I want to upgrade my 1.8 Dual CPU PowerMac G5. What are some good upgrades? It is completely bone stock. The GPU sucks, it has no Airport card, and an 80GB HDD. So I was thinking new GPU, get an airport card, and put in a 320GB HDD. Otherwise, what else can be done? Is it possible to get a Disk Drive that reads dual layer DVD's? Also, If I get the airport card, do I need to get an antenna?
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Good upgrades for PowerMac G5?
- Thread starter BaddestArvai
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If you're going to upgrade the drives, why not go big? G5s can handle drives of 2TB or more. My own G4 has two 500GB SATA drives.
As to the optical drive, maybe you got a G5 with a replacement drive? I ask because except for drives the G5 at work (1.8Ghz, single processor) is stock and came with a DL R/W drive.
And yes, for Airport you'll need the antenna.
When I tried installing Leopard, I could not get the dual layer DVD to load, so I had to use a donor drive from a Dell PC I had laying around. I will have to check. I'm pretty sure its the normal stock drive. As for HDD, I don't need anything too big. I have the 320GB drive sitting here collecting dust so I thought I would just throw it in there. And I had a feeling I would need the antenna. Do I need to have the Apple branded antenna? or can I just use any antenna off of ebay? Because the Apple branded antennas cost around $20 USD alone, which is nearly double what the wireless Airport card costs.
Don't know what to say about the drive then. The one at work is stock like I said and has no issues reading or burning dual layer. Except for the current hard drives (and the CPU/logicboard) and one ram stick everything in that case is circa February 2005.
If the drive is just laying around, might as well use it then. I'd have larger drives myself, but those were the biggest around me a few years back. As to the antenna, no idea. But if you don't get one you'll have crappy reception. Just bear in mind speeds.
You're likely to get much better performance from the ethernet port than the airport card. The MacPro I have at work has an even better airport card, but I never use it because there's no way it's faster than Gigabit ethernet and our router does not support the latest wireless speed.
Just something to consider.
Honestly, the G5s were pretty monster stock, except for the graphics card. The one in the G5 at work is a POS. But there are better cards out there.
If the drive is just laying around, might as well use it then. I'd have larger drives myself, but those were the biggest around me a few years back. As to the antenna, no idea. But if you don't get one you'll have crappy reception. Just bear in mind speeds.
You're likely to get much better performance from the ethernet port than the airport card. The MacPro I have at work has an even better airport card, but I never use it because there's no way it's faster than Gigabit ethernet and our router does not support the latest wireless speed.
Just something to consider.
Honestly, the G5s were pretty monster stock, except for the graphics card. The one in the G5 at work is a POS. But there are better cards out there.
I would do direct internet conection, but I would have to branch out another router off of our existing router because I am on the second floor of my house. So I would have to run a cable outside from the basement up the side of the house to my room. (reason I would put a router is because I could directly wire both of my PC's into it and have better Wifi reception on my iPhone) I would go through the heating/air ducts, but our basement is finished and I have no access to drop a cable straight down. And drilling holes is out of the question. I don't find myself using a lot of HDD space as I have never gone over 400GB on my main computer
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I would do direct internet conection, but I would have to branch out another router off of our existing router because I am on the second floor of my house. So I would have to run a cable outside from the basement up the side of the house to my room. (reason I would put a router is because I could directly wire both of my PC's into it and have better Wifi reception on my iPhone) I would go through the heating/air ducts, but our basement is finished and I have no access to drop a cable straight down. And drilling holes is out of the question. I don't find myself using a lot of HDD space as I have never gone over 400GB on my main computer
Something I do is a powerline kit. I get 10Mbps through the box in my fathers office to the box in my room (10 is fine because that's the same as my internet speed). Works great and I can use it anywhere in the house. I cheat and have it connected to a AirPort extreme in my room so that I can have WiFi and ethernet to my G5 or MDD.
I just bought same machine a couple days ago 1.8GHz dp (pci ver)
-if you have same you can put up to 4 gigs of ram (if you have pci-x ver you can put 8 gigs)
-I put in a older OCZ-agility-3 60 gig ssd as boot drive (leopard 10.5.8) and a 300 gig sata hd for storage...the ssd really does make a difference!
