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hardhatmac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 13, 2006
167
11
Utah
I have a late model G5 Quad 2.5 Ghz that I'm trying to sell.

The video card is dead and causing all sorts of kernel panics.

So, I'm trying to replace the card with the cheapest one I can find, so I can sell the machine.

I found this one on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Mac-ATI-Radeon-...tem&pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3efe666eb6

It says it will work with the G5 Tower 8x AGP, but I don't know if thats mine or not.

Do you guys know if that will work in my machine?

Let me know,

Thanks!!!
 

max¥¥

macrumors 6502a
Aug 7, 2008
640
29
Over there....
open her up and look down the bottom of the case and see if it says "pci, pci-x or pci-e" if it says pci or pci-x then the card should work, if it says pci-e i belive you need a pci-e graphics card
 

Hrududu

macrumors 68020
Jul 25, 2008
2,299
627
Central US
The least expensive route would be a used GeForce 6600 LE which was the stock card in those last PCIe G5 systems. Higher end cards like the Radeon X1900 and the super high end Quadro FX 4500 will cost you quite a bit more money. If all you're looking to do is get a working card in there so you can sell it, I would get on eBay and find a GeForce 6600.
 

hardhatmac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 13, 2006
167
11
Utah
The least expensive route would be a used GeForce 6600 LE which was the stock card in those last PCIe G5 systems. Higher end cards like the Radeon X1900 and the super high end Quadro FX 4500 will cost you quite a bit more money. If all you're looking to do is get a working card in there so you can sell it, I would get on eBay and find a GeForce 6600.

Sweet. I found a GeForce 6600 LE for $85 which is pretty cheap.

The card I have in there right now is the NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, I found this auction but it says for Windows XP.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300444028184&fromMakeTrack=true

Is it just miss-labeled? Would it work in my G5? That'd be sweet to get it for $90.

The local apple tech said a new NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT would be $350.

Thanks for the help!
 

CubeHacker

macrumors 65816
Apr 22, 2003
1,243
251
Nope, that card won't work. It needs a mac specific ROM file in order to work in a G5 machine. It might be flashable if you do the research and see if that specific model card works or not. But bottom line, no that card won't work just out of the box.
 

4JNA

macrumors 68000
Feb 8, 2006
1,505
1
looking for trash files
Be careful.

Some of the flashed 7800's are AGP cards and some are PCIe...

agreed, and wise advice.

the ebay auction link listed above stated;

ebay auction said:
works with Apple Powermac G5 with PCIe bus slot
so should be good to go. the pictures of the card listed were also PCI-E. here's hoping they were the actual card...

agree with this being a really fast/great solution, and should help you sell the system. only better/cheaper option is finding a Mac compatible 6600 card for less as you are selling the system. best of luck.
 

hardhatmac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 13, 2006
167
11
Utah
Take your pic.

Nvidia 6600 BIN $79.99 with free shipping
Nvidia 6600 Auction $49.99 +$5 shipping
Nvidia 7800 GT Auction $.99 + $8 shipping
Nvidia 7800 GT Flashed? BIN or B/O $99.98 w/ free shipping

As long as it's the graphics card that's causing the KPs, the 7800GT could boost it's value to around $600-$800 depending on the other specs of the G5.


I'm actually already bidding on the 6600 auction for $49.

As far as the other specs, it's a G5 2.5 Ghz quad, with 6.5 GB memory, 1TB HDD, and then whatever graphics card I get. With dual LCD monitors, and an al keyboard.

Thanks guys!
 

hardhatmac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 13, 2006
167
11
Utah
This is, no doubt, a dumb question but I just installed that 6600 card from eBay and now the computer won't turn on.

The fans will start like normal, the screens stay black, and after a minute the fans go into hyper drive mode and I have to hold down the power button to turn it off.

When I put my old card back in, it starts up but then after a minute has a kernal panic.

Any ideas? Does that mean the 6600 card is dead? Or is there some reset thing I should do with the new card?

Thanks!
 

666sheep

macrumors 68040
Dec 7, 2009
3,686
291
Poland
Seems like your "new" card is DOA. It should work plug and play. If everything else in your Mac (RAM etc) is OK, it should power on and chime without graphics card installed. Try this way.
One more question: which OS version you got installed? KP is also lack of drivers. For example: if you got cloned drive with 10.4 (fresh install, no updates) and put it to rig with 6600 or 7800 - it will KP due to lack of graphics driver. Drivers for 6600 were in 10.4.2, drivers for 7800 in 10.4.6

Second possibility is, that KPs are caused by bad RAM, not your old 6600. Did you try to start your Mac with minimum amount of RAM (2 sticks)?
 

hardhatmac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 13, 2006
167
11
Utah
I'm running 10.5.8 Leopard.

I've tried it with just the stock 512 RAM. (can you believe these machines used to ship with only half a gig of RAM?) And that didn't change anything.

I'll run some more tests on the new card tonight and see if I can get it to work.

Thanks for the help!
 
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