Be *VERY* sure it doesn't have Firewire 800...

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/faq/power-mac-g4-boot-...

I having exactly the same computer in use here, a 1 Ghz Dual G4 Power Mac. They are not only great for classic games of the late 90s / early 2000s but they are also very cool OS 9 machines for just about everything!

Actually I'm writing this from my PowerMac G4 MDD which I use as my main computer. If you follow the forums, you can see that only a couple of month ago I switched to it from an iMac G4 800 Mhz. (the difference is like day and night). I'm doing Internet stuff (surfing, e-mailing, chatting), games and all my studyings related stuff on it. Right now writing my diploma thesis in AppleWorks for example. The only drawback is the loud fan, but if you're not very noise sensitive and put it under your desk, I can highly recommend it. Still thankful some folks here advised me to buying it....they were absolutely right, amazing machine for cheap money. (Do I sound like a fanboy? )

As macmeister pointed out, just make sure it isn't a FW800 model. Those are limited to OS X only, for whatever reason.

Beaten to it,

Bolkonskij and I already have this one. It'll need the special OS9.2.2 version (available from somewhere on this site) which you install while running OSX.

Don't worry too much about the FW800, they had dual processor 1.25GHz and 1.42GHz versions, but the 1GHz version was uni-processor.

Looks like the shop / seller has put it back to the original specs, ie. 80GB disk, 256MB RAM. OSX 10.3 on it is sweet, athough it'll run OSX 10.4 and 10.5, I still run mine on 10.3.9.

Fair price too, if it had original discs, keyboard, mouse and box.

I'll be bringing mine (and the dual G5, Mac Pro, Cube, SE, PBG4, etc) to New Zealand at the end of the year when we emmigrate to Auckland. I'll bring the discs and I'll burn off a set of original discs then too.
There's nothing wonderful on them that you won't have already if you get OSX 10.3 and the OS9.2.2 you need. Offer stands for Bolkonskij too, if you desperately want the (6 I think) original discs. Of course, it's all International English. I've also got some spare 256MB modules to bring to NZ.

Any caveats about buying it ?? well, ask for a brand new PRAM battery. And ask if the power supply is the original 400W, or if it was replaced (with all the fans) with a 350W as part of the Apple Replacment Program. I kept my 400W PSU and the "noisy" fans. Not important but it may help you know $15 off the price.

The Radeon Pro 9000 comes with and ADC connector and DVI. The original box also came with a DVI-VGA adapter, to allow you to drive a VGA display. Ask if it is included.

I've also got a set of Apple Pro Speakers made for the MDD and QuickSilver Macs. Sitting in a box just now as the G5 is my main Mac.

Ooops, can't remember if the original discs are dual layer or not. I'll send them for P+P if they're not, otherwise Dual Layer DVD-R costs me about £1.50 each just now (ouch).

get some 17¨monitor... if you want good stuff search for the sony trinitron...

360GB disks will format to about 335GB. You'll have to keep the original 80GB disk to boot off, or partition one of the drives. OS9 can only boot of a volume of 192GB or less. I've kept a 200GB disk - which formats to 187GB - as my OS9 boot, otherwise filled with 500GB disks.

17" Apple Studio Display wuld be good, although many varieties had a name like that. with a variety of connections. There's the flat panel models (I have one, coming to NZ with me) with the ADC connector. There may also have been an earlier (same size, lower res) DVI version.
Then there's a selection of CRT models, some ADC too (I have 2 of these, trying to sell now), some DVI and some VGA.

The CRT versions go for pennies since no-one wants them, they are very large and very, very heavy. Image quality is (IMHO) slightly better than LCD displays.

EveryMac has an excellent database on Apple displays. Just one caveat, stay away from the (more recent) aluminium framed displays, they are better, but had a more recent OS requirement. Not sure if it would stop the display functioning though.

And maybe one more caveat, the 20in and 23in (I have one of these too) look great and work great, but as said before in other posts, OS9 on 1920x1200 is real mouse olympics in the Finder with its small icons.

