G5 internals into a G4 case?

[oi!]

I think I paid about $150 for my dual 1.42. I know that's not cheap, but it's less expensive than, say, buying a big pile of video cards that won't work. The processors also turn up from time to time also-they will work fine provided that you also get the copper heatsink.

I bought my dual 1.25 locally in a package deal, so can't pin down a specific price(I actually went to buy a 21" CRT and ended up with car load of stuff).

Even so, if you need RAM in a PowerPC Mac, just go with a G5. I love my G4s, but there comes a time where you get around to the fact that they're limited in what they can do.

$150 would be quite a low price these days.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Power...410014?hash=item41ad012e5e:g:~vgAAOSwMHdXQltp
US $235.99, unlikely to ship here.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Power...246944?hash=item2a68679ba0:g:tjsAAOSwPsJXP2-L
US $429.95 + $40.35 shipping.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Power...605849?hash=item3ac71c0699:g:4tUAAOSwjXRXaeEg
US $399.9 + $94.27 shipping.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Power...264323?hash=item1c69cf1903:g:65EAAOSw~oFXKWlA
1.25 that's been upgraded to 1.42, with copper heat pipe heat sink.
US $150.00 + $115.51 shipping.
[doublepost=1468006565][/doublepost]

No, I meant a legion to fight for awareness of bad ideas and misinformation on the internet... we meet every Tuesday and have coffee and biscuits. Oh, and we also collect macs and talk about cars.

I don't drink coffee.
I have 11 PPC macs and a mac pro.
Also I have had stuff printed in several car magazines. beginning mid 90's, most recently in a current issue. Many of my RL friends are car enthusiasts.

I did. And since the idea was that absurd, I assumed you were being serious in that post. Glad to know you weren't actually thinking about putting a G5 in a G4 case, and were just joking around. If it were, that'd be pretty stupid!

Please read this...

OK, so a while a go I stumbled on basically this question asked on a forum...
"Can you put a G5 internals into a G4 case?"


So, can you?
Well, yes!
You can either extend the case several inches, which is very difficult and very time consuming.
Or simply trim off the excess motherboard length with something like a Dremel, or a table saw - at the slight cost of impaired functionality.


So realistically that would be a "No." then, just as the answer given on that site?

Trimming the complex multi-layer board like a G5's is a very bad idea., just as bunnspecial correctly pointed out.
However, I'm starting to suspect I pitched the humor at slightly too advanced a level, as it seams to have been unnoticed that I was very specifically not being serious when I suggested cutting the end(s) of a G5 PCB with a dremel or table saw.
Even though I went as far as noting that doing so would cause "impaired functionality" ie. it wouldn't work afterwards.

 

[0248294]

Well, were you serious or not? Because I bloody hope you weren't.

 

[Gamer9430]

[doublepost=1468006565][/doublepost]I don't drink coffee.
I have 11 PPC macs and a mac pro.
Also I have had stuff printed in several car magazines. beginning mid 90's, most recently in a current issue. Many of my RL friends are car enthusiasts.

Sorry, if you don't drink coffee you aren't allowed into the club. @eyoungren would go berserk if he found out about non-coffee drinkers in the club (we already had to force @LightBulbFun to say he loves coffee). Also, you have to have at least 12 PPC macs, as set by @bunnspecial since he has over 100 and with several very complex algorithms he did with his science knowledge, he determined members need at least 12 PPC macs. Lastly, car magazines are frowned upon as they aren't as cool as the real cars featured in them, like a MG for example. On that note, Match Box/Hot Wheels replicas of the cars are acceptable because Match Box cars are cool.

 

[eyoungren]

Oy (or is that oi!?)!

The stuff you learn about the clique you're in (that you never knew you were in) about how the people in the clique you never knew you were in LIED to you about a member liking coffee when he DIDN'T!

Maybe if you guys in the clique weren't SLACKING all the time and give @LightBulbFun some real coffee (instead of tea and crumpets!!!) he might actually decide for REAL that he likes it!!!

Go and sin no more my clique, clicky, clickish friends!

 

[Gamer9430]

Oy (or is that oi!?)!

The stuff you learn about the clique you're in (that you never knew you were in) about how the people in the clique you never knew you were in LIED to you about a member liking coffee when he DIDN'T!

Maybe if you guys in the clique weren't SLACKING all the time and give @LightBulbFun some real coffee (instead of tea and crumpets!!!) he might actually decide for REAL that he likes it!!!

Go and sin no more my clique, clicky, clickish friends!

Told you, Oi, that Erik would go berserk if he found out someone in the Clique/Legion didnt like coffee

 

[oi!]

