Resolved Heat is the enemy, was: $4 and I'm happy!

[eyoungren]

Went to Fry's Electronics yesterday. Bought a cheap PC fan for $3.99+tax. Put it in this morning, loose, sitting cockeyed on top of the optical drive. But the air flow is directed over the processor. And I switched the processor to 1.8ghz, up from 1.73Ghz.

Well…now the Mac is running at 1.8Ghz with no freezes yet. So, I guess the freezes were due to heat. Drives are also about 10º cooler!

Best $4 I've spent in a while!

The processor switches allow for 2.0Ghz, which I've tried, but I just don't think I can get there. It boots into Open Firmware and then when you type "mac-boot" it boots to a kernel panic.

Think I've reached the limit here.

 

[robertdsc]

It's amazing how the little things can make everything so much better.

Well done!

 

[eyoungren]

Well, that didn't work for too long.

So, I tried a different place for the fan and that didn't work either. Now I've got it wedged on top of the cpu fans. When the case is closed it's sitting on top of the AGP video card wedged between the back of the optical drive carrier and the small case fan I reinstalled.

So…the cpus have three fans working on it.

Bonus seems to be that the new fan has seriously quieted the whine from the small case fan.

----------

It's amazing how the little things can make everything so much better.

Well done!

Thanks!

 

[gavinstubbs09]

When my B&W would overheat with the stock 400MHz G3, I took a fan off a old Slot 1 Pentium 3 and attached it to the B&W's heatsink with just electrical tape. No more kernel panics and none with the recently upgraded 450MHz G4

 

[eyoungren]

When my B&W would overheat with the stock 400MHz G3, I took a fan off a old Slot 1 Pentium 3 and attached it to the B&W's heatsink with just electrical tape. No more kernel panics and none with the recently upgraded 450MHz G4

Cool! I think this is working for me and I might try 2.0Ghz in the future since the fan is where it is now, but honestly I think I'm at my limit. When you boot your Mac it should not go directly into Open Firmware and that's what happens when I set it to 2Ghz.

So, going to leave it at 1.8Ghz for now.

 

[eyoungren]

UPDATE: Shortly after these posts the Mac started freezing of course.

So…I resolved to try one more fan. The other one (the $4) is a 120mm fan. I've left it hooked up and freestanding on top of the HDs at the bottom front of the case. It's reduced drive heat by a considerable amount.

Today I dropped in at Radio Shack and got a 80mm fan for $13. Since it's smaller I've mounted it right on top of the heatsink/small fans on the processors. This after setting the processors back to 1.8Ghz (from 1.73).

Drive temps have again gone down and the Mac seems to be doing ok. We'll see what my stress test of encoding and burning an MP4 video does to her.

The really cool side effect is that I didn't realize that this was one of those LED fans until AFTER I bought it. So, NOW I have this very cool blue light emanating from the clear plastic parts of the case and through the grill holes in the back.

Totally unexpected but very COOL effect!

Now if the Mac handles this stress test I will be ecstatic!

 

[eyoungren]

ROUND 2:

- Electrical tape is not a good item to use to secure a fan to a hot heatsink. It stretches as it heats up.

- Screws provided with fan do no work in the screw holes of the two smaller fans and the screws for the smaller fans are too short to go through the holes of the new fan.

Solution: Take out two screws on one side of the heat sink and attach paperclips and tighten. Other end of paper clips are stretched out and go through the holes in the fan, then folded back to keep it retained tight against the other two fans.

So, now electrical tape is used on the other side merely to steady the fan, not retain it.

We'll see what happens now!

 

[eyoungren]

This has got to be down to heat. Letting her run with the door open and the drives cooled down. So far no issues. Got it cracked just a bit now. Wondering maybe part of the isue is that the new fan is so close to the PSU that it can't draw enough air when fully closed.

We shall see…

 

[noodle654]

This has got to be down to heat. Letting her run with the door open and the drives cooled down. So far no issues. Got it cracked just a bit now. Wondering maybe part of the isue is that the new fan is so close to the PSU that it can't draw enough air when fully closed.

