Proprietary parts? No problem.
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- Опубліковано 28 чер 2024
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"The Power Mac G4 was heralded as the world's first personal supercomputer. It was so powerful it was even classified as a weapon by the U.S. government."
Turns out this claim was both a little bit of clever (and exaggerated) marketing by Apple back in 2000, as well as being technically accurate at the time. The Power Mac G4 was the first personal computer to exceed 10,000 MTOPS (millions of theoretical operations per second) and fell into a category of high performance computers that were banned from export to certain countries due to their potential for use in military applications. The laws were soon changed to increase this threshold as technology was accelerating at an incredibly rapid rate.
This lovely example of a Power Mac G4 is untested and missing a couple of parts. Nothing too difficult to source, but Apple never makes it easy with proprietary parts, pinouts and wiring. Challenge accepted!
🌍 A very special thanks to the folks keeping ATXG4.com and the valuable information hosted there alive
atxg4.com/
Specialty products used in this restoration
ATX 24-pin extension cable: amzn.to/3YH1fG0
A cheap 400W power supply that fits this Power Mac G4: amzn.to/3HRkUw6
Harness wiring tape: amzn.to/40HLwsa
3A Diodes: www.allelectronics.com/item/1...
My philosophy on buying tools is to start small and to "outgrow" your gear over time. Expensive gear won't improve your repair and fault finding skills, only practice will do that. With that in mind below is what's in my current toolkit.
🔧 Toolkit
Screwdriver Set: amzn.to/2X7s0Gj
Automatic Wire Stripper: amzn.to/30F5TJm
Pocket Multimeter: amzn.to/3IdvzQz
Component Tester: amzn.to/3l5rHG8
🖌 Soldering Essentials
TS100 Soldering Iron: amzn.to/2YIJZUR
No Clean Flux Syringe: amzn.to/2NFUZvQ
No Clean Solder: amzn.to/2NHEAqQ
Desoldering Braid: amzn.to/312Grws
Tip Tinner: amzn.to/31w2EF4
Contact Cleaner: amzn.to/3dI93ly
🔍 Soldering Add-ons
Fume Extractor with Hose: amzn.to/3hspLZi
Desoldering Vacuum Pump: amzn.to/3Qe9ipl
Hot Air Rework Station: amzn.to/3w023bF
Circuit Board Holder: amzn.to/3k35Pzm
Helping Hands Soldering Aid: amzn.to/3ihgksP
🔥 Thermal Compounds & Tape
Kapton Tape amzn.to/3DEu0dd
Arctic MX-4 Thermal Paste: amzn.to/2Ak2y8w
1.5MM Arctic Thermal Pads: amzn.to/2Vv1RQU
🧴 Lubes and Epoxies
White Lithium Grease: amzn.to/2UApx5M
Plastic Epoxy: amzn.to/3up0LIm
Timestamps:
0:00 A quirky yet powerful Mac
2:10 No power, no problem
4:54 I like to doodle
7:18 A free tool is the best tool
9:28 Diodes are cool
11:49 ATX in, G4 out
14:08 Hustling off camera
15:52 Damn… I’m looking good!
17:31 Quake III Arena benchmark
19:17 Bye for now - Наука та технологія
Hey folks, if you're looking to try this mod for your Power Mac G4, please keep in mind your pinout may be different. This mod applies to the Gigabit G4 and Digital Audio models only. If you have a Sawtooth, Quicksilver or Mirror Drive Door system, please make sure you check ATXG4.com for the pinout that applies to those systems. The mod will be similar but arrangement of pins and path of diodes will vary.
I was seriously looking into buying a dodgy refurbished PSU for a G4 gigabit ethernet powermac for like $100+, I'm so freaking glad you made this video. Just ordered the replacement parts for $27, what a savings.
Good luck with your modification. Let me know how it works out for you.
That staple trick for extracting pins is so fucking satisfying. Really cool. As an aside, thanks for teaching me how to solder.
