Power supply in MDD dual 867 shot?

I arrived home today to find that my Dual 867 G4 was powered down, though I had left it on when I left this afternoon. Not only that, but it won't turn on at all - the power button doesn't light up, there's no spinning of the disks, no chime, nothing. I've unplugged and re-plugged the power cord, switched out surge protectors, plugged it directly into the wall socket - no dice. One thing I did notice, though, is that when I plugged the power cord into the back of the G4 after I had disconnected it, I hear a very faint and periodic short noise, maybe every one second, from the back of the G4. Almost like a short buzzing noise, but too quiet and brief to really be called that.
Does this sound like the power supply is shot? Like it's shorted or burnt out in some way? Thankfully I have two iBooks to use in the meantime, but most of my daily used files and such are on the 4 hard drives in the G4, and there's no space for them (particularly my music) on either of these laptops.
If I do need a new powersupply, does anyone have recommendations for sources? It seems sellers on ebay want the sell them for over $100.
Thanks,
Anthony

Hi,
Yes, that does sound like a power supply issue. It could also be a bad CPU card, or even the motherboard. To isolate the problem, I'd take out the power supply and measure the voltages across the different pairs of wires in the plug that feeds the motherboard. If the voltages don't equal what they should, as per the G4 MDD service manual, then you're in the market for a new power supply. And yes, the ones on eBay will go for 100-150 or so. Make sure it's stated to come from a working system. Untested power supplies could be dead ones from a similar dead machines.
If the power supply voltages are OK, then to isolate whether or not the motherboard, or CPU card is bad will require a spare motherboard, or CPU card, to swap with yours.
Sources for new, or rebuilt, power supplies include WeLoveMacs , DVwarehouse, HarCoreMacs , among many others.
Here is a good set of pictures and step-by-step instructions on taking the MDD power supply apart.
In my case, I had a spare motherboard and power supply to test with. The machine, which I got cheap off of eBay because it didn't work, did not turn on at all. Swapping first the Power supply with a good one didn't bring it back to life. Turns out the CPU card and the power supply were both bad. Once both were replaced, the MDD machine has worked fine.
Good luck!
Ed

Similar Messages

Power Supply on MDD Dual 1G Same as Quicksilver?

Can anybody tell me if the power supplys are interchangeable.
Thanks
Enio

Hi-
No, they are not.
MDD's only work with MDD PSU's.
You can see wiring differences here:
http://www.outofspec.com/frankenmac/wire.shtml

Power Supply for G4 Dual 1.42 MDD

I am needing a new power supply for my Dual 1.42 G4 MDD and need to know what models I can replace mine with.
Thanks

Hello! Try looking HERE. Tom

P/N for Install discs, G4 MDD, Dual 867

Does anyone know the Apple part numbers for the original discs that came with a Power Mac G4 MDD, Dual 867Mhz? or where to get them?
After reading through the postings here I gather they are a MUST have to be able to boot OS9.
If anyone knows of another way please let me know.
Thanks,
Jeff

Hi, Don and Jeff. I made a list a while back that was primarily focused on the part numbers for all the retail (universal) installer CDs. I do have some model-specific discs' part numbers, but not the one for the disc you need, Jeff. Calling Apple may be the best idea. If they're out of that disc and have no record of what its number is (very unlikely, I suspect), try reposting in the PowerMac G4 forums and seeing whether someone who has the same model can supply the number for the disc. Good luck!

Upgrading my G4 MDD dual 867 with Gigadesigns dual 1.33 upgrade; worth it?

I am updgrading my PowerMac G4 dual 867 and doing most of the usual; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB AGP video card, more internal hard drives, still debating on SCSI hard drive; then maxing out memory at 2GB (missing anything else to upgrade?)
I am also considering on upgrading the processor to Gigadesigns dual 1.33 processor upgrade (btw, is this the only processor upgrade available for me?). First, is it worth it? Second, will this force me to change out my PC 2100 DDR SDRAM memory modules? Any other foreseen problems with upgrading to the dual 1.33 processor?
I am hoping to get a response from someone who has actually upgraded their MDD dual 867 with Gigadesigns processor and see what they have to say about it.