The MDD has space, power and ribbons for 4 hard disks, and two optical drives. So use either 160GB (or the 80GB) for booting OS9, and the other 160GB and 80GB for whatever you want. For tinkering with OS9 it'll make no difference. I keep OS and Apps on one disk. documents there too, but infrequently updated stuff goes on other disks, ie. iTunes, Downloads, some backups from the first disk. A third disk holds the backups of the content on the second disk, etc. You'll work out how you want it to work.

If you have any "green" disks, or labelled "Energy Efficient" or similar, these are ideal for backups and infrequent access - rather they're hopeless for a main disk, they spin down too quickly and you have to wait 5-10 seconds for them to get up to speed before you can use them. Really annoying, it's fine for backups, or iTunes where the delay is acceptable and iTunes caches enough audio / video so you don't notice. If you try yo keep them running 24/7, they'll overheat and die.

just one more big thing about OS9 on this MDD, max memory OS9 can use is 1.5GB. If you have more - I still have 2GB - it's used as a disk cache or something. Always handy to have 2GB for when you want to jump into early OSX.

The 23in Cinema HD Display is enormous, EveryMac has a description of it and maybe a photo. The 17" models go for about £30 here, the 23in for about £120. Watch out, there's an earlier 22in looks nearly the same, but has 1600x1200 max resolution, and the brightness isn't as good.
Also watch out for 17", 20" and 23" LCD displays with broken back legs, seems to be common on eBay sometimes as part of an office clearance. Usually brings the price right down to pennies for all models. If you can live with it leaning against a wall to use it, it's a real bargain.
The 17" CRT models that are pennies are by comparison very bright and have a higher max resolution (1600x1200 compared to 1280x1024 on the LCD flat panels), they also have an anti-glare coating on them that starts to come off after a number of years - not a bad thing, they get a lot brighter. Use a few baby wipes to get the rest of the AG coating off. Your choice in the end, space and weight is just too much for me.

Then again, you can always go for almost any DVI display from any manufacturer, probably for a lot less. The ADC gives you an Apple logo on the desk, a power / sleep button to control the G4, a Screen Settings button on the screen (fires up the OS9 / OSX Displays Control Panel, 2 USB v1 ports on the back / side of the screen, power video and USB through the one cable.
All this was a god-send for me when playing with multiple Macs. Have the KB and mouse plugged intot he back of the screen, if I wanted to jump onto another (headless) Mac that was already running, I'd just pull the ADC cable out of one and plug into another. video KB and mouse would instantly work on the other Mac, pull it and plug back into the first Mac, still working .
You're a clever guy, you'll work out what you need. Cool tricks doesn't cut it for me, I want to see some real time benefi or financial benefit when I decide.

Know I'm not making it easier, last two words -
I couldn't believe how much desk space I got back when I switched from CRT to LCD.
If you spend $3 on a CRT model and you don't like it, it's only cost you $3.

Yes, you can boot from any HD, and I do mean any. G3's and early G4's used Master / Slave on the hard disks, and you could only boot from a Master, but the MDD prefers Cable Select and this is not an issue.

There's no need to keep OS9 and OSX on separate drives, I used to keep OS9.2.2 and OSX 10.3 on disk 1, OSX 10.4 (and OS9.2.2 for use in Classic) on disk 2, OSX 10.3.9 Server on disk 3, disk 4 was just backups. Remember that it's only OS9 that's limited to booting on drives of < 192GB, OSX can boot from any drive, any size. The MDD requires OSX 10.2.0 or later if you intend to use OSX (so no OSX 10.1.x)

There's a startup manager, hold down Option when you boot and it'll prompt you with all the OS's it finds, then pick one and boot into it. Can't remember if it includes OS9 or not, but I think you need OSX installed for this to work. Otherwise use the Startup Disk control panel / system pref.

The MDD likes it's disks to be Cable Select., so just check that they are so. It works with Master / Slave, but CS seemed to work better.

Which video port is the display on ? ADC ? or DVI ? If it's DVI, it needs its own power supply and I'm not sure if it turns on automatically.

You might want to unseat and re-seat the video card a couple of times to clean the contacts.

