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Power Mac G4 Mirrored Drive Doors (Mid-2002)

LEM Staff - 2002.08.13

Mirrored Drive Doors Power Mac G4Apple hit the 1 GHz mark with the Quicksilver 2002 in January 2002 and 1.25 GHz with the Mirrored Drive Door (MDD) in August 2002. Even the entry level 867 MHz Power Mac G4 now has dual processors. This was the last Power Mac to natively boot Mac OS 9. Beware Apple’s claim of “four USB ports” – there are two on the computer and two on the keyboard, just like previous G4s, so with the keyboard plugged in, you only have three available. That drops to two available when a USB mouse is plugged in.

The two faster versions introduced a 167 MHz system bus. All models now have two full size media drive bays (so you can have a SuperDrive plus a fast CD burner or two SuperDrives), four RAM sockets, and three independent drive buses that each support two devices. An Ultra ATA/33 (ATA-4) bus is used for the optical drive(s), Ultra ATA/100 (ATA-6) connects to the stock hard drive, and there’s also an unused Ultra ATA/66 (ATA-5) bus. Only the ATA/100 connector supports drives over 128 GB capacity. There are four 3.5″ hard drive bays inside the G4.

The fastest pair of MDD G4s have faster video cards, the ATI Radeon 9000. The dual 1.25 GHz model includes 2 MB of level 3 cache per processor, twice as much as the slower models.

You should have the most recent firmware installed in your Power Mac G4. The newest version for Mirrored Drive Doors models is Power Mac G4 Firmware Update 4.4.8, which is only for Mirrored Drive Doors Power Mac. To install this firmware update, you must boot into Mac OS 9.2.2 from a writable partition (not a CD).

Two Versions

The 2002 and 2003 Mirrored Drive Door models look the same, but there are differences, as discovered by Jay at The House of Moth:

  • The 2003 logic board is smaller, more metal is used, way less ventilation.
  • The 2002 case has far more ventilation holes, and runs cooler (Especially Northbridge)

In the end, The House of Moth put the guts of a 2003 MDD into the superior 2002 MDD case, creating a FrankenMac with the best features of each revision.

Keeping It Cool

Two CPUs can run fairly hot. Use good thermal paste (Arctic MX-4 is one, and you should probably reapply every few years) or a really good thermal pad. Consider replacing some of the fans with ones that move more air (and, in some cases, will also reduce fan noise).

But here’s the biggie: The Power Mac G4 (FW800) uses a copper heatsink, and The House of Moth has tested it against the aluminum heatsink in the original MDD model. The copper heatsink runs cooler by roughly 5°F (2.7°C). If you need/want a Mac that still natively boots Mac OS 9, this is one more thing to help it keep its cool.

A Better Video Card

For everyday use, the stock video cards are just fine, but if you’re into gaming with this PPC Mac, you will want a better video card than the ATI Radeon 9000 Pro, which in some games will drop below 10 FPS. Again, The House of Moth provides an answer. By modifying an ATI Radeon 9650 from a Power Mac G5, performance in the OpenGL benchmark quadrupled compared to the 9000 Pro! This card also has 128 MB or, if you are lucky, 256 MB of video memory, which also helps with gaming performance.

“Games fly, even with all settings maxed out at full resolution. The card does run hot so I keep game settings medium-high until I can whack a fan on it or find another cooling solution.”

But you know gamers: Always looking for improved performance, and there’s really nice card that can go into the Mirror Door Drive that both Mark Sokolovsky and Greg Hrutkay recommend, called the ATI Radeon X850 Pro 256 MB. The card needs to be flashed to an X850XT ROM in order to work, and may or may not require some ROM modification. Mark Sokolovsky currently has one of these in his Power Mac G5.

See article: ATI Radeon X850XT vs Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL – This article shows pictures of the exact card that’s being recommended (X850XT ROM-flashed onto a 256 MB X850 Pro), and how it stacks up against the OEM 6800 Ultra DDL 256 MB upgrade that Apple released for the Power Mac G5. This article covers tech specs of the card, as well as some quicks (and precautions). It is recommended to add additional cooling or an extra fan in an MDD if you plan to use an X850 Pro-flashed X850XT, this card tends to run hot especially in a MDD.

What You Need to Know

  • AGP 8x cards can be used in AGP 4x machines when pins #3 and #11 are taped down.
  • Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) boot times for Power Mac with the GeForce 6200 fall into the 4-5 minute range, and it was initially suggested that you install Leopard with the Mac’s original video card to avoid slowing down the process. “gotoh” has posted the fix in The Mac Elite Forum. The delay is due to Leopard not supporting temperature sensors in G4 Macs. Simply remove AppleHWSensor.kext from /System/Library/Extensions and the delay goes away.
  • Note that some vendors are substituting PC2700 RAM for PC2100 modules. Although PC2100 Macs can work with PC2700 RAM, you shouldn’t use both types of RAM in the same machine. All installed RAM should be the same type, either PC2100 or PC2700.

Details

  • Announced August 13th, 2002
  • Apple model number: M8570 (EMC 1914)
  • Model ID: PowerMac3,6
    • M8787LL/A (867 MHz DP, 133 MHz System Bus)
    • M8689LL/A (1 GHz DP, 167 MHz System Bus)
    • M8573LL/A (1.25 GHz DP, 167 MHz System Bus)
  • Discontinued on January 28th, 2003

How it stacks up in Geekbench vs a Base 2003 Power Mac G5

  • Version 2.4.3: 724 (867) / 874 (1.0) / 918 (1.6 G5) / 1047 (1.25) / 1224 (1.42)

Unsupported Mac OS X

  • Although it is not officially supported, the Power Mac G4 MDD can run Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard using a MacRumors community developed build. It is currently still in development based off the Darwin 10.8.0 kernel compiled from source. See LEM Article.