Glad you're finding some useful tips in the videos. Cheers.
Please keep going on these style of videos, appreciate how you talk through everything you do so clearly in real time.
Glad you find the format engaging 👍🏻
Hear hear... yes, the flow of your videos are awesome
I really wish the hinged motherboard tray became standard, that would make working on a PC so much easier. There must have been some problems with it to have others not copy it.
Easily my favorite UA-cam Channel. You are amazing. Keep it up and keep em alive!!......I hope you take the time to talk about what got you interested in Electronics and fixing old consoles in general and what are some of your favorite domant I.P's as well if you play anything if the modern era. You are an awesome dude, and if not just keep pumping out these videos. You are a legend.
I was waiting for another PowerPC restoration from you!
ADC was a neat port. In addition to standard DVI, it also delivered both USB and enough power to run a monitor. The accompanying ADC display then only needed a single video cable to get power, video, and extend the USB ports. The cable also had a 90 degree swiveling connector. This was important for use with the G4 Cube, which sat vertically, and needed all cables to bend at an an angle to get out the bottom of the computer.
Good job!!! 💪 You’re right, from the outside the PSU did look OEM!!
I've never had much use for Macs, but I always did admire that case design. I may have to pick one up for a custom project now that you've shown that they're actually pretty accommodating. Nice work. 👍
It's an iconic case for sure. They are fairly popular in the hackintosh community too.
My absolute favorite case design of all time
Loved this restoration. We actually have a Power Mac G4 sitting in our storage room of our office. It probably hasn't been used in 15 years, but at least I'll know how to replace its power supply if it every blows out :p
I love all the PowerPC Macs. Many people don't know how important the G3 and G4 Power Macs were in video production. Final Cut Pro was used to edit a ton of professional Hollywood movies and television shows, as well as countless amateur projects. MiniDV camcorders all used FireWire since USB 1.1 was too slow and 2.0 wasn't as fast as promised. Macs came standard with FireWire since Apple was the main developer the protocol. You could get a FireWire expansion card for your PC and get decent editing software, but video editing on a Mac was just so much easier. And Photoshop ran a billion times better on a Mac than on a PC too.
From having learned some of the Adobe suite in high school on a Mac in the '90s, I'll amend you comment to say that their products just outright didn't run on PCs. You were in for a hard time if that was your plan. 😆
They did work great on the PowerPC though. It was a fun class.
I love the mullet you're rocking. I'm considering doing the same.
Nice stuff man! Very clean job on the adapter!
Thanks! 👍
Your videos are extremely good. I just love the level of perfectionism you put into your projects and videos. I love that you showed us the trick with the staples; it will come in handy for me! I hadn't even considered it.Thank you so much and keep up the excellent work!
Edit: Fixed my grammar.
Awesome, thank you!
Love your videos, you're inspiring me to have a go at fixing electronics.
I found an old NES (no cables or controllers) in my attic and an Atari ST, going to have a go at bringing these guys back to life.
Keep up the great work and look forward to seeing more content!
Outstanding work! I'd very much enjoy seeing you work on more old Macs/PCs. Thanks for sharing.
Glad to hear it. I picked up an Apple IIe a couple of months ago and don't know the first thing about it. You'll see it on the channel soon.
Great video. I think I’ll be spending most of tomorrow going through the rest of your content. My first love was a C64 🖥️
Enjoy! I primarily gamed on my Sega Master System when the C64 was still in it's heyday but I played on it from time to time when visiting family friends.
I worked on a project at a printing company 12 years ago, and they had two Macs of that vintage in pre-press. They were still fast enough to lay out and render a magazine or catalog, the the pre-press folks would print a demo copy and send it back to the customer. The customer would approve any edits and make corrections to the color palette.
Please keep doing these types of videos. I love them. Great channel. Keep up the awesome work!
These were graphic design monsters
It's great how precise you are. Awesome use of spreadsheets, not enough people appreciate them.