MDD upgrades were complex, challenging, and there are 6 different configurations and versions of MDDs out there. And the supply of 7455Bs may be a limiting factor.
If you need OS 9 or don't want a G5 (2.0's for $1699 making it affordable "upgrade") and $499 seems acceptable, and your applications will benefit, AND you don't need more than 2GB RAM (which is limiting also)...
The 9800 Radeon adds more heat and noise and $249 to costs, and the fan is loud but also can fail (poor designed product?).
yes for SATA 10K Raptor over SCSI! Less heat, fast, SATA cables are easy to use and don't cost $100 for good stuff.
But you want to spend how much? $1000 - 1200? a pair of Raptors or something? Seriously, get a G5 from Apple Specials. Your MDD can offset the cost later too.

Powermac G4 MDD Dual 867 vs Powermac G4 Single 1.0 FW800

Hello, I have been a mac user since 2004. I had an iMac G5 1.8 that crashed and I want a replacement for the next year until I can save for a Mac Pro. I saw a great deal for the above Powermac G4's: MDD Dual 867 for $200 and Single 1.0 FW800 for $150. My friend was going to give me his 23" Apple Cinema HD ADC. I will be doing email, internet, about 90% of the time, and sometimes use Photoshop and Lightroom the rest of the time. I will max out the RAM at 2.0Gb, upgrade the Video to 9700 or 9800, and install 10.5 Leopard. What do you guys think?

C24, welcome to Apple Discussions.
A great price for both. Several considerations. Here's a link to the specs on both. http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/index-powermac-g4.html
1. Are you currently using OS 9 in classic mode. If so, you can use either Mac in Tiger. (same as your G5).
2. Do you want to be able to boot into OS 9. Only the MDD will do this.
3. The MDD Dual might be slightly faster if you use multiple applications at the same time and if you do extensive graphics/audio.
Unless you want to boot into OS 9, I would choose the 1GHz. Note: If you upgrade to Leopard, you won't be able to use classic mode.
 Cheers, Tom

No audio device found=no sound on OS9 (MDD Dual 867)

Hello,
i have a serious problem when running OS 9.2.2 on my dual 867 MDD. There is no sound ! In the "sound panel" i have a message like this ( i translate from french ):" Can't use audio device because it seems that another application use it". That is for "in" and "out" sound. When i try to play a movie in QuickTime, i have a message like this ( approximatly ): " you maybe can't hear the audio of the file because there is no audio device". I don't understand because there is no application running. I try everything: disable all preferences, disable all non-apple extensions, reset the pram, reinstall a clean system on other partition. Always the same problem. It's like that computer don't see an audio device - i mean the internal audio of the mac ! On OS 9.2.2 i'm running QuickTime 6.0.3 of course. When i boot on Mac Os X 10.3.9 and -for example- running "Classic QuickTime" i have sound.
So i don't understand. Someone can help me ? Thanks !
( sorry for my english
elzef

To make sure we understand:
when you boot your system direct to OS9, you have no sound.
When you boot to OS X, you have sound.
When you run classic from inside of OSX, you have sound.
Do you have anything like an iMic, 3rd party sound card (there are a couple of complanies that make surround sound cards for Mac), USB speakers, USB headset, or MIDI device connected?

Want references for using ATX power supply with MDD.

There are references all over the place to adapting an ATX power supply for a MDD/FW800. But it would be nice to have links to as many useful ones as possible in one thread -- this one -- without too much superfluous verbiage.
Please post links with brief descriptive comments or, if you have some hard information that's not easily linked to, please post it as concisely as possible. Hopefully, the resulting thread will be useful to many people, and not just to me.

