[G4] G4 Power Supply

[shopdog at mac.com]

Luke:

Thank you for the information.  I was afraid that this would be the  
reality.

I have several external firewire drives, but have several bare drives  
lying around.  I guess I'd to avoid more clutter, and throwing these  
into the empty space in the G4 seemed like a decent idea.

This G4 has two more unused power plugs in it.  From what I've read,  
the system was designed to handle 2 IDE and 2 SCSI drives.

I guess I'm wondering if it will handle 6 IDE drives instead.

I think I can safely add 2 more drives, but perhaps not 4 more.

I'm trying to determine, if I go the ATX route, how high I need to  
go.  I'm having trouble determining the power draw for most of the  
components.

I believe my G4 power supply supports 200W.

I'm told by Sonnet that my 1.2GHz CPU upgrade is 40W.

Hitachi (after some time) told me that the hard drives I have use 10W  
during the activities that use the most wattage.  6 drives is  
obviously 60W.

I have yet to determine the power consumption for the Zip drive, the  
Pioneer DVR-105, the motherboard, the fans, etc.

If anyone knows these, that would be great.  I'll keep digging.

I could just go with a 500W power supply-- that should be plenty!

shopdog



On Sep 22, 2008, at 2:24 PM, Luke Rademacher wrote:

> Most of these older G4 Towers were only specced to handle 2 HD's.  
> Hence the Power Supply has enough power connectors for the Zip and  
> Optical and a main Hd and a slave.
>
> Beyond adding video card or other card, you are going to drain out  
> your Power Supply trying to add more internal devices.  You can use  
> Y adapters but more power drain from your system the less the  
> performance will be.
>
> And no Power supply from a higher end model won't help. Quicksilvers  
> and MDD PSU's are meant for their respective systems.
>
> If you are really gung ho however, You can rig an ATX Power supply  
> to run your G4 AGP model. There is a page called www.xlr8yourmac.com  
> there is an older link for converting ATX PSU's to work on various  
> Mac models. If you are comfortable with a Soldering Gun then go for  
> it.
>
> FWIW, if you want more HD space why not add externally? External  
> HD's often have their own power and attach via FireWire.
>
> Peace,
>
> Luke Rademacher
> Liquid Zone Graphics
> Mac mini 2.0Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM, 80GB HD, Combo DVD/CDRW,  
> Mac OSX Leopard 10.5.4, ext NewerTech miniStack w/ 320GB HD.
> MDD Dual 1.25Ghz G4, 2GB RAM, 250GB/120GB/80GB HD's, 16x DL DVD±R/RW  
> Superdrive, Mac OSX Tiger 10.4.11, Classic Mac OS 9.2.2.
> Intel Celeron 2GHz, 1GB RAM, 80GB HD, Ubuntu Linux 8.04
> 5.5th gen 80GB Enhanced Video iPod
> Canon CanoScan 8400F
> Canon Pixma iP4500
>
> On Sep 22, 2008, at 12:46 PM, shopdog at mac.com wrote:
>
>> All:
>>
>> I have an AGP Graphics machine (model M7824LZ/B).
>>
>> It's upgraded with a 1.2GHz Sonnet processor.  It has a Pioneer  
>> DVR-105 in it, and the original Zip drive.
>>
>> Does anyone know how many internal hard drives it will support,  
>> power-wise?
>>
>> It has 4 power ports on the power cable for hard drives, and I'm  
>> using 2 of those for 2 hard drives on the original IDE bus.
>>
>> Will the existing power supply support 4 more IDE drives?  I can  
>> get them in the chassis using 2 "Dual Drive Bracket"s, one each in  
>> drive bays 1 and 2, and I can get them to communicate with the  
>> motherboard via a PCI card (ACARD AEC-6280M) that has 2 IDE ports,  
>> but the only way to supply power to these four new drives is to use  
>> Y-adapters off the remaining 2 power ports.
>>
>> However, I don't know if the existing power supply will support all  
>> of this.
>>
>> If not, can I use a Quicksilver 344W power supply instead, in this  
>> machine?
>>
>> Thanks for any advice anyone has...
>>
>> shopdog
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>
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