A tip for re-pinning connectors, *slightly* bend up the little tabs that the staples push down on. Sometimes the staples slightly bend the tabs down so the pin pops out unexpectedly later on, maybe under vibration or heat or when plugging in. They can handle a little more bend, they're pretty robust.
I really need to clean up my G4 cube, thanks for the motivation and tips Borderline OCD! Keep up the great work!
Great rebuilt and beautiful unit.
This is an excellent video. Clear, concise, good camera work and above all very informative. I wish more UA-cam tech channels were as organised. 😉
Such a sweet mullet!
There's this AT+T splicing method which works really great for all kinds of flexible wires of all sizes...
Nice restoration work. Also, good video editing. I don't have any history or affinity for apple products, but good job. Maybe the peripherals can serve a better life with a different device :)
Thanks for stopping by.
you did a real beautiful job once again
Awesome video. I bought one of these while i was in school after my first big free lance job as a graphic designer. I wish i had kept it.
I found one of those in the trash about 14 years ago. It fully was working too. Just needed a hard drive.
Nice video, I obtained a G4 a while ago with a broken power supply (Quicksilver 1.0Ghz 2002) and was meaning to try to make an ATX adapter. This video gave me some more context on how the process works better.
Well done on the power extension... clean work.
Really interesting video. Keep the good work. Thanks.
You do amazing work, love your videos
“Assembled in USA…” yep. We used to be amazing here.
I've got an old MDD G4 sitting in my shed with a broken PSU. Might just give this mod a try, especially since I've got a good amount of old ATX PSUs laying around. I've heard of this mod before but didn't think it would be this easy. Great video!
Go for it! Keep in mind MDD pinout is very different from Gigabit. Be sure to check ATXG4.com for the appropriate pinout for MDD.
nice trick with the stables.
maybe I can use it some day
it would be a good idea to bend the diode's legs into little hooks, so that the solder connections have some mechanical connection as well.
Having them only held by the solder may fatigue and break the solder over time as the cable is installed and removed.
Could take years or just 1 evening of troubleshooting :) dont ask how i know lol
I was so impressed by the Apple aesthetic I built my PC in a copycat PC case. Clear acrylic over grey, not as curvy and lacked the handles. It was a hotbox and cooling was an ongoing issue but damn it looked good.
loved the video, very technical and no reddit stuff whatsoever. you gained a loyal subscriber.
I've never been an apple fan not liked the link of their products but i do appreciate the performance and i really like the mod. proprietary stuff really annoys me so i love it when people find ways to work around it. excellent job here and i think your cabling looks perfectly fine. lol
Haha yeah it turned out decent I'm happy with the cabling.
When these machines came out, they were blazing fast. Photoshop and video compression were really excellent. Altivec was great technology if you could tune your software to use it.
I was never into Apple's computers, they always seemed to have things that kept me away but I remember lusting after this era of Power Macintosh and the cheese grater models that succeeded it. Cool machines, I always appreciated the engineering and this was an era of truly upgradeable, powerful Apple computers for those who could afford it.
I suppose these had workstation cred in an era where workstations were mostly dead and buried, a little different from the exotic UNIX workstations of the 90s that we lusted after but similar appeal.
The user-upgradeable philosophy certainly carried on for a good while with the G5 towers and early Mac Pros. Then it got weird with the trash-can Mac Pros.
mac or windows rigs i do miss that Whirrrr Clunk sound that only older HDDs could do
Love your videos always learn something new just need to learn how to solder and get the right toolsand use a multi meter properly to start doing things like this myself
Nice, I did the similar thing back in 2007 when I got PM G4 like yours and the PSU failed (or started to fail)... I then managed to get my PSU fixed (needed some caps) and I put it back. Also the ADC needs 25V from the PSU which the generic ATX wasn't providing it...
Love this one. I have the same G4 model and I plan to modify it soon.
Good luck with your mod.
Your shelves could really use some nice LED light strips to even out the lighting in the room. You've done a few other videos about your home and studio setup and installing some lights would fit in nicely with those.
