Computers General

[Goujer (she/her)]

I figured a topic for any computer builds, repairs and/or projects would fit well here.

[Goujer (she/her)]

I'm currently working to get 3 IDE hard drives of a size below 120GB for my PowerMac G4 MDD so I can segregate data for my Classic mode on Mac OS X Leopard project.

This has led to me having take out my XP legacy build's hard drive and replace it with a SATA hard drive. That gives me a 80GB hard drive.
I have a 120GB with Tiger on it and a 200GB with Leopard and Mac OS 9 on it. I plan to move Mac OS 9 to the 80GB and Tiger to another 80GB I have lying around and Leopard to Tiger's old 120GB.
Formatted the 120GB should be less than 120GB making the drive fine for Mac OS 9.

I'm also waiting on my G4's PSU to come back since it fried. I swapped the main fan out for a Dell fan of the same size that can push nearly twice as much air. I also swapped the lower disk drive for a Zip Drive, and swapped the top drive for a better DVD drive.

[Hālian He/him]

On the subject of Power Macs, I'm trying to get my 1.25 GHz eMac working again. Problem is that discs 2 and 3 of my Tiger install set aren't working, so hopefully I can install Leopard from a flash drive, otherwise I'll have to walk, not run, to the drugstore and overpay for blank DVDs (inb4 I've forgotten that the eMac doesn't have a DVD drive).

I do wish I could get a G4 MDD, though, on which to run OS 9.

[Goujer (she/her)]

You could swap the disk drives with one that takes DVDs but I think Leopard requires a Dual Layer DVD.

[Hālian He/him]

It has a DVD drive in it but see above. I tried a Leopard install USB and it failed, claiming that the Essentials package couldn't be verified. Apparently this could be indicative of a RAM problem, which would be TONS OF FUN if true. Will try a Tiger install USB later.

[Goujer (she/her)]

All I know is that I had a hell of a time getting my eMac to boot from a USB, to the point where taking the whole thing apart and replacing the optical drive was a very practical solution. DVD DLs can't be that expensive now days can they?

As an update on the G4, the PSU works perfectly, the Dell fan works well but sometimes doesn't always want to connect. I was reworking the fan and noticed during a test I noticed a weird noise coming from the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro and that it's fan was not spinning. I stopped the machine and on closer inspection the fan is stiff as hell. All of the capacitors of a certain value are also bulging, so I have to replace those as well.
The capacitors say:
HC Z4
470
10v

Which I hope means 470μf and 10volts because that's what I'm buying.

[Hālian He/him]

Booting from USB can be done relatively painlessly in Open Firmware.

It would take Effort to find a single DVD-R DL instead of ten or more at once.

[Goujer (she/her)]

Open Firmware always scares me but I guess I'll have to learn it if I really want to start hacking.

DVD drives cannot always read DVD DL though. I learned this the hard way after buying a DVD DL and pluggin it into my upgraded eMac with only a DVD drive.

[Goujer (she/her)]

Well, I replaced all of the 470μf 10v capacitors with new ones that are about half the size. I bought a new 40mm fan for it but the plasic on the fan was 40mm not the hole spacing, and the connector was wrong. Went to Menards and bought wire strippers, snippers, a file and heat shrink. Back home my roommate and I chopped up the new fan and swapped the cables out for those of the old fan, and cut the edges of the new fan to shove the square into the circular hole of the old fan.

At the end of the day though, it works perfectly. I was piss scared I messed it up but it worked out!

[Hālian He/him]

I'm currently working to get 3 IDE hard drives of a size below 120GB for my PowerMac G4 MDD so I can segregate data for my Classic mode on Mac OS X Leopard project.

This has led to me having take out my XP legacy build's hard drive and replace it with a SATA hard drive. That gives me a 80GB hard drive.
I have a 120GB with Tiger on it and a 200GB with Leopard and Mac OS 9 on it. I plan to move Mac OS 9 to the 80GB and Tiger to another 80GB I have lying around and Leopard to Tiger's old 120GB.
Formatted the 120GB should be less than 120GB making the drive fine for Mac OS 9.

I'm also waiting on my G4's PSU to come back since it fried. I swapped the main fan out for a Dell fan of the same size that can push nearly twice as much air. I also swapped the lower disk drive for a Zip Drive, and swapped the top drive for a better DVD drive.

Might you be able to offer any updates on this computer since 2019?

As for myself, I built Fireblade back in January, which was A Project... given especially that, the first time I put the CPU cooler on, I did so backwards. Fun™