Newer Tech Maxpower G4 firmware CD?

[mectojic]

I got an awesome old 2.0Ghz Newer Tech Maxpower CPU (single processor) for my G4 Sawtooth. Only problem is, I don't have the CD that came with it.
Online I was able to find firmware files, but I couldn't confirm whether this is what came on the CD, of if that's something else.

Anyone know more / have the files?

 

[LightBulbFun]

this will be what your looking for , burn it to a CD, stick the Sawtooth into programmers (boot ROM update) mode and boot from it (or if you know what your doing you can copy the contents of the DMG to a USB stick and boot from it as well)

 

[mectojic]

Awesome! Thank you so much! I'm so impressed that it just works.

I'm starting to feel that Sawtooths (Sawteeth?) are the most upgradeable Macs ever. 2.0Ghz with USB 2, Bluetooth, 802.11g Wifi, Gigabit Ethernet, 2GB ram, an SSD, and 64mb Radeon 8500. This thing absolutely flies in both OS 9 and OS X; in Tiger, it definitely feels comparable to a G5 iMac – in fact, nearly all the specs are identical! But it wins out for having a bootable OS 9, and for being so cool.

 

[eyoungren]

Awesome! Thank you so much! I'm so impressed that it just works.

I'm starting to feel that Sawtooths (Sawteeth?) are the most upgradeable Macs ever. 2.0Ghz with USB 2, Bluetooth, 802.11g Wifi, Gigabit Ethernet, 2GB ram, an SSD, and 64mb Radeon 8500. This thing absolutely flies in both OS 9 and OS X; in Tiger, it definitely feels comparable to a G5 iMac – in fact, nearly all the specs are identical! But it wins out for having a bootable OS 9, and for being so cool.

Is the internal cooling somehow different from a Quicksilver?

I had a Sonnet 1.8DP with a USB 2/FW400/800 card, a PCI SATA card, four large HDs and a SATA optical drive, 1.5GB ram and three video cards (to drive six displays). The only thing it didn't have was Gig-E and WiFi.

It was impossible to leave that Mac on with the door closed for any length of time as the heat always caused lockup. Although it COULD hold all those things I don't think Apple ever thought anyone would and so the internal cooling on the QS is bad.

 

[mectojic]

Is the internal cooling somehow different from a Quicksilver?

It would probably suffer the same way, I imagine, if it had what you had. I only have the single SSD, and no HDs, which obviously produce far more heat. And a dual processor is bound to run far hotter than single.
At the moment, I haven't noticed any problems – I am running it slightly downclocked to 1.8ghz instead of 2.0, because apparently it can get a bit unstable.

 

[eyoungren]

It would probably suffer the same way, I imagine, if it had what you had. I only have the single SSD, and no HDs, which obviously produce far more heat. And a dual processor is bound to run far hotter than single.
At the moment, I haven't noticed any problems – I am running it slightly downclocked to 1.8ghz instead of 2.0, because apparently it can get a bit unstable.

Yeah, the instability would be down to heat. You can check by running it at 2.0 with the door down. If it stays stable then your CPU is producing enough heat inside the case (with the door closed) at 2.0 to make it unstable.

That's the problem I had. SSDs were out of my price range (and I wasn't considering them) back when the QS was my primary Mac. But had I replaced every one with SSDs I think the prime culprits would have been the video cards.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Awesome! Thank you so much! I'm so impressed that it just works.

I'm starting to feel that Sawtooths (Sawteeth?) are the most upgradeable Macs ever. 2.0Ghz with USB 2, Bluetooth, 802.11g Wifi, Gigabit Ethernet, 2GB ram, an SSD, and 64mb Radeon 8500. This thing absolutely flies in both OS 9 and OS X; in Tiger, it definitely feels comparable to a G5 iMac – in fact, nearly all the specs are identical! But it wins out for having a bootable OS 9, and for being so cool.

