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bobpetro98
User

Posts: 1

Replace noisy PSU - 2009/10/19 08:00 Hi and thank you in advance for reading my question. I am a new Mac user from PC. I had it up to my eyeballs with Windows problems. I bought a PowerMac G4 Quicksilver 2002 800 Mhz with 1 GB of RAM. That is one noisy computer! I am not new to tinkering around inside a computer. My "guess" is either the PSU and/or case fan are the culprits. I've looked around for new PSU's and they are more than what I paid for the Mac and the other things I bought for it. Can a standard PSU from a WinTel machine be used as long as the connectors are the same and the max wattage is the same or better? Thanks again.

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Michael B. in Cincinnati
User

Posts: 21

Re:Replace noisy PSU - 2009/10/19 09:28 Bob, the power supply wiring is different for a Powermac than for a PC. The later Powermacs were notoriously noisy; some refer to them as the "wind tunnel" models. There was a power supply fan upgrade that was pretty expensive, but that purportedly greatly abated the problem. But they're hard to find.

You don't sound real comfortable opening up and modifying your Mac, but there are some good resources on the net for handling this problem:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=261623

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xICg592xJTg

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/ATX_G4_AGP_conversion/G4_AGP_to_ATX_case_pg2.htm

Here's a link that talks about keeping the existing supply and simply reducing the noise.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10342107-263.html

Good luck, and let us know how it works out!

- Michael B. in Cincinnati

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krowmagnum
User

Posts: 948

Re:Replace noisy PSU - 2009/10/20 19:51 Fans and/or vibration is the culprit. No need to replace the PSU. Start by replacing one fan at a time and check out the tips on the page below.

There are a lot of tips online for reducing the noise of the QS G4's. Here's one.

Post edited by: krowmagnum, at: 2009/10/20 19:58

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