-Like you mine has the stock nvidia 5200 gpu,so will upgrade as soon as possible
-if you have same you can put up to 4 gigs of ram (if you have pci-x ver you can put 8 gigs)
-I put in a older OCZ-agility-3 60 gig ssd as boot drive (leopard 10.5.8) and a 300 gig sata hd for storage...the ssd really does make a difference!
-Like you mine has the stock nvidia 5200 gpu,so will upgrade as soon as possible
On the RAM:
If the 80GB HDD is the stock drive, he has PCI version that can take a max of 4GB of RAM. http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/specs/powermac_g5_1.8_dp_2.html
On the Superdrive:
It should be DVD-DL capable, since it came from stock with a Superdrive. Also, it is a 2004 model, so it is able to read/write both DVD-DL and DVD+DL (which G4/G5 until 2003 can't).
Maybe your media is incompatible or it was just this DVD that failed, try again with another (or was it the original Leopard DVD? Do you also have a black label on it? If grey you have a Leopard install from an Intel Mac.)
Go to "about this Mac" -> more info -> "burn media" (on the left). There you can see what media format is supported and what drive you have. When you search on Ebay use multible search terms like: multiwriter, multiburner or type in a certain model. This will get you a Drive for 1,-USD, because most people will search for "DVD-DL Drive". Auctions that do not have that in the title will not be found by them and will not get as much bids.
GSA-H12 is one (may have LG, Toshiba, HTL, Hitachi as a manufacturer label on it)
SH-S202 (by Samsung), I find it gets a bit hot and would prefer the LG one, though people say that LG drives do not take every media (i.e. every media type, but not every manufacturer).
You can also first search for "DVD DL IDE" or "DVD DL PATA" and look up model numbers and then use these for the search.
SATA-PCI-X cards
Though your's has PCI, it can take PCI-X (which means you will be able to have 62MB/s instead of 35MB/s throughput).
List see here https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/18914237/
and
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1650568/ (list see #19 onwards, but read the info before and after that, too.)
If you like to flash: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1690231/)_ (by harrymatic)
If the 80GB HDD is the stock drive, he has PCI version that can take a max of 4GB of RAM. http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/specs/powermac_g5_1.8_dp_2.html
On the Superdrive:
It should be DVD-DL capable, since it came from stock with a Superdrive. Also, it is a 2004 model, so it is able to read/write both DVD-DL and DVD+DL (which G4/G5 until 2003 can't).
Maybe your media is incompatible or it was just this DVD that failed, try again with another (or was it the original Leopard DVD? Do you also have a black label on it? If grey you have a Leopard install from an Intel Mac.)
Go to "about this Mac" -> more info -> "burn media" (on the left). There you can see what media format is supported and what drive you have. When you search on Ebay use multible search terms like: multiwriter, multiburner or type in a certain model. This will get you a Drive for 1,-USD, because most people will search for "DVD-DL Drive". Auctions that do not have that in the title will not be found by them and will not get as much bids.
GSA-H12 is one (may have LG, Toshiba, HTL, Hitachi as a manufacturer label on it)
SH-S202 (by Samsung), I find it gets a bit hot and would prefer the LG one, though people say that LG drives do not take every media (i.e. every media type, but not every manufacturer).
You can also first search for "DVD DL IDE" or "DVD DL PATA" and look up model numbers and then use these for the search.
SATA-PCI-X cards
Though your's has PCI, it can take PCI-X (which means you will be able to have 62MB/s instead of 35MB/s throughput).
List see here https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/18914237/
and
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1650568/ (list see #19 onwards, but read the info before and after that, too.)
