Thread
G4 Cube Giving Kernel Panic When Installing 10.4
I have a G4 Cube that has been upgraded with a Geforce 6200 card. It was happily running 10.4.11 when I got it, but I decided I wanted to dual boot OS 9 / X for some game compatibility. All seemed to be going fine, OS 9.1 installed just fine on the first partition, but when I try to install OS 10.4 it gives me a kernel panic when it reads the DVD on reboot (before any welcome or install screen shows up). I get the same with 10.3.
I know 10.4 works on the system because I had it running before, however that was installed by someone else. My copy of 10.4 is a full retail copy, so all I can guess at this point is that it might be my Geforce 6200. Any have any suggestions as to how to get around this issue?
Tempest
I know 10.4 works on the system because I had it running before, however that was installed by someone else. My copy of 10.4 is a full retail copy, so all I can guess at this point is that it might be my Geforce 6200. Any have any suggestions as to how to get around this issue?
Tempest
- Check Cube firmware is up to date
- Check PRAM battery - if marginal, replace - Cubes go screwy when the voltage is lower than it should be.
- The 6200 needs 10.4.3 (and there on) to work properly, and pins 3 & 11 of the AGP connector need disabling/covering up.
How is the cooling in your Cube? The 6200 needs a fan, along with a base fan in the unit itself - everything gets far too toasty without these.
JB
- Check PRAM battery - if marginal, replace - Cubes go screwy when the voltage is lower than it should be.
- The 6200 needs 10.4.3 (and there on) to work properly, and pins 3 & 11 of the AGP connector need disabling/covering up.
How is the cooling in your Cube? The 6200 needs a fan, along with a base fan in the unit itself - everything gets far too toasty without these.
JB
- The Firmware is up to date.
- I'll check the battery, but I'm fairly sure it's good as everything was just fine before and OS 9 is working great.
- How do I get 10.4.3? I thought it was only an update (which does me no good unless I can get 10.4 on there). Is there a 10.4.3 (or higher) install disc that I can get somewhere?
Oh and no I can't put the old card back in, I no longer have it.
I have a giant fan on the card. Cooling isn't the problem.
Tempest
- I'll check the battery, but I'm fairly sure it's good as everything was just fine before and OS 9 is working great.
- How do I get 10.4.3? I thought it was only an update (which does me no good unless I can get 10.4 on there). Is there a 10.4.3 (or higher) install disc that I can get somewhere?
Oh and no I can't put the old card back in, I no longer have it.
I have a giant fan on the card. Cooling isn't the problem.
Tempest
The 6200 card will crash the Mac if you install anything below 10.4.3 on it (I believe OS 9 is OK, but unaccelerated); somehow you need to install 10.4.11 on your existing 10.4 install - and the only way around that is by plugging the HD in another PPC Mac, or putting an older graphics card in. Or, install 10.5. My retail version of Tiger is thankfully 10.4.3 so works OK 
JB
JB
You can get around the CPU speed issue to install Leopard easily enough, however it's probably not suited for the stock 450/500Mhz G4 - with a 1Ghz+ CPU upgrade however it runs well. There is a seller in China selling cheap Cube CPU upgrades at the moment.
The issue you may have heard of is that a PC flashed 6200 in a 10.5 Mac takes an age to start up - the workaround is to remove a particular .kext file to cease this lag. However, there isn't any issue with 10.5 on a Cube, even a stock one.
JB
The issue you may have heard of is that a PC flashed 6200 in a 10.5 Mac takes an age to start up - the workaround is to remove a particular .kext file to cease this lag. However, there isn't any issue with 10.5 on a Cube, even a stock one.
JB
if you have another PPC mac (supported under tiger) you can just start up the cube in target disk mode (hold down T until the firewire symbol shows on the screen) and connect it to the other mac via firewire. using the other mac, instal tiger unto the cube's HDD, and then update tiger to 10.4.11. just eject the cube's HDD like you would any other external HDD, and just restart the cube, and there you go, it should work!
It will be difficult to tell whether your cube is in target mode without any video. It should work though. Even if your laptop has 10.5 installed, it should let you install 10.4 on an external drive (the cube). If you have an external hard drive, you could install Tiger on that and update using your laptop, then use that to start up the cube. You could also pick up an original stock Mac Rage 128 video card. They sell for about $5 these days. Once you get a 10.4.11 system running, be sure to make an image of it on DVD-R or make a clone of your HD so you don't get stuck again. The 6200 is the video card of choice for cubes, but it does have that one little gotcha! 
