHUD tools 3.5.2 here:
ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Tool_Chest/Testing_-_Debugging/Performance_tools/
then put this applescript in your startup items:
http://www.gourmetcookies.iinet.net.au/images/napmode.zip
that should do it.
Hi All,
!!!!! G4 DUAL 1.42GHz FW800 FOR SALE !!!!!
Some of you may remember me from June to September, 2007, when I modded my G4 Dual 1.42, by substituting 9 low-rev SilenX fans for the Apple originals, and ending up with a machine that ran much, much quieter and 5deg cooler.
As I said in my July 30, 2007 post, which describes the entire mod in detail, I had plans at the time to purchase an 8-core Mac Pro. Well, I just installed a new Mac Pro 2.8GHz machine in my studio, so am selling my “cool and quiet” G4.
See the story and pics of the mod in this thread, on July 30, 2007 and September 15, 2007 respectively.
Here’s what’s for sale:
1 Apple G4 Dual 1.42GHz FW800 computer with:-
Original USB keyboard (with 2-port USB hub) and mouse
Fully loaded RAM (2MB)
256KB L2 Cache, 2MB L3 Cache
1 120GB system drive
2 data drives (120GB and 160GB)
2 optical drives (one DVD-RW Superdrive, one DVD/CD-RW drive)
ATI Radeon 9000 64MB video card (with one DVI port and one ADC port for dual-monitor operation)
2 USB ports
2 FW400 ports
1 FW800 port
1 Gigabit Ethernet port
3 Audio ports (1 mic in, one stereo in, one stereo out)
As you can read in my July 30, 2007 post, I did the mod so it can be returned to its 100% original configuration (though why anyone would want to do this I can’t imagine). However, to complete the package, the original backplates and screws, and all original fans are included.
Note that this machine was fully checked out by my local Authorized Apple Service Technician (as noted in my earlier post), and has run quietly and flawlessly in my audio studio for the past year and 8 months.
This model of G4, less fully loaded than this one, often sells for $900 USD or more.
I’m asking $750 USD.
Any reasonable offer will be considered. Buyer pays shipping and packing material costs (if any), with no markup – only what it costs me.
I certainly don’t have to tell anyone on this thread what an excellent machine this is. I’m going to be putting it up on eBay in a couple of weeks, but thought I would offer it here first, since you all appreciate what went into the mod.
Anyone interested can post here, and we can connect up by e-mail. I’ll check back every few days.
Glad to see this blog is still active. I’m certain it will remain an excellent resource for a long time.
Cheers,
-Wayne
Hi again,
Here are a couple of posts with pics of the machine I’m selling, outside and in, including the Model ID and S/N:
Front of machine:
Back of machine:
Right side of machine:
Left side of machine:
Keyboard & mouse:
More …
… and finally:
Internal, drives & power supply (360W):
Internal, motherboard & cpu:
Original back plates & screws:
Model ID:
Serial#:
Cheers all,
-Wayne
P.S. Just wanted to say thanks once more to Bucky and Jeff, who I see are still around, for the labour of love they have expended here – I will always be grateful for the help you gave me.
nice one wayne , good to hear from you…
I too have moved on from the Powermac MDD to a Mac Pro as of this week. It’s a long story that I will be updating soon, but basicly I sold my MDD to a mate( it’s now used as the recording workstation for our band).
I then bought from a mac reseller in Melbourne Victoria, Australia a second hand Powermac Dual G5 2.5 tower for $Au 999. From day one I had numerous crashes & startup problems with it, not the least being the fans went at full speed and didnt shut up!
I spent countless hours reinstalling it, unplugging RAM, doing all sorts of diagnostics to it, but no joy. After 2 repairs( and 6 weeks in the shop), a new logic board , 2 new processors (one was DOA), apple couldnt fix it so decided to replace it with a brand new 2.66 Quad Core Mac Pro.
No more sleep issues, crashes etc… suffice to say… I’m a happy camper.
This thing is sooooo quick, and incredibly silent!
I have also moved on from my 2 MDD. I sold both as I now have a macbook pro and a mac mini. Even the mini blows away the dual 1.42 MDD I had. My dual 1.42 was sold to a music producer and my dual 867 to a graphic design student.
