Hardwiring Pismo fan to be permanently on

[Meowx]

Does anyone know of any way to get a power source off the Pismo internals and just have the fan running all the time? The Pismo fans are notorious for not running until things get really hot, and mine just doesn't ever turn on. (I've confirmed that the fan does in fact work.) I have a 550 G4 and it gets lap scaldingly hot just idling in OS9 with the fan never kicking on.

I'm aware you can do this in OF, but this is a machine i don't use often and would prefer to not have to type something in every single time, especially since i already almost bricked the machine doing that once before lol.

 

[weckart]

Wondering if G4 fan control would work, even though Pismo is obviously not a supported machine.

Otherwise, if you set the thermals via NVRAM, you wouldn't have to retype them in unless you reset the NVRAM, which is not going to happen very often.

 

[Raging Dufus]

OP, tacking onto what @weckart suggested, the following may be of interest to you:

Mac Classic

Tips and tricks to help keep your Mac OS 9/Early Mac OS computers usable today. Software downloads, guides, hacks and news.

mac-classic.com

 

[Meowx]

Thank you, yep I've already been thru that website pretty extensively.

There is no OS9 software solution, and as mentioned OF is not a permanent solution and risks bricking the machine every time it's done if something is input wrong.

It's easy enough to find a 5v fan speed control knob i could wire the fan to and put inside by where the pram battery lives, i just need to find a power source for it and was wondering if anyone has any idea of what i could hook that up to.

Thanks for all your help!

 

[Amethyst1]

It's easy enough to find a 5v fan speed control knob i could wire the fan to and put inside by where the pram battery lives, i just need to find a power source for it and was wondering if anyone has any idea of what i could hook that up to.

The hard drive and optical drive use 5Vdc power.

 

[Meowx]

hmm do you know where the power source for that is? I can't find any power pins on a PATA connector but that's all that the hard drive connects to

 

[Amethyst1]

hmm do you know where the power source for that is? I can't find any power pins on a PATA connector but that's all that the hard drive connects to

Four of those 44 pins are for power. See here.