Mac OS X

  • Requires Mac OS 9.2.2 or Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar through Mac OS X 10.5.8.

Core System

This Power Mac G4 shipped with PowerPC G4 Motorola 7455 180nm CPUs. System Bus is 133 MHz on 867 MHz model; 167 MHz on faster models

  • ($1699): 867 Mhz, 2 Processors, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 1 Core Per-CPU
    Per-CPU: ~18.4W TDP, 64KB L1, 256KB L2, 1MB DDR SDRAM backside L3
    CPU Instructions: Altivec Velocity Engine, VMX, VMX128, AND, XOR, OR
    .
  • ($2499): 1 Ghz, 2 Processors, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 1 Core Per-CPU
    Per-CPU: ~21.3W TDP, 64KB L1, 256KB L2, 1MB DDR SDRAM backside L3
    CPU Instructions: Altivec Velocity Engine, VMX, VMX128, AND, XOR, OR
    .
  • ($3299): 1.25 Ghz, 2 Processors, 2 Cores, 2 Threads, 1 Core Per-CPU
    Per-CPU: ~26.7W TDP, 64KB L1, 256KB L2, 2MB DDR SDRAM backside L3
    CPU Instructions: Altivec Velocity Engine, VMX, VMX128, AND, XOR, OR

Video

DVI and ADC ports on all GPUs, Mac includes DVI-to-VGA adapter.

  • ($1699): GeForce4 MX 440 A5, 32 MB DDR SDRAM @~6.4 GB/s, Celcius, 128-Bit Bus
    • 29 Million Transistors, 150 nm process size, AGP 4x @ 1066 MB/s,
    • 275 MHz GPU clock, 200 MHz Memory clock (400 Mb/s effective), ~13W TDP
    • 2 Pixel Shaders, 4 TMUs, 2 ROPs, DX7, OpenGL 1.5, Pixel 1.1 Vertex 1.1
      .
  • ($2499): ATI Radeon 9000 Pro, 64 MB DDR SDRAM @~8.8 GB/s, Rage 7, 128-Bit Bus
    • 36 Million Transistors, 150 nm process size, AGP 4x @ 1066 MB/s, RV250
    • 275 MHz GPU clock, 275 MHz Memory clock (550 Mb/s effective), ~28W TDP
    • 4 Pixel Shaders, 4 TMUs, 4 ROPs, 1 Vertex Shader, made by TSMC
    • APIs: DX 8.1, OpenGL 1.4, Pixel 1.4 Vertex 1.1
      .
  • (+$399): GeForce 4 Ti 4600, 128 MB DDR SDRAM @~8.8 GB/s, Kelvin, 128-Bit Bus
    • 63 Million Transistors, 150 nm process size, AGP 4x @ 1066 MB/s, NV25
    • 300 MHz GPU clock, 324 MHz Memory clock (648 Mb/s effective), ~39W TDP
    • 4 Pixel Shaders, 8 TMUs, 4 ROPs, 2 Vertex Shader, made by TSMC
    • APIs: DX 8.1, OpenGL 1.5, Pixel 1.3 Vertex 1.1

Memory

  • Dual 867: 256 MB – 2 GB 266 MHz PC-2100 DDR SDRAM ~2.13 GB/s
  • Dual 1.0 and 1.25: 256 MB – 2 GB 333 MHz PC-2700 DDR SDRAM ~2.666 GB/s
  • Note: Although the MDD Power Macs support up to 2 GB of RAM, Mac OS 9 is only able to recognize up to 1.5 GB of RAM.

Drives

  • ($1699): 60 GB 7200 rpm ATA/100 IDE, Combo (CD-RW/DVD) default
  • ($2499): 80 GB 7200 rpm ATA/100 IDE, Combo (CD-RW/DVD) default
  • ($3299): 120 GB 7200 rpm ATA/100 IDE, SuperDrive (4x DVD, 2x DVD-R) default
    • All Configurable to: 4x 10K RPM Ultra160 SCSI drives (PCI card req.)
      Can be a combination of ATA and SCSI drives, too, but only space for 4.
    • 867 MHz /1.0 GHz Configurable to: SuperDrive (4x DVD, 2x DVD-R)

Expansion/Misc

  • 4x 64-bit PCI slots
  • 56k v.92 Modem (RJ-11 style connector)
  • Microphone: standard 3.5 mm jack
    • Compatible with line-level input
    • Not compatible with Apple’s PlainTalk microphone
  • Apple Pro speaker Minijack (rear)
  • Analog 3.5 mm 16-bit stereo sound jack (rear)
  • Front 3.5mm headphone jack
  • 2x FireWire 400
  • 2x USB 1.1 Ports
  • Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45 style connector)
  • Kensington Security Lock
  • Optional: AirPort card
  • PRAM battery: 3.6V half-AA

Physical

  • Size:H/W/D 17 x 8.9 x 18.4 in/43.2 x 22.6 x 46.1 cm
  • Weight: 42 lb./19.1 kg

Accelerators & Upgrades

Online Resources

Full list of online resources for the Power Mac G4 MDD on a separate page.

Short link: http://goo.gl/9h6ArQ
searchword: mddg4