Watch these great YouTube videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xICg592xJTg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7RDGy34tjU&feature=fvw
Look at these links.
http://efeion.blogspot.com/2007/12/power-supply-fun-part-2.html
http://www.applefritter.com/node/23857
 Cheers, Tom

Power Mac G4 MDD Dual 1.25 - forbidden sign at bootup/PRAM

Hello everyone,
I am the proud owner of a couple of MMD G4s (the Dual 1.25 & the Dual 1.42).
My dual 1.25 (fresh Leopard install from two weeks ago) is giving me the forbidden sign at startup.
I did use the Leopard Install DVD to repare all the authorizations but it didn't make any difference.
The good news is that if I restart the machine and do a single PRAM reset, the machine boots beautifully into 10.5.8.
However, I'm afraid of damaging the motherboard by always booting with a PRAM reset so I'd like to know if anyone has encountered this issue ?
(maybe the battery is too old ? It's a replacement Newer Tech from OWC from 2 years ago).
Thanks !
Pierre André.

Hi Pierre, it does sound like the Pram Battery, it's life of 4 or so years can be drastically shortened if ever the Mac is without AC power.
Try holding the Option/alt key down at bootup & select the boot drive to se if that works.

Anyway to get more than 2GB Ram in my MDD Dual 867?

Didn't know if there was a workaround to get my MDD G4 to recognize 1GB memory modules.
I know that there are some workarounds for other issues like big HDs on the pre MDD Powermacs, so I was hoping there might be a workaround for this.

For typical use, yes-2 gigs is plenty. There are certain factors,though, that would necessitate a higher volume of memory, such as using Final Cut Studio or other pro level applications. Of course the more non-pro apps you a running, the more memory you will use but most apps only use a few megabytes each and there is a portion of your hard drive that is allocated for virtual memory anyway.
I hear that the Mac Pro needs more memory to run smoothly. In the Mac Pro thread there are those who constantly complain about how slow their Mac Pro's run with only 2 gigs of memory while 4 gigs is considered the "sweet spot". Maybe it's a hardware thing?
I am currently only running 756 MB and everything seems fine, FCE would probably run a little more smooth (I hope) when I eventually get around to upgrading to 2 gigs, but outside of that every works fine.

G4 MDD dual 867 won't sleep

Sometime after the last Tiger security update, my MDD stopped sleeping. It goes black, then restarts. It does this every year or so. None of the standard fixes work: PMU reset, Cmd-Opt-p-r, disconnect USB devices, eliminate startup items. In the past, the problem went away after a few weeks, but not so far. Any suggestions?

Mac OS X: Why your Mac might not sleep or stay in sleep mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1776
Sleep issues or a kernel panic may occur if a storage device is mounted via a PCI card that doesn't support sleep
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24639
 Cheers, Tom

Screen dims unexpectedly on Dual 867 MDD

So, I have no idea what's causing this, but I just got a Dual 867 MDD today through Craigslist here in San Francisco...
Everything seems to be working great - boots up fine, apps launch fine, etc, etc. I'm running OS X 10.4.5 with 512MB of RAM. Using a DVI-to-VGA adapter, I have the computer hooked up to an OLD NEC MultiSync XV17+ (it's from 1996, I think - still works). The picture is phenomenal on this monitor until I increase the size of any given window to a certain point. Once the window fills more than 25% of the screen, everything gets a little bit dull and decidedly less sharp in appearance. I find this very odd because it's quite dynamic - very real-time. Grab the bottom right corner of a window (any application, including the Finder), and start dragging to make it smaller or bigger and you can see the quality of the picture change.
The monitor was free, and I hope that's the cause of the problem.
Video card: ATI Radeon 9000 Pro (64MB)
Chipset Model: ATY,RV250
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 64 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4966
Revision ID: 0x0001
ROM Revision: 113-99702-127
Displays:
NEC XV17+:
Resolution: 1280 x 1024 @ 75 Hz
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Not Supported
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Rotation: Supported
Display:
Status: No display connected <-- that's the ADC port, I believe
Changing the resolution doesn't help. I haven't tried changing the color depth (thousands vs millions).
I also have not tried removing the SCSI card that was already in this computer just in case it might be causing some kind of problem.
Again, everything else works fine. Internet access, video playback, hard drive read and writes, applications, etc. But when windows are too big, the picture quality is pretty much unacceptable.<br>
PowerMac G4 (MDD) Dual 867 MHz Mac OS X (10.4.5) 512MB, 60GB, AirPort (b), SCSI card, Radeon 9000 (64MB)

