|
|
| Really Cool G4 |
| Written by Jason Schrader | ||||
| Wednesday, 12 January 2005 | ||||
|
Want to make a cool G4 with out changing your stock case or adding a bunch of expensive fans? Read on.
You've probably seen more articles on cooling and quieting the MDD g4 than any other in Apple history. This is how I modded my G4 to run COOL and keep the case in stock form. This is a June 2003 MDD that came with dual 1.25 cpus,256 MD of ram and an 80 GB hard drive.
Lets look at what needs to be cooled and how.
The CPU - Apple Copper G4 heatsink with Arctic Silver 5 compound and an 80mm case fan on the outside of the case (Because the stock fan only cools half of the heatsink). I decided to overclock it too, to 1.42 per cpu. Its a little nerve racking but not too bad. I used the guide on www.bitsandpieces.info.
The Hardrives - I have 3 hard drives. I put my main HD in the 2nd optical bay and removed my combo drive. I added a Zalman heatpipe cooler to it and the optical fan blows across it. The first drive in my SATA RAID 0 is in the front bay and needs no extra cooling because the 120mm fan draws air across it. The second drive is in the rear bay, set backwards with a heatsink/fan on it. I removed one fan to help with the noise. The remaining fan cools the chips The DVD-R/W - Today one drive is plenty. You can purchase a fast universal DL for cheap. I removed the back plate to help with airflow. I am still not sure if that is better than leaving it on. I will update this.The Power Supply - I removed the useless front speaker to aid in cool air flow to it. I am looking into a clear air deflector to aid in cooling. I also put in a pci fan to evacuate upper case hot air. RAM - I used heatspreaders here which work great. The aluminum spreaders have proven in tests that they are more efficient than copper. My Desk - I have cut holes in the bottom to aid in cool air flow to the bottom case entrance. So
how did it turn out you ask. I have done a battery of tests and
my conclusion it that these are very effective. It runs cooler
than factory stock and is much faster too. My final temps are
50.4 degrees C for the CPUs and 37.0 degrees C for the main HD.
My room temp was 21.0 degrees C. This is under heavy use.
Under normal daily use it is at 46/32 C. I am unable to test my
SATA drives as of yet becuase I cannot find the sensors. Of
course it runs louder, but I will address that in part 2 of my
mod. I also have some plans to make the cooling even better, so I
will update those too as time goes on. My real world test software included: Photoshop 7, DVDSP 1.5, AOL, iTunes, iMovie, mpeg append suite. I also use CPU Monitor, Hardware Monitor, and a manual temp gauge. Using xBench, I am in G5 territory with a score of 185.46. You can see it on XBench site under Maestro. -Maestro
Write Comment |
||||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
|
|


