Returning to Powermac G5.

[VanneDC]

Ive been on the lookout for the last year or so, for a nice Powermac 11,2. And with that ofcourse comes the question which model you should go for? Well, ive been umming and arring over the Quad G5, but the LCS just scares me. I used to own a Quad, and even though dry and no ill effects, 2 cores ran much hotter than the other 2. which was a definite worry, as i dont need another project atm that has me stripping down an LCS and then rebuilding it with parts that might or might not fit.

I would have really liked another Quad, but I ultimately choose for a DC 2.3 ghz. and only because its not water cooled. I owned at DC 2.0 a long time ago too, and it was a good box, this was however years and years ago, while leopard was still supported.

Things have changed..i know... a lot...

The ultimate goal for this project is pretty much to see if the DC G5 is still usable for my functions in this day and age. My functions include games and basic web browsing/forums/internet radio/CD's. I dont care about social media, and its actually one of the reasons why i am looking at this project.

Games like DIablo 1 and 2 , warcaft 3 and other from this age, Quake and Halo. etc. But the browser must be fast and usable, no flash required, but must function properly for forums like this one. My main goto are car/track car forums.

A basic email client is also required. I use hotmail, so a pop3 client would be great.

Oh and i FRIKKING HATE ads...

anyways, so after deliberating a while, i finally pulled the trigger on a slightly used DC 2.3. Looks imaculate and includes everything, even the clear side panel. (bonus) lol lots of them are missing on the sale sites ive seen.
The box itself has zero marks and looks brand new. Included Wifi , though is missing its keyboard and mouse.

I actually payed quite a bit of money for it, but i wanted an imaculate example, so was happy to pay it. (fingers crossed it comes shipped to my place with no damage)

I still have a few of the vid cards that i had back in the day, so will have the choice of either the x1900GT, fx4500 or the X1950xtx. (the x1950xtx being a dubble width size card)

The ram that is in the box atm is going to be replaced with an 8gig 4x2gig ddr 533 kit, with room later for more.

60gb ssd Pata drive ready to go with a new data drive also ready to be installed.

Probaby run both Leopard and MintPPC.

Anything else you guysd could recommend me?

Cheers, hopefully nice to be back in PPC land.

 

[eyoungren]

I have both the Quad and the 2.3DC. The DC has been solid (as has my Quad) and they are both left on at full power 24/7.

Other than Apple's mail app, I'd recommend Thunderbird. Entourage 2008 seems to have stopped working for my primary account so I've switched to that. I have yet to retry Office 2004.

Lastly, the G5's don't use PATA. These are SATA machines, so you're going to need a SATA drive.

 

[VanneDC]

Edit: yep Sata!! , i meant Sata. Thanks. eyoungren.

Ithink this box comes with a PPC office dvd, nfi what version, ill update the thread when i finally get my hands on it. Might be a while though, as its being shipped to Sydney, and currently stationed in Dubai.

The other important thing for me is screen quality for doing my writting. Will probably use M$ office for that unless anyone has any other recommendations.

 

[eyoungren]

Edit: yep Sata!! , i meant Sata. Thanks. eyoungren.

Ithink this box comes with a PPC office dvd, nfi what version, ill update the thread when i finally get my hands on it. Might be a while though, as its being shipped to Sydney, and currently stationed in Dubai.

The other important thing for me is screen quality for doing my writting. Will probably use M$ office for that unless anyone has any other recommendations.

Word is still working (2008). There are other capable apps, but it's kind of like using other capable image editing apps when you have Photoshop installed.

 

[defjam]

The dual 2.3GHz system is a great system, I think you made a wise choice going with it. I had one for a few years and liked it. But do to the fact I hardly used it I ended up giving it away a couple of weeks ago.

About a month ago there was a quad on Ebay which had a BIN price of $99 including free shipping. I thought long and hard about buying that system...a steal of a price for a quad. But in the end the fact it was liquid cooled kept me from purchasing it. Since I do not use my G5's (now just a single one) often I didn't think it wise to buy a liquid cooled version.

 

[iluvmacs99]

Ive been on the lookout for the last year or so, for a nice Powermac 11,2. And with that ofcourse comes the question which model you should go for? Well, ive been umming and arring over the Quad G5, but the LCS just scares me. I used to own a Quad, and even though dry and no ill effects, 2 cores ran much hotter than the other 2. which was a definite worry, as i dont need another project atm that has me stripping down an LCS and then rebuilding it with parts that might or might not fit.

I would have really liked another Quad, but I ultimately choose for a DC 2.3 ghz. and only because its not water cooled. I owned at DC 2.0 a long time ago too, and it was a good box, this was however years and years ago, while leopard was still supported.

Things have changed..i know... a lot...

