G5 buying advice

[Lastic]

That’s it (533Mhz). I’ve read that the 11,2 can take 4GB sticks for a total of 32GB, but Leopard can only see 16GB of it. If you intend to run Linux, I understand it will address all 32GB.

Chances are though that 16GB will do on a G5. In my experience, QEMU/KVM ppc64 VMs can be assigned a maximum of 1792MB each, so that’s worth considering when looking at a RAM capacity.

Thinking about ordering here :

http://www.benl.ebay.be/itm/RAM-Mem...hash=item1a35aa2c12:m:ma2pJNx-GBMEdgaO3rOBisA

But if I calculate quickly 8 * 17,87 EUR = 142 EUR whereas yours was 80 AUD which is 53 EUR.

Any idea what brand they were and/or how fast the shipping was ?

I've read the very entertaining post here
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/g5-quad-32gb-possible.1126338/page-3
but is seems that the limit is the memory controller not the way the OS does the address reservation or the kernel limit ?

Must have a look what RAM I still have laying around from all my previous machines upgrades.

 

[AphoticD]

Micron was the brand I bought. They tend to be sold as pairs 2x 2GB for less than AU$20 out of China/HK. Shipping was maybe 3 weeks, but that's to be expected. I'm not sure if it means anything, but the chips I installed were all half the height of the ones that came out. They look like they are "low profile", but werent't sold as such.

Hah, I did have a browse of that thread. I can only confirm that 8x 2GB works well (I didn't consider buying anything more at the time because I didn't think the 4gb modules would work). If you buy 4x 4GB and then installed these in addition to using some of the existing RAM, you could confirm from your own tests if Linux can see more than 16GB and put a definitive answer on that old thread.

 

[LightBulbFun]

That’s it (533Mhz). I’ve read that the 11,2 can take 4GB sticks for a total of 32GB, but Leopard can only see 16GB of it. If you intend to run Linux, I understand it will address all 32GB.

few things ill add on here

Faster DDR2 RAM will work in a PCIe G5 it will just down-clock to the right speed you dont need 533Mhz sticks, theres a load of cheap 667-800Mhz 2GB DDR2 RAM sticks on ebay perfecting for maxing a machine out to 16GB, I helped @eyoungren buy such a kit for his G5 Quad which AFAIK is still working ECC RAM will work in these systems but it has to be ECC un-registered and good luck finding that

in regards to 32GB in these systems, from what I read 4GB UDIMMs do work, but no matter the OS, only 16GB is usable, I actually have 4 4GB DDR2 UDIMMs from an employee over at intel that I really want to test and play about with in a DDR2 G5 Like, would they work in an iSight iMac G5 and give us 4.5GB over the current max of 2.5GB? and I would love to see if I could get more than 16GB of RAM working in a PCIe G5. finding genuine 4GB DDR2 UDIMMs is not an easy feat (esp with all the shoddy "AMD only" RAM from china on ebay) so I was VERY happy to see those in the parcel

sadly i dont own any of those machines but I have been on the lookout. if im getting any more G5 Towers tho it has to be a Quad LOL (I got some really cool stuff from that intel employe, like a ES CPU marked "employee beta sample" ) I Have recently spotted a Power Macintosh 6500 for sale (F*cking finally! woo LOL) so everything is on hold while I try and secure it for my collection

a really rare type of RAM stick I have been looking for is the 2GB DDR1 module un-registered (ECC) UDIMM they do exist, but I have never been able to find any on ebay. kingston made a 2x2GB kit for the Xserve G5 (the kta-g5400e/4g) and I theorise that they should work some of the AGP G5 Towers in fact if you go through the "about this mac" photo thread in the photo sub forum here on MR, there was a guy back in the day running with 16GB of RAM in a 2.7Ghz G5...

 

[eyoungren]

…I helped @eyoungren buy such a kit for his G5 Quad which AFAIK is still working

It was when I left home this morning!

 

[AphoticD]

few things ill add on here

Faster DDR2 RAM will work in a PCIe G5 it will just down-clock to the right speed you dont need 533Mhz sticks, theres a load of cheap 667-800Mhz 2GB DDR2 RAM sticks on ebay perfecting for maxing a machine out to 16GB, I helped @eyoungren buy such a kit for his G5 Quad which AFAIK is still working ECC RAM will work in these systems but it has to be ECC un-registered and good luck finding that

in regards to 32GB in these systems, from what I read 4GB UDIMMs do work, but no matter the OS, only 16GB is usable, I actually have 4 4GB DDR2 UDIMMs from an employee over at intel that I really want to test and play about with in a DDR2 G5 Like, would they work in an iSight iMac G5 and give us 4.5GB over the current max of 2.5GB? and I would love to see if I could get more than 16GB of RAM working in a PCIe G5. finding genuine 4GB DDR2 UDIMMs is not an easy feat (esp with all the shoddy "AMD only" RAM from china on ebay) so I was VERY happy to see those in the parcel