And just re-check all the cables you moved around when cleaning.

Unseat and re-seat all the RAM, they could be loose after transit.

The loud "boing" missing doesn't have to be a bad thing, I turned my volume down to mute (volume setting is stored in PRAM) just to stop the noise.

You may need to reset the PMU, small button on the mobo, labelled PMU of course. Power on and press it down for about 1 second.

Some G3's / G4's had trouble booting when the PRAM battery was dead, but the MDD wasn't one of them. And leaving it plugged in (on or off) for a while then resetting PMU and then PRAM should solve issues.

Get used to the loud fans at boot, full power until the Kernel can start to control them.

Yes it's big and even heavier with 4 hd's and 2 optical drives. Then I put it between my PMG5 and Mac Pro and it's like a little one.

Did the seller confirm that it was working ?

Leaving it makes me think dead PRAM battery. If you unplug it and leave it for 15 minutes or so (or overnight) then start it up - without internet access - the date / time may be set funny.

Is it still Mac OSX 10.3 ? And is it a Black / White / Aluminium keyboard ? The black one (it came with (called the "Pro Keyboard" on the back) works best. The white keyboard (that followed it) was always a bit naff - I really mean awful - and the Aluminium Keyboard (came with my PMG5 (also OSX 10.3.9) and Mac Pro is slow with the Eject like you said.

To check it's not the OS or keyboard, try a "disktool -l" (el) in Terminal, to list the drives, then a "disktool -e " to eject the optical disk, ie. "disktool -e disk2s1". Takes about 1.5 seconds on mine with a disk in. Should be about the same time as when you hit the Eject key.

Well wait and see if the clock resets itself when you start up after having been without power for a while (10-15 mins).

The PRAM batteries are about £7 in the UK. But because I have / had about a dozen desktop Macs, I would buy in bulk at OWC in the US, where it cost about £3 each plus another £1.60 each for postage to the UK, VAT (sales tax) and the DHL handling fee (they paid the sales tax for me, I had to pay it to them plus handling fee to get my stuff).

I have 2 spare in my desk if it gets impossible.

The PRAM batteries are a standard 3.6v battery commonly used in alarm systems so you might be able to find them locally in a hardware store. Otherwise, if you're going to buy them online, I'd order a few to make good on the postage and to have some spares around.

I sent my dad to get one, and the one he got had a large pin coming out each end - cut each pin off and filed the ends down, and it was a standard 1/2 AA 3V Lithium backup battery. Worked great...

No problem. If you can't wait, here is where I get mine ..

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/BAA36VPRAM/

Ships worldwide. And it gives you a much better description of what you'd want. 3.6V 1/2 AA is the only important bit. The ones on OWCs site are yellow but when they arrived they were white with a red and black stripe. I know Auckland has a few Autorised /Premium Apple Resellers, I shall have to get acquainted with them and see if they're anything more than an iPod / iPhone and accessory shop.

No idea about paypal, I paid with my Amex and keyed the shipping address.

That could be my first income when I get to NZ, buy 50 of those at US$5 and sell them on trademe at NZ$20 each.

no when you insert the install cds press the "c" button this is to boot from any cd on powerpc based mac and when the cd is in the drive and when the computer turns immediately on and you hear the frighting BONG noise hold down "c" and it should start booting. Don't use option that is to only boot from hard drives. Let me know if you where successful :]

ok you are confusing me are you trying to install from cds or are you booting from a hard drive. The option key is to get to the hard disk manager on boot so you can pick a hard disk to boot from. It is not to pick to boot from a CD rom or DVD rom device it is strictly a hard disk boot manager. The CD key is what is used to boot your CD's or DVDs on powerpc based macs. When it comes to the restore disc to tell you the truth I would just find a retail version of mac os 9.2.2 on thebayofpirates of you know what I mean ;]. I have 3 MDD systems with the same specs running 9.2.2 perfectly fine.

Only the OSX 10.2.1 Install Disc 1 will work as a boot CD.

My CDs and MDD are one point version lower, ie. OSX 10.2.0.

