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Power Mac G5

Power Mac G5 Hardware 73 posts Nov 27, 2007 — Dec 23, 2007
hi everybody,

this is my first post, and i am so glad i have found this forum. i think it is a great community. i have loved macs since my early childhood (i can still remember my father working on a IIci), and now, finally, after years of using pc's (yukk), hackintoshing and trying all sorts of emulators, i finally have a dual 2ghz g5.

enough of me, on to my questions:

firstly, the machine has been in use for a while, by sick bastards if you ask me - the inside was totally messed up with improperly inserted parts and dirt, the original os x loaded with useless crap etc., and sometimes behaves strangely.

when i turn it off for the night and turn it on next morning, it gives the startup sound, starts to boot, i can even enter my password and it continues to do something. i guess it boots just fine, but my monitor gets no signal. after turning it off and on again a few times (2-3 times) it boots just fine.

if it has been on for a while and i restart it, or shut it down and start it up again, it boots fine too.

tried zapping pram, installed the latest firmware, tried another monitor. nothing seems to work. could somebody help me..?

secondly, i stumbled upon something at tidbits called 'countdown g5' which would enable booting into os 9, but the link points to a dead site. does anybody have this or are there other chances for my g5 to use os 9 natively?

sorry for being this lengthy.

thank you

the last powermacs that could boot in to os 9 were the G4 towers a quicksilver or an MDD i think not sure i dont really use os 9

sounds like a loose sitting video port or a flaky video card tried replacing it yet ?

here is the article, see for yourself: http://db.tidbits.com/article/7617

it is some sort of a firmware up (or more probably down-) grade. :)

the card is an ati radeon 9600 pro with dvi, my sony tft is connected through a dvi>vga converter, but i double-checked the cables and they are not broken, neither are the connectors loose. i will replace the card this night, and tomorrow morning i will get back to you. thanks.

hmm not keen to try that with my imac G5

it could be that the converter is dying i have a converter that makes the screen pinkish unless you jiggle the cable

might as wel try a cheapish vidcard just to make sure you arent chasing ghosts

well, i have lots of classic stuff and i hate the classic environment. might be good for some word processors, but hey, even prince of persia is sluggish. currently i am dual-booting panther (with classic) and leopard, but i can't stand less than full backward compatibility. call me obsessed. :)

the cable is fine, i can move it anyway i want. must be something else. i have a nice little 32meg card from my father's g4, i will try that.

that 32 mb card sounds fine to test it if it doesnt happen any more you found the culprit if it does we got a problem

..err there is a warning on top of it

that article is a hoax if you want native os9 booting

you need to look in to G4's and G3's

..that article is a hoax..
certainly not. i did some research: http://emperor.tidbits.com/webx/TidBITS/Talk/66

if it is incompatible with anything it must be real. it might be useless and destructive, but that is for me to find out after having found it and before doing something foolish. :)

..that article is a hoax..
certainly not. i did some research: http://emperor.tidbits.com/webx/TidBITS/Talk/66

if it is incompatible with anything it must be real. it might be useless and destructive, but that is for me to find out after having found it and before doing something foolish. :)
Again, check the date on both articles (and the disclaimer at the top of the first one for that matter). It's an April Fools' joke...

[:o)] ]'>

i guess you are right. this explains why i cannot fint anything useful on that.. sorry. :I

so olde rmacs it has to be

im not sure if dual usb ibooks boot in to os 9 or not

it should depend on the processor, as i have heared, so if it is a g4 it should boot os 9. but why ask?

i am planning to get a g4 ibook or macbook, but currently i cannot afford it. :(

The G3 iBooks will boot into OS 9 but the G4 ones won't...

the dual usb ones boot into 9 as wel ?

