Details of Power Mac G4 MDD noise modification

MacFixIt reader Antti Peltonen, who submitted yesterday's excellent home-made Power Mac G4 MDD noise dampening solution [picture], today offers some more details on where he obtained his parts, and how each procedure was performed.

"120mm fan specs can be found here: http://www.enermax.com.tw/uc-8fab.htm Power supply fan specs: http://www.thermaltake.com/products/heatsink/v5.htm

"The machine is under the table now and the sound is less annoying than the HD whine that came from my old fanless iMac DV. Just a nice quiet hum.

"Before the mods I suffered headaches and could not concentrate on my work because of the high-pitched oscillating whine from the PS fans and the grinding, rattling noise from the cpu fan.

"The most difficult part of the mods was maybe opening the power supply and taking the fan connectors out. I soldered the thermaltake fan wires together to make a serial connection (I'm not sure if this is the right term in english) and then plugged the wires to other of the available connectors in the power supply. It wold be easier to buy already less powerful fans but since I already had these fans I had to do this trick to slow them down.

"Replacing the CPU fan and making the spoiler were an easy procedure. I first tried the 120mm fan without tilting and spoiler and revving would begin soon and continue. Tilting the fan and adding the spoiler made a big difference.

"The machine has been on continuously for 60 hours now. I even put the speaker back on because the computer looks so dumb without it... If I open the case it takes 2 minutes before the cpu fan begins revving up.

"When the fan has reached the highest mode and I close the case, the fan returns to the lowest mode in about 1 minute. Floor air temperature is 19-20 C."

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