Worrying now that your MDD is a slightly later release that requires maybe 10.2.2 or 10.2.3, etc.

It's a moot point, being honest, OSX 10.2.x won't be missed, if you can install OSX 10.3, then do it. We can install (and then boot from) OS9.2.2 later. You o have OSX 10.3 install CDs, don't you ?

Re: burning the CD images, if you have a later Mac, burn them in Disk Copy / Disk Utility. Ouch, just seen the 6 disc images linked above, they're Toast images. I think you have to set an option in Toast to make burned discs bootable. I know I had problems with any OSX install CDs/DVDs I imaged with Toast, just didn't boot, I had to use Disk Utility and select "CD/DVD Master", creating a .cdr image.

I hope the images I created are bootable, I'd be very embarrassed if I had made a mistake. I was pretty sure making a standard Toast image in Toast 5 under Mac OS 9 did create workable boot CDs. A comment on the page made it seem like the Mac OS X 10.2 did work.

Maybe the CD drive isn't working correctly? Can you do an install over Firewire Target Disc Mode?

It's never as bad as it seems, 5 of the 6 images are fine as Toast, since they're not required to boot the Mac. And as you say in OS9 and before Toast did a great job at creating bootable CDs.

I just had an experience with some backup copies of my OS Install discs. Time came to use them and they wouldn't boot. I had the original discs so no disaster, but I burned new copies with Toast and still no luck in booting from them. Burned a copy in Disk Utility (.dmg) and still no luck, burned another copy (CD/DVD Master - .cdr) and it worked first time.
I've always used .cdr for OS Install discs since. I bet Toast is fine for some OSX and machine-specific OS Install discs, otherwise it would be common knowledge not to use Toast.

When imaging the OS install discs in Toast are you guys using Disc Copy or Mac Volume? Mac Volume would probably strip out the hidden boot/driver partitions. Disc Copy should image the discs fine (I'll experiment later and see).

Personally I use Disc Copy -> Save As Image

Disc Copy -> Save As Image ... too.

I'm still worried about your earlier comment ... "yes, I am using cable select. Both HDs are set to master".

Pull all but the HD with the Mac OS. And try again.

I'm summarising that you haven't actually installed an OS yet, it's meant to have come with Mac OS X 10.3 pre-installed.

Can you detail the current state of things ? From what I've read, I presume that it powers on OK, but that you just don't get an OS to boot from (the Finder face and flashing question mark). This is fairly good news, all you need is a bootable OS X (MDD) restore disc.

Can you put the serial number into http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php
or
http://www.powerbookmedic.com/identify-mac-serial.php
and report on the week and year it was built. We'll compare to other MDD owners and see if the 10.2.1 Install discs are late enough for you to boot. Serial is on the back on the label next to power socket.
My MDD (which came with OSX 10.2.0 discs was manufactured week 35 of 2002 - August, just before the official release (Tuesday).

Another thing was this high pitched beeping noise when I started it up, then shuts down immediately.

I'm pretty sure the power supply is bad then.

@ j_damage•69: if the power supply is on it´s way out, you could try with just one piece attached to the IDE chain at a time. Pull the IDE and power connection for the two hard disks and try start up with the CD-ROM alone.
If not successful pull the connections for the CD-ROM go through each of the HD's in order to see if there's any 'ignition'.
BTW if not tried before; pull the selection jumper on the HD when trying to startup it alone and set the CD-ROM to master.

Hope it´s only dust or dirt somewhere 'trolling' the MDD. Sure is a good piece of machine!

No. Replacing a power supply should be easy. But be WARNED! Do NOT try to tinker with the old one at all (i.e. open it up). They can be fatal when opened. Just throw it out and replace with a new one. I know on a PC, when it shuts down like that, it is always the power supply so I'm sure that's what this issue is. Considering it's age, it's no wonder. Maybe get a slightly bigger one to replace, do not go smaller. But don't go too big, then you generate more heat which will make the system unstable. About 10-20% larger should be more than adequate, but this is not necessary. The same size would be OK if you don't plan on expanding...