I also still have 3 other PowerPC macs. I have a G4 sawtooth with a 1ghz upgrade and 3 x 1tb drives that I use as a file server. I also have a 400mhz sawtooth and a B&W G3 that has a G4 600 upgrade but both sit in the corner not even plugged in.
On another note I also now have a Dell mini 9 netbook that I am running OS X on. Runs like a champ too!
Wayne:
I really like the fans mods you did on the back. You took my idea and made it even better. Well done!
Hey guys,
Yeah bucky, when the new Mac Pro was launched on March 3rd, and the prices on the 2008 models dropped like a stone, I just couldn’t resist. Sorry for your ordeal. Glad you lucked out.
Thanks for the compliment, Jeff. Running OS X on a Dell, hmmm? Very interesting. I think I might have you beat in the dinosaur department – I’ve got a beige G3 desktop, with an external 4X SCSI-1 CD drive sitting on a cart behind me as I write. Stills runs like a charm (OS 9, of course), but it’s 266MHz CPU is just a little slow.
Interesting also that we’ve all moved on from our Dual 1.42’s, and that you both sold yours to music producers. It’s a very good machine for that, once it’s been quieted down.
I’ve been running Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Reason, Melodyne Studio, Sibelius, Cubase and scads of plug-ins on mine, mostly under Tiger and more recently under Leopard 10.5.5 which seems to make the machine a little quicker. It’s a great option for anyone wanting to set up a DAW, or for a graphic designer – and I believe the price is fair.
Anyway, the post is here for anyone interested. Please pass the offer along to anyone you know who’s looking for this version of Mac.
Cheers,
-Wayne
Great stuff, make sure you check out the great deals at my website.
I recently moved on from my G3 Desktop to a G4 MDD 1.25GHz DP machine I found on my local craigslist and have found this article and discussion very helpful. First bootup was like a dustbuster or jet engine, almost immediate full RPM on the fans. I opened up the case and cleaned out most of the dust, refreshed the thermal paste between the heatsink and CPU contacts. Then the computer was more like a dull roar. After lots of research on the old articles from xlr8yourmac I decided to try swapping out the fans. I just replaced the Delta 120mm with the Silenx 18dba/90cfm fan, molex powered, and am planning to do the PSU 60mm fans. I am running 10.4.11 with the version of CHUD that allows Nap mode. (What happens when you boot into OS 9?) I’ll have to do some stress testing and monitor the temps. Moving up from the G3 the G4 MDD is a wonderful machine, should be a fun project to get this thing a little quieter. Thanks for all the info.
Hi Glen, thanks for the comments… it’s been a while since I posted this story up & I have moved on to intel macs now, so the days of OS9 are long gone… to tell you the truth I never booted the MDD up in OS9 with nap mode so I couldnt tell ya if it works… but I’d say not.
Just watch the mac when it goes to sleep, on mine it turned Nap off & it would get hotter & hotter in sleep then wouldnt wake up … not good!, I had to set it to never sleep in System Preferences, which was a real pain. I am loving the blissful & reliable sleeping of my two intel macs.
Just an update to this for 2010, the Sythe Ultra Kaze- 120×38 – 3000 rpm @ 133.6 cfm made a huge difference in lowering noise on my DP 1.25 G4. I was skeptical being the Kaze is such a hauss of a fan but it compares to the original in performance vs the others being suggested on the web. Really quiet now but I can hear the PSU fans now. Take note you need to switch the + and – lines to the Kaze 3 pin connector and align it properly for use on the G4 2 pin male connection. Paid $14.99 at MicroCenter
First let me say this thread was a great help in quieting my MDD 867. I only did the one Sliex ?fan and I went from 60 dBA to 54 dBA – good enough for wgere the tower is sitting. It has since been relegated to a second machine. In moving my wife’s account from a Tiger machine to the MDD on Leopard I ran into a problem and had to re-install 10.5 and the updates … Remembering all the stuff I did before was fun. One of them was Napsetter. I keep getting a CHUD error as follows:
ERROR: unable to initialize CHUD.framework – CHUD function: utilGetOperatingSystemInfo()
status: chudBootstrapFailure[-11999] (src/chudUtil.c:432)
I have uninstalled and re-install CHUD 3.5.2 numerous times to no avail. Does anyone have any hints as to what I am doing wrong or how I can resolve this issue. I know the harware is getting old but it worked before so why not now??
