Power Mac MDD G4 1.25 Single Core vs. Dual Core

I am purchasing a 1.25 MDD G4 that has the single core processor. I am going to be using it for music recording and creation.
Am I going to wish I had the dual core? Or will I not notice the difference? I was previously using a 700mhz imac with 765mb of ram and overloaded it pretty quickly.
This machine, with 1 (which is has) or 2 (which I might install) gigs of ram should outshine that pretty significantly even with a single core shouldn't it?

Dual if you can, especially if you're looking to go to Leopard during the life of the machine. Single G4 CPU and Leopard is painfully slow, even at 1.67GHz.
Even the current entry level iMac blows away most of the G5's, except maybe the quad cores) so G5's should be reasonably priced.

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Upgrading a power mac mdd

I recently purchased a power mac mdd dual 1ghz processor. I'm trying to install 2 additional hard drives to no avail. I dont have the additional bay which is located under the optical drives is there away I could purchase one or some how work around not having this bay? Also I can not remove the bay which houses the original hard drive. I'm seriously stuck any suggestions

When it comes to the drive bay which houses your current hard drives, there should be a white plastic catch on one side. If you lift this the drive bay carrier should lift free.
As for your drive bay under the optical drives theres little you can do but buy a new drive carrier in think. Here is the link to purchase one though this is UK so im not usre whether it will suit your needs.
http://www.applemacparts.co.uk/store/productinfo.php?cPath=7445_7475_7601_7602&productsid=64530
The price is quite steep sadly because i think its a case of they have it and you want it so they can charge what they like. Other than that theres one going on ebay.com substantually cheaper here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Hard-Drive-Carrier-for-PowerMac-G4-MDD_W0QQitemZ130116985516 QQihZ003QQcategoryZ51035QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem
When installing your drives make sure they are setup for 'cable select mode'
this is very important as if they are not it can cause all kinds of problems. This is dont by changing the pin jumpers on the drive which should have instructions on it as to what pins do what.
If your Powermac hasnt had drives in the lower bay before make sure you reset the PMU after you have installed them otherwise they wont mount, or thats the problem i found anyway. This will reset your date and clock so you will have to correct those when you power up but it more importantly resets the power management so you hard drives wil power up. Instructions on how to do this can be found here.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=95037
Hope all of this helps
Tom

System disks for my power mac mdd g4 1.4 dual processor

i bought this power mac mdd g4 1.4 dual processor off from craigslist,no disks at all he didn't have them,so where can i get the installation disks?

Apple's Customer Service sometimes has OEM disk sets for older machines.
www.apple.com/contact/
Chances are slim, though, that they would have them for a machine that old.
You can find retail disk sets for older OS X versions at places like HarcoreMac, but their prices aren't cheap. EBay and CraigsList are other possibilities.
Your G4 MDD dual 1.42GHz machine is termed the "Power Mac G4 (FW800)" model by Apple. It originally came with OS X 10.2.3. It's max OS is OS X 10.5.8, the one apparently on it now.
Since the machine is running OS X 10.5.8, you should probably seek a retail OS X 10.5.x (Leopard) version.

G4 Power Mac (MDD) - has trouble booting after shutdown

I have a Power Mac G4 MDD (1.25Ghz) that is having issues when it is shut down. The power button on the front of the machine does not start the computer every time. Sometimes it works, sometimes I need to wait a while before it will work. When the button is pressed, it does not light up or anything.
I have noticed that if I sleep the computer it always seems to wakeup when the front button is pressed. But if I shut down the G4, is does not always bootup.
I have also performed multiple restarts when performing software updates, and they always seemed to work fine.
I have changed the Saft battery inside - it was at about .4v
I have performed a CUDA/PMU reset using the button on the motherboard, and followed the Apple procedure. (disconnect power, and accesories, press reset button, wait 10 seconds, reconnect, restart) It did not restart right away, had to wait 20 minutes or so.
The G4 has a new installation of Tiger, with all of the updates.
I have identified that the PSU is dropping the standby voltage on Pin 1. It does not do it consistently, but when the 25v is missing from Pin 1, the G4 does not start. After a couple of minutes, I can see the voltage return to Pin 1, and the unit starts no problem.
Before I look for a replacement PSU (which seem pretty expensive), I was wondering if anyone knows if this is purely a PSU issue, or does the CUDA/PMU influence the standby voltages?

