MacOS 8.6 on "Sawtooth" G4

Hm? My Sawtooth came with 9.02 (which crashes left, right and centre, BTW).

Is there any way to get 8.6 running on the G4 using these CDs or am I basically screwed without the original?

Click to expand...

AFAIK, that's a version unique to the sawtooths, which came out after 8.6 was released & needed an updated 8.6. They run terrifically well with it (My mother's G4/500 is a strangely zippy beast with it, and I think I'll take it back to 8.6 if she ever upgrades to another machine)

Dana

According to Mactracker, the sawtooth did come with 8.6 originally, but later came with Mac OS 9.0. It also says it needs Mac OS ROM 2.5.1.

I would love a sawtooth running 8.6 It would be hella fast. Next to 9.2.2, if the hardware can run it, I run 8.6 on it; unless it can run 7.6.1.

I have a 8.6 multi install CD, it has installers on it for the Powerbook G3 Series (wallstreet), Powerbook G3 (Bronze), iMac, and PowerMac G3 (Blue & White). No specific G4 installer, but there is the generic installer as well as an updater file.

-digital

Got the 2.5.1 ROM? I searched hi and lo for it

I tihnk the ROM would do the trick here, hm?

so generic OS8.6 install + 2.5.1 ROM would boot the sawtooth?

Thanks for all the responses. [] ]'>

The ROM on my B&W G3 CD is 1.4, and on the 'retail' CD it is 1.6. Unfortunately neither one will boot my G4.

When running the generic OS 8.6 install application I get the error "this program will not run on your computer". This makes sense because the CDs contain install files dated prior to September 1999 when the G4 was released.

So, if I can somehow get a hold of a 2.5.1 ROM then yes, I should be able to boot up. However, I have no idea how to obtain it without actually locating a copy of an original G4 restore CD.

Joo think it would work with the ROM from OS 9.0 Sawtooth CD?

It doesn't work with the ROM from 9.0 I tried it.

I've asked a bunch of people selling sawtooth G4s on eBay whether they're willing to sell me their original restore CD. Although it seems that most G4s ended up shipping with MacOS 9. I think it is only the 400 and 450 mhz versions that had 8.6.

If I get a ROM that works I'll let you all know.

Thank you, almeath!

Everyone I have asked says that they either don't have the original install CD or that it came with OS 9. All the copies of 8.6 floating around the net are March 1999 retail copies that don't include the correct ROM. [] ]'>

Looks like I'll have to be realistic and accept that I can't get 8.6 running, at least for now.

I'm currently using 9.2.2. Maybe if I downgrade to 9.0.4 some of my older games might work better...

Good news: I got a hold of ROM 2.5.1, on an installation CD for a G4 system. [] ]'>

Bad news: The CD won't boot my G4! [xx(] ]'>

According to the system profile my machine is a 400mhz AGP based G4 with 20GB drive and ATI Rage 128. MacTracker lists the machine type as "406" and says it will run MacOS 8.6 with ROM 2.5.1

So, not booting with the CD, or even allowing me to install the OS at all (same "this program will not run on your computer" message) is really strange. The CD does not recognize the system it was designed to run on.

Could this be caused by a firmware update? Or the fact that MacOS X had previously been installed on the machine? I somewhat doubt it because I wiped the HD clean in order to reinstall MacOS 9.

Any ideas?

Might be a firmware update, yeah.

You might be able to instal directly in Open Firmware.

I'd go with a firmware update. Its unlikely that OS X would have anything to do with it - despite the fact that I primarily run my iMac under Mac OS X, it will quite happily boot of a retail OS 8.5 CD, which pre-dates my Rev. D iMac by several months.

I see there was a firmware update listed for the sawtooth G4s in 2001. It says it is for improved compatibility with OS X. I'll need to learn how to use Open Firmware to see if that update has been applied.

I still think its strange that a firmware update would render one's restore CD useless? It's the kind of thing you'd think Apple would mention in the ReadMe.

BTW, is there any way to reverse a firmware update? i.e. revert to factory default settings? [?]

[] ]'>

Try install another Mac OS 8.6 with MacOnMac on the SawTooth, and put the 2.5.1 ROM in the new installed system afterwards...

[] ]'>

And... can I have the.. well you know. [}] ]'>

Thanks for all the responses. [] ]'>
The ROM on my B&W G3 CD is 1.4, and on the 'retail' CD it is 1.6. Unfortunately neither one will boot my G4.

When running the generic OS 8.6 install application I get the error "this program will not run on your computer". This makes sense because the CDs contain install files dated prior to September 1999 when the G4 was released.

So, if I can somehow get a hold of a 2.5.1 ROM then yes, I should be able to boot up. However, I have no idea how to obtain it without actually locating a copy of an original G4 restore CD.

Click to expand...

I think just getting the ROM may not be enough. I remember that the beige G3 required MacOS 8, but shipped with a unique version specific to those models originally so retail 8.0 didn't work because it was released ahead of the G3's. Even IF you do have the ROM version required, you're probably going to have to hunt down a copy of the system disc that shipped with the early Sawtooths OR burn a copy of the install disc that you do have and do some tinkering to the files to force it to install on an unsupported machine.

To save you from endless speculation about the ROM version currently in your Mac, and which ROM that might be, you could go to Production information at the foot of the System Profile tab in Apple System Profiler 2.1.2 or later and see what Boot ROM version tells you.

Then go to this page for the difference between Mac OS ROM and bootROM, and here for more gen about what goes with what.

de

Thanks to everyone for their comments and suggestions.

This is what I've found:

Machine ID: 406

ROM Version: $77D.45F6

MacOS ROM file Version: 8.4

The ROM is apparently the same one used on the B&W G3 and many G3 iMacs.

I'm going to try installing 8.6 (my generic retail copy) on a disk image using SheepShaver, and then I'll drop the 2.5.1 ROM into the system folder and copy it across to a separate partition on my G4.

I'll report back on how this goes...