Thanks for any help.
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hey everyone,
just want to say this blog is fantastic. thanks to all for the info and detailed instructions on the fan replacement. I finally tackled this job, as my old G4 was sounding like it was ready to take off of the back of an aircraft carrier.
i do have a dilemma though. While the SilenX fan I used to replace the stock 120mm is spinning happily, the 2 Evercool 60mm fans I used to replace the stock PSU fans are not spinning at all. Thus, when the temp gets to hot, the motherboard is shutting down the computer.
I can’t understand why the 60mm are not woking. These specific Evercool fans have a 3 pin connector—3 wires, red, black, and blue. At first I tried hooking the red and black wires of each Evercool fan to the two-pin connectors on the circuit board inside the PSU. I figured since the stock fans used only black and red wires, these would be the ones to go with. No go. So then I opened the PSU back up and switched it to the only other possible combination for each two-pin connector, the black and blue wires. Unfortunately, the fans are still unoperational.
I’m at a stand still. Has anybody had similar issues, or used the 60mm fans in question?
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This was a life-saver blog post! Like Jeff, I had reached the end of my seemingly infinite patience with our G4, and ordered the Silenx fan as prescribed. My first attempt at installing it was a failure because the original fan had two prongs and this replacement had three. The computer heated up and began going into sleep almost immediately after booting up — it was getting really hot! Anyway, followed Adrock’s advice and used the adapter that came with it and hooked it up to P5 — no problem! Very quiet — thank you!1!! Now, have to hunt down info on adding a HD 🙂
Hi there, where and what is P5???!!!!!
I am trying to,install a replacement Panaflo g4 main fan with 3 leads and it will not work so i guess the 3rd, yellow lead must fit somewhere? I do not have an adapter, thus far, either?!
Any help will be much appreciated here in the uk.
regards, ian h
I just switched the Delta 120 fan to a SilenX 120×38 in my G4 MDD dual 1.25Ghz Mac tower, and also replaced the Power supply 60’s. Unfortunately, the noise reduction is not that noticeable as the fan blasts at full speed right upon booting. The power supply noise is unoticeable, and it is clearly the 120 that makes all the noise. I even installed the CHUD 3.5x and use nap mode, but that doesn’t do anything either.
How can you guys get you G4’s to be whisper quiet, I don’t understand at all???
I forgot an important thing: I used the 3 port to 4 port adapter for powering the 120 fan (there were two 4 port power supply connectors available in the Mac). I did not use the red+black motherboard connector. Could this be the reason why the 120 fan always blasts at full speed? Are you guys using 2 pin on the mobo or 3-to-4 pin adaptor?
Having said that, at full speed, this 18db rated SilenX 120 fan is quite loud, there’s no way that’s only 18db, I just don’t believe it.
Hi
Yes, the problem is because you are using the 3 port to 4 port adapter for powering the 120 fan. As I said in my blog a couple of times ( I know its a very long blog entry )… You must use the 2 pin motherboard connector. Just start up the mac with the door open & try a few different ways of connecting the 3 pin connector to the 2 pins on the motherboard until you get the fan to spin. ( try upside down, the left two holes, the right two holes etc ..)
This is because this way using the 2 motherboard pins, the G4 regulates the speed of the fan itself. It will power up for 2 seconds at full blast ( it is quite loud at full speed ) then when nap mode kicks in ( as a start up item ), it instanty drops back to a slow whisper. It only then ever powers up faster under load). Our G4 is still working like this perfectly 3 or 4 years later as our bands backup sound recording machine.
True story…
CHUD 3.5.2 is extinct, no longer offered by Apple.
Here is a link for CHUD 3.5.2 that works fine.
http://www.jcsenterprises.com/Japamacs_Page/Odds_and_Ends_files/CHUD_3.5.2.dmg
have fun
Since the original power supply fans are no longer available [nor are there any links for purchase] as advised by xlr8yourmac.com article
1. Do I seek out a used Apple Power Supply Replacement?
2. Or install two comparable fans. Any recommendations for the power supply fans? Link for purchase would be would great.