With the "sometimes" nature of the problem, it could be the front panel board, a much cheaper replacement than a PSU. An Apple tech told me that one way to test the front panel board was to find one of the first Apple USB keyboards for the original iMac. The early ones have a power button like the old ADB boards that overrides the internal board/button. He said that, should the Mac start reliably from the old keyboard, then there is trouble with the front panel board. The Apple model number for the USB board with power button is M2452.
Very helpful forum member japamac has a test procedure for the MDD PSU on his site here:
http://jcsenterprises.com/Japamacs_Page/Blog/D275729F-09DA-4FBB-96B3-BEEEB2C0461 9.html
You'll need a multimeter to check the voltage levels.

Power Mac (MDD), New Apple keyboard does not have an Eject key

Newbie question...I picked up an Apple keyboard for an IMAC that does not have the open door key. Is there a combination of keys I can use to open the doors on my G4 MDD? My reqular keyboard, with the open door key, opens the doors fine.
Thanks in advance,
Frank
Message was edited by: frankmojz

Hi-
Welcome to Discussions!
Open System/Library/Core Services/Menu Extras. Double click on "Eject.menu", an icon will appear, and you can eject and close the drive from your menu bar.
If you hold the F12 key for 2-3 seconds, the drive tray door will also open and close.

Power Mac MDD G4 1.25 Ram Upgrade Question

Since there are 4 slots, do I have in install 4 sticks of 512mb RAM, or can I just do 2 1GB sticks? Or can I do any combination?
(2) 512's and (1) 1gb
Thanks.

Hey t.e.r.,
So first off, is it a pretty fast computer?
Well it's not an dual Quad 3.0 GHz but it's fast enough and it's rock solid. I use it as a work horse and have two internal hard drives and 2 on FireWire with a total of around 10 partitions. I'm often working with 9 or so windows open at one time. It did get slow with around 300 items on the desktop so I jammed that into a folder and it's a lot faster.
And second, does the upgrade of ram beyond 1gb make a significant difference?
Well when I'm doing stuff like making a clone and working with a lot of windows open I need as much RAM as possible.
The only problem with these machines is they sometimes throw a power supply and even now replacements are expensive.
Richard

I had to reinstall Lion because my computer was non responsive. Now all my stuff (applications, etc) are gone. I have a time machine backup - does that have my applications and if so how do I get them from the backup to my computer? It is power mac 2 x2.8

It is power mac 2 x2.8 GHz Quad core intel xeon running 10.7.3 - purchased in 2006
Or how can I transfer the appliucations form my laptop?

Ok. I have 2 hard drives and one of them died apparently so..not knowing what to do, I did chose reinstall Lion after command r open start-up. The whole thing is a mess but my computer is back up and running with the second hard drive. I had a time machine backup which I've been dragging stuff out of. i had to re enter serial numbers and do all sorts of initial set up stuff. 1) How do I get all of my icons (like my HD icon and external drives icons) to appear on my desktop again? I can only find them through a finder window. 2) i now have to type a password to get into my computer (user) - I 'm the only user and don't want to have to do that.

Power mac g5 quad cpu runing hot

ok my power mac g5 quad the top cpu core 1 and 2 are runing really hot and ween itryed to turn it on this moring the fans all went to max and shut off i then tryed to trun it on again and it just went 'click' and i unpluged ever thing left it alon and came back about a hour later and tuned it on and ween it got to the main desk top the fans were on max and the top cpu cores were about 155f 165f and the outher cpu was runing fine what could this be a computer guy told me this could be that i need new thermal paste pleassss help

The thermal paste degrades after 3-5 years of use.
Whether anyone wants to or not, the thermal paste in ALL G5 machines needs replaced.
LCS systems, even without leaks, can have reduced performance due to sludge buildup or loss of volume due to evaporation and escape of those liquid vapors.
Serious consideration should be made towards rebuilding the LCS for longevity of the computer.

Power Mac G5, Dual 1.8GHz - Sluggish Video

Hey Guys.
I purchased a used Power Mac G5 couple months back. Its a Dual 1.8GHz, 2.5GB Ram, 160GB Hdd, Geforce FX5200 64Meg AGP.
Ive noticed sense i got the machine that when watching video's on youtube or any type of high resolution video's, the playback is choppy. Even scrolling through webpages seems a bit choppy. With just standard applications the machine runs great and its nice and quick. Its just the video play back that is kind of hauting me. Now this may be a stupid question but will i notice a difference if i were to purchase another higher grade video card? Or is my machine not powerful enough for HD playback? Do i need more ram? Anyways thanks in advance for any type of advice.
-Jess

