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New purchase - Apple Power G4 Dual 867 Mhz

Thanks for the replies guys.

Unfortunately it panics even without the cards - turn on bong, them white screen with apple logo then grey screen with power symbol saying you need to restart your computer and over the top of it all some script about the 'unresolved kernal trap(cpu0)

Would it help if I posted the script or anything from it?

btw the ticking seems to be coming from the back of the power supply near the inlet. Non of the fans are twitching etc
 
I emailed firmtek and asked them what firmware would best suit you.

Their reply:
"Dear Jeff,
When using two FirmTek cards in the same computer, both cards need to have the same
firmware version. In this case, both cards should have 513 installed on them."

I am thinking that the issue could be that they have different firmware. Once you get it starting install the cards one at a time and change the firmware to 5.1.3 if not already that. I am guessing they both have 5.3 on them which is newer but more unstable.

5.1.3 for the 2 port card and 5.1.3 for the 4 port
 
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Thanks zen.

In the meantime how does one go about getting the PPC up and running again? or even diagnosing the problem?

Is it a fried HD?

As I bought the PPC with OSX already installed but no discs I guess I'll need to get a copy of Tiger and a HD to load it onto. Which version of the OSX do I need? On eBay there are retail discs and install discs.

Oh and can I install it onto a Sata drive connected to one of the cards?
 
I wouldn't suspect the PSU as source of KPs. Never happened in my years of experience with Macs (about few hundreds of units I had in my hands). Ticking sound it's separate issue IMO. Firstly I'd remove all but 1 stick of RAM. If you have more than one, test all separately. HDD (or corrupted files on it) would be a second suspect.
 
666sheep is right.. RAM is the main cause of KP's. As he said take one out and try booting up. Keep taking one out at a time till you have just 1 left. Once the KP's stop you will know the stick you just took out is the culprit.

Data corruption is less likely but still possible.
 
zen.state said:
666sheep is right.. RAM is the main cause of KP's. As he said take one out and try booting up. Keep taking one out at a time till you have just 1 left. Once the KP's stop you will know the stick you just took out is the culprit.
Click to expand...

.. and dont forget to try each stick individually once your down to 1 stick if it keeps kernel panicking - unlikely but if your unlucky its likely to be the very last stick you get too thats faulty - ( probably stating the obvious, but I thought Id add it for completeness of your correct advice zen - :) )
 
jrko said:
It was the RAM!!! Huge thanks for the suggestions 666sheep, zen.state and chrismacguy.

Its now a dual 867 with 256mb of ram :(

2gb should arrive soon though!!!!
Click to expand...

Good stuff. Did you set the firmware on both cards to 5.1.3? Thats what the FirmTek support agent suggested as I quoted above. Having the wrong firmware can seem fine at first but you can get data corruption that way.

It's very imprtant you put the proper 5.1.3 on each card also as I gave to the separate links above. You don't seem to be mentioning this so I just want to be sure you understand how important it is.
 
Hi Zen. Yeah i understand I need to change the firmware. I was focusing all my panic on the kernal crashes and will look at installing the cards today and updating the firmware whilst i'm at it.

Thank you very very much for the assistance you have provided. It really is 'above & beyond' and really marks you out as one of the top contributors to this forum.

I've spent some time in the non PPC section and it seems to be full of haters, and mac-bashers - 'why hasn't the new ****** got ******? Apple are so crap/expensive/dont care about the little man' etc etc etc ad infinitum.

It seems the camaraderie of keeping older machines running makes for a more peaceful, happy section of the site.
 
The 4 port came with 5.1.3 but i had to flash the 2 port cart and load up 5.1.3

Thank you so much for your help zen.state and all

Much to my shame I forgot to order power supply wiring for my HD's!! :rolleyes:

Will have to order some once I get some funds through....
 
One more thing.. be sure to flash them one at a time with only the one you're flashing in. Then take that out and flash the other.

What you're doing is actually a firmware down grade. Be sure to check that each is not already 5.1.3. Since they are used they may have the older version. It's funny how the newest is 5.3.2 yet 5.1.3 is the only one everyone has good results with on G4's.

I have been through the SATA PCI card growing pains myself so I just wanted to offer my experience. Not that there are many pains at all but little things like proper firmware are very important. Once thats taken care of it will be 100% seamless and work like it's onboard SATA.

EDIT: Right after posting this I see it's all taken care of now other than the wiring. Just go to a local PC shop and get the proper adapters. Maybe 1-2 bucks each.
 
Yeah must be crossed posts!

What is weird though is that I just ran geekbench and got a score of 764 with only 256mb ram compared with 732 when I had 512md ram :confused:

could it be that the dodgy dimm was registering its capacity but hindering the machine in the geekbench tests due to it being faulty?
 
jrko said:
Yeah must be crossed posts!

