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G5 Quad

L

Litsnsirn

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 26, 2018
28
3
Wisconsin
In my quest to become a bigger idiot, I just picked up a G5 quad. I booted it up when I bought it, it came with a 20" cinema display, so I have ordered a quadro 4500 and extra ram for it. I'm going to try it with leopard for a while and have some fun.

I am having a hard time trying to find the correct part number for the airport extreme for it, most of the articles that I read go to dead links or the occasional part number that has no search results on google.

There seem to be issues using sata ssd's but most of the articles seem to be about the earlier G5 power macs. What do I need to worry about there?

Any other smart upgrades?
 
Litsnsirn said:
In my quest to become a bigger idiot, I just picked up a G5 quad.
Click to expand...
Best line ever :D

Unless you really, really need an airport card for completeness, I'd go for a cheap Edimax USB dongle instead - cost about 4 times less too.
My old Quad used to have a SATA 1 SSD - anything higher and you can run into problems. Personally, my SSD didn't give that much of a lift over a traditional HD.

Although the Quad has the raw power to do most things with ease (exception being javascript heavy websites) - every little OS and software optimisation will help - doing a search in the forum for your particular needs will be an advantage.
 
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For the quad you would need an 'airport runway card' which the wifi card sits on/in. This is extremely rare and you see them on ebay for stupid money. As Dronecatcher says, best to get a usb wifi dongle or a pci wifi card.
For storage i use a pair of Velociraptors in a software raid 0 array. Never lost any data and it's backed up in any case.
 
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Any info on the AirPort Extreme card?

Litsnsirn said:
In my quest to become a bigger idiot, I just picked up a G5 quad. I booted it up when I bought it, it came with a 20" cinema display, so I have ordered a quadro 4500 and extra ram for it. I'm going to try it with leopard for a while and have some fun.

I am having a hard time trying to find the correct part number for the airport extreme for it, most of the articles that I read go to dead links or the occasional part number that has no search results on google.

There seem to be issues using sata ssd's but most of the articles seem to be about the earlier G5 power macs. What do I need to worry about there?

Any other smart upgrades?
Click to expand...
Mnowell69 said:
For the quad you would need an 'airport runway card' which the wifi card sits on/in. This is extremely rare and you see them on ebay for stupid money. As Dronecatcher says, best to get a usb wifi dongle or a pci wifi card.
For storage i use a pair of Velociraptors in a software raid 0 array. Never lost any data and it's backed up in any case.
Click to expand...
Is there a model number for the card? When u Google that, some different things pop up that don't look like these fit that space
 
I'd say $86 for 802.11g speed is stupid money. The only reason to get the Runway card is if you absolutely have to have bluetooth support at boot so that you can use the Apple Pro BT keyboard and use that to access Open Firmware/boot screen/zap the PRAM etc.

Any mini-PCIe to PCIe adapter card with a 2006-era Broadcom Apple WiFi card will give you native Airport under Leopard for a fraction of that for the additional sacrifice of one PCIe slot.
 
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weckart said:
I'd say $86 for 802.11g speed is stupid money. The only reason to get the Runway card is if you absolutely have to have bluetooth support at boot so that you can use the Apple Pro BT keyboard and use that to access Open Firmware/boot screen/zap the PRAM etc.
Click to expand...

Fair enough.
 
Bluetooth, so I can use the keyboard that I already have is the main reason I wanted it. Thanks for finding that z970mp!!! I am also a bit of a completionist, so having a hole with nothing plugged into it, well, it's an issue...

Is there anything that I want to look out for for SSD's that will function. Can I boot from drives attached to PCIe cards?
 
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Litsnsirn said:
Bluetooth, so I can use the keyboard that I already have is the main reason I wanted it. Thanks for finding that z970mp!!! I am also a bit of a completionist, so having a hole with nothing plugged into it, well, it's an issue...
Click to expand...
You should be aware that while the combined BT/Airport Card is nice, the BT feature tends to be a bit jumpy. I have a Quad and a 2.3DC, both with the combo cards and both Magic and Mighty Mouse tend to jump a bit and lag when using the native card.

My solution has been to continue to use the Belkin USB BT 2.0 stick that I bought for my old PowerMac G4 Quicksilver.

Here is an auction to one for $7 (MODS, NOT my auction!!!): https://www.ebay.com/itm/WOW-Belkin...339774&hash=item3a52829df1:g:ysIAAOSwstJZRBq~

I have mine plugged into a port on my keyboard. It will override any stock BT adapters.