The updated xlr8yourmac article recommends a IPCQUEEN IPC-606010 60mm Case Fan
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835168003
Suggestions?
Hello,
Try this: http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Retailers.aspx?ID=2062&S=1144. The fans are a brand new series and CDW carries them. Within two days searching, I found that with fans, there is no free lunch.
With a specific size, the fan must turn faster to get CFM. FASTER MEANS LOUDER. And so, these little Thermaltake fans spin, but their design is supposed to give them the CFM.
I wouldn’t try to cheat my machine with it’s cooling, it will shut down, but to an even greater degree(pun intended), HEAT KILLS the life span of all electronics.
I tried the Silenx IXTREMA 120, 90cfm @ 18dBa and my CPU temp went up by 7C and was climbing when I shut it down and went back to the original Delta fan (yes, I tested it with the box open to make sure it was running before I closed the box) My fan came with a Molex adapter cable that showed which pin was useless Then it was note the blac pin from the original two pin connector went to the number 2965. So I reasoned which wire would be black from the printed numbers on the silenx connector. These must be correct or the fan spins backward. The fan should BLOW through the wire guard. This means air will flow across the heat sync when the box is closed.
In other words, the CPU was normally between 51 and 53 C. (Temperature Monitor reading) and with the new fan it was climbing past 57C or 10F and climbing.
I am waiting for the new Power Supply fans, they are rated at 30CFM and about 30dBa.
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Well, it’s been 6 years since this article was originally posted, but if anyone is still out there, I would appreciate the help. I found the 60 mm Everflow fans on eBay, as well as the 120mm Silenx. I’m worried about installing the PSU fans because I have read several warnings about the capacitors in power supplies retaining high voltages, and how they can cause serious harm if you touch them even when the computer is off and unplugged. The power supply in my Mac has a big sticker with warnings of electrical shock. I have moderate experience working with computers, but I have never done anything with a power supply before. Would it be safe for me to do this? Is it easy to swap out the fans? any help would be great, thankyou
You are absolutely correct. Power supply capacitors can be dangerous if touched inadvertently while still charged. However, you can still change the PS fans yourself. There are a few different approaches you can take. 1. You can simply be very careful and avoid touching the capacitors. 2. You can leave you computer off AND UNPLUGGED for several days, during which the caps should drain of their own accord. 3. You can purposely discharge the caps (try googling something like “how to discharge power supply capacitors”).
Changing the fans in the power supply is finicky, but straightforward enough. I suggest making a drawing or notes of where the leads connect, to make sure you get the new connections right.
A few years ago, I fitted my MDD Dual 1.42 GHz G4 with 11 (yes, eleven – that’s not a typo) fans, including those in the power supply. My machine ended up better than whisper quiet, barely audible, for use in my audio studio. The help I received on this blog was invaluable.
So, yes. Go ahead and change the fans in your power supply. You can do it. Just be careful!
Sorry, but I have to add this disclaimer, because it can be dangerous if not approached properly:
“In following my suggestions above, you agree that I will in no way be held responsible for any property or personal damages as a result of any mishap that might occur. The decision to proceed is yours and yours alone.”
That said, take heart. You can do it, if you’re careful.
Cheers,
-Wayne
Thankyou so much! I’m ordering the fans now.
You’re very welcome. By the way, the safest approach is option number 3. Trust you were able to find good instructions elsewhere on the web.
It’s pretty easy really. You just short the +ve and -ve leads of each capacitor using an insulated wire in which you have inserted something like a 10k (kiloOhm) resistor (preferably at least a couple of watts). Best to solder the resistor in place, if you can. Put a bit of heat shrink tubing on the resistor leads.
Don’t touch the wires directly with your fingers, even though they’re insulated. Attach an alligator clip to each end of the wire/resistor assembly and use insulated needle-nose pliers to hold the clips, or a tape the alligator clips to a couple of wooden pencils or chopsticks.
There are some excellent videos of the process on youtube.
Best of luck with your project.
For sure, let us know how you make out.
-Wayne
I believe that is one of the most important info for me.