I've got 8.6 running on my 400 MHZ sawtooth. In college, I found a G3 Powerbook restore cd. I mounted the ASR image and copied the System Folder to an empty volume on my sawtooth. It didn't like the ROM that came with the Powerbook, so I experimented with some roms from the iMac lab at school. I ended up using Mac OS ROM 2.3.1. I used the "move the Finder? (or the System?) file out of the System Folder and back" trick to bless it. It worked like a charm. DON'T stick it on the same partition as Mac OS X. I recall at the time it did funny things to my 8.6 install, but it's been a while, can't remember what exactly. But if it's on it's own partition, it's very snappy.

ROM 2.5.1 + Mac OS 8.6 definetivly works! I´m using it right now

I own a Sawtooth but like almeath I don't have the original 8.6 install CD.

Could someone who has the Mac OS ROM 2.5.1 file please make it available for download so that other Sawtooth owners can try to install 8.6.

Thanks in advance.

No luck for me yet, with ROM 2.5.1. My machine (ID 406) doesn't want to work with a September 1999 G4 boot CD. It also doesn't want to work with a retail OS 8.6 install with ROM 2.5.1 dropped into the Sytem folder.

I think my problem is either:

(1) The CD I have was designed to only boot a PCI graphics G4.

(2) The firmware and/or boot ROM have been modified at some point, rendering the machine incompatible with Mac OS 8.6

I haven't given up yet though.

BTW, if anyone needs ROM 2.5.1, just PM me and I will give you the download link.

If anyone has a G4 boot CD which is confirmed to work with a 400mhz using AGP graphics (ID 406) machine, please let me know because I want a copy of your System folder! [] ]'>

I have done a lot of googling and have discovered the following:

If you have upgraded the sawtooth firmware (aka boot rom) using the 4.x update, the ability to boot into 8.6 is disabled.

This brings up the question of what sawtooth firmware versions support 8.6 booting. According to a Japanese site I found, the original 8.6 sawtooth shipped with firmware version 1.2f1. The first OS9 sawtooth shipped with 1.3f1. Later sawtooths shipped with 9.0.2 or 9.0.4 and there was a big jump in the firmware version to $0003.22f1, $0003.24f1, and $0003.26f1 (as reported by Apple System Profiler). The Japanese site seems to imply that firmware versions 1.2f1 to $0003.24f1 support 8.6 booting. Most people refer to $0003.24f1 as firmware version 3.2.4 which I believe is correct. However, here is where it gets confusing. The first firmware update for the sawtooth that apple made publicly available was firmware update v2.4. The Japanese site seems to imply that if you try to run this update on a sawtooth with firmware $0003.26f1 (v3.2.6) you will get a message saying the 2.4 update is not needed since there is a newer version. This leads me to believe that the 2.4 update is probably the same as $0003.24f1. In any event, I can definitely confirm that the v2.4 firmware update still allows 8.6 booting. In another discussion, I found a sawtooth owner who did in fact apply the 2.4 update who states he now had the ability to boot into 8.6, 9.0 and OSX.

The next question is whether you can restore 8.6 booting if you have in fact upgraded your firmware to v4.x. I can think of two possible solutions:

1. Perhaps it would be possible to write an Open Firmware patch/hack that somehow overrules the apple firmware and restores 8.6 bootability. In my google searches I can find no evidence that anyone has tried this so I dont know if is possible. In any event, it would require someone with lots of knowledge about hacking Open Firmware and there appears to be very few of those persons around.

2. The second and more likely solution is to reflash the sawtooth firmware to revert back to an earlier version that does support 8.6 booting. Of course in order to do this we would need some type of utility that would save a copy of the needed older 8.6 boot rom as well have the ability to flash the boot rom chip. My google searches do confirm that such utilities do exist but they may be hard to obtain. Here is what I have found out about these flashing utilities:

It appears that Apple had such a utility. I found a Pismo user who had a corrupt boot rom. He stated a friend gave him a Apple service CD that had what he called a boot rom reader/updater. This utility allowed him to save a copy of the boot rom from a good pismo and then using that saved copy reflash the bad pismo. In the end, he wasn't able to do it because the service cd had a 9.0 system folder that wouldn't boot on his pismo. It would be great if we could get this utility. Perhaps if members of this forum who have old apple service CDs could dig them out and see if they can find what this guy is talking about. The strange thing is, I am somewhat familiar with Apple service CDs from this era, the MacTest Pro CDs, and I don't recall these CDs ever having such a utility so I don't know what Apple diagnostic CD this pismo owner is referring to.

However, I have discovered other similiar utilities that may be easier to obtain. It appears that most of the cpu upgrade companies have these flashing utilities that they appear to be willing to make available to customers. For example, in a discussion on the apple support forums I found a Sawtooth owner who had a corrupt boot rom who wanted to reflash it with a fresh copy of the firmware. He stated that Sonnet sent him a utility he called the G4 ROM Utility that had the ability to both save a copy of the boot rom and reflash it. Of course, this guy was sort of in a catch 22 situation. He had the utility to reflash his sawtooth but he didn't have a copy of the boot rom. Since we have already seen at least one 68kmla member who is still running 8.6 on a sawtooth, if we could ever get a flashing utility, we could get that member to use it to save a copy of his 8.6 bootable firmware which we could then use to reflash other Sawtooths. (As an aside, there are several utilities that are available for saving copies of the boot rom of macs mainly for use among mac emulator users such as sheepshaver and basilisk. Some of the ones I know about are AutoCopyROM, CopyROM, and GetROM. There may be a few others. To the best of my knowledge none of the rom savers support flashing. In theory, we could also use one of these rom savers to get a copy of the Sawtooth 8.6 compatible boot rom. However, I dont know if the resulting saved rom file would be compatible with a firmware flashing utility).

