more g4 powermac questions

yes it will work, cause they use the same mobo (they are the same identical system)

so, taking the logic a step further, is it possible/feasible to put a MDD motherboard and cpu into a quicksilver case? will there be power supply issues?

the PSU in a QS wont work with a MDD G4 mobo

see here

PSU wire diagram for G4's

as you can tell (the last 2) the QS and MDD use a totally different placement where the wires go, you might be able to mod the QS PSU some how to work on a MDD mobo ( but that i am not for sure about).

the mobo from a MDD might fit in the case of a QS without doing much as in modding the case to accept it ( but i am not 100% for sure about that either) the farthest G4 Mac i have had my hands on is a QS 800mhz, if i worked with a MDD before i might be able to give you a answer on that

The PCI slots are on the opposite side of the MDD LB. It just wouldn't fit in a QS case. Neither would any older board fit in a MDD Case.

WOW, i guess so

that is a oddball design if i ever seen one

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/PowerMac_G4_MDD_open.jpg

http://yse-uk.com/download/images/tech/DSC01009.jpg

i guess you are out of luck trying to get that to fit in a QS case

The gains from a MDD motherboard over a QS motherboard would not be significant enough to justify the hassle anyway. CPU upgrades for a MDD are more limited than for a QS too. For a QS, there's lots to choose from. Pop one in and go:

G4 upgrades

and by rights the QS is just a DA in a new suit. i am going for the fastmac dual 1.4 7455 upgrade for my single 533mhz DA.

Nothing different about the later QS's except faster CPU's, IIRC. The MDD's upgraded to DDR RAM and a 167mhz system bus. I don't know about looks--I think the MDD is pretty cool looking--but what annoys me about the QS and later G4 cases is the lack of a CD tray button on the front bezel. There have been moments for me where that would not only have been handy, but essential. I actually drilled holes in my QS bezels in order to get a poker in there to hit the CD drive's button.

The only thing different among the QSs was that the later models supported drives larger than 128 gigs.

yes it was the 2002 and 2002ED model of QS that had large drive support.

i know that if you hold F12 that the optical drive would eject for Mac's that didn't have a eject button on the KB (also goes for the QS with a KB without a eject key), i am not sure tho if that is only in tiger or in all versions of OS X

What about just using a finger nail to pull the door down and pushing the button on the drive? I could do that on my B&W but I dunno about on a G4.

yeah a processor upgrade unit is not in my fiscal future...but i just bought a 867mhz QS, and may change the processor to a dual 800 or dual 1ghz in the near future. Is there a way to buy just the processor from an old machine like that? I mean, can you buy a replacement processor for old models, short of on ebay?

its allot easier to use the F12 key to eject the drive then to go threw all of that trouble of screwing with the case to get to the drive button, anyway the button of the drive on a QS is hidden and you cant get to it like you can on a DA or below system (even if you open the swing down drive flap).

like i said i cant remember if holding F12 will eject the drive in all versions of OS X on a system equipped with a KB without a eject key or if its a tiger only feature. but my friend uses that on his QS cause his KB isn't a Apple brand ( its a kingston KB made for Mac's with no eject key on the KB) and the F12 key is a multi function key by default, press it and dashboard opens, hold it down and it ejects the optical drive (with or without a disk in the drive)

OWC often has processors in their clearance section:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/bargains/

As of today they have a Dual G4 800 available for $179.

OWC often has processors in their clearance section:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/bargains/

As of today they have a Dual G4 800 available for $179. They've always been a good vendor for me to deal with, and the Proc has a 90-day guarantee!

$20 more will get you a new OWC 1.2 Ghz Mercury Extreme. There's been debate here about the more bang for the buck between dual and faster processors, but I would think the 1.2 will outpace a dual 800.

My complaint above about no button for the CD drive comes from moments such as the blinking folder with the question mark. Since no OS X has loaded up, then the F12 doesn't do anything. You want to get an install or utility disk in there but there's no way to get to the CD button. The QS tray door does not open wide enough to get to it. Your choices: shut down and take off the whole front bezel, get a really thin tool to wedge into the tray door opening behind the bezel to try to get to the button, or do like I do, drill a little accurate hole to get a poker through the bezel. An idiotic situation. Some old Zip drive bezels used to have the same problem. How many times did I put in a Zip disk that malfunctioned and started cycling agonizing bad spin attempts and I couldn't do anything except shut down and remove the drive?

ah i didn't think about that. i guess you can mark that up as to a bad design. at least they could have made the door like a hidden button (pressing it in would hit the eject button on the drive) and still have a clean design (like a few models of computers have).