sadly i dont own any of those machines but I have been on the lookout. if im getting any more G5 Towers tho it has to be a Quad LOL (I got some really cool stuff from that intel employe, like a ES CPU marked "employee beta sample" ) I Have recently spotted a Power Macintosh 6500 for sale (F*cking finally! woo LOL) so everything is on hold while I try and secure it for my collection

a really rare type of RAM stick I have been looking for is the 2GB DDR1 module un-registered (ECC) UDIMM they do exist, but I have never been able to find any on ebay. kingston made a 2x2GB kit for the Xserve G5 (the kta-g5400e/4g) and I theorise that they should work some of the AGP G5 Towers in fact if you go through the "about this mac" photo thread in the photo sub forum here on MR, there was a guy back in the day running with 16GB of RAM in a 2.7Ghz G5...

Enhance those old Macs! 16GB in an AGP/PCI-X G5 would be cool, although I haven't yet seen any page outs with 8GB with what I put it through.

The 6500 is a beauty. I've always admired them. Post some pics when you get the curvy old girl running Tiger

 

[eyoungren]

Enhance those old Macs! 16GB in an AGP/PCI-X G5 would be cool, although I haven't yet seen any page outs with 8GB with what I put it through.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Enhance those old Macs! 16GB in an AGP/PCI-X G5 would be cool, although I haven't yet seen any page outs with 8GB with what I put it through.

The 6500 is a beauty. I've always admired them. Post some pics when you get the curvy old girl running Tiger

if only I could at least a pair of those 2GB DIMMs... (would also be fun to see what they do in my Mac Mini G4...)

I have to actually win the 6500 first, time to go broke again who needs money anyway

View attachment 724598View attachment 724599

needs more c̶o̶f̶f̶e̶e̶ cow bell

 

[AphoticD]

I have to actually win the 6500 first, time to go broke again who needs money anyway

Such is the life of an enthusiast.

+Money in
-Money out
+New gear
=Joy!

(Until the next flicker of interest appears).
[doublepost=1507601069][/doublepost]

View attachment 724598View attachment 724599

What a beast! I bet it keeps you toasty warm in the winter

Have you ever overloaded it? A couple of 600dpi billboard sized renders in Photoshop might do it. Or working with 80MP RAW images..

 

[eyoungren]

What a beast! I bet it keeps you toasty warm in the winter

Have you ever overloaded it? A couple of 600dpi billboard sized renders in Photoshop might do it. Or working with 80MP RAW images..

No, only got it in January and haven't pushed it really. But I'd have to push very hard to tax it.

As we close in on winter though (summer for you) we'll see how it all goes. It's fall here now so I have noticed that the graphics card has dropped by 6 degrees (fahrenheit) on occasion.

We have central air (impossible to live in Phoenix in the summer without A/C) so the ambient temp is fairly consistent.

I do find it very nice to carry a ram disk of 2GB though, Makes web browsing on T4Fx very nice as well as playing video directly from ram.

I've got a 2.3DC G5 too that's loaded out the same way, except it has the NVIDIA Quadro FX4500 in it. Right now it's at about 10GB ram. I really like it.

There's also a 2.7Ghz DP G5 at work. I'm in the process of dropping in my Radeon FireGL X3 (brand new, will be the very first time I've used it since I bought it 2 years ago) and my other two PCI cards from my QS. It's got about 3GB right now. Been using it for scanning at work and CS4 is damn quick on it.

If not for the generosity of a few forum members here I'd still be trying to pick up the mess my Quicksilver became.

 

[Lastic]

Quick update tomorrow (Saturday) I will finally pick up the rack/flightcase and be able to put everything into it, cable it and stuff.

Xserve DP G4 is still laying around in my living room, couldn't resist the temptation and booted it just to check it's noise level , it's actually silent compared to the Intel Xserve and Sun Fire , heck it's more silent than my Juniper switch.

So this weekend, pictures are coming up

 

[Lastic]

So Saturday I picked up the flightcase and brought it home but was on the road the entire day.

Sunday I decided to make my preperations only to discover that the cabin where the flightcase will be placed into is 100 cm deep and the flightcase is 101 cm + bezel of the servers , aaargh.
Also discovered that the Xserve G4 has a graphics card with only VGA on it , which I don't have on any monitors I own.
Thus ordered a VGA to HDMI adapter for pickup on Monday.

Today I emptied the cabin a bit and temporarely installed all my servers except the Intel Xserve into the flightcase rack.
No rack rails so they are stacked on top of each other with a bubblewrap sheet between each of them.