I have also seen evidence that the other cpu upgrade companies may have had similiar flashing utilities. For example, on the Daystar/XLR8 support forum, a user wanted to reflash his firmware to remove the special patches the cpu upgrade applied to his firmware. Daystar responds by saying he should email support and request a firmware remover. They say it is a manual tool that allows you to reflash the original apple firmware. Though they don't say if it also allows you to save a copy of the firmware, I wouldn't be surprised if it does. Powerlogix also had a tool that allowed you to save a copy of the boot rom and then reflash it. In fact they made this tool publicly available. It was intended for use on only the PowerBook G3s and iMacs with their BlueChip upgrade for those macs. On those macs, the boot rom chip is located on the oem cpu card which is removed when you install the cpu upgrade. Therefore, before installing the BlueChip upgrade you had to use the flash utility to save a copy of the original firmware. Then after installing the BlueChip upgrade, you had to use the flash utility to write the firmware to the boot rom chip on the upgrade card. You can still download this flash utility from the Japanese Powerlogix site. The only issue with this is whether you can run the flasher on other macs. If not, can it be hacked to allow it to run on other macs.

Lastly, even if we can't get a copy of any of these flashing utilities, there may still be one possibility to reflash the firmware. Over on the cubeowner forum, a user named Pareis has discovered a way to use Apple's own publicly available firmware flashers to reflash the firmware to an older version. Here is a quick summary of what Pareis discovered:

As anyone who has used Apple's G4 firmware updates knows, they require you to boot into OS9 in order to use them. This presents problems for users who only have OSX installed and no longer have copies of a OS9 system folder. Pareis wanted to find out if there was a way to install the firmware update without booting into OS9. He did. He discovered that the firmware flasher itself runs under Open Firmware and that you could bypass the OS9 installer application. All the OS9 installer application does is to check to make sure you are running the right mac and whether the firmware version is newer. Pareis discovered that you can bypass this OS9 installer app by copying the included firmware file to the hard drive (or even burn the firmware file to a blank CD) and then boot into Open Firmware and choose the firmware file as the boot device which results in the flasher running and updating the firmware. He even wrote an OSX script to help automate this procedure. This led another user to ask since the firmware version check is bypassed whether it would be possible to run an older firmware update to in essence revert back to an earlier version of firmware. Pareis discovered you can. In fact, on his sawtooth he was able to successfully downgrade the firmware from 4.2.8 to the older 4.1.8 and then back to 4.2.8 again. This makes me wonder whether the same thing is possible using the older 2.4 firmware update that we know supports 8.6 booting. That is, try to boot into Open Firmware using the 2.4 firmware file as the boot device to see if we could bypass any version checks to revert back to this older firmware. However, Pareis hints that this may not be possible. His further analysis of the code in the firmware file shows that it will only flash a firmware with the same major version as in the ROM (That is, you can reflash from say 4.2.8 to 4.1.8 but you can't flash from 4.x down to 3.x or lower. However, you can upgrade from 3.x or lower to 4.x). He does not state whether it is possible to hack the firmware file to bypass this version check. This leads me to believe that it may not be possible to use this technique to try to downgrade the ROM from 4.x to 2.4. However, it may be still worth a try just in case Pareis is wrong.

As an aside, this guy named Pareis seems to be one of the few people I can find who seems to be a somewhat of an expert in using Open Firmware. It would be interesting to try to contact him about the problem of Apple removing the ability to boot into 8.6 to see if he could come up with some type of simple Open Firmware hack that would restore 8.6 bootability.

That is all I know about and more than anyone would probably want to know about Sawtooth firmware versions and the ability to boot 8.6

One other thing that has occurred to me that is completely unrelated to the topic of the correct firmware required for booting into 8.6 is whether any additional 8.6 system files were updated on the Sawtooth 8.6 Install CD.

Up to this point, it has been assumed that the key missing file is the Mac OS ROM 2.5.1 file and that all you need to do is copy this file over to a retail 8.6 install in order to boot a Sawtooth. However, even if you have the correct 8.6 firmware and the Mac OS ROM 2.5.1 file, there is still the possibility that other Sawtooth system files were updated and that those updated files are essential to the stable operation of an 8.6 Sawtooth.

It would be nice if someone with a Sawtooth running 8.6 could provide us with a listing of all the system files (control panels, extensions, etc) along with their version numbers so that a comparison to the retail version of 8.6 can be made to see exactly what was updated if anything on the version of 8.6 that came with a Sawtooth.

Having said all that, I doubt if much of anything was probably updated other than the Mac OS ROM file and you can probably safely drop the Mac OS ROM 2.5.1 file into a copy of the system folder from a retail 8.6 install and safely boot a Sawtooth.

Of course, a better solution would be a source for copies of the extremely rare Sawtooth 8.6 Install CD or absent that, a copy of the entire 8.6 system folder from a Sawtooth.

All but the ROM and the internal ethernet work just from a retail 8.6 CD.

Thank you ccmac for your extremely detailed responses. I was tempted to put this one into the "too hard" basket, but this has roused my curiosity now. I'm going to keep at this for the challenge...

It looks like I have ROM 3.3.4. If the 2.4 ROM update does correspond to 3.2.4 as you've suggested, then there is a chance that I can get this to work by applying it in openfirmware.

I do have a copy of 8.6 for a G4, so I'll look into making that available for those that need it...

According to the Japanese site that lists the various Sawtooth boot rom versions, $0003.31f1 (v3.3.1) appeared on the Power Mac G4 Gigabit Ethernet model. Technically, I would consider this a separate model but this site listed it as a Sawtooth variation. Given that almeath's Sawtooth has boot rom v3.3.4, it looks like some of the last Sawtooth's must have shipped with the same boot rom as used on the later Gigabit Ethernet models. Also, since almeath can't boot into 8.6 with boot rom v3.3.4, it looks like we now know that boot rom v3.3.x as well as the later boot rom 4.x updates removed the ability to boot into 8.6.

The date on my boot ROM is 8 August 2000 - definitely late in the producton run for a 400mhz model.

I'm ready to run ROM update 2.4 (3.2.4) using open firmware, but I have a question...