The 5200 is the weakest of the G5 AGP cards, and almost any other card would be an improvement.
Bear in mind that there are two flavors of AGP card, well three, really. There are Mac OEM cards like many of the Radeon 9600 and 9800 cards, many of which have one DVI and one ADC connector, or the GeForce 6800 GT and Ultra cards, which are considerably better than the 9600 Radeons and somewhat better than the 9800's. That being said, the second flavor is the PC AGP cards flashed to Mac ROM. Some fly, some don't fly so well. The third flavor is the PC AGP cards not flashed with Mac ROM, which are, in a word, unusable on a Mac.
With respect to Flash content, I will say that at least with Flash Player 10, you can expect with a GeForce 6800 Ultra OEM card to see sluggish playback in some cases, mainly because of CPU loading from the Flash plugin. In most cases, the 6800 Ultra is a pretty peppy card, but if things are loading the CPU, it can't help you much. With respect to scrolling and things like that, the better cards generally handle things pretty fluidly, but again, if there is a Flash or Java script running somewhere, like in an advertisement, things can get sluggish because of CPU loading.
One thing I would do is get a larger drive in there. A SATA-1 or SATA-2 drive should work just fine; a SATA-3 drive will undoubtedly need a jumper to bring it back to SATA-1 speeds.

Can a Power Mac G5 2.7 dual processor be run as a single processor?

This is in relation to my last question that I may have mis-worded,
Can I run a dual core, dual processor, as a dual core, single processor, and if so, how do I do this?
This is the info on;
About this Mac:
Power Mac           G5
Machine Model     7,3
CPU type             Power Mac G5 - 3.1
Number of CPU's 2
CPU Speed          2.7
Any Help,
Thank you.

Yes. (but yours is a dual processor, single core each processor)
It may be run as a single processor by disabling one processor.
While booted normally, in Utilities, open Terminal and enter the following:
$ sudo nvram boot-args="cpus=1"
To re-enable the 2nd cpu
$ sudo nvram boot-args=""

Power Mac G4 MDD power supply unit/RAM

Hello,
I just bought a used Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors) at a garage sale for $20. The owner said it works, but he took out the RAM, power supply unit and hard drive.
I would like to place an order for the RAM and power supply unit but I am not sure how I differentiate which power supply unit to purchase. When I try to look it up all I find it is that it had gods gift to worst ever power supply unit in the history of power supply units. It was the loudest most obnoxious fan set up or something of the sort.
Well bottom line I need to get a few replacement parts for the old G4 desktop and was hoping that some experienced mac hardware person could point me in the right direction. I am comfortable replacing parts I am just not certain what I need to purchase to install.
Does anybody know of any good 3rd party hardware that they could suggest for a replacement part?
Power Mac G4
Designed by Apple in California
Model No.: M8570 EMC No.:1914
Thank you very much :]
(I am pretty sure I posted this in the right subcategory, sorry if I did not.)
None of these model numbers match, but it everything I research says it was from this generation of G4’s. How can I 100% tell which one is the model I have?

I just finished rebuilding my MDD (FW800). As for finding specific parts for your machine, be sure you have the model number, or are able to differentiate between the models. That being said, most of the case parts are interchangeable. Problems can occur when swapping processors and failing to use the proper heat sink for that processor.
The best place (price wise versus availability) that I've found for MDD power supplies is on eBay. However, be aware that you will probably be getting it used. So either ask the seller if they will guarantee it for a specified period of time, or buy it from a seller that offers a guarantee (normally 30 days). If you get one that lasts for 30 days without any problems you've probably got a good one. Price is normally around $140 + shipping.
Another avenue is to try shopping the web (Google) for what you need. There are a number of great websites that carry what you may need, or maybe are looking for. Some of those to checkout are:
www.applecomponents.com
www.otherworldcomputing.com
xlr8yourmac.com
www.lowendmac.com
Additionally there are a number of case and power supply mods that can be done to quiet down the MDD. Apple doesn't necessarily endorse these mods, as they deal with changing power supply cooling fans, and/or the processor/case cooling fans. However, if your MDD is out of warranty, you practice safe electrical/static work practices as you're working, and you're willing to accept any negative consequences should those mods either not work properly or they happen to result in damage to other components, then do what you feel is appropriate.
As for telling exactly which model you have, and how it was originally configured when it shipped from Apple, research the serial number through this Apple website. Another way is to check the model number of the motherboard. This is located near the PCI slots, by the modem connection. It will have a number something like 820-1453-A, or 820-1500-A. Cross referencing these through Google can help tell which motherboard you have. As for the processor, you'll need to carefully remove the heartsink (5 screws) and look at the chip(s) itself. If there are two chips it's a dual processor, and if only one it's a single (Duh!). Then locate the small white sticker that's stuck to the processor card for the processor's info. It should tell you what you need to know about it. You can also look at the info inscribed on the face of each processor chip.
Important Note: Be very careful, and wear a grounding wristband at all times when when working on the inside, or handling any computer components. This is particularly true when handling the processor card, and here's why. Any static shock from you to the motherboard or to the processor could severely damage or destroy that component.
Here's another link to way of quieting the MDD.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/g4mirrored_drive_doors/noise_reduction/g4_ddr_noisereduction.html
Anyway, I hope these help you find what you need. Be careful!!
kudzu48