We shall see…

It looks like it's really tight in there. Very cool what you did here, stable at 1.8GHz is sick for these G4s. But you might be right about heat. Wanna try water cooling, get it up to 2GHz ?
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/watercooled_MDD_G4/watercooled_mdd_g4.html

 

[harrymatic]

Your G4 has me incredibly jealous!

I second noodle654's suggestion of water cooling, you might just get to that elusive 2GHz - aquamac was able to get to nearly 1.9 GHz back in the day - http://www.s155158671.websitehome.co.uk/quicksilvermodsw.html . He also somehow managed to keep the case incredibly neat inside, not quite sure how he pulled that one off!

 

[noodle654]

Your G4 has me incredibly jealous!

I second noodle654's suggestion of water cooling, you might just get to that elusive 2GHz - aquamac was able to get to nearly 1.9 GHz back in the day - http://www.s155158671.websitehome.co.uk/quicksilvermodsw.html . He also somehow managed to keep the case incredibly neat inside, not quite sure how he pulled that one off!

That is really clean! Wow and VGA cooling, thanks for showing me that.

 

[eyoungren]

Yeah, the case is tight. Compared to what I've got going, his is very clean. Got a bunch of cables everywhere.

I'm open to case mods and watercooling. But my problem is $$$$. If I had the money to blow I'd have jumped on this by now. Unfortunately, I don't so it's a matter of over time.

Got up this morning to find the Mac responsive but it locked up shortly after. Trying the burn with just a single processor. When I get home I'll see if it's locked up or not. It's just getting the right amount of cooling in there I know.

Honestly though I just don't think I can get to 2.0Ghz with this processor, even though it has a switch set for it. It will start, but again, it goes straight into OF. I can then force a boot, but I get an immediate kernal panic. I'm not sure that even placing the Mac inside a case of dry ice would prevent any of that. I think it's just down to the board/bus/cpus. Of course, once I DO get to a spot where I have better cooling (preferably liquid cooling) I'll try it again and see what happens.

However, even if all of this fails (until I can get set up with liquid cooling) I'm ok with 1.73Ghz. I know that's stable, it's proven it with the case completely closed and NO additional fans.

 

[eyoungren]

Well, it's all about cooling. Going to have to find a way. The Mac is chugging along at encoding on one processor at 1.8Ghz. I'm typing this on it right now.

So far so good.

 

[westrock2000]

ROUND 2:

- Electrical tape is not a good item to use to secure a fan to a hot heatsink. It stretches as it heats up.

Zip ties are effective at holding stuff together. And remember you do not have to wrap a zip-tie around something to use it. You can cut off just the "head" of second zip-tie and stick the first zip-tie through something so that it's head acts as a stop one side and then you use the cut-off head to act as a stop on the other side.

Essentially you make a straight zip tie, but at the cost of 2 zip-ties. It's a very common trick for going through the fins of radiators.

 

[jrsx]

Jealousy....

....is the only word that comes to mind.

 

[archtopshop]

Zip ties are effective at holding stuff together. And remember you do not have to wrap a zip-tie around something to use it. You can cut off just the "head" of second zip-tie and stick the first zip-tie through something so that it's head acts as a stop one side and then you use the cut-off head to act as a stop on the other side.

Essentially you make a straight zip tie, but at the cost of 2 zip-ties. It's a very common trick for going through the fins of radiators.

I probably should have already known this, but I didn't. Great tip!

 

[eyoungren]

Zip ties are effective at holding stuff together. And remember you do not have to wrap a zip-tie around something to use it. You can cut off just the "head" of second zip-tie and stick the first zip-tie through something so that it's head acts as a stop one side and then you use the cut-off head to act as a stop on the other side.

Essentially you make a straight zip tie, but at the cost of 2 zip-ties. It's a very common trick for going through the fins of radiators.

Oh, cool! Thanks for the tip. Been ages since I worked with zip ties and I don't have any so the thought never occured to me.

This is starting to be a project. Which is fine, because it gives me something to do and in the end…well a very nice Mac. That and this is the kind of problems I enjoy solving.