Can this process conceivably destroy my Mac - i.e. prevent it from booting at all, even into open firmware? The ROM being used is designed for the sawtooth, so I assume that (if it flashes at all) at worst I'll just end up with another ROM that cannot boot 8.6 but will still work with 9.0? If I cannot get 8.6 to work, I wouldn't care if I had to use a later ROM like 4.x just to get it running again.

almeath,

The fact that your Sawtooth has boot rom v3.3.4 got me thinking last night about this very question, can trying to revert to an earlier version of the firmware make the mac completely unbootable.

This is what triggered my thinking. The earliest Sawtooth motherboards did not support dual CPUs. Later revised motherboards had an updated uni-north (Uni-N) chip that did support dual CPUs.

You can determine what revision Uni-N you have by opening Apple System Profiler in OS9. Go to the File menu and choose New Report. In the resulting dialog, click OK to open the report window. At the top of the report window, choose view as text file. Look at the Hardware Overview section and the last entry should display your Uni-N revision. Uni-N revision 7 or later means the motherboard does support dual CPUs.

Now, the question I have is did these newer motherboards have an upgraded boot rom and is that boot rom essential for the successful booting of any OS.

I don't think Apple ever shipped any dual CPU Sawtooths. Instead the first dual CPU G4 was the later Gigabit Ethernet model which had boot rom v3.3.1. However, we now know that your Sawtooth also shipped with boot rom v3.3.4. This makes me wonder whether the later Sawtooth models with the v3.3.x boot roms are the models with the motherboards that support dual CPUs. I also wonder whether there is something in this newer boot rom that is required to support the newer uninorth chip that may be missing from the older boot rom.

Stated another way, on the Sawtooths that have motherboards that support dual CPUs (which I am assuming has boot rom v3.3.x), is it safe to even try reverting to an earlier boot rom or do you run the risk of making the sawtooth completely unbootable.

Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to this question. My thinking was the same as yours, even if trying to flash back to 2.4 somehow doesn't work then you still have the option of trying to flash again using one of the newer 4.x firmware updates using the open firmware trick. But like you I wondered whether reverting back to 2.4 from 3.3.4 would prevent the Sawtooth from even booting into open firmware.

If I had to guess, I would say that reverting back to 2.4 probably won't make the Sawtooth unbootable but it may mess up the ability to use dual cpu upgrades. Also note that I don't think a mac becomes completely unbootable even in situations where the firmware has become so corrupted that the mac no longer boots. Or stated another way, even in situations where corrupt firmware makes the mac unbootable, it may still be repairable. In my first post above where I discuss the various firmware flashing utilities available, that is the situation some of the users found themselves in. For example, the pismo and sawtooth users could no longer boot their macs due to corrupted firmware. The pismo user obtained an Apple firmware flasher and the Sawtooth user obtained a Sonnet flasher that allows for the reflashing of firmware. The very existence of such utilities, especially the Apple utility which was on a bootable service cd and was designed to both test for corruption and flash firmware, seems to imply that even in situations where the firmware has become so corrupted it no longer allows the mac to boot, it is still possible to somehow reflash the firmware to repair the mac and restore bootability.

However, it still may be a gamble and for anyone who decides to risk it and try reverting to an older firmware who finds their Sawtooth unbootable (even into open firmware) there is still some good news. A quick search of ebay finds that going price for used Sawtooth motherboards is only $20 or less.

In the event a Sawtooth motherboard has to be replaced, one online mac parts dealer states the following:

"Version 1 and Version 2 logic boards are similar and must be replaced like for like. To differentiate boards, check the EEE code (the last three digits on the serial number bar code). The EEE code is HHQ, HHP, HJZ, HKD, or HL9 for Version 1 logic boards and HQT, J6M, or JVE for Version 2 logic boards.

Note: In some cases, an extra digit may be added to the end of the logic board's serial number. If none of the EEE codes listed above match the logic board you are attempting to identify, remove the last digit of the serial number and check these codes again."

Version 1 motherboard is Assembly Number 820-1093-A and is Apple Service Part number 661-2251.

Version 2 motherboard is Assembly Number 820-1094-A and is Apple Service Part number 661-2302.

What we need is for all Sawtooth owners who are running 8.6 to report what Uni-N revision their motherboard is as well as the boot rom version.

almeath,

If you do decide to try the open firmware trick to flash using the older 2.4 firmware, you may want to first read the cubeowner forum post where Pareis describes his discovery. Here is the link:

http://www.cubeowner.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=13279&view=findpost&p=90808

Keep in mind that the script Pareis provides to automate the process is for users who have OSX installed (though I guess in theory it may be possible to write a OS 9 applescript version using his OSX script as a guide?). However, in the last post Pareis makes clear that you can do the same process without using his script by manually booting the firmware file which contains the flasher from the open firmware command prompt. Also keep in mind that Pareis is describing this process for Cube owners but he makes clear that it should work on any G4 that uses the OS 9 based firmware flashers as he himself shows by flashing his Sawtooth. However, if you do use the script he provides to automate the process, it is written for use on Cubes and would need to be edited when used with other G4 macs using the suggested changes he provides.

In response to another topic where a person asked how to differentiate Sawtooth motherboard versions, I decided to do some more investigation to find out exactly what is the difference between the 2 versions.

After doing some googling, it appears the only real difference between the 2 Sawtooth motherboard versions is whether they support dual CPUs. The earliest Sawtooths shipped with motherboards that used Uni-N revision 3 which did not support dual CPUs. These are the version 1 motherboards with Assembly Number 820-1093-A. Later Sawtooths shipped with motherboards that used Uni-N revision 7 that does support dual CPUs. These are the version 2 motherboards with Assembly Number 820-1094-A. The assembly number should be printed on the motherboard.

One other interesting way to differentiate between the Version 1 and Version 2 Sawtooth is to look at the Power Supply. Apparantly, the Sawtooth that used the Version 1 motherboard uses a 208 watt power supply while the one that uses the Version 2 motherboard has a 237 watt power supply.

I'm currently trying to resolve the question of whether I actually have a gigabit ethernet G4, rather than an original sawtooth.