Sorry, if you don't drink coffee you aren't allowed into the club. @eyoungren would go berserk if he found out about non-coffee drinkers in the club (we already had to force @LightBulbFun to say he loves coffee). Also, you have to have at least 12 PPC macs, as set by @bunnspecial since he has over 100 and with several very complex algorithms he did with his science knowledge, he determined members need at least 12 PPC macs. Lastly, car magazines are frowned upon as they aren't as cool as the real cars featured in them, like a MG for example. On that note, Match Box/Hot Wheels replicas of the cars are acceptable because Match Box cars are cool.

I was purchasing PPC mac number 12 this coming week anyway. Might buy a 13th too at some point, if I can find a late 2004/early 2005 1.8ghz single processor for the right price near me (or with sensibly priced shipping). Yes, I'm seriously considering it, but it needs to physically fit and buying one seams to be the only way to get the measurements and find out if it'll run 8Gb ram.

I have a small collection of Matchbox (and others) cars on the shelf.
Back in the early to mid 90's I modded one, it was trashed when I acquired it. I lowered suspension, fitted uprated axles, fitted Fondmetal 2600 rims (similar to BBS RS's, but with exposed wheelnuts) with phat rubber, V8 with supercharger through the bonnet, race style seats, body kit, rear wing, paint, ICE install (speakers in the back) and a working alarm.
It sat on a shelf collecting dust for a decade or more before being dropped, the bits have been in box waiting for me to get around to fixing it ever since.

You 'coffee' drinkers go and enjoy yourselves, and the coffee / pretend coffee as appropriate.

 

[redheeler]

Just put a G4 MDD and G5 side-by-side, the case layout is completely different. Such a mod would be next to impossible.

 

[bunnspecial]

Yes, I'm seriously considering it, but it needs to physically fit and buying one seams to be the only way to get the measurements and find out if it'll run 8Gb ram.

If it even works with 8gb of RAM(which I seriously doubt) you will spend more on 2gb DDR RAM than you would on a dual 1.42.

 

[jbarley]

Back in the early to mid 90's I modded one, it was trashed when I acquired it. I lowered suspension, fitted uprated axles, fitted Fondmetal 2600 rims (similar to BBS RS's, but with exposed wheelnuts) with phat rubber, V8 with supercharger through the bonnet, race style seats, body kit, rear wing, paint, ICE install (speakers in the back) and a working alarm.
It sat on a shelf collecting dust for a decade or more before being dropped, the bits have been in box waiting for me to get around to fixing it ever since.

You 'coffee' drinkers go and enjoy yourselves, and the coffee / pretend coffee as appropriate.

I'm curious when it got dropped, did the alarm go off?

 

[oi!]

Yes, it did.

Just put a G4 MDD and G5 side-by-side, the case layout is completely different. Such a mod would be next to impossible.

If the motherboard fits on the door and it closes with the heatsink in place, then everything else is just about repositioning components. Not all need to be inside the case.

If it even works with 8gb of RAM(which I seriously doubt) you will spend more on 2gb DDR RAM than you would on a dual 1.42.

Yes, 2Gb, 184pin dimms are expensive new, and non-ECC unregistered sticks are few and far between on eBay.
But Server memory is there to be bought cheap.

I have searched the net already before I started this thread. I found conflicting info on whether ECC ram works in a G5, and whether buffered/registered ram works in a G5.
Sun Microsystems produced several servers that used 184pin dimms, you can find them on eBay now. Beware that Sun Fire X4100/X4200 servers used DDR1, but X4100M2/X4200M2 used DDR2.
I also found out that if you used a mix pairs of single rank (up to 1Gb) and dual rank (2Gb) you get a 10% drop in performance (speed) in SunFireX4100/X4200 servers. Is this also true of mac G5's?
I think there were HP servers that used the same sticks (not 100% sure - maybe only PC2700), and possibly others.

In addition to 184pin 2GB sticks for the Sun Fire X4100/X4200* there are 4Gb sticks** meaning you could fit 16GB ram in this mac!
Would it recognize the full amount? I suspect not, but it would be sweet if it did.
(Everymac says the official max ram is 4GB, and also the actual max ram is 4Gb - oh well)




* This site, for example is still selling them, $51.96 a pair http://www.memoryxsun.com/mxx8023a.html
** The same site sells them at $199.96 a pair http://www.memoryxsun.com/mxx8024az.html

 

[MagicBoy]

A couple of points :

Those are ECC registered sticks - they won't work. I've still seen no proof that 2GB DDR 400 unbuffered sticks exist and are available to purchase.

How exactly to do plan on "repositioning" the large flat PSU out of the G5 into a case that's physically smaller?

 

[0248294]

With duct tape, of course.