PS. I should mention that it functions as native Bluetooth. I.e, there are no drivers to install and no separate apps to run. Plug it in and you control it with the BT icon in the menubar just as you would normally with the stock BT card.
 
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Litsnsirn said:
Can I boot from drives attached to PCIe cards?
Click to expand...

I believe there are some Mac specific SATA II or III PCIe cards available from Sonnet and SeriTek/FirmTek which allow booting from a faster drive, but unfortunately the G5 isn’t capable of booting from a stand-alone PCIe SSD card like the Mac Pro.
 
Litsnsirn said:
Is there anything that I want to look out for for SSD's that will function. Can I boot from drives attached to PCIe cards?
Click to expand...

http://g5center.net/hardware.html

Look under the "Recommended SSDs" section and work from there.

I honestly wouldn't bother with any PCIe storage. I haven't heard of any successful stories documenting the subject. Besides, chances are, you won't find any PCIe cards for the G5 period. It's kind of an obscure platform in modern day.
 
z970mp said:
http://g5center.net/hardware.html

Look under the "Recommended SSDs" section and work from there.

I honestly wouldn't bother with any PCIe storage. I haven't heard of any successful stories documenting the subject. Besides, chances are, you won't find any PCIe cards for the G5 period. It's kind of an obscure platform in modern day.
Click to expand...

Ordered an OWC, thanks! Thanks for everyone's help! I'm amazed at some of the valuable sites that don't seem to come up in the search engines.
 
covisio said:
There's a guy on YouTube who's created a RAID array using PCIe SSD adapters, in his G5 Quad. He also has the Quadro 4500. Claims it is the fastest G5 in the world.
Click to expand...

The 7800GTX 512MB is a faster card than what he has, however...
 
Litsnsirn said:
I want to take it apart to clear the dust, So I guess I will inspect it.
Click to expand...

You can dismantle the computer to give it a deep clean, go right ahead, but I really would stay away from the LCS module's inner-workings unless it's dying or problematic. It's not going to have any free-floating dust inside and you might screw up and introduce a whole host of problems. Believe me, I've been there. Many times.

Just trying to help you...
 
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z970mp said:
You can dismantle the computer to give it a deep clean, go right ahead, but I really would stay away from the LCS module's inner-workings unless it's dying or problematic.
Click to expand...

I cannot emphasise this strongly enough.

By all means, pop the retaining rivet and slide the CPU cover off so you can find out which type of LCS modules you have, the more common (and fault-prone) American-made Delphi, or the rarer (and problem-free) Panasonics. Delphis you need to keep an eye on.
 
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Brains said:
I cannot emphasise this strongly enough.

By all means, pop the retaining rivet and slide the CPU cover off so you can find out which type of LCS modules you have, the more common (and fault-prone) American-made Delphi, or the rarer (and problem-free) Panasonics. Delphis you need to keep an eye on.
Click to expand...

Quads use the revised Panasonic LCS. All earlier models use the notorious Delphi system.

I was stating that point regardless of which module you've got. Absolutely, keep one hell of an eye on a Delphi, but I wouldn't recommend going in and opening anything up, regardless of which brand.
 
z970mp said:
Quads use the revised Panasonic LCS. All earlier models use the notorious Delphi system.

I was stating that point regardless of which module you've got. Absolutely, keep one hell of an eye on a Delphi, but I wouldn't recommend going in and opening anything up, regardless of which brand.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1530160489][/doublepost]Do I may have wandered across another quad, this one was ordered pretty loaded, factory airport and Quadro 4500... and I still haven't cleaned up the first one. This one had the drives missing and I was wondering if there is a good replacement for the guide screws to fit the hard drive slots?
 
Litsnsirn said:
[doublepost=1530160489][/doublepost]Do I may have wandered across another quad, this one was ordered pretty loaded, factory airport and Quadro 4500... and I still haven't cleaned up the first one. This one had the drives missing and I was wondering if there is a good replacement for the guide screws to fit the hard drive slots?
Click to expand...

Use the guide screws in the little bags that come with new hard drives if you don't have any spare G5 screws. I believe they're big enough to fit and easy enough to remove.
 
z970mp said:
Quads use the revised Panasonic LCS. All earlier models use the notorious Delphi system.

I was stating that point regardless of which module you've got. Absolutely, keep one hell of an eye on a Delphi, but I wouldn't recommend going in and opening anything up, regardless of which brand.
Click to expand...

Not true. The single pump shows Delphi on it.. and the dual pump is also by Delphi/Coolage. Panasonic was used on the dual 2.5, dual 2.7 models. Quad's single by Delphi was built better.
 
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