Lookie what I got today...

Well I sniped an auction today for a PowerMac G4 MDD barebone system. It's missing memory, hard drive, CD drive, and video card so I'm going to put in some DDR I have lying around, put in my new 160GB 8MB Seagate IDE drive, purchase a DVD burner, flash a PC Radeon 9800Pro, and I should have quite a beast built for a small sum of money. It's currently got the dual 867MHz G4 but I'm hoping I can find a 1.25GHz or even 1.42GHz G4 chip for a decent amount of money. I go to pick it up tomorrow (it's a good thing they're local to me!) so I'll test it while I'm at work and see how it goes...

On a side note, does anyone have any comments/suggestions or anything I should know about the MDD G4? Is it picky with memory? Can I use my current ATi Rage 128 from my G4 DA to test it? Does it have the 128GB limit for IDE hard drives? Thanks!

Yes, Only the Mirror Drive Doors (MDD) PowerMac G4s, Xserves or any other Mac intruduced after June 2002 have native support for large drives (128GB and up).

How much did you pay for it? It's very nice.

Nick

Well, after tax it was about $240. I thought I was getting a deal since I didn't have to pay for shipping (local pickup), but then they nailed me with the good old sales tax. Oh well, there's never a way around it legally...

Now I need to figure out what I need to do with the other 2 Mac's I just recently purchased. I should have just spent the money in the first place and gone with a QS or MDD G4 right off the bat. Anyone in need of a G3 or G4?

Well, it turns out that this beast works!!! w00t w00t!

It's sort of rough on the outside, and for some reason the internal speaker is cranked way up (when you start it up, the bass rattles the front panel!), but it doesn't have any issues I have come across yet. It booted right into the OSX installation and installed fine. Nothing beats a MDD G4 for $240!

The only problem is that I'm missing all the drive cages since the CD/DVD drive and hard drive was removed. Does anyone know where I can purchase these? Does Apple sell spare parts or do they have a distributor that does so? There are several Apple certified repair centers in my area; do they sell them? There's also an Apple store 5 minutes from where I work. I'd hate to have to zip-tie it in there but that's always an option if it comes down to it.

And boy oh boy does the dual 867MHz heat up like a mother! And you gotta love those black-label Delta fans that are louder than all get-up. That will be swapped out soon with a cool LED fan like in my G4 DA. I also have some cool mods in store for this baby!

You can check out eBay or www.welovemacs.com for the drive cages... You can go and check the Apple store and see if they have any in stock.

Nick

I got the drive carriers from AllMac.com since they were half the price of welovemacs.com. Hopefully I will get those in soon. Thanks for the heads up...

No Problem. Good Luck!

Nick

Lets see some Pics!

Well, so far I have ordered...

Optical drive carrier
Hard drive carrier
Seagate 7200.9 IDE 7200RPM 8MB 160GB <-Pure Seagate awesomeness
Lite-On DVD+/- R/RW
ATi Radeon 9800Pro 128MB

I also have 1GB DDR400 (@266) installed, so this should be a fast little puppy. I looked into upgrading the CPU and the only one I found was $699 for the dual 1.25GHz. Yikes! I'll try and remember to take my camera to work with me tomorrow and snap some pictures, but I'm leaving it there on my workbench for a while until I have it up and running to my liking. I also need to get rid of my G3 and G4; and I still would like to try and get my B&W G3 running... grrr...

Well, son of a bea-sting...

I ordered all the drive cages from AllMac, and a week later they shipped them out and I will have them on Monday. I got in my Lite-On DVD burner and went to test it, and poof, my %^()# power supply ain't working no more. I pulled it out, tore it apart, did the paper-clip test thing, then tried to test it with my trusty 6-24V probe thingie, and poof, I slipped and put it somewhere it shouldn't have been (where there was 120V). One dead power supply; one dead probe meter thingie.

I'm not sure what killed the PSU, but the only thing I did was move the tower from one side of my desk to the other. It's dead as can be, so I ordered one of those MDD quiet kits new in box that include fan and power supply on eBay. Now all I'm waiting on is that power supply (probably early next week) and the video card which I should have had by now, but the seller on eBay is being a pain in the hiney. Ugghh... to think this was going to be easy!?!

While I wait I'm going to tear it all apart this weekend and do the clear mod like I did on my G4 DA, but I'm also going to clear up the front panel. I'll post pictures when I'm in the process of doing so. I'm also going to replace the 120mm fan with a Thermaltake Thunderblade blue LED fan like I did on the G4 DA and replace the 2 60mm fans in the power supply with blue LED ones that are hopefully quieter. I'm also going to add memory heatsinks just for looks. Next up may be a water cooling project since the G4 MDD has plenty of room towards the bottom of the case when you only have 1 or 2 hard drives plugged in. Did I mention the CPU runs uber hot?