By the way, the replacement 17" loaner I have right now (I'm most likely getting the 21" later tonight) has a problem I've seen before. The screen is also greenish and blurry - sign of a shot monitor, right? Well, then why is that when I play World of Warcraft in full screen, the picture quality DRASTICALLY improves? Also, if I then back out into windowed mode, the picture is better than when WoW is not running.
Unlike the previous monitor, this bad 17" doesn't magically dim when large windows are open, nor does it magically improve in the presence of things like photos loaded up on the screen.
Ah, someday, when I'm not broke from buying computer parts, I'll just be able to afford a true DVI display. : )
(Also, I got a pair of used Apple Pro Speakers, and they're great!)

MDD power supply compatibility

I have a MDD dual 867 G4 tower, which I believe was the first model of the MDDs.
Can I swap in a powersupply from a newer MDD dual 1.25 tower?
I am just wondering so I know for certain that the pin outs and voltage isn't going to fry my motherboard.

Should be fine, but compare the pinouts to the only MDD PSU listed here...
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/MDD_ps_mods/MDD_PS_Mods.html
Also only one listed on converting ATX PSU for use in an MDD...
http://atxg4.com/mdd.html
(Trying not to just go by my failing memory that tells me they all were the same.)

Upgrading dual 867 MDD

Hey there, recently picked up an MDD Dual 867 G4 with 1GB RAM and an ATI 9000 64MB.
I'll get to the point, I'm going to be playing a few games with this machine as well as using it everyday as my main machine. Would i notice the performance difference from the ATI 9000 to a GeForce4 Ti 4600? I was able to track one down locally, I'll mainly be playing games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Ghost Recon etc. I assume an ATI 9800 would be overkill in this machine.
Also would an extra 512MB stick of RAM be use full or kind of redundant (topping it out at 1.5GB)?
Thanks ahead of time.

Douggo wrote:
The GeForce Ti is one of the better cards that you can drop in with having to flash a PC card or lay out big bucks for a new compatible AGP card. The 9800 is solid, especially the 256MB version. You couldn't really go wrong either way, running Tiger or Leopard..
Extra RAM is never going to hurt. No sense in letting a 512MB stick just lie around if it's doing nothing else. If you're buying new, drop the extra funds and up it to a 1GB chip - you won't regret it.
-Douggo
He'll regret it when he finds out that the dual 867 MDD only supports up to a 512 MB chip.

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 mb on Dual 867?

I have been reading up on doing an upgrade to my system. I was looking at a Mac version of the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 mb video card for it.
For this particular machine if I find a Mac version of the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, it will fit into the board won't it?
Also, I currently have the 64 mb ATI Radeon 9000 Pro. I should see a definite performance boost shouldn't I?
I am not a power user, and have 1 gig of memory on here, but since installing Ilife '08, it seems slower than it used to. I would like to move up to 10.5 and want to do what I can to make it run decently.

I'm using this card in my MDD Dual 867. First installed it with Panther and saw an improvement in some things. Nothing stellar for day to day work but it was noticeable. I then downloaded some game demos I was not able to play before (frame rates and all) and suddenly I could play them. It's worth it, especially when moving up to Tiger or Leopard with all that Core technology.

Power supply in MDD dual 867 shot?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for