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Mac G4 Flashing Question Mark At Boot

My next door neighbor just gave me a copy of OSX Tiger. I swapped the HDD and DVD rom and it is installing with no issues so far :) I'm sure it will be a bit laggy but i can upgrade as needed. Thanks for all your help. I'm sure I'll be back with a ton of other questions!
 
Tiger and 384mgs of Ram..

Wow! Does this bring back some memories! I had the same Sawtooth, actually started out with the same amount of ram.

At the time it all I had to get out of the os9 world was 10.3, which even 6 years ago now posed it's own issues to get through, being this was my main college machine at home. Bugs, crashes, KP's where an almost weekly issue. ( Turned out to be a dodgy harddrive.) Then I scored a new hd, Tiger of off the local MUG and a bump to 512mbs of ram! I was flyin baby! That machine was a beast out of nowhere.

That and my iBook G3/900 where my stables of college computer needs. Until one of my professors found a Digital Audio Dual/533 laying around that was going to be binned. Hands down one of the best ppc macs I have ever owned. It damn near bested my single core G5 1.8 in many tasks.

Sorry for the long winded post. That is a great mac, worth doing a bit of tweaking with and learning the fun of the mac world. While most of my PPC's are gone now. I have to admit I use my PPC G4/1.5/15 powerbook more than my 2011 mini.

Tiger is still great, after a few tweaks here and there. It is still a very viable os and fast as a whip on most G4's.

YMMV,

Just thought I would chime in a random thought.

~Drake
 
DrakkenWar said:
Wow! Does this bring back some memories! I had the same Sawtooth, actually started out with the same amount of ram.

At the time it all I had to get out of the os9 world was 10.3, which even 6 years ago now posed it's own issues to get through, being this was my main college machine at home. Bugs, crashes, KP's where an almost weekly issue. ( Turned out to be a dodgy harddrive.) Then I scored a new hd, Tiger of off the local MUG and a bump to 512mbs of ram! I was flyin baby! That machine was a beast out of nowhere.

That and my iBook G3/900 where my stables of college computer needs. Until one of my professors found a Digital Audio Dual/533 laying around that was going to be binned. Hands down one of the best ppc macs I have ever owned. It damn near bested my single core G5 1.8 in many tasks.

Sorry for the long winded post. That is a great mac, worth doing a bit of tweaking with and learning the fun of the mac world. While most of my PPC's are gone now. I have to admit I use my PPC G4/1.5/15 powerbook more than my 2011 mini.

Tiger is still great, after a few tweaks here and there. It is still a very viable os and fast as a whip on most G4's.

YMMV,

Just thought I would chime in a random thought.

~Drake
Click to expand...

I'm amazed at how fast this 400mhz machine runs Tiger with so little ram. Not even a hiccup. Only problem I have is since I loaded Tiger on it, I get no display during boot until the OS is full loaded. Other than that, I was able to import music and video and play it with no issues and that is mainly what I want to use it for. Was a little disappointed that it only has 2 USB ports total. I have a USB 2.0 PCI card that is plug and play in a PC, any chance it would work in the Mac to give me more USB's?
 
For PCI USB card compatibility, stay away from cards that has a VIA chipset, look for the ones with NEC on them.

When a mac boots there are no gibberish text or grpahics appearing on your display, you will be hearing the "bong" boot chime and seeing just the apple logo and a spinning wheel and then the desktop.

Come to think of it, who cares about those lines of text anyway? Only the tech cares about them not the common user.

Enjoy your powermac.
 
Nameci said:
For PCI USB card compatibility, stay away from cards that has a VIA chipset, look for the ones with NEC on them.

When a mac boots there are no gibberish text or grpahics appearing on your display, you will be hearing the "bong" boot chime and seeing just the apple logo and a spinning wheel and then the desktop.

Come to think of it, who cares about those lines of text anyway? Only the tech cares about them not the common user.

Enjoy your powermac.
Click to expand...

So if my USB 2.0 card has an NEC chipset, can I just instal it and be good to go? I have both VIA and NEC cards.

As for the bootup, I dont even get the apple logo and the pinwheel, lol. I get nothing until the background and dock are fully loaded :)
 
Looks like I spoke too soon. I ran the software updates and now it wont boot. My monitor just sits there saying no signal :(
 
Try holding shift right after you hear the startup noise or you push the power button. This is Safe Boot and it may work. Did you happen to see what video card it had in it?
 
Intell said:
Try holding shift right after you hear the startup noise or you push the power button. This is Safe Boot and it may work. Did you happen to see what video card it had in it?
Click to expand...


Its an ATi Video card.

I will try the shift thing :)
Thanks again!
 
Sounds like you still have the original ATI Rage card. If the shift thing doesn't work, you may have to reinstall Tiger.
 
Macs take special Mac video cards. Some PC ones can be flashed to a Mac ROM. The GeForce 4 series cannot be flashed for Mac.
 
I suggest doing the updates one at a time to pinpoint which one is causing the no boot problem.
 
Nameci said:
Have fun, take note that powermacs are a different animal from its intel siblings as well compared to PC's... :D
Click to expand...

Its all up and running again. Did the updates without a hitch this time. Still surprised at the speed for being only 400mhz. Now I have to find some compatible software that I;ll actually use :)
 
Old apps is a great place to start. Along with this forum. However, I might violate a rule that I do not know about to detract you elsewhere. :)

Lowendmac.com is a resource among few like this forum that I have found incredibly useful over the years. Along with the years of resources and help there, there are some very dedicated users on the G3-5 list with a wealth of software to make 10.4 and 10.5 absolutely fly!

The internet in all respects is a vast wealth of knowledge, learning where to filter the great from the meh? Is half the battle.

Again, congrats on your find! Great mac that will serve ya well.

~Drake
 
DrakkenWar said:
Old apps is a great place to start. Along with this forum. However, I might violate a rule that I do not know about to detract you elsewhere. :)

Lowendmac.com is a resource among few like this forum that I have found incredibly useful over the years. Along with the years of resources and help there, there are some very dedicated users on the G3-5 list with a wealth of software to make 10.4 and 10.5 absolutely fly!

The internet in all respects is a vast wealth of knowledge, learning where to filter the great from the meh? Is half the battle.

Again, congrats on your find! Great mac that will serve ya well.

~Drake
Click to expand...

Thanks.
My neighbor gave me a copy of Photoshop CS2 and amazingly this G4 runs it smooth. Loading times are a little slow but once open, everything has worked flawless. I was even able to play DVD's on it without a hiccup. I have Leopard loaded on my PC along side windows and, i gotta say this G4 runs applications almost as smooth.
 
This is my wish list for you;

1. cpu - a dual 7448 upgrade
2. ethernet card - Gigabit Ethernet Card - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/GE1000LA/
3. bootable SATA card - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/TSATA/
4. Video Card - http://www.ebay.com/itm/FANLESS-nVidia-Geforce-6200-256mb-AGP-Video-For-Mac-G4-/260739245696?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3cb5452680

And then you can upgrade to Leopard.

If you have the dual 7448, it would run circles around zen's single sawtooth 7448.
 
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