What is weird though is that I just ran geekbench and got a score of 764 with only 256mb ram compared with 732 when I had 512md ram :confused:

could it be that the dodgy dimm was registering its capacity but hindering the machine in the geekbench tests due to it being faulty?
Click to expand...

Geekbench isn't super consistent with it's scores in my experience. Xbench is even worse. I have seen GB waver as much as 30-40 points in identical situations.

The best benchmarks for consistency which is exactly what you need in a benchmark:

Cinebench (CPU and Hardware/Software Graphics)
SuperPrime (prime number CPU bench)
PowerFractal (Altivec)
OpenMark (3D video)
Let 1000 Windows Bloom (2D video)
QuickBench (hard disk)
 
Just ordered 3x molex to twin sata power leads.

once they get here i'll fire her up and post some pix

Does anyone know about replacing the dvd caddy with a hard drive rack? Its deep enough because there is a rack underneath - i figure 4 more drives on their side would go in.
 
power cables have arrived so......

zen.state said:
I am booted from a SATA drive on a PCI card as I type this. For your needs I recommend the 4 channel PCI SATA card FirmTek sells.
Click to expand...

Would anyone recommend carbon copy cloner to make the switch to a Sata Drive?

Also once I've cloned the existing HD how do I go about telling the PPC that I want to use the Sata drive as boot drive? is it the startup page in system preferences?
 
jrko said:
power cables have arrived so......



Would anyone recommend carbon copy cloner to make the switch to a Sata Drive?

Also once I've cloned the existing HD how do I go about telling the PPC that I want to use the Sata drive as boot drive? is it the startup page in system preferences?
Click to expand...

CCC or Superduper are fine for cloning.

For startup disk just click on system preferences and click on "Startup Disk" shown circled below. Just select the disk you want to boot from and select restart.

change-disk-mac-os-x-1.2-800X800.jpg
 
Wow - it really is that simple :eek:

I LOVE apple.

Temps are up as I mounted 2 drives in the caddie under the 5.25 enclosure. Up to about 50deg.

The sata cards & HD's pump out some heat as well. Figure I might add another fan in the top of the case like this http://www.s155158671.websitehome.co.uk/quicksilverpage2.html to expel the extra heat.

The heat sink could maybe made more efficient. For class A amplifiers with fins running horizontally one trick is to drill holes through the fins vertically thus creating extra surface area (sides of holes) to make up for the loss in material and a chimney effect as the heat can rise through the holes. That or cut into the fins towards the base, again creating more surface area and chimney effect
 
drives

ok. its now running from a 320Gb sata drive!

I left carbon copy cloner running all night to make the bootable copy.

I was a little bit worried about leaving all night as I could not watch the temps. I guess I'm just a bit worried I may have screwed up the thermal paste. But no, it survived showing 52deg when I checked this morning.
 
jrko said:
ok. its now running from a 320Gb sata drive!

I left carbon copy cloner running all night to make the bootable copy.

I was a little bit worried about leaving all night as I could not watch the temps. I guess I'm just a bit worried I may have screwed up the thermal paste. But no, it survived showing 52deg when I checked this morning.
Click to expand...

Especially because it's a file server you should be running Nap on it. Someone around the PowerPC forum here posted a link to CHUD 3.5.2 which is what you need for Nap to work on an MDD. I forget exactly which thread though. Your idle temps will be in the low 40's then.

When I used to have a dual 1.42 and dual 867 MDD I ran nap on both and also rigged a second 120mm fan on the back of the case. With the extra 120 on the back the same 867 model you have was down in the high 30's when idle and never higher than maybe 48C even under heavy load for hours. Used only as a file server though the CPU's will almost always be idle. Even a single 350MHz G4 would be plenty of power for a file server.

So to sum up.. using nap will help keep the CPU's even cooler than cool and give them many more years of life to power your file access.
 
I'll jump on NAP mode a bit later.

Just put a drill bit through my middle finger (tore straight through and took some bone with it as well :() whilst wiring the house network up. Having a rest.

BTW itunes drive is in PPC but my apple tv says i need itunes 10.2 to stream. downloaded 10.2 and it needs OSX 10.5

Is there a way around that? if not why is 10.5 so flaming expensive?
 
Nap time

Nap works a treat! 30-32 deg cpu temps!

Any idea which version of 10.5 i need? not 10.5.2 etc but which disc type? there are retail versions, the grey discs that come with your machine etc etc.

and why are they sooooooo expensive?

anyone got one to sell on the cheap to a fellow PPC fan :D
 
jrko said:
is there a way i can install itunes 10.2 without getting osx 10.5?
Click to expand...

No. You should upgrade to 10.5 anyway since you use it as a file server and 10.5 has much better local networking capability and a built in VNC client to remotely control it from your other Macs.

For your needs 10.5 makes a lot of sense.
 
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