Here is what I have found:

(1) The label on the back of the machine:

Model # M5183

Serial: SG0480BGK5V

400mhz / 1MB cache / 64MB / 20GB HD / DVD ROM / 56k / 1000BT

Assembled in Singapore

According to MacTracker, M5183 is meant to be an original AGP sawtooth model.

(2) Power supply:

Part # 614-0112

Output: 338W

Model # DPS-338BB A REV:01

(3) HD

Manufactured Nov-2000

(4) Inside machine:

- label on metal base of case reads 805-2244 REV B

(5) Mainboard:

Serial: KD03903XUK8ZF

Numbers printed on board: 630T3296 / 630-3397

Also printed on board: 820-1153-A ©2000

(6) On processor:

The heatsink has a large bracket on top of it. Printed on the bracket is the word "DUAL"

So, do I have a Sawtooth, Gigabit ethernet, or weird hybrid? The model number on the case suggests a sawtooth, but perhaps the mainboard has been swapped out? Also, I was told that there was actually a rare variant of the gigabit ethernet model that came in a single processor 400mhz configuration. [?]

I'd say you have a Gigabit Ethernet G4/400.

And they're not exactly rare - it was the low cost, "no frills" version of the Gigabit G4, for people who couldn't afford/didn't need dual processors.

Then I assume a mainboard swap took place. All this time I was going on the model # listed on the case.

On a side note, even the single CPU heatsink clips had DUAL on them.

I agree with LCGuy that what you have is a Gigabit Ethernet model (and not some weird hybrid).

I think that MacTracker is wrong about M5183 being the model number for the original sawtooth model. Instead, I think that M5183 is just the model number for the case or enclosure. Since the Gigabit Ethernet model uses the same case as the Sawtooth, this is probably what confused MacTracker. The best way to get the true model numbers is to go to this apple page.

In addition, if you go to this page and enter your serial number into the search box, it confirms that your G4 is in fact a Gigabit Ethernet G4 and not a Sawtooth.

As an aside, now that we know that almeath's G4 is really a Gigabit Ethernet model and not a Sawtooth, all of my speculation above about the effect of boot rom v3.3.x on a Sawtooth can probably be ignored. I am now leaning toward the belief that boot rom v3.3.x first appeared with the Gigabit Ethernet G4 and was not used on any Sawtooth. As I noted above, the Japanese site I found seems to indicate the last boot rom version used on the Sawtooth was v3.2.6. However, the site also seems to imply that only the boot roms up to v3.2.4 support 8.6 booting. I wonder if boot rom v3.2.6 is the firmware that came on the later Sawtooth motherboards that supported dual CPUs. Thus, it may still be an open question whether the presence of a dual CPU motherboard effects the ability to boot into 8.6 (as well as whether it is safe to try to reflash to an earlier firmware version).

Again, we still need all Sawtooth owners to report what Uni-N revision their motherboard is as well as the boot rom version.

almeath,

Even though we now know that you have a Gigabit Ethernet G4 that probably can't run 8.6, it would be nice if you would make the Sawtooth 8.6 system files available for those Sawtooth owners who would like to continue with this experiment. In fact, the Sawtooth 8.6 system files may be useful on other macs running 8.6. Since this was probably one of the last releases of 8.6 that Apple made, in theory it may contain bug fixes that they did not otherwise make available. Thus, anyone running the Sawtooth 8.6 system folder would in theory be running one of the most up-to-date versions of 8.6 available.

I would still be interested in seeing a detailed comparison between a retail 8.6 install and a Sawtooth 8.6 install to see exactly what was updated and what wasn't.

If anyone needs ROM 2.5.1 or an ISO image for an entire G4 system restore CD with Mac OS 8.6, please PM me and I will be happy to provide you with the links.

The ISO is about 380MB compressed in a ZIP file.

Did you get my PM? Did the stuff I sent you work/helped?

Thanks ealex79, I just replied to your PM.

We are referring to a hybrid system folder that was constructed using Mac OS 8.6 off an iMac restore CD and ROM 2.5.1.

I'm certain that it would have worked if I actually had a sawtooth and not a gigbit ethernet G4. As we now know, M5183 is most likely an identification number used for the cases of several G4 models, including both the sawtooth and gigabit ethernet models.

In any case, I'm going to go search for a second hand AGP G4 on eBay. This time I'll make sure I'm being sold a real sawtooth! [] ]'>

Again, if anyone needs the ROM / system CD, just PM me.

make sure it has an internal 6 pin FireWire port, then you know it is a Sawtooth. Oh, and the GBE models have a tall rough silver coloured heatsink on a chip behind the ethernet port while the Sawtooth does not.

I finally managed to obtain, from a second-hand dealer, a G4 sawtooth that boots up in 8.6. Yes, it is very fast. [] ]'>

To be safe I sent the dealer a copy of my boot CD, which they tested in the machine before sale.

It's an AGP system with boot rom 2.6f1 so I assume it is an early AGP model. The case looks identical to my Gigabit G4 except that the panel on the back has a blue & white wavy 3D pattern (I don't know what you call it). On the Gigabit the panel is a matte gray color. Otherwise, the configuration of plugs looks to be identical on the two units.

I'd say you have a Gigabit Ethernet G4/400.
And they're not exactly rare - it was the low cost, "no frills" version of the Gigabit G4, for people who couldn't afford/didn't need dual processors.

Click to expand...

And 50 more megahertz was too costly to upgrade to?

I would not be surprised - remember, this stuff was expensive back then, and that wasn't helped one bit by the fact that Motorola was having a lot of trouble putting out fast G4s, hence why the G4 was stuck at 500 Mhz for the longest time - and we were lucky to even have that!

To the 500 Mhz G4 barrier:

Thats why the PPC 7450 was used in the 667 and 733 Mhz G4 DA.

An interesting note is that the lower price Digital Audio model include a PowerBook CPU called 7410 that can use half its cache as RAM and may be better at overclocking because it runs cooler ,which I didn't measure yet.The 7410/7400 can do some calculations faster than the 7450 at same speed but have no L2 cache on the chip but on the CPU module at lower clockrate.Dual GBE or DA owners can test this.The same off-chip caching concept was used in the Pentium II and the earlier Slot I pentium III(Katmai).