The ultimate goal for this project is pretty much to see if the DC G5 is still usable for my functions in this day and age. My functions include games and basic web browsing/forums/internet radio/CD's. I dont care about social media, and its actually one of the reasons why i am looking at this project.

Games like DIablo 1 and 2 , warcaft 3 and other from this age, Quake and Halo. etc. But the browser must be fast and usable, no flash required, but must function properly for forums like this one. My main goto are car/track car forums.

A basic email client is also required. I use hotmail, so a pop3 client would be great.

Oh and i FRIKKING HATE ads...

anyways, so after deliberating a while, i finally pulled the trigger on a slightly used DC 2.3. Looks imaculate and includes everything, even the clear side panel. (bonus) lol lots of them are missing on the sale sites ive seen.
The box itself has zero marks and looks brand new. Included Wifi , though is missing its keyboard and mouse.

I actually payed quite a bit of money for it, but i wanted an imaculate example, so was happy to pay it. (fingers crossed it comes shipped to my place with no damage)

I still have a few of the vid cards that i had back in the day, so will have the choice of either the x1900GT, fx4500 or the X1950xtx. (the x1950xtx being a dubble width size card)

The ram that is in the box atm is going to be replaced with an 8gig 4x2gig ddr 533 kit, with room later for more.

60gb ssd Pata drive ready to go with a new data drive also ready to be installed.

Probaby run both Leopard and MintPPC.

Anything else you guysd could recommend me?

Cheers, hopefully nice to be back in PPC land.

I got a PowerMac G5 7,2 (The dual processor) running Tiger which I had completely refurbished and stress tested at the place for a song where I work before taking it home and incorporating it into my home Mac eco-system. I never owned a PowerMac G5 myself; only a tower AGP G4 so I was elated to had brought home one to play with. Despite being only a dual processor 2.0Ghz and having only 4Gb of ram, I was impressed that it could many things quite well including gmail web for my work, internet banking and latest https sites via TenFourFox PR17 and the PowerUOC mod. The later PowerUOC helped speed up browsing to a level that is very satisfying to someone who is also using the Mac Pro 5,1 along side it. Sadly, it died a sudden death yesterday, but while it was working, it actually became a test platform for me to learn how to deploy the PowerPC platform for everyday computing for the homeless, displaced and financially challenged individuals and I volunteered or was tasked to find a machine that could do for cheap, plentifully available while being theft resistant. I think with TenFourFox PR17 and PowerUOC script, it really brought a new lease on life with my PowerMac G5 and the Mac Mini G4 which we will be using as hardware grants for the homeless who want to go on government sites for their welfare and job finding sites and emails etc... I also use it as a DAW and a legacy SD/DV video editing machine with iMovie HD and Final Cut Express 4 and was doing some DVD restoration when it suddenly died.

Anyhow, I'm now waiting for a donor machine to get mine working again. Or else I might get a Quad which, like yourself, was the machine I intend to get but afraid of the mess when it does leak, but will consider that if I can't find a suitable donor hangar queen to fix mine.

 

[1042686]

I have the DC 2.0ghz model. Great box & I use it for all that you describe. Works very well.

I’m about to set up a SSD raid as 128gb drives are so darn cheap now a days but as is with a spinner pulling boot duty, it still is satisfactorily responsive.

 

[AphoticD]

I’m about to set up a SSD raid as 128gb drives are so darn cheap now a days but as is with a spinner pulling boot duty, it still is satisfactorily responsive.

I’m looking forward to hearing how you go with this! I can imagine it will be a very happy G5

 

[1042686]

I’m looking forward to hearing how you go with this! I can imagine it will be a very happy G5

For comparison’s sake, I just pulled the spinner that was in it and installed two 80gb Baracudas in Striped array & am installing a fresh leopard image. I’ll bench these using Xbench and post results, then do the same with the SSDs when I get them.

These baracudas are from an old gaming rig I built around 2005 IIRC, so era correct. This will be fun as I have not run a PMG5 in raid zero before so something new.

The raid utility in DU off the Leopard dvd was straight forward. Easy to use although I can see someone new to this getting confused setting up multiple half arrays vs one correct one.

Anyhoo, will be fun to see what the difference between spinner & SSD raid zero will be in this pmg5.

 

[1042686]

For comparison’s sake, I just pulled the spinner that was in it and installed two 80gb Baracudas in Striped array & am installing a fresh leopard image. I’ll bench these using Xbench and post results, then do the same with the SSDs when I get them.

These baracudas are from an old gaming rig I built around 2005 IIRC, so era correct. This will be fun as I have not run a PMG5 in raid zero before so something new.