Apple Mouse not working on Power Mac G4 MDD, works on other computers

I cannot get my standard Apple optical USB mouse to work properly with my Power Mac G4 (MDD). When I plug it in, the lights on the mouse work but the cursor does not respond. No movement, no clicking. However, when I plug the mouse into another one of my Macs, it works fine.
The Power Mac's System Profiler recognizes it as "USB Device," the mouse is unresponsive, and there are no mouse options in the System Prefs (keyboard & mouse). My Power Book's System Profiler recognizes it as "Apple Optical USB Mouse" and it works perfectly.
I am running 10.4.6 on both machines but I have had the problem with multiple versions from 10.3 up. I also bought another USB mouse (a Kensington) and had the same issues.
I've run through the standard USB troubleshooting like trying devices one-at-a-time and trying each USB port (on the Power Mac, the keyboard, and the back of a Cinema Display) as described in KB #300543 and KB #58033 but to no avail.
One thing that did stand out in #58033:
If the device shows up in System Profiler, even if the device doesn't work, the issue is usually due to software. Your best solution is to try updating the drivers, creating a new user, or reinstalling the system software.
Is there any way to update an Apple driver? I've only seen software for 3rd-party mouse drivers. I would try to create a new user but it doesn't seem to be possible using only keyboard shortcuts. And I would like to avoid reinstalling the system software!
Thanks for reading.
Power Mac G4 (MDD) Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Have you tried other mice on your computer?
I seem to recall a problem like this when Speakable Items is turned on. I'm also going to dig into a little research on this.
Try checking that out. Make sure it is off.
The other things to try are logging in as another user and see if the problem remains. If so, there is a bad preference in your user preferences.
Lastly, if all else fails, try downloading USB Overdrive and see if it takes over the mouse function and provides you with a usable mouse.
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13443

Power Mac G4 MDD won't wake from sleep mode

I have a Power Mac G4 MDD 1.25GHz with a 15" Apple display and running 10.4.
I can not wake the computer up from the sleep mode. It will not respond to the mouse moving, a mouse click, a keyboard key, the power button on the display or the power button on the computer.
The only thing I can do is force the computer off by holding in the power button (on display or computer) and restarting the computer.
The computer is set to go to sleep after 1 hour of no use (or the issue happens if I put it to sleep).
Any thoughts would be great.

This is for a Mac that won't sleep.
Here is KB article HT1776 with their tips.
Mine follow;
USB devices and hubs often cause Macs to not sleep or wake quickly from sleep (notably HP printers and scanners, HP all in ones, and Cannon scanners). Disconnect all USB except for keyboard and mouse and try. If it sleeps, add one back at a time testing after each one to find the culprit.If you've set your Mac to receive faxes, it may not be able to sleep. It might also have a damaged preferences file.
If you use your Mac for faxing, open System Preferences. click Print & Fax, click the Faxing tab, and uncheck the Receive Faxes On This Computer box.
If that doesn't work or you've never faxed on your Mac, go to Finder/Hard Drive /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration and delete the com.apple.PowerManagement.plist and com..apple.AutoWake.plist files (if your Mac asks, type your admin. password).
If the latter file isn't present in the folder, go to user name(probably your name)/Library/Preferences, delete the com.apple.systemuiserver.plist file, and reboot your Mac.
Hope this helps!
P.S. One member here reported this (Michael Gleason);
"I have had this problem with my IMac G5. It is surprisingly irritating. LaCie's Silverkeeper backup software was the cause. By default it gave itself permission to wake up the computer to check if a backup was needed. Do you have this or a similar program installed which has scheduled activities including wake-up permissions as an option?"
Dave Hamilton provided this link, xlr8yourmac.com, to a member, which addresses failure of deep sleep with some users that updated and added new FireWire and USB cards.
Also, here is Apple doc.#305262 about PCI cards and sleep.
tomhorvat adds this; After few days of messing around I found out that I had desktop background (wallpaper) set to change every 1 minute.
After unchecking "Change picture..." in system preferences (under Desktop/Screen saver), my powerbook went to sleep all by itself.
Tristan Currier noticed this; "I have a Canon printer(shared) and my imac would not sleep. I opened up printer/fax in system prefs and noticed it said the printer was in use when it was off. Opened up the printer queue and noticed about 7 pending documents. Deleted them all and now it sleeps.
Check the printer queue!"
Good Luck!  DALE

What are the normal operating temps for a G5 Quad Core Power Mac Tower?