 

[eyoungren]

....is the only word that comes to mind.

LOL! I hear you! Thanks to all the generous members here on MR that have assisted in the upgrading. Without all of you (and some luck on eBay and Amazon) my QS would not be as well along.

Ooohhhh, but I have plans. The only thing stopping me is the lack of money.

 

[robertdsc]

The only thing stopping me is the lack of money.

I hear you on that. Glad you've made progress.

 

[jrsx]

Yeah, I'm always reluctant to spend money on my PPC. The most I've done is a family pack of iLife 08' (I got super lucky and picked it up for under $10!!), and that wasn't even a big purchase. I figure once the summer comes around I'll probably get more into this PPC revolution here at Macrumors. I have plans for maybe another iBook and a PB will be in the works before the year is out, hopefully!

 

[eyoungren]

Yeah, I'm always reluctant to spend money on my PPC. The most I've done is a family pack of iLife 08' (I got super lucky and picked it up for under $10!!), and that wasn't even a big purchase. I figure once the summer comes around I'll probably get more into this PPC revolution here at Macrumors. I have plans for maybe another iBook and a PB will be in the works before the year is out, hopefully!

Cool, once you get into working on these things it gets to be a habit. Sometimes you want to take a sledgehammer to them, but in general it's addicting.

I tend to throw money at my PowerPC machines because those are the only Macs I have. Can't afford Intel. On, the other hand, I've put in almost twice as much to my 1.0Ghz 17" PB than I paid for it…and it needs a new logicboard.

Another $60 or so when I've got the money.

 

[noodle654]

Good for you for taking the challenge. While water cooling would definitely work, it might not be worth it...but it would be pretty sick! I assume you reapplied the thermal paste on the CPUs? Every degree counts.

For whatever reason, the old Dell P4 tower cooling system comes to my mind, the way that they funneled the air from the CPU heatsink through the green plastic tunnel cover and straight out of the case. I feel like a solution like that might work here if you could just constantly push air out through a channel. Space would definitely be an issue though. Is there a rear exhaust fan?

 

[doctormark77]

http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g44/c133/s456/list/p1/DIYMod_Parts-PC_Tools-Thermometers-Page1.html

I'm also trying to lower the internal heat of Quicksilver. I was thinking about grabbing one of these to temporarily monitor temps as I try different fan setups, maybe one of these would help you out. I was just going to remove a PCI slot cover and run the wires through that opening so I could still measure temps with the case closed.

 

[eyoungren]

Good for you for taking the challenge. While water cooling would definitely work, it might not be worth it...but it would be pretty sick! I assume you reapplied the thermal paste on the CPUs? Every degree counts.

For whatever reason, the old Dell P4 tower cooling system comes to my mind, the way that they funneled the air from the CPU heatsink through the green plastic tunnel cover and straight out of the case. I feel like a solution like that might work here if you could just constantly push air out through a channel. Space would definitely be an issue though. Is there a rear exhaust fan?

Well, I've never owned an Intel Mac so the challenge is more of a real thing. Anyway, I long ago rationalized away whether a mod or a replacement was worth it or not. For what I've put into EVERYTHING I could have had a one or two MBPs (used) by now.

My idea is just to get as much air on or moving around the case/cpus as I can. Relocated the 120mm fan a bit ago. Seems stable, but then again it could lock on me while typing this!

The mod the G4 came with removed the original case fan. It's attached to the rear grill right across from the processors and has a shroud on it. When I read the directions for this CPU upgrade it said for Quicksilvers to put it back. Since I never had it I had to go find one.

So, there's that one. There's the big fan by the PSU. There are two small fans on top of the CPUs (on top of the heat sink), there's the 80mm fan I dropped on top of those two small fans and then there is the 120mm fan I have just sitting on edge in the case.

 

[noodle654]

Who makes the CPU upgrade card? Sonnet? Is there a way to crank up those fans on the CPU (the 2 small ones)? It is hard to see everything, you should take some more pics of the inside!

Have you thought about a manual fan control box? That would probably give you some more control options for the fans.