glad to hear it worked well

and indeed the upgradability of the Sawtooth is pretty impressive, I have one myself which I have similarly maxed out (I have thread on it incase your curious to know more about it)

but I would argue the PowerMac G4 MDD is the better/more upgradable PowerMac G4, in that it can take a Dual 7448 2Ghz upgrade, on its 167Mhz bus and its AGP 4X slot allows much faster video cards as well its DDR RAM and faster onboard ATA buses

the system architecture of the MDD is also just generally better and faster then that of the Sawtooth, so if you want to build an ultimate G4 an MDD is what id start with

however if we are discussing most upgradable macs ever, I think I would give that to the PowerMac 9500/9600 the amount of upgrades you can do to one of those relative to what they started out with as a base line is seriously impressive

you could go from a 120Mhz 604 to a 1.4Ghz 7455, from a 1GB~ SCSI HDD to a 2TB SATA SSD from 16MB of RAM to 1.5GB (it took until 2009 before we would see another Mac with 12 RAM slots like the 9500/9600)

some serious upgrades can be had with one of those machines

 

[mectojic]

Yeah, the instability would be down to heat. You can check by running it at 2.0 with the door down. If it stays stable then your CPU is producing enough heat inside the case (with the door closed) at 2.0 to make it unstable.

That's the problem I had. SSDs were out of my price range (and I wasn't considering them) back when the QS was my primary Mac. But had I replaced every one with SSDs I think the prime culprits would have been the video cards.

Good point. I think when the previous user reported instability, they were also running 4 hard drives (which is the maximum right?) – 2 from PCI ATA. Now that I've somewhat cleaned up the drive bays, maybe I could try full speed again.

 

[eyoungren]

Good point. I think when the previous user reported instability, they were also running 4 hard drives (which is the maximum right?) – 2 from PCI ATA. Now that I've somewhat cleaned up the drive bays, maybe I could try full speed again.

Just depends on how many ports your PCI-SATA card has, if you're going to use a SATA optical drive and if you're continuing to use IDE drives. Sounds like you have a 2-port card? Mine was 4-port. I have no idea if there are 6 port or larger cards.

I completely stopped using IDE on my QS as I was strictly OS X and my SATA card was bootable.

I could have had everything I had and been stable if I'd been willing to leave the Mac running with the door down. But I didn't care to leave it open and vulnerable, particularly with a house cat.

Incidentally, that big side fan? The exhaust for that requires a 90º turn, regardless of if you've got a G3 or a G4. I think Apple redesigned it with the MDD but that is one model of G4 I haven't owned yet. In any case, that 90º bend. on non-MDDs is poor design.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Good point. I think when the previous user reported instability, they were also running 4 hard drives (which is the maximum right?) – 2 from PCI ATA. Now that I've somewhat cleaned up the drive bays, maybe I could try full speed again.

one thing id check is your RAM

when running a CPU this fast it makes the system very picky as to what RAM sticks it wants to play ball with, as your suddenly hitting the system bus and memory controller much harder

in the end I bought 4 brand new 512MB sticks of PC133 for my sawtooth to give it a clean slate which worked nicely

 

[m1maverick]

you could go from a 120Mhz 604 to a 1.4Ghz 7455, from a 1GB~ SCSI HDD to a 2TB SATA SSD from 16MB of RAM to 1.5GB (it took until 2009 before we would see another Mac with 12 RAM slots like the 9500/9600)

Which system is that? Or did you mean 2019?

 

[mectojic]

Just depends on how many ports your PCI-SATA card has, if you're going to use a SATA optical drive and if you're continuing to use IDE drives. Sounds like you have a 2-port card? Mine was 4-port. I have no idea if there are 6 port or larger cards.

The one I have is PCI- 2 port ATA-133. I don't know how to get a Sata PCI card, and don't have a PC to flash, if a PC is required. Doesn't matter to me anyway, as I only use my Mac Mini Server for storage.

in the end I bought 4 brand new 512MB sticks of PC133 for my sawtooth to give it a clean slate which worked nicely

I've always wanted to just do this, using the same brand, so it's out of the way (and looks nice in the machine lol). But where can you get affordable 512mb sticks these days? The cheapest I've seen were on Aliexpress, but am not sure if they are reliable, so haven't bought any.