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Mike, I tried the suggested method for making my G4 867 Quicksilver quieter. [See previous article-Mike] I removed the power supply finger guard, which involves removing the power supply and using a good set of wire cutters or tin snips to cut it away, not mentioned in earlier post. See picture (below) of inner finger guard that was cut out.
Removing this finger guard made a great improvement. I do not have the GF3 Video Card so I wonıt go through that modification. [The Geforce3 fan speed was one of the mods in the previous article-Mike]
I next tackled the fan shroud adjacent to the CPU heat sink. The previous post indicated that the screws were touching the heat sink which causes sound to resonate through the case, man does it ever. I removed them as instructed and used a zip tie to hold the fan to the shroudUnfortunately I still had considerable noise levels from this modification. The fan shroud is made of a rubber like material and holds the fan very securely, with out screws. Why not omit the screws and let it float in the shroud? MUCH QUIETER! I can hear the hard drive read and write now. This has made my G4 867 almost as quiet as my G4 DP 450, which is very tolerable. Note the picture below of a G4 DP 450 power supply finger guard alignment, perfect.
G4/450 DP System PS Fan
Now note the completely misaligned finger guards of the G4 867 (below), no wonder it howls.
Quicksilver System PS Fan
It is obvious that this misalignment is the cause of the power supply howl; itıs like a whistle. It forces the air through the smaller openings created by the goofed misalignment.
I did find the CPU fan noise to be the cause of most of the noise levels, but simply removing the screws that hold the fan to the shroud really dampened the noise. See below.
Please note that the screws used to hold the fan and shroud assembly to the case are used/must be used or the assembly will ride on the motherboard, not a good idea...
An interesting idea came to me for use of the finger guard cut from the power supply (see below).
(Quicksilver Case Speaker)
The front speaker opening on the Quicksilver has sparked some heated discussions on Apples Online Forums. Bottom line, an exposed speaker invites the possibility of damage from outside forces: fingers (kids) or household pets (paws) can and will ruin the speaker.
Problem solved, as you can see the color of the discarded finger guard is a dead on match with the Quicksilver color scheme. Simply cut the outside ring off the finger guard and attach to the speaker holder (previous picture) with double sided tape and your speaker is safe now.... no changes in volume or speaker quality noted.
-William
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