I asked this within another thread but I am afraid it will get buried and think it deserves its own item.
I just downloaded Temperature Monitor and have been looking at the data. I have no idea how to interpret the figures and there are no listings of specified upper and lower limits even though there is an area where those numbers should go.
The numbers are constantly in flux, going up and down a degree or two but here is a recent example from a screenshot taken while I was running WORD (but not working on any document), Terminal, Apple Mail, Firefox (two windows open), Temperature Monitor, Preview, Dashboard and Finder:
Air Tunnel 99.5 degrees F
Air Tunnel Heatsink 92.8 degrees F
CPU A Core 1 Diode 107.5 degrees F
CPU A Core 2 Diode 107.8 degrees F
CPU B Core 1 Diode 108.0 degrees F
CPU B Core 2 Diode 111.5 degrees F
Drive Bay 87.8 degrees F
Graphics processor chip 131.0 degrees F
Main Logic Board Air Inlet --- (this is always missing)
Main Logic Board Backside 108.7 degrees F
Memory Controller Diode 133.9 degrees F
SMART Disk WDC WD2500JS-41M.... 104.0 degrees F.
The icon for the program, in the dock, gives me an ever changing number that is perhaps an overall reading - an average. Right now the number is 106.4 degrees F (taken some minutes after the screenshot providing the above data). Always in flux.
Do any of these temps look alarming? And HOW and WHERE do I find out what the temperatures SHOULD be?
PS I have APPLE RAM.

If you want to find out whether a sensor value is within normal limits, please select the menu item Window > Show Overview (or press Apple+1) and look for the limits in the third and fourth column of the sensor table. They contain the known official limits Apple has specified for readings acquired at the given sensor locations. If no limit is given in the table, this either means that it does not make sense to specify a limit for this particular sensor (e.g. the battery capacity should not have limits), or Apple hasn't published any specifications for this sensor.
Note that all up-to-date Macintosh models automatically shut down or enter sleep mode if one of the readings exceeds a critical limit. For this reason it is impossible that your computer can be damaged in an overtemperature condition.
Hardware Monitor Notes
There are also notes on the two version for the G5 Quad.
Quad 2.5 GHz Power Mac G5 (Late 2005)
Power Consumption Thermal Output
Idle CPU Max Idle CPU Max
185 W 550 W 631 BTU/h 1877 BTU/h
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303540-en
Mac Pro 2GHz 4GB 10K Raptor 23" Cinema Mac OS X (10.4.8) WD RE16 RAID DW 4.0 APC RS1500 Vista RC1

Power Mac G4 MDD with 1.5 GB RAM slows to a crawl

My Power Mac G4 MDD has been getting slower and slower for the past couple of years, and now it takes forever to do a lot of things that it did quickly before. Today it even told me it didn't have enough RAM available to open Photoshop, even though I only had maybe three other apps open and I have 1.5 GB of RAM.
I had originally suspected the hard drive was fragmented, and I ran Disk Utilities on it, but that didn't help. Maybe I need a better disk utility? Also, the RAM message I got today leads me to believe it could be memory related.
Wat's going on and how do I fix it?

Hi
I'd start by checking the basics if you haven't already.
If you run the Activity Monitor application located in the Applications -> Utilities folder and click on the System Memory tab you can monitor the memory usage as you use your applications. You can use it to check the full 1.5GB is still being recognized and see how much you have free at any time. The following article helps explain the memory usage shown:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107918
If you click on the Disk Usage tab you can also monitor the disk space usage and see how much you still have free. Although the message refers to RAM, it may be as a side affect of not having enough free disk space for the virtual memory. I'd always make sure you have at least 5GB of disk space free for the OS temporary files and virtual memory use etc.
Finally it may be worth running the OS X maintenance scripts. These would normally get run in the small hours of the morning assuming the computer is still switched on and not asleep. However, they can also be run manually at any time, either from the command line using Terminal or from a third party front end such as MacJanitor. More information can be found here:
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/maintscripts.html

Power Mac MDD G4 1.25 Single Core vs. Dual Core

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