News

01 August 2004

My 4G iPod arrived a few days ago and it has given me chance to do a comparison with my earlier 3G 30Gb iPod. You can read the article and see the pictures here.

08 June 2004

Two new pages have been added today. The first is an illustrated guide on replacing a power supply in a 15" flat panel iMac and the second page contains some test results obtained from a new 2004 17" Powerbook.

02 May 2004

I recently got hold of an OEM Apple Radeon 9000 Pro and an OEM Apple Radeon 9700 Pro. Combined with an OEM nVidia GeForce 4Ti, this made for a great shootout. Every card was available at some point (either stock or BTO configuration) for the MDD. The only card missing is the nVidia GeForce 4MX that was the stock card on the very first dual 867MHz MDD G4's.  Click through to the test page.

30 April 2004

There is a new page that shows what is in my iTunes library. My music is my life so if you really want to know what I'm all about, here is your chance to peer into my soul.

25 April 2004

I broke the 1600MHz barrier today! This could possibly be the first MDD to operate at 1667MHz even if it was for a short period.

How was it achieved?

Well it wasn't all smooth sailing. First, the core CPU voltage was raised from 1.6V to 1.725V, next the CPU jumpers were altered to reflect 1667MHz. Initially, the machine booted fine and was able to get to the desktop before it hung. The next attempt didn't get past the login screen and each attempt after that, hung sooner. I decided to up voltage once more to 1.75V. Again, the first boot made it to the desktop then each subsequent boot hung sooner than the last. After a bit of pondering I decided to grab the 120mm PAPST fan I replaced in the G4 and sit it right in front of the heatsink at full speed (damn that thing is loud!).  This worked perfectly - not only was I able to get to the desktop but was also able to run XBench and Cinebench 2003 . In fact, the machine didnt crash once. Temperature Monitor showed a steady 38°C throughout benchmarking.

Obviously this has got me thinking - if the G4 were water cooled I could run it at this speed (and possibly beyond) continuously without too much trouble. Of course thats a lot of expense and I would lose my HD's to some major modding. I may attempt this in future when I update with a G5.  But that wont be for a while yet and by that time, 7457 CPU upgrades may be available at higher speeds that would run cooler. Until then.

Temporary forced air cooling

An XBench comparison to the 1.58GHz overclock is available here

CineBench 2003 results

20 February 2004

Today I decided to push the 1.42Ghz module a bit to see what it could do. I increased the core frequency to 1.58Ghz and the voltage to 1.65V initially, however this proved to be unstable so I increased it to 1.675V. This setting worked okay for a while and was able to perform a few Xbench tests. Out of 5 tests, the best result achieved was 198.70. This score is not too far off some Dual 2GHz G5's so suffice to say, am pretty impressed.

Unfortunately, I did experience a few system hangs and this left me with two options. I could raise the voltage again and consequently, heat, or go back down to 1.5Ghz where it has been working flawlessly for the last 3 weeks at the default votage of 1.60V. I chose to go back to 1.5Ghz because heat would have been too much of an issue if I tried to go any higher. Unfortunately I miss out on breaking the 1.6GHz barrier and also the 200 barrier in XBench.

If an aftermarket processor upgrade company ever released an upgrade board that is compatible with the MDD AND contains dual 7457 CPU's (they use less power and run much cooler), I believe it will be possible to achieve a stable 1667MHz. Only time will tell.

30 January 2004

I finally started toying with the dual 1.42GHz module. I didn't overclock it right away, I waited until I could monitor the temperatures and performance of the stock module before performing any mods. A few interesting points worth mentioning:

• This module runs hotter at the stock speed of 1420MHz than the 1250Mhz module running at the same frequency (between 1°C - 2°C hotter). This is due to the core operating voltage being 0.05V higher than the 1250Mhz CPU's. The 1420MHz CPU's operate at 1.6V as recommended by Motorola
• The physical design layout of the power supply circuit and it's components differ from the 867, 1000 and 1250 CPU modules
• The module uses a 3-Phase voltage regulator instead of 2-Phase voltage regulator thus VID1-4 are in different locations. After some investigation, I have found the new VID settings for this module however I have not attempted any voltage adjustments as yet.

Sadly, this module is not as  clockable as the 1250MHz module at stock voltages. I could only manage to get it running stable at 1500MHz @ 1.60V. Temps have remained the same though. I will try to bump up the voltage to 1.625V or 1.65V soon - that should get it to 1580MHz without too many hassles. I will be running at 1500MHz for a week or two just to make sure things are okay.

The overclocking page has received an update to include the new VID settings and a couple of new picture are in there too.

01 January 2004

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I have updated the Multiplier page to include overclock instructions . Alot of clear, closeup pictures are included which should make it easy for the  beginner.  My motivation to create this page was that there are no pages that outline how to do this. There are various pages with bits of info but none that have consolidated it.

Overclock News: 1.58GHz proved to be unstable for the stock 1.25GHz MDD module, even after a small voltage boost. I have down clocked the CPU's back to 1.5GHz and is now happily crunching data without a hitch.

I have recently taken delivery of a genuine Apple 1.42GHz processor module (thanks to Eric at Techseekers).  The CPU's are rated at 1400MHz and are 7455B's. I will attempt to crack 1600MHz barrier with this module soon. Stay tuned!

08 December 2003

I'm planning on adding info to the multiplier page that will include the default CPU core voltages. Overclockck instructions are another thing I would like to add. Currently there is information available from about 3 different sites with various pieces of info. I would to consolidate this and include some nice clear photos that documents how to overclock your MDD G4.

The 2003 DP1.25GHz MDD FW400 (the model featured throughout this site), appears to have a default core CPU voltage of 1.55V, much lower than I expected (and lower than previous MDD models). I need to clarify this info before I post an update.

Overclock News: My MDD made it up to 1.58GHz today! CPU voltage was increased by 0.05V but suffered quite a few crashes. I'm going to try increasing the core voltage another 0.05V (to 1.65V). I have a feeling though the L3 cache is going to cause the problems here. Although the 7455B is bulletproof I don't think the Samsung cache modules are going to withstand such an extreme overclock. Of course all results and findings will be posted here.