To the topic:

It may prove useful to have something like the Linux Flashrom program that can identify Flash ICs disable protection lines and read or write images.

My 2 New World Macintoshs have generic 1MB roms that I have identified, have the model numbers not at head.

I just burned the os 8.6 disk, put on my g4 ( i have my g4 upgraded to the latest firmware), reboot.. and worked!.. now i going to install it to my HD.

Thanks to almeath, I could test it for myself. Here is my story:

I tried to boot an existing 8.6 installation from my g3 b&w on the g4 sawtooth (it has the onboard firewire port) - but had no success. "trap not implemented" + bomb. ROM file was 1.6; changed the ROM file to something newer, originating from OS 9. again: no success - "trap not implemented". even with extensions off.

Once I had a Powerbook G4 1GHz, the last model booting OS 9.2.2; it had the same symptoms, until I got the right ROM file, which was definitely newer than anything you could get via updates. later I found a really new ROM file on a CD which came with an iMac and Panther. There is a classic environment "onboard" which has ROM version 10.2.1 and dates from April 2003...

Back to Sawtooth! Given this experience and plenty of information from the apple info sites regarding model bootability (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25114) it is as clear as can be: Sawtooth needs its own ROM file!

Thanks again to almeath - I got his file. and tried again. This time sadly I didn't even get the bomb... it stopped just with a grey screen. I couldn't believe it, swapped graphic cards (different Rage128 Versions, even PCI) - still no success.

Regarding all the Firmware flashing discussions above, I thought I should try to backflash to an earlier version. My Sawtooth got the newest Firmware available once a while ago. It has Boot Rom Version 4.2.8f1 built on 10/11/01 ! So, was 8.6 bootability disabled through firmware?

I remembered, I had tested a Newertech CPU Upgrade this summer in this machine, and perhaps you know, there are some firmware modifications necessary to boot this new 7448 PPCs. So I removed the firmware patches, but had still no success. There is some code in NVRam, which has to be activated to boot either OS 9 or X with this 7448 CPU. This CPU is not installed now, instead it's the original 400 MHz G4. so no 8.6 boot - d*** machine!

Wanting to give up, I had a last idea - what's about resetting this NVram? booted to open firmware, typed reset-nvram, then restarted - et voilà: happy mac with 8.6 big on screen! successful booting! Now I had my original 8.6 installation from g3 b&w running on my sawtooth with just this 2.5.1 ROM file!

WOW! thank you, almeath!

conclusion: OS 8.6 booting is *not* deactivated via firmware update, so there is no need to backflash. It's the ROM file which has to be the right one. and zapping PRAM still helps sometimes...

Another sawtooth - this one boots it too:

http://www.danamania.com/tmp/86.png

I think my 8.6 install CD is the one that originally came from my sis, years ago, so the disc I installed 8.6 from is the exact original CD it originally came with.

Dana

Has anyone done a same-machine speed comparison with 9.x.x?

Well I finally tried booting my Sawtooth in 8.6 using Almeath's file which I burned to CD. Since my sawtooth had a bootrom of 4.2.8f1, I assumed that 8.6 booting was no longer possible. However, after reading isokrates post about resetting the nvram, I thought I would give it a try.

First, a little history about my 400mhz sawtooth. I got it used without a hard drive and no install cd. Thus, I don't know if was one of the early 8.6 sawtooths. I put in a hard drive and installed 9.2.2. The firmware had already been updated to 4.2.8f1. It had not been used for quite some time and the pram battery was dead which I replaced.

Now on to my 8.6 boot tests. Before trying the nvram reset, I tried booting using the 8.6 install cd. The 9.2.2 Startup Disk Control Panel seemed to recognize the 8.6 cd as a valid system and when I restarted it did in fact start up under 8.6. I then got 2 messages. The first message stated that full usb support would not be available. I think this message is to be expected given that the 8.6 system on the install cd is not a full install. The next message stated that a desktop folder could not be created and that I should unlock the disk. When I clicked OK, the mac rebooted and I again started up in 8.6 and got the same messages. Since it was clear that I was stuck in a loop, I ejected the 8.6 cd and let the sawtooth boot into 9.2.2 using the hard drive. I am assuming that I did something wrong when I burned almeath's file to cd. Has anyone else tried booting using this file after burning it to cd?

I definitely wanted to confirm that it could boot into 8.6 so I thought I would try using the install cd to install 8.6 on an external scsi hard drive I have. When I pulled it out, I discovered it already had a retail 8.6 install already on it. I didn't want to erase this install, so instead of doing a new full install, I just copied over the special sawtooth mac os rom file from the sawtooth install cd and to play it safe the updated Startup Disk control panel as well. I then went into the 9.2.2 startup disk control panel and chose the external 8.6 hard drive and rebooted. The sawtooth then successfully booted into 8.6.

My conclusion: I think isokrates is correct. There must be something in the pram/nvram that prevents booting into 8.6. In my case I didn't even have to reset the nvram. The dead pram battery that I had would definitely have the same effect as resetting the pram but I don't know what effect it has on nvram. Thus, I am leaning to the theory that whatever was preventing 8.6 booting was probably in pram rather than nvram.

I didn't do any benchmarking before I removed the external hard drive, but 8.6 did feel slightly faster than 9.2.2. Eventually I may install a second internal hard drive for a 8.6 install.

Hi all, please anybody could share the Mac OS ROM 2.5.1 or the os 8.6 for my Sawtooh? I have 8.5 original, but it wont run thanks in advance.

book123, I have sent you a link.

If anyone else needs these files, send me a PM and I will give you the link.

Hi All, as one can plainly see, I'm new to this forum, but not new to the mac. Been a beta tester for many years, Virtual Wings Pro, Fly! II, A-10 Attack, Quicken 3, Falcon 4, etc., just to name a few.

Just recently, my wife picked up a mint Sawtooth G4 500 (AGP) fm MIT, and now I have something to play on since OSX had taken over our house. Got most of my ancient sw stored on a beige G3/333, as well as zips & CDs & DVDs.