Top to bottom :

1. Powerstrip , the seller forgot to unscrew it so I could have it
2. My Own APC PDU with which I can remotely power up/down outlets
3. HP Storageworks FibreChannel Switch also bought from the seller
4. Juniper EX-4200 , Layer 3 Switch
5. Sun Fire T1000 Sparc server
6. HP Proliant ??? server (got this for free when buying the APC PDU from another seller)
7. Xserve DP G4
8. Xserve Raid ( man it weights with 9 disks in it )

But then the struggle continued , picked up the HDMI to VGA adapter, came home to luckily find a VGA cable but realised I needed a HDMI Female - Female adapter , but did find one in a local store 10 minutes from home.

Powered up the Xserve G4 but it won't display on the Motorola Lapdock , I can tell it has an OS X on it since there is VNC running and it is requesting IP adresses so will have to go and pickup an old VGA monitor from a friend this week. pffff.

 

[weckart]

Also discovered that the Xserve G4 has a graphics card with only VGA on it , which I don't have on any monitors I own.
Thus ordered a VGA to HDMI adapter for pickup on Monday

That is not going to work. VGA is analog and DVI/HDMI/DP are digital outputs. HDMI and DVI can output to a VGA monitor if the graphics card carries analog through the digital output (most do) but not vice versa. You would have to buy a special signal converter cable.

 

[Lastic]

That is not going to work. VGA is analog and DVI/HDMI/DP are digital outputs. HDMI and DVI can output to a VGA monitor if the graphics card carries analog through the digital output (most do) but not vice versa. You would have to buy a special signal converter cable.

Yup seems to be correct, well I did find a graphics card with DVI also for the Xserve G4 but shipping from the US to EU will take a while, had a try with the Belkin adapter but indeed looks like it's for the other way around, HDMI output to a VGA monitor not VGA output to a HDMI monitor.
Will pick up a VGA monitor from a friend so I can do the initial install, it will run headless anyhow later on .

 

[AphoticD]

Yup seems to be correct, well I did find a graphics card with DVI also for the Xserve G4 but shipping from the US to EU will take a while, had a try with the Belkin adapter but indeed looks like it's for the other way around, HDMI output to a VGA monitor not VGA output to a HDMI monitor.
Will pick up a VGA monitor from a friend so I can do the initial install, it will run headless anyhow later on .

I was given a cheap 14" flatscreen TV from a friend who was going to throw it away. It didn't look like much but turned out to have HDMI and VGA inputs on it in addition to the usual Component, RCA/Composite and RF, so it's been useful for testing a few different Macs using both/either VGA and a DVI-HDMI adapter.

Just thought I'd mention it as many households have these cheap little TVs in the bedroom, kitchen or just tucked away in a closet somewhere unused.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I was given a cheap 14" flatscreen TV from a friend who was going to throw it away. It didn't look like much but turned out to have HDMI and VGA inputs on it in addition to the usual Component, RCA/Composite and RF, so it's been useful for testing a few different Macs using both/either VGA and a DVI-HDMI adapter.

Just thought I'd mention it as many households have these cheap little TVs in the bedroom, kitchen or just tucked away in a closet somewhere unused.

only problem with that is the VGA analog to digital converter in TVs suck real bad and have a very poor image quality

so if you go down this route and see the picture sucks, dont be so quick to blame the computer

 

[AphoticD]

only problem with that is the VGA analog to digital converter in TVs suck real bad and have a very poor image quality

so if you go down this route and see the picture sucks, dont be so quick to blame the computer

Yeah, I just use it for convenience (light and easy move around). I wouldn’t strain my eyes on it for a long period.

 

[Lastic]

So today I had a VGA to HDMI adapter delivered since I would have to wait until the weekend to get a hold of a monitor and I really wanted to keep using the Motorola Lapdock as a KVM thingie.

Booted into an already installed OS X Server, reset the user account so I could at least browse it whilst having a take-off happening in my living room.

It has a CDROM drive so I hooked up my PB 12" in Target Mode to check if it can boot from the OS X 10.5 Server DVD I have and it recognizes it.

It was stated as having 2 GB RAM but it only sees 1 GB , altough I could have sworn that all banks were filled, off course all the other servers are now stacked on top of it so will look at that later on.

Then started up the RAID, wow this is some serious noise , still not as bad as my Sun Fire T1000 but enough that I switched everything off after 1 hour and will do the OS X Install earlier in the day.

So the sage continues OS X 10.5 Server reinstall, reinitializing the RAID's and wait until the next paycheck to pick up RAM for the G5 and rack rails for the Xserve,Juniper, HP Storageworks .

Still have to decide if I'm going to keep the HP and the Sun server . The previous G5 will have to go and also my 12" iBook .

 

[AphoticD]

Pretty lights!

Is the RAID noisy as in the fans are rubbing / worn or just noisy by design?

I have a feeling that the PC3200 RAM from your outgoing G5 will step down to suit the PC2700 slots in the Xserve. It might be a good use of the G5's resources.