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G4 Graphite and ADC Studio Display

Altemose said:
$100 bones is a lot for a video card for a 10 year old Mac.
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Thanks for the "reality check." I'm a bit torn on it, as it does seem like a lot of money to put into the computer(as much as I paid for it), but do want the best. I'll keep my eyes on Ebay-I found the Mac edition card you referenced, and will watch it and see where it goes.


That card should work for you. A bit much for a flashed one. You may want to research prices of a Mac Edition X800 before committing to buying that one, unless you really want dual DVI ports and no ADC.
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Any conceivable situation I see with using dual monitors on my G5 would require dual DVI outputs, as there is not an ADC-equipped Cinema or Studio display that really appeals to me for the type of work I'm doing on this computer. Every ADC-DVI converter I run across seems to be $25-$30, so it would seem worth the cost difference to me to not have to worry about this.

This isn't a really pressing problem in either, and if I can get the Mac edition X800 that's up on Ebay now for a decent price, I'll probably just go ahead and get it and deal with the ADC-DVI problem later.

Thanks again to everyone for their help on this! It can get a bit confusing trying to research some of this stuff, and I appreciate you all taking the time to talk me through specific combinations of hardware.
 
bunnspecial said:
Thanks for the "reality check." I'm a bit torn on it, as it does seem like a lot of money to put into the computer(as much as I paid for it), but do want the best. I'll keep my eyes on Ebay-I found the Mac edition card you referenced, and will watch it and see where it goes.




Any conceivable situation I see with using dual monitors on my G5 would require dual DVI outputs, as there is not an ADC-equipped Cinema or Studio display that really appeals to me for the type of work I'm doing on this computer. Every ADC-DVI converter I run across seems to be $25-$30, so it would seem worth the cost difference to me to not have to worry about this.

This isn't a really pressing problem in either, and if I can get the Mac edition X800 that's up on Ebay now for a decent price, I'll probably just go ahead and get it and deal with the ADC-DVI problem later.

Thanks again to everyone for their help on this! It can get a bit confusing trying to research some of this stuff, and I appreciate you all taking the time to talk me through specific combinations of hardware.
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If you can't get that card, then I will try to help you find an affordable ADC --> DVI adapter. At least you don't need it the other way around as that is really expensive.
 
Intell said:
My word isn't the best to go on for flashed video cards. I still feel rather bad about telling eyoungren to get a PCI 5200 that he hasn't yet been able to flash.
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No worries on that Intell - don't feel bad at all. It was like $10, so I took a chance on it. I haven't given up on it yet though.

With my power issues I feel that now is probably not a good time to drop in the third video card. And I don't have two more monitors anyway so it'd be getting power but not doing anything. Right now it's hit and miss on starting the Mac after a shutdown. As long as I have power, I can restart, but shut it down and it may be a while before I can get it to come back up. Add in that third card and I don't think the juice will be there period. So, it'll wait until I can do the ATX PSU conversion and then I'll roll on it. Fortunately, due to the good graces of members here I've been able to make out fairly well anyway.

Except for the power issue, which forces me to stay at 1.6Ghz almost all of my problems have been solved. The Mac is rock stable now (as long as power is on) so that RAID I had on my two IDE drives must have been my major problem.
 
Perhaps I should start a new thread on this, but I'm posting it here for the sake of continuity since all of my hardware details are already present.

Now that I have that I have the G4 set up and going, I'm running into an annoying issue with it.

Last night, I had it running in OS 9, and had it connected via the VGA port to mt 22" LCD. I don't recall what I had the resolution set at, but it was significantly lower than the native resolution of the LCD as I didn't want to tax the current graphics card too much.

In any case, I was playing Civilization II(my main motivation for setting up an OS9 box was to play all of the games that I grew up playing), and had nothing else running. Periodically, the computer would seemingly just shut off-the screen would go blank, the light on the front would go out, the mouse LED would go out). Every time this happened, pressing a mouse button or key on the keyboard would bring the computer back to life, and it would resume as if it had just come back awake after being asleep.

Any thoughts on what could be going on here? I hope it's not a symptom of a failing logic board or some other serious issue.
 
Forgetting my training in the scientific method :rolleyes: and desperate to solve my random-sleep problem, I did all the following:

1. Reset the PMU as per the directions on the Apple website

2. Disabled "sleep when pressing the power button" in the OS

3. Set the "sleep time" to never sleep.

So far, I've gone about 2 hours without an incident of the computer going to sleep randomly, so at least one of these things fixed it. I'll probably re-enable "sleep when pressing the power button" first and see if the problem returns, followed by auto-sleep after 20 minutes.
 
bunnspecial said:
Forgetting my training in the scientific method :rolleyes: and desperate to solve my random-sleep problem, I did all the following:

1. Reset the PMU as per the directions on the Apple website

2. Disabled "sleep when pressing the power button" in the OS

3. Set the "sleep time" to never sleep.

So far, I've gone about 2 hours without an incident of the computer going to sleep randomly, so at least one of these things fixed it. I'll probably re-enable "sleep when pressing the power button" first and see if the problem returns, followed by auto-sleep after 20 minutes.
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My guess is the PMU reset.
 
Well, I had lots of "goodies" waiting for me today, as both the GEForce 4 as well as a Motorola WPCI810G wireless card arrived(the Airport card that was in the computer would not connect to my network).

At this point, I've replaced the stock 40gb HD with a pair of 80gb 7200 rpm drives and also upped the ram to 1.25gb from the 512mb that was in the computer when I bought it.

I managed to dig up a DVD-RW today, but unfortunately its dead(door won't open, although the computer recognizes it). Eventually I'll try to find another one, but that's not a high priority. I put a DVD-ROM in to install OSX, but will probably put the stock CD-RW back into it.

So far, I'm pleasantly surprised by how big of an improvement all of these things have made. OSX is quite "zippy" and also boots fast.
 
bunnspecial said:
Well, I had lots of "goodies" waiting for me today, as both the GEForce 4 as well as a Motorola WPCI810G wireless card arrived(the Airport card that was in the computer would not connect to my network).

At this point, I've replaced the stock 40gb HD with a pair of 80gb 7200 rpm drives and also upped the ram to 1.25gb from the 512mb that was in the computer when I bought it.

I managed to dig up a DVD-RW today, but unfortunately its dead(door won't open, although the computer recognizes it). Eventually I'll try to find another one, but that's not a high priority. I put a DVD-ROM in to install OSX, but will probably put the stock CD-RW back into it.

So far, I'm pleasantly surprised by how big of an improvement all of these things have made. OSX is quite "zippy" and also boots fast.
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Upgrades definitely make a difference in OS X. If you pull the cover off the drive, check to make sure the drive belt (a small rubber band) did not come off. It drives the motor to open the drive.
 
Altemose said:
Upgrades definitely make a difference in OS X. If you pull the cover off the drive, check to make sure the drive belt (a small rubber band) did not come off. It drives the motor to open the drive.
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Good thought.

I may tear into the drive this evening, since(as I mentioned) it was a freebie and I don't have anything to lose if I really mess it up.
 
bunnspecial said:
Good thought.

I may tear into the drive this evening, since(as I mentioned) it was a freebie and I don't have anything to lose if I really mess it up.
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Exactly as I see it. You may want to insert a paperclip into the front hole to force eject it. Then ensure that the primary eject gear is spinning properly and isn't worn. I only saw one worn gear in my experience of repairing PCs and that is because they used the DVD drive was forced shut every time rather than closing under its own power.
 
I'm not really sure what's wrong with the drive. I took it apart, and as best as I can tell everything is in good shape. Using a paperclip pops it open fine, and everything seems to move as it should when opening and closing the drive door manually.

The drive is still not working. I actually loaded a disk into with the computer powered down, and it read fine, but the door just will not open.

I probably go back to the same source that yielded this drive tomorrow, and see if I can dig up another.
 
bunnspecial said:
I'm not really sure what's wrong with the drive. I took it apart, and as best as I can tell everything is in good shape. Using a paperclip pops it open fine, and everything seems to move as it should when opening and closing the drive door manually.



The drive is still not working. I actually loaded a disk into with the computer powered down, and it read fine, but the door just will not open.



I probably go back to the same source that yielded this drive tomorrow, and see if I can dig up another.
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Good luck.
 
And, I'm also happy to report that I just won an auction for a used working X800 Mac Edition on Ebay for $40.

Hopefully, I can get my G5 rolling now, too.
 
With the new graphics card installed in the G4, I've had a new problem show up.

With the ADC display hooked up, the computer will not boot into OS9. I get just a blank gray screen. It boots fine with my 22" LCD, it's fine, but not the Studio Display.

When I have the studio display connected, I can hold down the option key get the boot selector screen without problem-it just won't go anywhere else unless I choose to boot into OSX.
 
bunnspecial said:
With the new graphics card installed in the G4, I've had a new problem show up.

With the ADC display hooked up, the computer will not boot into OS9. I get just a blank gray screen. It boots fine with my 22" LCD, it's fine, but not the Studio Display.

When I have the studio display connected, I can hold down the option key get the boot selector screen without problem-it just won't go anywhere else unless I choose to boot into OSX.
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If I recall correctly, the 17" model LCD required OS 9.2.2 to function. Some of the earlier models of the Studio and Cinema display (namely the 15" and 22") I believe worked under OS 9+.
 
Altemose said:
If I recall correctly, the 17" model LCD required OS 9.2.2 to function. Some of the earlier models of the Studio and Cinema display (namely the 15" and 22") I believe worked under OS 9+.
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I'm pretty sure I'm running 9.2.2 but I'll double check when I can and report back.
 
You can sometimes find them on Apple's site or a site the specializes in old OS 9 downloads.
 
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