Now that the sawtooth is cleaned up, dusted off and rocking pretty solid w/ 9.1, I would like to add a 2nd drive w/ 8.6. I have several mac systems disc, but none that will boot the G4 (AGP), can someone find it in their hearts to help a brother out

From reading thru this thread, and google non stop, I cannot find the 2.5.1 ROM. If anyone can be of help, who has gotten the Sawtooth to boot into 8.6, please help me out? If you have a working sys ƒ, this would be ideal ... Maybe I could burn a few beta CDs, or other hard to find programs in my inventory. Just a thought. Please help? Please contact me?

I'm hoping to pull all my old mac games & simulations out of retirement. They have been boxed up in the original boxes for years.

Just an update.

I replaced the original 400mhz cpu in my Sawtooth with a OWC 1.5ghz G4 upgrade (that I downclocked to 1.4ghz). Now it won't let me boot into 8.6 anymore. When I am booted into 9.2.2 and go into the startup disk control panel and choose 8.6 and restart, all I get is a white screen. At that point, the only way to get back to 9.2.2 is to use one of those emergency key sequences at startup that forces the mac to boot from a different volume than the chosen startup volume.

Desperately in search of Mac OS ROM 2.5.1 to get 8.6 running on a PowerMac G4 SawTooth. I have scoured the abandonware archives and used my status as Apple Certified tech to check every currently relevent diagnostic download, I can not find this f@#$'n file anywhere.

I have some old data to access with compressed resource-forks and thought I'd build up the ultimate 8.6 machine... got a Sawtooth, ATX PS, QuickSilver 933 processor... figure I'll hack off the 2nd IDE bus and drop in a PCI ATA-100 card. I think I've figured out the problem everybody else had when they tried to run 133 FSB on this board, so I figure close to 1GHz and a gig of ram should make for a pretty sweet OS8 machine.

Anyway, this file is holding me up... Somebody help!

Thanks

-kh

I still have the 2.5.1 ROM if anyone needs it - just send me a PM.

Got the Mac OS ROM file, been really busy at work (where the Sawtooth project is underway), so I dropped it into a 1st gen slot-loading iMac DV at home (also a special-case machine), and it booted right up latest firmware and all, so I do not expect any problems with the Sawtooth.

In truth I would really like to get the 8.6 working on Mystic (or Gigabit Ethernet) as these boards are much more plentiful to me than Sawtooth. I wonder if open-firmware patching the machine model # would be sufficient...

Just an update, I used the 8.6 (international) G4 disc on a SawTooth, no issues. I did have some problems previously on a drive that had been formatted by a newer Drive Setup (9.2.2 genre), so it might be important to "update" the HD with the drivers from the 8.6 drive setup disc... Also the 8.6 works great with both an older Firmware and after the latest 4.2.8f1 updater.

I did try setting a Mystic's openfirmware with " PowerMac3,1" encode-string " model", and it didn't seem to enable 8.6 bootability, the 8.6 partition does not show up when doing an Option boot. I'd love to try other OpenFirmware suggestions to get this classic OS going if anybody has any. In my "free time", I'll probably try pulling the flash chip off a dead SawTooth board and dropping it onto a Mystic, but that may be awhile...

and FWIW, a QS 800 cpu is chugging right along after overclock the FSB to 133 (and cut off the 2nd IDE header, AND dremel the case, AND add +12v to 4th post on CPU ... The trick is to SPDTOOL or equiv. 7.5ns PC133 RAM to say that it is CAS-3 PC100 (technically this results in CAS2 PC133 timings) system just can't handle the additional loading of multiple ram modules otherwise. Unknown whether L3 cache working (8,9 report L2 cache error), but the machine is pretty zippy under 10.4...

... I should mention that Sawtooth G4 shipped with PowerPC G4 7410 7400series CPU and that OS 8.6 doesn't like upgraded 7445 7450 7455 or whatever (it shows up as a bootable choice, but then you get no mouse cursor and it freezes on a gray screen). I'm using a 7455 right now with the following openfirmware nvramrc patch... this differs from all the other posted nvram patches for OS9 because... well... OS8.6 wants an older processor. This is using the latest firmware bootrom. As maybe mentioned above the only other issue you might have than the Mac OS ROM 2.5 would be "updating" the disk driver using the Drive Setup that shipped with OS8, but I haven't tested that highly.

nvedit

" /cpus/@0" find-package if drop " /cpus/@0" find-device 800c1103 encode-int " cpu-version" property then

device-end

c

nvstore

setenv use-nvramrc? true

reset-all

Thanks for the firmware patch. I can't wait to try it out on my 7455 upgraded sawtooth. However, I have never done any open firmware editing before and I was wondering if you could post more detailed step by step instructions on how to apply your patch. For example, do you press the return key at the end of every line? In particular, do you press the return key at the end of the second line, then type device-end and press the return key again or can lines 2 and 3 be combined into a single line?

Note- I've updated the patch slightly based on some research... the Sawtooth 8.6 only seems to like 7400 and 7410 processor models. Reading some opensource PPC code online lead me to believe some 7410s might be a little different then other 74xxs, and the closest match to my 7455 (a ver 3) seems to be a 7410 1.01 (see http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-344/osfmk/ppc/start.s ). OS 9.04 additionally seems to boot with the 7450's, where as 8.6 doesn't. Additionally, as a side note, if "Enable Processor Cycling" is checked in Energy Saver, the mouse pointer freezes when the machine goes "idle". Thus far I have been unable to get the machine to wake from sleep, regardless of the cpu-version, and various settings of CPU Director 2.01 and the latest (paid) XLR8 software, with and without energy saver installed, blah blah...

#define PROCESSOR_VERSION_7400 0x000C....

#define PROCESSOR_VERSION_7410 0x800C....

#define PROCESSOR_VERSION_7450 0x8000....

#define PROCESSOR_VERSION_7455 0x8001....