i know for sure that the G4 towers wil boot in 9

a macbook wil never ever boot in 9

it should depend on the processor, as i have heared, so if it is a g4 it should boot os 9. but why ask?
It doesn't depend on the processor so much as the age of the machine, as Apple put something in the firmware of machines built just after OS X 10.2 was released that stopped them from booting 9, so while nearly all the G4 towers are 9-compatible, the iBooks didn't get the G4 until much later so no G4 iBooks can run 9, whereas all G3s can. It's worth checking MacTracker as it tells you exactly what OSes all Macs can run - all G3s can run 9 and no G5s can, but G4s are a mixture depending on their age.

oh, sh*t. so that means i will never be booting up mac os 9 until i find some hi-fi firmware hackers who are interested in discontinued os's on discontinued machines.. and let us admit it, that would be a real april fool's day joke. in other words i am stuck with sheepshaver (which happens to work better on leopard than apple's own classic on panther ;) ).

btw, does anybody have a solution for my first problem? sorry for the nag but i have just tested with another video card and my g5 still only boots up for the 2nd or 3rd try after 15-20 minutes of power off.

apartt from sheep shaver ( or getting rid of leopard) you only real option is buying an older G3 or G4 based mac

as far as your video card problems are it might be the agp slot that has trouble

bluekatt: 'dual usb' (according to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook) should be a g3, so it must boot os 9. :)
the clamshells boot 9 no doubt about that

i am very sure the 500 mhz's also boot in 9

my 800 mhz dual usb G3 refuses to boot of my os 9 disc but that might be because i have 9.0

the orginal software cd's have mac os x jaguar and os 9.2.2

you could also look in to the powerbook G3's and the early powerbook G4's

i know for certain that the wall street mainstreet lombard and pismo models boot up in os 9 with out a problem

my 800 mhz dual usb G3 refuses to boot of my os 9 disc but that might be because i have 9.0
Yeah, you'll probably need 9.2.2 on the CD for it.

If you're wanting a laptop that can boot OS 9 then your best bet would be either a later model iBook G3 or a titanium PowerBook G4 (15"). The aluminium PowerBook G4s and iBook G4s will only run OS X. If you're wanting to go with a PowerMac instead, then any G4 will run OS 9 except the one model that has FireWire 800.

but if you go for an ibook beware of the BGA video hip problem usually referred to as the logic board problem

long story short the video chip is starting to come loose of its solder and even though the mac wil boo tup you wont see anything on the screen

placinga shim inside the ibook wil apply enough pressure to get the ibook to work again

or if you are feeling adventurous play around with a paintstripper

so beware of the ibooks they might come cheap but be carefull what you are getting your self in to the 700 mhz G3 ibooks seem to be worst

followed by the 500 mhz who are the oldest but the problem is across the range

my 600 mhz never had it my 500 mhz doesnt have it but my 800 mhz does have it

so be carefull of them

the pismo G3 powerbooks have bigger screen boot in os 9 have G4 upgrade abilities but they are 7 years ol dby now are stil some what expensive and can suffer pink screen

if you just want a simple quick and easy os 9 machine get a late ibook

if you want to build a monster look to the pismo

as far as your G5 goes no idea it may be you agp slot

or something else

The G4 iBooks also have a shutting down problem. Apple used lead free solder in them and it gets brittle and cracks when the power button is pressed down until eventually they won't start up at all.

and the G4 ibooks have a problem with their keyboard adhesi e which makes some of them smell like a sweat sock

and surprise surprise they also have a bga video chip problem

got for a G3 ibook or a G3 pismo

at least the pismo is upgradable

short of swapping out the mobo's there is not much to upgrade about the ibooks of G4 powerbooks

and the G4 powerbooks or all three versions of the ibooks do not have pcmcia slots

the pismo does

can it be an agp slot problem, even if i am not having any other video problems at all? i can even move the card gently while the machine is on, without any issues.. only this startup thingy. but i noticed that it takes only 2 tries to turn it on correctly after updating the firmware.

pismo is nice, i looked around, in my opinion much nicer than those white ibooks. but when i get to buying a laptop my concern will not be a native os 9, but to be able to use it for work with an attached monitor. so i will go for the g4 ibook or powerbook.

