---------- Original message ---------- Subject: Re: MDD G4 odd start/restart behavior - new video card Date: Saturday, 08. December 2012 From: Wayne Stewart <waynejstew...@gmail.com> To: g3-5-list@googlegroups.com > If it is a failing or marginal power supply you could try removing other > cards and running the hard drives off an external power supply. Then if it > does reboot when hot, you'll know it's your power supply. If it still > doesn't then maybe there's something wrong with the video card.
You could also take the opportunity to replace your 4 IDE hard drives with 1 SATA drive or even 1 SSD SATA drive. Both solutions will draw less power. All you need is an IDE to SATA adapter, like this one: http://www.amazon.com/HDE-SATA-Drive-Interface-Adapter/dp/B002Y2NI4M or this one: http://www.startech.com/HDD/Adapters/25in-and-35in-40-Pin-Male-IDE-to-SATA- Adapter-Converter~IDE2SAT You’ll propably find similar products on eBay or even at a local store nearby. One HDD will definitely draw less power than 4 HDDs. And with modern SATA-II (3 GB/s) drives you can definitely use a green series that is designed be energy efficient, because the internal UltraATA/133 IDE bus is even slower than a slow SATA drive, so there won’t be a benefit from choosing a fast SATA drive anyway. My recommendation: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Intellipower-Desktop- WD15EADS/dp/B0021L9HE6 Two things should be considered though: 1) PowerPCs use the APM partitioning scheme. Therefore the limit is 2 TB. 2) Modern SATA HDDs use 4096k sectors (WD: “Advanced Format”). APM uses 512k. Since Mac OS prior to 10.6.x isn’t aware of 4096k sectors, disks that use it will ultimately be formated wrongly and thus may suffer from a significant performace impact. (AFAIK the metioned WD Caviar Green WD15EADS is still 512k.) Weather 4096k sectors will actually reduce performance further than the already existing limit due to the speed of the IDE bus is far beyond my experience and knowledge. BUT, before you try that, see if your MDD Power Mac runs stable with the Radoeon 9800 if you only use one HDD. If it does, this may be a convenient way to go. Cheers, Andreas aka Mac User #330250 -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