For all you ever wanted to know about "nvramrc"... http://www.softpanorama.org/Solaris/Startup_and_shutdown/OpenBoot/nvedit_line_editor.shtml

esentially, get into "open firmware" [command/apple][option][O][F]

to reset to defaults first (if you've screwed something up...) reset-nvram [return] and set-defaults [return], then

nvedit [return] to create a script. this is a little hard to work with, the up and down arrow keys move around in the buffer, [ctrl][L] shows you the script, see the above link. then type

dev /cpus/@0 000c1101 encode-int " cpu-version" property device-end [return]

dev mac-io/ata-4 0 0 " lba-48" property device-end [return]

[ctrl][C] (to exit the editor)

nvstore [return] (to save it)

setenv use-nvramrc? true [return] (to activate it.)

reset-all [return] (to reboot and go!)

I'm _really_ concerned about getting the sleep to work... I've stripped the sawtooth down to just the video card it came with (AGP ATI Rage). It goes to sleep, but when I click the mouse or keyboard and it wakes up, I get nothing- Black screen, optical mouse doesn't illuminate... bummer.

Thanks, that's exactly the detail I wanted.

I notice you have added a new line enabling the lba-48 property. Can this line be considered optional and be omitted from the patch if you are not using a hard drive larger than 128gb. In fact, is this line even being recognized under OS 9 and earlier. This page http://4thcode.blogspot.com/2007/12/using-128-gib-or-larger-ata-hard-drives.html seems to suggest enabling the lba-48 property in open firmware has no effect under OS 9.

With regards to your sleep problem, it may not be just a OS 8.6 issue. I am having similiar problems with my 7455 upgrade running 9.2.2. I am not having much luck finding any fixes doing Google searches. Most seem to think it is a hardware problem with the upgrade card where the cache chips are being run faster than spec. Later versions of the upgrades switched to faster rated chips which apparantly fixed the sleep problem. However, my upgrade card does in fact seem to use the later faster spec cache chips and it still has sleep issues.

If the sleep problem is in fact being caused by OS 8.6, I wonder if it is related to the CPU Plugins file in the Multiprocessing folder. This is the same file that must be removed when you use a 7447/7448 based upgrade to prevent crashes (though with those upgrades it was to prevent a crash at startup not for sleep problems). I wonder if this older CPU Plugins file is not compatible with the newer cpu.

There is also a similiar discussion here http://www.cubeowner.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12512 at the cubeowner forum about how to manually edit the open firmware to allow OS 9 booting with a 7447/7448 upgrade. This may be useful for further refining of the sawtooth open firmware patch.

of course lba-48 is optional, I included it as much as an example of how to set multiple variables as anything else. It does seem to work on my sawtooth, (Uni North Rev 3 btw), but I haven't really tested it. I really doubt open firmware can boot anything from it. It works great on a DA board I have. The DA, btw, runs a 7447 @ 1.5g (FSB is overclocked to 150MHz) w/ 1.5gig RAM, under the absolute latest 9.2.2 - MDD edition. In addition to running a PowerLogix OS9 cpu-version=80010201 script, I absolutely had to remove the CPU PlugIns to get it to not lock-up on boot. At one point I tried (I think) every version that MultiProcessing thing - I have a lot of OS CDs, 9.01, 9.02, 9.03, 9.04, 9.1, 9.2, 9.2.1, etc... the only version that did not make the 9.2.2 lock was the 9.0 versions, and they didn't change the sleep behavior at all (identical to not having one), so I don't think it was actually loaded.

I really don't think the wake-from-sleep issue is overclocked L3 cache, if there is a speed issue or something of the sort, it would be a change in the L3 cache from SDR to DDR, and I have adjusted the L3 cache speed inside XLR8 MachSpeed (and the spread spectrum and the dynamic frequency thing) to no effect. I'll go confirm the L3 cache thing RIGHT NOW by replacing my OWC Mercury Extreme 1GHz - 2MB L3 SDR with a QuickSilver 800MHz with no L3, see if anything changes.

I would give anything to get sleep working. Really. My 7 year old desperately wants to sleep his hopped up hybrid DA/QuickSilver OS9 retro gaming system. Sleep worked fine with a 933MHz QuickSilver chip (2MB DDR L3), but even with the 128mb GeForce 4Ti card (OttoMatic at 1440x1050 is epic!), we still had some lag in a couple Super Nintendo Games (Kirby, StarFox). Most of that is due to poor performance of the emulator, but I can't change that... of course that was before I upped the FSB to 150, so maybe things would be better now...

anyway, I digress...

I'll continue the digression. Regarding your 7447 and the CPU Plugins problem. I have found this Japanese retailer that from the rough Google English translation seems to say they have custom updated/edited CPU Plugin file that fixes the 9.2.2 crash problem:

http://www.vintagecomp.com/sell/Sonnet/Encore7447.html

Here is a direct link to the file:

http://www.vintagecomp.com/sell/Sonnet/updatedCPU.sit

I believe it will also work with 7448 upgrades as well. I don't own a 7447 upgrade so I have never been able to test out this file to see if does what I think the translation seems to be saying.

End of digression. Now let's get back to 8.6 on the Sawtooth.

omfg, Sonnet- the "it just works people", I will totally check that out when my kids are awake... they get a little annoyed when I sneak into their rooms at night to use their computers. Thankyou, I was going to go looking for that.

I plugged a 800MHz QS2002 (no L3 cache) up, and with either of the CPU-versions listed above, with or without "Energy Saver", XLR8 MachSpeed, or CPU director (either normal or with both L2 and L3 cache disabled) I get the same result - the machine sleeps but never wakes up (fans and drive spin up, but no display and optical mouse doesn't light up). bummer. Well, at least for me that rules out L3 as the culprit. I'll give Sonnet a go later, and then maybe try and see if I can pull something from os9.04 or 9.1 back to make it work.

Iirc, I was able to wake the machine when I had an unsupported USB2 or flashed PC video card In it - On wakeup I'd get the message "couldn't power off the pci bus because not supported by card..." or something. Wasn't really much of a sleep mode because all the fans stayed on.