My Powermac G5 Project Thread

[eddjedi]

I took your advice and found a pair of 2GB RAM sticks. I didn't realise it was ECC memory when I bought it (rookie mistake, didn't spot the extra chip) but I was pleasantly surprised to find the 2005 G5 in fact supports ECC memory!

Is there any truth in it being noticeably slower than non-ECC memory? Just wondering if it's worth continuing to fill it with ECC memory, or starting again with non-ECC (I read it's not wise to mix both types)

 

[Doq]

You'd be hard-pressed to notice the difference between standard and ECC memory, so you can continue with ECC as you are.

Just make sure you don't accidentally buy fully buffered DIMMs; they will not fit.

 

[eddjedi]

Is it normal for it to take longer to boot with ECC memory installed? I've just noticed today that after the chime I get a black screen for around 30 seconds, then the usual white screen and Apple logo. It feels slower than it used to be to boot, but all seems fine once it's running.

 

[eddjedi]

This G5 seems to be running cooler than the previous one, this is after being on for two hours. I want to fully strip it and redo the thermal paste anyway because the insides were very dusty when I got it, I cleaned everywhere I could but there must still be a lot of dust in the areas I can't reach without disassembly. But this gives me some confidence it's not urgent?

 

[eddjedi]

A few nice upgrades today, I picked up an NVIDIA 6600 from eBay to replace the LE card it originally came with, which doubles my video memory to 256MB. I also found an Atlona Dual Link DVI converter for a good price (£15 GBP) and I can now run a full screen resolution that my Mateview monitor supports natively, so thanks for the tip on that. And finally I found a further 6GB of ECC memory, taking the total up to 10GB. It seems to be much less plentiful than non-ECC memory so might take me a while to max out, but 10GB is plenty for now.





And here's a photo of it connected to my Mateview, and Yamaha speakers via the Arturia USB audio interface. I could honestly almost daily drive this thing if the web browser support was a bit better, it runs like a dream for everything else. What a machine, they don't make computers like this any more.