Thanks for the suggestion
According to SFGate at the release of these G4 models, "Apple calls the new models 'supercomputers' because they can complete 1 billion floating-point math operations per second -- a level of performance known in the industry as a 'gigaflop.'". IIRC, it did have export ramifications, at the time, to certain countries. Fortunately as technology has improved, the definition of the number of gigaflops to require an export license has increased.
I'll concede that it could be debated if these computers were actually supercomputers. But, at least according to export regulations at the time, there was some truth to their claim.
But one thing that's not up for debate: great repair video as always!
Great video thank you
Great job 👌👌
The only Apple device I ever wanted.
A new video! you made my day!
It should make the apple "chime" when it boots up, you can reset the PRAM by turning it on and holding down "apple" + "alt" + "p" + "r" at the same time, and wait for it to reset and make the chime, do this at least twice. I suspect because the battery was dead it cleared the PRAM. 👍
When I first got the G3 version of that I was showing my nephew (a Windows user) and he said "Man that looks impossible to open if you need to work on it" I flipped the little handle and opened it up (while on mind you) and was like "F!ck me, that's amazing". Still have that computer on a shelf in my home office.
Nice. That G3 was the one I was mesmerized by as a teen. Something about that full blue case was pretty stunning.
Any chance on selling completed harnesses?
I am so impressed by all of your work and skill! I was never a fan of apple computers(and I still am not) but I can really appreciate your work.
Thank you 👍🏻
I've got these inexpensive little adjustable-voltage step-up circuits I found on Amazon. 12v to 28v is within their spec, so I'm assuming that if I inserted one of those into the mod just before the one rectifier diode instead of feeding it 12v directly, that change would make the weird ADC port work too.
I was thinking of a buck too, assuming that the current draw is not too high.
I just picked up a pile of G3/G4 PowerMacs recently and the PSU in the Sawtooth is faulty. Thanks for the guide, I'll look at doing this mod to it, hopefully bring it back to life
The sawtooths just use a standard 20 pin ATX unit I think. It was the gigabit and digital audios that had the funky 22 pin for the ADC which wasn’t on the original models. Check online for the pinout on the board but you might get lucky.
Good job! An IDE to SD card/Compact Flash/SATA would be a good upgrade for the mechanical hard drive.
For sure. Ironically the hard drive I installed here was from an iMac G3 that I restored and installed an SSD into. Probably should be the other way around.
Awesome Restoration 💻💻💻🖥️🖥️😱😱😱😉😉👍🏻😉😉
Dude... THANK YOU!
I actually installed a Samsung sata ssd using a ide to sata adaptor been working great and running os9
Great way to start off a Friday!
Nice piece of computer history. My PC until year 2004 was Pentium I - 100 Mhz with 16 MB of RAM... no graphic accelerator, not even CD-ROM drive... My cousin had (year 2001) Duron 1300 Mhz with 3Dfx card, so guess where I was spending my weekends. 😁
This Apple beast must have cost a fortune back then in my country.
Ah yes I have the exact model fully refurbed. In 2000 I wrote the Playstation2 audio dev tools at Sony on this machine. You can get the memory DIMMs from OWC for $15.
Beautiful. Wish I could have seen some Diablo II though. Well done, however, you got a new sub.
It is nice to see this "super computer" running again. Great job! For April 1st you should get a computer from the year 2123 running and run some benchmarks.
Thanks 👍🏻
Awesome project 🤩👍🏼🍻
Borderline OCD content and PowerMac G4 aqua computers... these are two of some of my favorite things. 🥰
EDIT: As well as q3a?!? Bruh, that was my JAM back in the day! Rail-gunning suckas from across the map EZ.
Well done! Would it be possible to apply any additional modifications? Such as adding a SSD and more RAM?
You can definitely upgrade the storage to an SSD (2.5" SATA) if you want to be more confident in the reliability, but you won't get a ton of speed improvements due to the fact that it has to go through the PATA/IDE connection/protocol. I recently upgraded an eMac that had a dead IDE drive to an SSD with a SATA to IDE adapter board.