Yeah that' would be the best solution, but I can't seem to find it on the 'various sites' so to speak. Even if I could find the image, I don't have a Mac that can burn DVD's, just CD's. I know there's a CD version of Tiger, but I think it's 10.4.0 (or at least the few I've found are).
Tempest,
To get 10.4.11 on your Cube, you'll need to have the Cube placed in Target Disk mode, hook up a Firewire cable between the Cube and your PowerBook G4, start up your PowerBook while holding down the Option key, select the Cube's hard drive and boot off of that drive. Once booted, download from Apple's web site or use the auto update to get 10.4.11 installed to that drive.
73s de Phreakout. :rambo:
To get 10.4.11 on your Cube, you'll need to have the Cube placed in Target Disk mode, hook up a Firewire cable between the Cube and your PowerBook G4, start up your PowerBook while holding down the Option key, select the Cube's hard drive and boot off of that drive. Once booted, download from Apple's web site or use the auto update to get 10.4.11 installed to that drive.
73s de Phreakout. :rambo:
Found a 10.4.6 DVD iso, but my Cube just spits it out (my Powerbook G4 reads it just fine). I wonder why? Maybe the cube's DVD drive isn't as good as the one in my Powerbook? I burned it as slow as I could, but no luck.
I have a friend who is going to let me borrow a video card and a firewire cable, so we'll just have to do it that way.
I have a friend who is going to let me borrow a video card and a firewire cable, so we'll just have to do it that way.
Just use target mode from your PowerBook. You don't need to swap the video card just to see whether it's in target mode - if it is, it'll pop up on the desktop of your PowerBook.
Leopard runs fine on slower CPUs, but so long as you have enough memory. Since you have 1.5 gigs, Leopard isn't a bad idea.
Leopard runs fine on slower CPUs, but so long as you have enough memory. Since you have 1.5 gigs, Leopard isn't a bad idea.
Leopard will run just fine on your cube.
Boot your power ook off the leopard install disc.
Power on the cube and hold down the "T" key.
On your PowerBook you should be able to see the cube mounted as an external drive. Just tell the installer to install to the cubes hard drive and you should be good to go.
If this were my machine I would also tell the installer to wipe the cubes hard drive before installing.
Once the installer has finished up, go ahead and power off both machines. Then remove the FireWire cable, and boot up the cube. If all went well you should be greater wig the leopard flying through space intro movie and then the OS X setup assistant.
Post back here with your results.
Boot your power ook off the leopard install disc.
Power on the cube and hold down the "T" key.
On your PowerBook you should be able to see the cube mounted as an external drive. Just tell the installer to install to the cubes hard drive and you should be good to go.
If this were my machine I would also tell the installer to wipe the cubes hard drive before installing.
Once the installer has finished up, go ahead and power off both machines. Then remove the FireWire cable, and boot up the cube. If all went well you should be greater wig the leopard flying through space intro movie and then the OS X setup assistant.
Post back here with your results.
I'm getting further. I decided to install SO 10.4 via the firewire cable and it appeared to install. Then I tried to boot from that drive via the firewire cable and I got the prohibitory sign (circle with slash). So I'm not able to boot from the drive on my G4 via my laptop through target disk mode. If I can't boot from it then I can't update it. Any ideas?
If all else fails I can swap the video card, but I'd rather not open it up if I can help it.
EDIT: Ok I was able to update to 10.4.4 through the firewire cable (Apple's downloads for 10.4 updates appears to be down and this was all I could find on another site). I still get a prohibitory sign when I try to boot off that drive either through the laptop using the target disk mode or on the actual Cube itself. Very odd.
If all else fails I can swap the video card, but I'd rather not open it up if I can help it.
EDIT: Ok I was able to update to 10.4.4 through the firewire cable (Apple's downloads for 10.4 updates appears to be down and this was all I could find on another site). I still get a prohibitory sign when I try to boot off that drive either through the laptop using the target disk mode or on the actual Cube itself. Very odd.
Leopard contains both PowerPC and Intel code on the one disc and installs both during setup (technically it would be way too difficult to keep separate binaries or only install the specific binaries). So you have at least twice the operating system right there, not counting additional components like the 700mb Apple Alex voice, frameworks and extras to support Time Machine and Spaces, and so on.