btw, to put an end to this os 9 misery, i am going to buy an imac g3 (dvi) (400mhz processor, 256mb ram, 10gb hdd, slot-loading dvd) for (calculating..) around 40$. that is a decent price.. i think.. or not? :?:

the pismo G3 powerbooks have bigger screen
Although the Pismo has a physically bigger screen than the 12" iBooks, they both have a resolution of 1024x768. Therefore, you're not actually gaining any screen space by moving to the bigger screen. I personally prefer the slightly higher DPI that the 12" iBook offers over the 14" iBook or PowerBook.

Sorry if i missed if you did any of these or not.

have you tried to remove the video card and reseat it.

have you tried resetting Pram/Nvram by holding command+option+P+R at the start chime untill you hear the start chime 3 - 4 more times.

have you tried to go into Open firmware by holding command+option+O+F at the start chime and type

reset-all (press enter/return)

set-defaults (press enter/return)

reset-all (press enter/return)

after every command entered you should see OK (if you misspell a command it will say unknown word). if you seen no video wile doing this you can try to do it blind.

replace the video card with a known good Mac 8x AGP card.

have you pulled the Pram battery out of the machine and let it sit unplugged from the wall for a few hours (if you do this remember which way the battery goes back in), let it sit for a minimum of 3 or 4 hours.

have you tried removing all but one stick of ram (if it has more then one stick) and turn it on, repeat the step until you go through all of the sticks installed by themselves. also try different ram slots.

do you have any other cards installed in the Mac, if you do try removing them all but the video card to see if it helps.

there is a number of reasons why the video don't show when you power the unit on. these are only but a few trouble shooting steps for a Mac with issues to try to learn the reason why its having issues in the first place.

IIRC these first gen AGP G5's was sometimes troublesome.

right now a G4 upgraded pismo is the only G3 system that will run Leopard (altho a bit slowly due to its GPU and little Vram). i never had a Mac Laptop so i dont know much about them but by specs alone and what some people have done with them.

the pismo G3 powerbooks have bigger screen
Although the Pismo has a physically bigger screen than the 12" iBooks, they both have a resolution of 1024x768. Therefore, you're not actually gaining any screen space by moving to the bigger screen. I personally prefer the slightly higher DPI that the 12" iBook offers over the 14" iBook or PowerBook.
but it is still a physically bigger screen in a bigger case i like the form factor of the icebooks and i donr mind the 12 inch screen but for some people its too cramped

oh and 40 bucks for an imac dvi G3 400 mhz is pretty decent

The original 500MHz iBook G3 Dual USB will boot OS9.1 - I own one so I should know, and all subsequent versions mad prior to January 2003 also do. In February 2003 Apple's newly released models (at MacWorld 2003 - iMac G4/800 15" and 1GHz 17") had the fix to stop booting of OS 9. Also all new machines built thereafter, *EXCEPT* the PowerMac, also would not boot OS 9. The PowerMacs continued to boot OS 9 for a while longer - I think they eventually stopped it with the FireWire 800 G4s. I know Apple Resellers were still selling G4 PowerMacs as late as early-2004 that booted into OS 9 for backwards compatibility for professionals who needed it, but these were back stocks and refurbs left over after the previous years G5 product rollout.

I think apart from the G4 PowerMac, the cut off was February/March 2003 somewhere. Doesn't anyone remember the 'OS 9 funeral' at MacWorld 2003??

As for the original problem it sounds to me like the graphics card is either faulty or its working loose as it heats up (or it could be both). Do you experience any lockups while using the computer or graphical glitches on the screen if you use the graphics card intensively (running Leopard and throwing a lot of windows around on the desktop usually does the trick). It may just be the card needs reseating in the graphics slot - it happens.

Replacing the card if it is faulty is a bit more of a challenge. G5 compatible graphics cards are hard to find, although you might get lucky and pick a lower spec one up off someone who is upgrading.

mp.ls