Yep as shared above you certainly can. I actually have an SSD in both my G3s and there is a small but noticeable speed improvement, particularly boot time.
very nice job
That was a very sanitary job on the power supply replacement! Have you thought about using a boost converter to raise the 12V standby voltage the the required 28 volts? I assume it's a fairly low current requirement. You'd get the use of the ADC converter back, and those really nice Apple displays go pretty cheaply now.
the 28v supply powers the monitor, apple actually made a CRT that runs completely off the ADC port
I have a couple of G4s like that with working power supplies. This will be great if I ever have a failure. One question though: Where’s the power on chime?
Good observation. The system doesn't chime through the onboard speaker when the 3.5mm audio jack is connected. Due to the way I'm doing the video capture there is a few second lag until the capture card detects a signal. I'm basically piggybacking two adapters (VGA + 3.5mm audio to HDMI, and then HDMI capture via USB).
A PSU of my MDD died some time ego. I got an adapter cable for a regular PSU and installed an SFX model with a 3D printed bracket. Machine still purrs ( have a video on my channel about it ).
i wanted to get one of these just because. and watching this I just might
What a journey ... Slowly You are becoming a pro among pros. :)
Old Mac stuff is quite fascinating 🥂
I'm getting more interested in them. I recently picked up an Apple IIe and plan to restore it soon.
Groovy seeing Mac OS 9 again in its high spec glory! :)
I have the server model of one of these. The monitors they sold with these were notoriously unreliable.
why don't you install a boost converter in there, also the 5v will be 4.3v under load because of diode drop
Hey buddy, hows that 360 goin that you reflowed with a heat gun?
another solid job 👍
1. you could just buy a used g4 power supply on ebay (the cheapest one doesnt matter if it is broken and sold far parts) and chop off the 22 pin pigtail and splice to the atx cable.
2. you could get a 22 pin cable for dell optiplex low profile pcs and some other low profile compact pcs use 22 pin cables and splice the 2 cables together and connect the 22 pin cable.
2b. sometimes small form factor pcs use 20 pin connectors and they will fit the 22 pin socket leaving the top row unconnected.
The first time I converted one of these to ATX PSU I did exactly that - cut the old plug off and wired it onto the new power supply. The added bulk of the splices made the loom almost twice as bulky, it was a mess.
I think u should get a boost converter to get the 28 volts from the 12 volt cable
Interesting idea. I would be interested in hearing someone's experience that's done it and powered an ADC display with it (particularly the CRT).
@@BorderlineOCD The added inefficency of DC-DC conversion is no good, and can present too much load on 12V rail especially when you have a CRT and some firewire stuff plugged in charging.
You are in luck though in that you don't actually need entire 28V. 24V is the minimum to run those devices, and it's what the later models provide.
What I did was buy a 24V PSU and wire it into the atx adapter (with diodes, naturally). The most messy thing was to run the 230V cable into the back of the atx psu and connect it to the power switch there, so they shared one socket on the back of the computer. Then I just put the 24V psu in the empty space above the dvd drive
Does that board support the 2nd CPU you mentioned? If so, it would be very cool to add a 2nd PowerPC G4 to it!!
The G4 cpus are mounted on a daughter board which plugs into a socket so you gotta buy a dual CPU board.
Question, are you planning on updating it to OSX 9.4? Not sure is upgrading would improve performance or add any features or not. Thanks - new viewer, love the video content.
For OS 9 you can upgrade to 9.2.2. If you're just tinkering with OS 9 on one machine I would definitely recommend getting it on 9.2.2 for best stability and compatibility with classic software and games. I own a few vintage Macs so now I just restore them with the launch OS version if I can to recreate the user experience at the time of release.
There are 2 PowerPCs of similiar age sitting in a recycle pile at my work. Not sure if the PS is good though. I can send serials if you want to check compatiblity.