Based on my own experience and what I've read, I'd say the dual 800 is roughly equal to a single 1.5. IMHO, that makes the dual 800 referenced above the better deal.

To open a CD drawer, hold the mouse button down on boot.

dan k

Have you tried holding down the (single or left) mouse button at boot, immediately after the chime? It works for me on my B&W, my Gigabit, my G5, and on the old MDD at work (may she rest in peace). It's been a while since I had the studio's Quicksilver, but I seem to recall I learned this trick on that machine.

edit: I see now that dankephoto posted this same answer shortly before I did. Great minds apparently do think alike.

Thanks, I've never heard of that before.

A dual 800 is equal to a 1.5 Ghz! Holy Moley! Can anyone else confirm this? That'll change my plans for my upgrade if true.

i totally forgot about holding the mouse button on power up to eject the disk (and i had to resort to that a few times a wile ago) but its something i don't do often. but i probably would have remembered it if the time came to use it again.

yea a slower (533mhz or even a 800mhz) dual CPU will always beat a faster single CPU in many things. the dual CPU teams up to work on something wile the single cpu has to deal with it all ( also if the App is made to be multi threaded you will see a nice performance gain with a dual CPU over single).

i cant wait to buy a dual CPU for my DA.

a simple way to explain it

dual CPU config

CPU1: 50%\
=100% (each CPU has power to spare for other things)
CPU2: 50%/

or

CPU1: 100%\
= 100% ( 1 core is still available to work on things)
CPU2:0% /

single faster CPU

CPU : 100% the CPU is at its max and wont be able to handle much more and if you try its going to be dog slow.

There was discussion on an earlier thread about the competition between a 500 dual and a 733 single, and the consensus was that the dual 500 might slightly edge out the 733, or maybe not, generally, but definitely will with Altivec stuff. But dual 800's doing 1.5 sounds pretty impressive. That'd be almost a doubling. I know it's a dual, but other bus factors considering, I'd think it should be more like a 50% gain, ie. 1.2 Ghz.

That's misleading, if I'm reading that correctly. It only works that way if - and it's a big if - the application is specifically written to use more than one processor. Even then, you don't see a doubling of processing speed, since all the other limiting factors of bus speed, cache size, etc. are involved.

If you're comparing single vs. dual CPUs of the same MHz, then yes, the dual will be very much superior, but that's not what we're looking at.

A dual CPU / dual-core CPU system will, with a supporting OS like OS X, portion out single-threaded applications between CPUs so application 1 can run on CPU1, and application 2 can run on CPU2. In this way, there is still an advantage to running single-threaded apps on a dual system, but it does not surpass the gains of a single CPU at double the speed.

For example, I use an OS X database application written in 4D tools. Under Tiger, it runs at pretty much the same speed - about 1 test article processed every 5 to 6 seconds - whether using a single 400 or dual 450 G4. The dual processor does not provide any appreciable benefit - other than giving me some headroom if I were running another application in the background - over the single processor.
Now, running the application at 867 MHz, and the article import time drops dramatically to 2-3 seconds average.

A program that uses multiple processors, like Photoshop, will behave more like you describe, but again you will not see a speed gain equivalent to a single CPU running at double the clock speed on the same architecture (ie a dual 400 CPU will not surpass a single-CPU 800 on the same motherboard).

The benchmarks I looked at are here and the single CPU 733 beat a dual-533 in all but three of seven tests. There's a similar test between a G4 400 / 500 dual / 733 here. On those tests, the 733 is again overall faster than the dual 500.

In comparing a dual-800 and a single 1.2, in benchmarks for dual-threaded apps, they should be close enough to call equal (though someone please correct me if you find benchmarks that say otherwise). But with any single-threaded software, the 1.2 will win. If you play any 3D games, the 1.2 will win. Plus, the 1.2 is 10.5 compatible out of the box.