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PowerMac G5; Inquiries & assistance

T

ThirteenXIII

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 8, 2008
866
327
I recently obtained a secondhand Powermac G5 1.8Ghz Single-core CPU w/ 1Gb of Memory and a GeForce FX5200 (ADC & DVI) gfx card

[this model: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/stats/powermac_g5_1.8.html]

I was wondering some recommendations to help keep its usefulness up and maintain it for quite awhile and also wanted to know if anyone knew of any good place to find the following peripherals:

1) Memory; I was curious if this basic PC3200 memory would be compatible:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161161

2)Video Card; any pace to find a decently priced (less than $100) for a gfx card that can support resolutions higher than 1920x1200?
The FX5200 can barely support upto that.

3) A nice IR Sensor; I have Leopard + an Apple Remote and I wanted to turn this into a nice media server (generic appletv like setup)

4) A decent external DVD drive that can be hooked up via USB or FireWire to use with FrontRow DVD playback.

5) Sata 3Gbps HDD; I have some spare SATA 3Gbps (SATA-II) drives im wondering those would be capable of running in a Powermac G5? Im assuming all I have to do is set the pin to allow the 1.5Gbps connection...other than that larger drives than 500Gb should be recognized?


Or any other thoughts and recommendations.


thanks alot!
 
Yep, any normal DDR400/PC3200 DDR-RAM will work.

It technically supports up to 2048x1536 I guess, but the DVI port is probably limited to 1920x1200. The PCI Radeon (32 MB DDR Mac Edition) on my ancient Beige G3 supports 2048x1536 on CRTs.

The next res up from 1920x1200 is, I think, 2560x1600, which you need a dual-link DVI card to use.. I don't think you can get that for AGP, though I could be wrong.
 
thanks for that information; doesnt seem like a bad deal at all for that RAM then. I wasnt sure if really mattered on older Powermacs, since it all seems to be pretty much the same.

I found a very cheap 15" studio display i was going to use to set it up and get it all ready to go until I received my HDTV set for the lounge, but the gfx card im not sure fi it will be able to support the 1080p resolution/connection..it should but im not sure how great.

thanks again! :)
 
Firefly2002 said:
Yep, any normal DDR400/PC3200 DDR-RAM will work.
Click to expand...
Actually, the 1st gen PowerMac G5's are moderately sensitive to generic PC3200 RAM modules which don't have the SPD values correctly written. (The iMac G5 was the worst modern Mac for rejecting slightly out of spec RAM.)

How do you know if the PC3200 module is correctly programmed? Answer: you don't -- until you test it. Either choose RAM that the seller guarantees is compatible with the Mac, or make sure you have a no-cost return for refund if it doesn't work.
 
Ew. Seriously? As in PC3200 with a CL too high, or just *off*? I could see if it's too high (as in generic crap)....?
 
greenlightracer said:
cl timings arent as important as the voltage. Our g5s accept only 2.5, low density dimms. As far as cl timings, 3 is optimum.
Click to expand...

All DDR is 2.5v as far as I know, unless you mean the reliability of the voltage. EDO/FPM 5v, SDRAM 3.3v, DDR 2.5v DDR2 1.8v... am I missing something?
 
Firefly2002 said:
All DDR is 2.5v as far as I know, unless you mean the reliability of the voltage. EDO/FPM 5v, SDRAM 3.3v, DDR 2.5v DDR2 1.8v... am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Not true unfortunitely. If you search for ddr 3200 on newegg, the voltage between dimms can vary greatly. Here you go:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104013

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146969

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134008

Those three have a voltage of 2.6, and wouldn't work in our machines. IMHO, voltage and density (there is ALOT of high density (cheap) ram being sold) are the two biggest factors in compatibility with the AGP G5's.

Also of interest:

http://www.barefeats.com/memory.html
 
I would recommend this ram from Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220030

I love Patriot ram, I have 8gbs of this ram in my Power Mac G5 Dual 1.8Ghz.

- Yes you can use your 3gb Sata II drives in your Power Mac G5, you just need to adjust the setting with the pins

- I use my Power Mac G5 as a Tivo with Elgato EyeTV 3 with EyeTV200 (which is not discontinued), but you can get the EyeTV 250 Plus software here is the link:
http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/250plus/product1.en.html

I would recommend the EyeTV 250 Plus instead of the EyeTV Hybrid because the Hybrid uses the CPU to encode the video its encoding where as the EyeTV 250 Plus uses hardware encoding to record video.

I would also recommend the Elgato Turbo.264 for encoding the videos that you encode, the Turbo.264 allows you to encode video into H.264 format in real time and it releases load of your CPUs.

I hope this helps

-iGrant
 
iGrant,

sweet thanks alot!
I got this G5 for a sweet deal and was interested in an apple TV but i kind of wanted alot more storage and flexibility, and this seems like it will do the trick.

Im looking into the EyeTV 250 and the H.264
Generally if i dont, ill just be connecting this to my HDTV so i can watch programs, and use FrontRow for media playback (stored media on my drive and external drive for dvd playback) and the eyetv for a tivo like option.


thanks again!
 
greenlightracer said:
Not true unfortunitely. If you search for ddr 3200 on newegg, the voltage between dimms can vary greatly
http://www.newegg.com/P Also of interest: [url]http://www.barefeats.com/memory.html
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like they're just not conforming to the JECDEC standards then. Of course, I guess anything over DDR400/DDR2-800 technically doesn't... but I guess they're overvolting to reach higher clocks on cheaper RAM? Hm.
 
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