Power Mac G4 - Mid 2001 and Power Mac G4 - Mid 1999
@@joshuam5772 The empty cases alone are worth about $100/ea on eBay. I'd grab those...
Thanks for the offer buddy. I have no need for one right now given the outcome of this project but I'm sure those would make for some great projects for someone.
My advice for anyone with a quicksilver G4 is to bite the bullet and just remove the plastic from the back of the case. Then you can fit a PSU with a 120MM fan facing the cpu heatsink, MASSIVELY improving cooling. You can then remove the little 40mm cpu cooler fan and enjoy a much quieter system.
These diagrams are excellent
That staple trick is so slick
Cool stuff. The supercomputer marketing was largely because the US military declared it as such since these could do up to one teraflop of performance. The military also then put it on an export ban out of fear enemy nations would get one to do nefarious things with. Laws were updated later but for a bit these things were technically considered weapons, and Apple took advantage of this with a pretty great advert.
I couldn't resist when I saw the ad campaign and read the history surrounding it. There was a pretty comical ad with battle tanks as well lol.
Looks identical to a Sawtooth.
Nifty. I'm not a Mac guy at all so if I saw this I would probably assume it was stock and then been confused about why Apple used an adaptor for the power supply
If you need a stable moderately clean 28V, you could simply use a boost converter from 12V up to 28V and if it requires 5V and 28V in different scenarios, you might need to use a bit more complicated circuit to achieve that.
I wouldn't, the 28V has to have enough current to power a couple of firewire devices and a CRT monitor at the same time. When I had a monitor with an ADC connector I ended up wiring a dedicated 24V second PSU into the harness. worked great but was cable management hell.
@@kyle8952 while selecting the power supply and the booster you can consider the possible load and plan accordingly, a combination of good and adequate power supply and booster should work. Afterall it was designed to get the power from the internal power supply which I don't think was of anything massive.
@@redwanhasan1721 I have an original G4 PSU here, it's rated at 4.5A for ADC power. About 130W. DC-DC is not efficent, so you're going to need about 170-200W of 12V power for this idea to work.
@@kyle8952 when you do any type of conversion there will be a good amount of loss. Modern power supplies can easily provide way more than 200W on their 12V rail. If you don't have an original one that is.
@@redwanhasan1721 Yes, but it's 200W additional on top of what the computer itself uses. So you might end up needing a 600W psu total, 70W of which is just extra heat in the case. This is very bad news because the powermacs' are already ovens.
Out of curiosity I went looking for a suitable one. There's 4A for slightly under €100, or 7.5A for about €110, and the size is 18x9x5cm.
Electrically it works. Financially and thermally, bad idea.
The t-shirt is awesome!
Well done. I remember that many years ago a relative gave me one with a broken hard disk, at the time they were worth nothing and I had the brilliant idea of modifying the case to put a pc in it... I destroyed it in the attempt and ended up all in landfill.
They make popular hackintosh builds. If this one turned out dead I probably would have gone that route as well.
just add a simple 12 to 28v dcdc module before the 12v diode and all should be perfect...
You should be able to use a cheap boost converter to boost atx 12v to 28v...
Have you successfully done this? Can it safely power an ADC display (CRT)?
@@BorderlineOCD No Personally I haven't done such a modification since I don't own a G4 and it's monitor but fundamentally speaking converting a lower voltage to a higher one is doable, If I had to do something like this for myselfI would rewind the transformer inside the psu and modify the output stage to get 28V but I can understand this option is not for everyone. From the pictures I have seen online the G4 power supplies have 25/28V 4A so any reasonably desgined boost module with a common GND that is capable of providing 5A and has built-in protection should be sufficient. For input of the boost module I recommed a 12V rail that capable of at least 10A, in reality the ampere figures on PSUs are worst case scenarios and system usually don't draw full current but better be safe than sorry. If you manage to get your hands on the monitor before you purchase a boost module you can experiment with a bench supply set to 28V or even with 2x12V adaptors wired in series...