Replacement Fans for a G4 Quicksilver

Question

Replacement Fans for a G4 Quicksilver

Dear All,

I have a Power Mac G4 933MHz (Quicksilver 2002), which I have upgraded to 1.5GB of RAM. I have also installed a new hard disk, a PCI wireless network card, a PCI USB 2 card, and, most recently, an ATI Radeon 9800 256Mb AGP graphics card.

With the new graphics card in place, the system sounds too loud, and I am worried that I won't be cooling the computer adequately. I would like it to be as quiet as possible, but I'm not expecting silence, and I wouldn't want to compromise on the reliability of the system by not have sufficient cooling.

Could any one offer me any advice as to what fans I should replace? Is this relatively easy to do? I'm reasonably comfortable working inside the computer, but I wouldn't want to damage anything.

I have been advised that Zalman heat-sinks/fans would be a good investment for the graphics card. Does anyone have any experience of these? If so, which model did you select, and was it easy to fit? Also, as they seem quite large, would this mean loosing a PCI slot? This isn't a deal breaker, but I'd like to know the implications.

Thank you in anticipation of any help or advice you may be able to offer.

Best Wishes,

Richard

Power Mac G4 933MHz (Quicksilver 2002), Mac OS X (10.5.5), 1.5GB RAM

Posted on Jan 20, 2009 3:09 PM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

428,039 points

Jan 20, 2009 3:19 PM in response to Richard Mccarthy

To get a jump start on this I would enter terms such as "quicksilver fan" in the search discussions window for this forum. There's fan discussions several times per week.

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Answer 2

Labonza

Level 1

40 points

Jan 21, 2009 9:06 AM in response to Richard Mccarthy

Yes, there are lots of threads here about Quicksilver Fans because the Quicksilver is the noisiest computer I've ever owned ( Mac or PC) and some of us realize that a computer doesnt have to be that loud to operate correctly.

The one you should look at first is the fan in the side of the case ( the big one).Easiest to replace with a quieter unit.The one at the top that pulls air in for the CPU is probably the most annoying one though.I ended up just taking it out and attaching a very quiet fan ( running at a lower voltage) directly to the CPU heatsink.

Some will advise against such a mod. Fair enough. But I had decided that the Quicksilver either had to go or get real quiet,real fast. So I was prepared to get a little radical.

I also replaced the fan in the Power Supply.All the fans I put in pump out less air (CFM) that the Apple fans they replaced.They are all much quieter and most of them I run at lower voltages for additional quieting.

Here's some links about Quicksilver fan mods so you can read up on this a bit.
http://www.macgurus.com/guides/giga_da/part2.php
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/quicksilvernoise/quieting_quicksilvernoise.html
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/quicksilvernoise_2/quieting_quicksilver3.html

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