And i am satisfied studying your article. But should remark on some basic issues, The site style
is great, the articles is truly nice : D. Good activity, cheers
Hi guy’s, I’m the dude who set up this blog way back, and I cant believe your still finding it useful and it’s still geting heaps of hits, way more than any other site or blog page Ive ever done.
Ive since moved on from the G4, first to a G5 Dual 2.0Ghz & now a 2.66 Ghz Quad Core Mac Pro.
The G4 I based this blog on is still happily singing along at a mates place after being used by the band I was in for many hours of recording our weekly jam sessions.
I didnt bother with option 3, I just used option 2 & unplugged the G4 for about a week before changing the power supply fans. I’m a rank amateur at this sort of thing, so if I can do it anyone slightly handy with computers, electronics & gadgets can do it.
Thanks Wayne for keeping an eye on this blog & helping many people over the last couple of years. I owe you a beer someday if you ever come to Australia.
Trev Bucky
Hey Bucky!
Good to read your post.
My G4 finally died last year, after five beautiful years post fan mod. I had upgraded to a Mac Pro 2.8 GHz 8-core for the studio in mid 2008, so the G4 had gone to my wife, for her writing studio.
Last year it just quit one day. Power supply seemed fine. Would identify the HD’s during startup but would not boot. Tried all the normal keyboard and motherboard button pushing tricks, but no go. At the point I might have taken it to an Apple tech, but decided to Carbon Copy the drives in target mode, and let it go.
My wife now has a beautiful little Mac Mini Dual 2.5 GHz. What a great little machine!
I stripped the G4 down, and it sat in my garage until a couple of months ago. I hired a young construction contractor/musician to help me rebuild my audio studio in our new house. As it turns out, he is using a G4 dual 1GHz in his audio room. I offered him my dual 1.42GHz for parts, cpu, case, fans – whatever use he might put it to, and he was glad to have it.
So my magical G4 is still thriving in some way.
Thanks for your kind comments, Bucky. That’ll have to be a digital beer, as I’m not likely to get to Aussie land anytime soon (although my three kids are half Aussie on their mother’s side, so we love Wallabees).
Reminds me of a song title, “I Wannabee a Wallabee” or “I’m a Wallabee Wannabee”. Surely someone has done that, right?
Cheers mate,
-Wayne
I finally found time to switch out the fans, and although I was a bit nervous, it was a great success! The MDD was off for 2 weeks, so the capacitors discharged during that time. I really took my time with the fan connectors, and just now I booted up my MDD and its much quieter! For being a 10 year old computer, the dual cpu MDD Powermacs are very fast. I use mine everyday alongside my MacBook, and hopefully it will be with me for years to come. Thankyou so much for the information and support.
Great blog here! Also your web site loads up very fast!
What web host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host?
I wish my website loaded up as fast as yours lol
Having read this I thought it was extremely enlightening.
I appreciate you taking the time and energy to put this article together.
I once again find myself personally spending a lot of time both reading and commenting.
But so what, it was still worth it!
Since the last entries are from 2013 -it seems this blog is still relevant! If you would like more info on PPC mods you should checkout Japamac’s blog as well (http://www.jcsenterprises.com/Japamacs_Page/All_Things_PPC.html). He’s very active on the Apple Support Communities forum. Very informative.
philz4life I’m glad everything worked out for you. You should try flashing a better graphic card next! You can buy a brand new HP ATI FireGL X3 256 AGP (has to be this one) on ebay for $20 flash it to Mac and have dual DVI out!
this blog is still relevant, here I am reading it on Nov 30th 2015! wanting to quiet down my 1.25 DP MDD
I performed the 3 fan swap last night. was able to find two Thermaltake fans on ebay that were new. did the swap, got a 120mm fan off ebay. got it all hooked up and it is much quieter that’s for sure. the 120mm fan doesn’t seem to spin that much and the processor heat sink seemed to get warm just with the machine web browsing. so I unplugged it from the MB port and have it powered from the molex power cables. more noise, but airflow is better. I need to install the temp monitor app I have somewhere. still some more tweaks I want to do to the machine, get a second super drive in it from the G5 machines that I had, get the ssd in there that was robbed from it last year…might be a decent machine when done. after all the work, Ill sit back and question why I have it and probably consider selling it. I have 4 laptops and 2 minis I could be using. oh well….
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