If you like to flash: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1690231/)_ (by harrymatic)
Another option is a wireless bridge like the Asus 330n3g, allows some rather nice tricks and might be cheaper than getting some special
HW (but your still down to wireless speeds).The Leopard DVD was given to me by the old owner, and it looks like it was just burned onto a regular dual layer DVD. When I got it, it was running Tiger, so I upgraded it using the disk he gave me. But like I said, I had to use a different DVD drive. I will have to look at it today. As of now, I am fixing our family computer and my PowerMac is just sitting on my bed. Also, I would update it to 4GB of ram, but I already have 3GB. My friend had a parted out PowerMac G5 that was the exact same model as mine, so he gave me the ram out of his, which was 2GB (I think).
So apparently, it is a Dual Layer DVD drive. I just popped in the Leopard Install disk and it read it no problem. This is weird because it didn't work in the past...
So I am about to put in the 320GB HDD and install a fresh copy of Leopard, but I don't know how to boot from a DVD? Last time I installed Leopard there was already Tiger on it so I just upgraded it. I have never installed on a blank formatted drive.
If it is able to start from the Leopard DVD, put in the DVD at startup and hold down c until you see something loading, before the light on the keyboard flashes.
On the CD you can use disc utility to format the drive.
On the CD you can use disc utility to format the drive.
No offense, but holding down OPTN is always the better choice. It lets you select the disk you want to boot from. "C" only tells the Mac to boot from the optical drive and if the Mac isn't going to boot from the disk you don't know or you never know if you pressed C soon enough or not. At least with OPTN held down you can tell if the disk is being seen or not and you can ALWAYS tell if you pressed the button fast enough.
Thanks, of course you are right holding down the option key is the better choice! Had forgotten about that at the moment.
So I just tried loading the DVD, it took me to a screen that looked like OS 9 and had my DVD on the screen. It gave me a giant Back button, and a Go button. I clicked go thinking it would start the DVD, but the THE MAC STARTED SCREAMING! All my fans were going full blast and was 3X louder than my PC. It honestly scared the crap out of me and it wouldn't stop. It was just sitting at the Apple startup screen with a loading circle at the bottom. So I just turned it off...
-edit-
Just gave it a second shot and its working normally now.
-edit-
OS X 10.5 is installed! Just need to connect it to the internet to upgrade it to 10.5.8. Right now its only on 10.5.1.
-edit-
Just gave it a second shot and its working normally now.
-edit-
OS X 10.5 is installed! Just need to connect it to the internet to upgrade it to 10.5.8. Right now its only on 10.5.1.
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I found out the reason why they were running so loud. I left the dual intake fans out when I was cleaning it.
As the other poster mentioned, when you boot holding down the OPTN key the fans on a G5 kick in. That's because what's happening is that by holding down OPTN you are loading up a bootloader. That bootloader is very simple (it's been around since 1999 at least) and it contains NO code to control the fans on G5s. The G5 senses that there is no fan control and it then does what it's designed to do which is turn all available fans on full blast to protect from thermal overheating.
Once code for fan control is finally loaded the fans return to normal.
Glad to hear you got Leopard going!
Do you have one of those old blue Linksys routers? Or any spare wireless routers? If they can run DD-WRT then you can use them as wireless bridges. You do not want to have a second router in your room from the first but rather a simple switch.
I don't have any linksys routers laying around. The router we have is one that AT&T gave us. And when you say switch, do you mean like one at a time? Because both of those routers would need to be running at the same time.
What he's meaning is essentially turning one router in to a WAP (Wireless Access Point).
What that means is that one router acts as the router. The other router is placed into a different mode and DHCP is turned off. You can't have two routers trying to control DHCP.
I have the Linksys WRT-54GL at home and it serves this purpose. My 2004 era D-Link wired router is my primary router and it does the DHCP, while the Linksys just gives my wireless devices access to the network. The biggest thing about this is that you have to assign the secondary "router" a static IP address that is OUTSIDE of the IP address range of the primary router.
For instance, the IP range I have designated at home is 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.199. So, my secondary router has an IP address of 192.168.0.200 which is outside of this range. DHCP has been turned off and it's been put in non-router mode.
So…that's pretty much how it works.
If you were going to run a Ethernet line up to your room, you want an unmanaged switch. You plug the cable that comes from the router into it and BAM you have more ports. It essentially is like a power strip, one plug into the wall 7 out.