 

[oi!]

OK, to recap, the normal G5 motherboard only fits in a G4 case if you make the case bigger, or [tongue in cheek] use a dremel/table saw to make the board small enough to fit,[/tongue in cheek].Cutting bits off has the down side that the board no longer works.



However, there was a smaller board fitted in the late 2004 / early 2005 1.8Ghz single processor model.

Does it fit? What are it's dimensions?

If it is smaller, then it is more likely to fit on the door, but that doesn't mean that it will.

If it does, the next question is can you still close the door? You could fit a shallow pocket in the opposite side of the case to gain a few more mm (10 to 15mm maybe).

You can use extender cables to position items like PSU, HD and Optical drives where ever you can find space in the case (more or less) or outside the case if you want.

The MDD has this big bulky shelf thing slap bang in the middle. It seriously restricts flexibility, but here's the thing, you can take it out! It's held in with rivets, which could easily be drilled out!



The late 2004 / early 2005 1.8Ghz single processor model, is the only cheese grater G5 with a soldered on CPU, so swapping it is basically impossible. Dead chip = Dead board. Upgrades/down grades, not happening.



But everyone knows it's a heat monster, fitting such a hot chip in such a confined case will give temperatures that basically mean you have an oven that will cook food in seconds - this myth is busted as far as I'm concerned.
[doublepost=1468147236][/doublepost]Now that is a seriously ugly job!

However, it does show that it can be done.
[doublepost=1468148828][/doublepost]http://www.memoryx.com/bjn.html

 

[oi!]

G5, standard size mobo is 277 x 432mm.

MDD mobo 311 x 292mm.

Standard G5 board is 34mm smaller for case height, but 140mm longer.



But the door is 70mm longer than the board so we need to find/save 70mm.

So, that late 2004/early 2005 board, how big is it?



I've hunted around a lot for this and not found measurements anywhere, but it seams likely the case height dimension would be the same as for the standard board, perhaps +/- 1 or 2mm.

But that way was OK, what I want is the other way.

Photshop to the rescue! By superimposing an image of the small board over an image of the larger board and a bit of tweaking so it all looks right (matching up known 'landmarks') and we can get an approximate end point for the smaller board relative to the larger board. By measuring that end point on the larger board I get a length in the region of 320mm +/- maybe 10mm. So at worst we're looking at 330mm, usable door size is 362mm, so the board fits on the door.







Next question...

Will the door close?

 

[Gamer9430]

A couple of points :

Those are ECC registered sticks - they won't work. I've still seen no proof that 2GB DDR 400 unbuffered sticks exist and are available to purchase.

How exactly to do plan on "repositioning" the large flat PSU out of the G5 into a case that's physically smaller?

Magnets, MagicBoy. They solve all of the world's problems!

 

[oi!]

You mean like the large powerful Neodymium Iron Boron magnet found inside all modern hard drives?



That "Magnets" thing is old, and inaccurate too. Yes you can mess up a hard drive with magnets, but you really need to mean to do it, like stroking the surface of the platters with a powerful magnet.



Give it a rest.

 

[eyoungren]

Magnets, MagicBoy. They solve all of the world's problems!

I think this whole magnets thing gets a bad rap.

I mean this is probably just a basic tool of the trade if you're in the digital document destruction industry right?

I can recall way back in 1989 or so having 3.5" floppies that were corrupt and wouldn't format. Magnets were a great tool then. Just wipe the top and bottom of the disk and instant unformatted disk. Put it back in the drive and usually you had no further trouble getting it formatted.

 

[oi!]

Yes, I remember that, back in the day. I know the same was true of 5 1/4" disks too, and no doubt 8", 3 1/4, 3 and 2.8 inch floppies as well.


I don't know about you, but I don't live in 1989 any more and the world has moved on since then.

SSD's are essentially a flash drive, should be unaffected by most normal magnetic fields. Normal, as opposed to something cooked up by, say, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab), at Florida State University.

Cables and wires are affected, magnets cause noise in unshielded wires and cables - that's why there's shielded cables out there.


Are there unshielded wires inside an SSD? Dunno, never taken one apart.

 

[oi!]

Using magnets to secure computer components doesn't exactly provide credibility as a highly skilled professional mac/PC technician, neither does using glue (hot melt or otherwise), gum, tape (single or double sided) or jamming stuff tight with matches/wood splinters folded wads of paper/board/. I'm not saying they don't work, but really! It's OK to point and laugh once, maybe twice, but it gets old real quick.

 

[balamw]

MOD NOTE:

The thread is now open after a clean up of off-topic posts.

Please stay on-topic and remember political discussion should only be posted in the Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum.