G4 upgrades

[andloph]

Hi everyone,

over christmas I will try to get my g4 1,33 powerbook up again and get gentoo back on it.
Im mainly looking for input about the following :

- current hard drive is a crappy transcend pata / ssd I had lying around. Will probably get a msata / ide adapter, any suggestion ?
Does anyone know if there is an adapter that has both usb and ide ? I used to have one of these but can't find it anymore ...

- downstream wifi performance has always been ****** ( with the stock airport card that is), max I have always been able to get is 1 mb/s no matter to what router or to what connection I attach it. Guess this is all this old thing can do. Upstream has been better, no idea why. I have seen several times 2,3 mb/s.
Will get a usb wifi thingy, any suggestion ?

Main problem is that 1mb/s is just not enough to handle distcc, specially if you push it to have everything built remotely. Sure, Ethernet solves that but if there is a quicker wifi solution I would prefer to use that if it runs solid.

- is it possible to get a keyboard with backlight for this powerbook ? Would be really nice to have to code at night ;-)

Thanks for your time - Andy

 

[eyoungren]

I use this adapter in my 17" PB: https://www.addonics.com/products/adms25ide.php

Zheino makes SSDs that are inexpensive and compatible. You want an mSATA 3. This is the one in my PB.

Your performance will always be limited by the bus. You can't change that.

As to the Airport card, it's either that or finding a compatible PC card or USB dongle. The problem with those is that most of the time they require third party software to connect to WiFi. My experience has been that they disconnect often.

If your Mac is a 12" then there is no hope for backlighting. They keyboard was never designed that way. If it's a 15" then maybe there is something wrong with the backlight? They should all be backlight on the 15 and 17 inch Albooks.

 

[sparty411]

I can vouch for the Zheino brand mSATA SSD's. I've been using one in my Powerbook G4 for roughly 1 1/2 years, and it has been great.

 

[andloph]

thanks for the input guys !

About the usb wifi thingy, yes, my experience is also that these things are not stable and drop connections quite often ... don´t know yet what I will do here yet, will probably remain with ethernet for certain tasks.

My powerbook ( A1095) doesn't have keyboard backlight. I have been looking around and yes, it is rather easy to swap the keyboards but the prices im seeing are prohibitive. And that would be with a keyboard with English layout which is something I would like to avoid.

About the ssd : can anyone post what are the sustained write and/or read speeds you get with one of these?
Im asking because im thinking about a raid 0 setup but that would only make sense if one ssd doesn't already eat up the hole available bandwidth. I remember doing something similar years ago on a different laptop ( not powerpc) and yes, sustained read speeds went from ca. 80 to ca. 120, completely exhausting the UDMA133 bus that machine had.
Has anyone here fiddled around with this and can share his experience ?

Another thing : I have a couple of Broadcom Crystal accelerators laying around and have been scratching my head about getting one of these on the powerbook.

Problem 1 is how to connect this thing to the powerbook, I will probably have to use either usb, firewire or express card to connect it to the laptop, if possible at all ... airport socket is unusable as far as I know, haven't even been able to find the pinout.

Problem 2 is software - I know these things work flawlessly in linux ( at least in x86 world ) but have no idea about macosx. I have looked a bit through the source code of the linux driver and it doesn't look too nasty.
has anyone tried already ?

Thanks - Andy

 

[B S Magnet]

Hi everyone,

over christmas I will try to get my g4 1,33 powerbook up again and get gentoo back on it.
Im mainly looking for input about the following :

- current hard drive is a crappy transcend pata / ssd I had lying around. Will probably get a msata / ide adapter, any suggestion ?
Does anyone know if there is an adapter that has both usb and ide ? I used to have one of these but can't find it anymore ...

- downstream wifi performance has always been ****** ( with the stock airport card that is), max I have always been able to get is 1 mb/s no matter to what router or to what connection I attach it. Guess this is all this old thing can do. Upstream has been better, no idea why. I have seen several times 2,3 mb/s.
Will get a usb wifi thingy, any suggestion ?

Main problem is that 1mb/s is just not enough to handle distcc, specially if you push it to have everything built remotely. Sure, Ethernet solves that but if there is a quicker wifi solution I would prefer to use that if it runs solid.

- is it possible to get a keyboard with backlight for this powerbook ? Would be really nice to have to code at night ;-)

Thanks for your time - Andy

Supplemental to some good advice already, an mSATA SSD, connected via mSATA-to-IDE adapter or, if less expensive where you are, an m.2 SSD (2280 or 2242), connected via m.2-to-IDE adapter, is the way to go. I’ve done both types, with where I am the m.2-to-IDE solution being the better value in 2019 (whereas the mSATA-to-IDE was the better price point around here in 2018). In addition to Zheino, there is also Dogfish and Recadata which have been pretty good mSATA/m.2 vendors. The maximum read/write speeds of the SATA SSDs will be constrained by the ATA-6/UltraATA-100 bus (that is, a theoretical read/write of 100MB/s).

You will need to get a different keyboard with backlighting, as for the A1095 1.33GHz the backlighting was an optional feature (and it sounds like yours was not ordered with it). As memory serves, backlighting was optional on some, lower-end 15" models up until the 1.5GHz models of 2004–05. The replacement backlit keyboard may have an additional connector for the backlighting, which I would imagine already exists on the logic board.

For better native wifi than AirPort Extreme’s 802.11g, you’ll need to use a PCMCIA card. There were two vendors which made 802.11n PCMCIA cards which the PowerBook G4 may recognize as native “AirPort”: one by Linksys and the other by Buffalo. (I say “were”, because the extraordinarily helpful wiki called Wikidevi.com was taken down at the end of October this year, and there isn’t a web-viewable version of it completely up on Web Archive just yet).

 

[Hughmac]

I can confirm that Buffalo 54G card is Airport native and works fine. The Linksys card seems to have a little more trouble connecting on my Pismo.
The Buffalo card is more expensive of course

Cheers

Hugh

 

[B S Magnet]

I can confirm that Buffalo 54G card is Airport native and works fine. The Linksys card seems to have a little more trouble connecting on my Pismo.
The Buffalo card is more expensive of course

Cheers

Hugh

There were, as memory serves, two Buffalo 802.11n PC Cards which used the Broadcom 4321 chipset. With the demise of Wikidevi, however, I no longer know what those models’ numbers are.

 

[Hughmac]

OK, the Buffalo card - WLI-CB-G54A...

Linksys - WPC54G...

I feel a Wiki would be most useful, if anyone more knowledgable than me is willing

Cheers

Hugh

 

[Project Alice]

I have found that that for whatever reason, PowerPC macs never get very good network speeds.. Ethernet is noticeably faster, but even that I get speeds of maybe 20-60mbps on my 400mbps internet connection. Even on my dual G5. Some of this is probably due to web page bloat on most the speed test sites, but it's a huge difference from my x86 macs that are able to pull 450mbps+ which is even higher than my advertised speeds. Even my iPhone 7 over wifi pulls usually around that range.
I don't know how much of an improvement a PCMCIA wifi card would really be, since the majority of the mac compatible ones are 54mbps which is what the air port extreme already is.

Plug it into ethernet and browse around for awhile and you'll understand what I mean. It's a little faster but really not that noticeable; and that's way faster of a connection than any 3rd party wifi card will be.

 

[B S Magnet]

I have found that that for whatever reason, PowerPC macs never get very good network speeds.. Ethernet is noticeably faster, but even that I get speeds of maybe 20-60mbps on my 400mbps internet connection. Even on my dual G5. Some of this is probably due to web page bloat on most the speed test sites, but it's a huge difference from my x86 macs that are able to pull 450mbps+ which is even higher than my advertised speeds. Even my iPhone 7 over wifi pulls usually around that range.
I don't know how much of an improvement a PCMCIA wifi card would really be, since the majority of the mac compatible ones are 54mbps which is what the air port extreme already is.

Plug it into ethernet and browse around for awhile and you'll understand what I mean. It's a little faster but really not that noticeable; and that's way faster of a connection than any 3rd party wifi card will be.

I think there’s certainly something to be said about the hidden overhead of most web sites these days which weren’t all that present back in, say, late 2005. We obviously don’t feel as much of it on later Intel chipsets because there’s typically multiple cores handling it at a faster clock speed. Though I lack a Quad G5, I imagine the overhead and hang of heavy pages is minimized there.

As for the PCMCIA card I have for my DLSD, the throughput is respectable for being across the room from the 802.11ac (three antenna) router:



And this is me moving a 2.5GB file from my G5 file server to the DLSD. It’s not the theoretical 600Mbps promised by the card’s specs, but it would be a bit higher were it physically closer to the router.

That said, it would have been really handy for one to be able to attach an optional antenna to the PCMCIA card I’m using (the Linksys), because I find there are lower reception bottlenecks in places like a Starbucks (where I’ve been successful in connecting to wifi, but dealing with the coding overhead/backend on those datavalet-dot-io pages is just brutal, especially when it isn’t clear just how strong the router’s signal actually is).
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OK, the Buffalo card - WLI-CB-G54A...

View attachment 883274

Linksys - WPC54G...

View attachment 883275

View attachment 883277

I feel a Wiki would be most useful, if anyone more knowledgable than me is willing

Cheers

Hugh

There was a wiki, called Wikidevi, which served this purpose until 31st October 2019. It was an extremely handy tool.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a complete, web-viewable archive of Wikidevi on archive-dot-org. There is, however, an archive of the databases and wiki back-end saved (by the creator) to archive-dot-org to, I gather, to enable anyone interested to set up and host Wikidevi somewhere else someday (which would be invaluable).

 

[eyoungren]

I have found that that for whatever reason, PowerPC macs never get very good network speeds.. Ethernet is noticeably faster, but even that I get speeds of maybe 20-60mbps on my 400mbps internet connection. Even on my dual G5. Some of this is probably due to web page bloat on most the speed test sites, but it's a huge difference from my x86 macs that are able to pull 450mbps+ which is even higher than my advertised speeds. Even my iPhone 7 over wifi pulls usually around that range.
I don't know how much of an improvement a PCMCIA wifi card would really be, since the majority of the mac compatible ones are 54mbps which is what the air port extreme already is.

Plug it into ethernet and browse around for awhile and you'll understand what I mean. It's a little faster but really not that noticeable; and that's way faster of a connection than any 3rd party wifi card will be.

I'm not so sure I can agree with that.

PowerMac G5 Quad. Gigabit router, gigabit switch, I pay for a Gigabit cable connection.

 

[iluvmacs99]

I have found that that for whatever reason, PowerPC macs never get very good network speeds.. Ethernet is noticeably faster, but even that I get speeds of maybe 20-60mbps on my 400mbps internet connection. Even on my dual G5. Some of this is probably due to web page bloat on most the speed test sites, but it's a huge difference from my x86 macs that are able to pull 450mbps+ which is even higher than my advertised speeds. Even my iPhone 7 over wifi pulls usually around that range.
I don't know how much of an improvement a PCMCIA wifi card would really be, since the majority of the mac compatible ones are 54mbps which is what the air port extreme already is.

Plug it into ethernet and browse around for awhile and you'll understand what I mean. It's a little faster but really not that noticeable; and that's way faster of a connection than any 3rd party wifi card will be.

One of the benefits of Mac OSX is its ability to utilize all available cores and or CPUs to help make efficient OS use, so a Quad G5 would benefit better than a Dual G5 on those mundane file and network transfers. The Intel Macs have the advantage of not only having more cores than the Quad G5, but each core runs faster than a single core on the Quad G5 or a Dual G5, so notably the PowerMacs would pull with less speed. Even an iPhone 7 or my iPhone SE perform better than my Dual G5. But even my Dual G5 is no slouch as over the Gigabit network, I can still achieve respectable file xfers similar to Firewire 800 speed on a dual RAID 5 server hosted by my Mini. My Mac Pro 5,1 smokes my Dual G5, but that is to be expected.

 

[Project Alice]

I'm not so sure I can agree with that.

PowerMac G5 Quad. Gigabit router, gigabit switch, I pay for a Gigabit cable connection.

View attachment 883493

But....your post confirms what I said though? You have a gigabit connection. 97Mbps is about 900Mbps short of what it should be getting.

One of the benefits of Mac OSX is its ability to utilize all available cores and or CPUs to help make efficient OS use, so a Quad G5 would benefit better than a Dual G5 on those mundane file and network transfers. The Intel Macs have the advantage of not only having more cores than the Quad G5, but each core runs faster than a single core on the Quad G5 or a Dual G5, so notably the PowerMacs would pull with less speed. Even an iPhone 7 or my iPhone SE perform better than my Dual G5. But even my Dual G5 is no slouch as over the Gigabit network, I can still achieve respectable file xfers similar to Firewire 800 speed on a dual RAID 5 server hosted by my Mini. My Mac Pro 5,1 smokes my Dual G5, but that is to be expected.

Not always true, take my iMac 2006 for example. It’s an Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz. 32bit dual cores both of which are slower than every G5 except the 1.8GHz models by 300MHz. I haven’t actually powered that machine on in a few months but now I’m curious about how it fairs with a speed test vs my Dual 1.8 G5.

 

[iluvmacs99]

I am curious as well. Perhaps you can do a speed test against your Dual 1.8 G5 and post your findings?

Thanks.

 

[Amethyst1]

I'm not so sure I can agree with that.

PowerMac G5 Quad. Gigabit router, gigabit switch, I pay for a Gigabit cable connection.

What kind of speeds do you get when downloading large files from a sufficiently fast server?
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It’s an Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz. 32bit dual cores both of which are slower than every G5 except the 1.8GHz models by 300MHz.

Clock for clock, I'd think a Core Duo is faster than a G5.

 

[z970]

I have found that that for whatever reason, PowerPC macs never get very good network speeds.. Ethernet is noticeably faster, but even that I get speeds of maybe 20-60mbps on my 400mbps internet connection. Even on my dual G5. Some of this is probably due to web page bloat on most the speed test sites, but it's a huge difference from my x86 macs that are able to pull 450mbps+ which is even higher than my advertised speeds. Even my iPhone 7 over wifi pulls usually around that range.
I don't know how much of an improvement a PCMCIA wifi card would really be, since the majority of the mac compatible ones are 54mbps which is what the air port extreme already is.

Plug it into ethernet and browse around for awhile and you'll understand what I mean. It's a little faster but really not that noticeable; and that's way faster of a connection than any 3rd party wifi card will be.

I wonder what would happen if you compared your average network speeds against average speeds after @eyoungren's terminal network tweaks have been applied?

 

[andloph]

thanks for all the information !
I have ordered several parts to see what can be done with the Broadcom HD pcie card. Maybe I have some results if I find a way to give it some juice with an external adapter, pci bandwidth will obviously be a problem but lets see.

Another question :

Would it be possible to fit a HD panel from a A1138 in this thing ? From what I have been told it isn't but looking at the pinouts both are very similar so im not sure.
Or does anyone now a panel that would work ?

thanks !