The raid utility in DU off the Leopard dvd was straight forward. Easy to use although I can see someone new to this getting confused setting up multiple half arrays vs one correct one.

Anyhoo, will be fun to see what the difference between spinner & SSD raid zero will be in this pmg5.

Ok, I dont have my SSDs yet but here are the Xbench and Geekbench scores with the Raid zero 80GB Baracuda spinners.

Not too shabby. I can tell you that my anecdotal experience is that the box is definitely snappier in raid zero.

 

[defjam]

Ok, I dont have my SSDs yet but here are the Xbench and Geekbench scores with the Raid zero 80GB Baracuda spinners.

Not too shabby. I can tell you that my anecdotal experience is that the box is definitely snappier in raid zero.

Do you happen to have any benchmarks before you built the RAID?

 

[1042686]

Do you happen to have any benchmarks before you built the RAID?

I dont but that's easy enough to remedy. The original drive is right here next to me.
[automerge]1578857381[/automerge]
Hah right on - so check this out. The single caviar drive & single caviar box score higher in both benches than the Raid zero Baracudas.

 

[defjam]

I dont but that's easy enough to remedy. The original drive is right here next to me.
[automerge]1578857381[/automerge]
Hah right on - so check this out. The single caviar drive & single caviar box score higher in both benches than the Raid zero Baracudas.

I'm not sure what you mean. For the Xbench test, except for the sequential uncached reads, the RAID system almost doubles the performance of the single disk. The random metrics are similar for both except for the uncached write.

 

[1042686]

You are correct. I was referring to the score average at the top. For fun I ran GB again and scores improved. I think I forgot to close Xbench before I ran Geekbench the first go round. You'll have to excuse me as at the time, my heater stopped working and I thought I was in for another 1000$ + Hvac specialist visit. Turned out it was the breaker. Anyhow, I'm calmed down now GB results #2 below.

It'll be fun to see what the SSDs do on this 11,2. To loosely quantify my anecdotal experience I timed bootup, GB and TFF opening.

7200rpm Single Caviar
GB Completion - 2 minutes 46 seconds
TFF App start - 7 seconds

7200rpm Raid Zero Baracuda
GB Completion - 2 minutes 30 seconds
TFF App start - 4.3 seconds

Boot time to full desktop
Single Caviar - 1 minute 12 seconds
Raid zero Baracuda - 1 minute 1 second

When the drives are really going, man I forgot how loud a spinner raid array is in a desktop.

 

[defjam]

It's likely a single SSD will outperform the RAID configuration. If you RAID the SSDs I wouldn't be surprised to see a decrease in write speeds (compared to a single SSD)

 

[1042686]

Hmm, so Ive experienced some new & very odd behavior post raid zero.

When this 11,2 and/or screen (21" acrylic ADC) goes to sleep/standby, the hard drive fans rev up. It's worth noting that I assume this is what is happening as I've not seen this start in person, rather when I happen to come into my PPC command center, I notice the fans spun up at a ridiculous & loud rpm (like today when I came home from work a few minutes ago).

Kinda weird and Ive not clue what the fix would be. Run ASD software perhaps ... and when I wake the powermacg5 all is well. It's kind of a drag as I leave my macs on, rarely cycling them unless something screwy happens.

 

[eyoungren]

Hmm, so Ive experienced some new & very odd behavior post raid zero.

When this 11,2 and/or screen (21" acrylic ADC) goes to sleep/standby, the hard drive fans rev up. It's worth noting that I assume this is what is happening as I've not seen this start in person, rather when I happen to come into my PPC command center, I notice the fans spun up at a ridiculous & loud rpm (like today when I came home from work a few minutes ago).

Kinda weird and Ive not clue what the fix would be. Run ASD software perhaps ... and when I wake the powermacg5 all is well. It's kind of a drag as I leave my macs on, rarely cycling them unless something screwy happens.

Just guessing here, but it may be disk sleep. Do you have "Put Disks to Sleep When Possible" checked (in Energy Settings, System Preferences)?

If you do, uncheck that and see what happens.

 

[1042686]

I sure did. Just unchecked it and will check in the morning if this behavior continues itself but makes sense considering the A typical boot drive config. Hope it works.

On another note, updates are weird with Raid zero, downloading fine but hanging on reboot. I had to manually reboot the 11,2 for updates to install fully. I've read that macOS does not support boot drive raid configs and setting one up will brick updates altogether. It seems OSX has similar issues but I was able to update from 10.5.4 to 10.5.8 with some manual restarts.

Fun times. Still like this box a lot. Although it's not my first cheese grater, it is my favorite one.

 

[1042686]

Unfortunately the hdd fans are still revving up. Full blast turbo mode when I got home today.

 

[VanneDC]

dont think ill be running raid.. ill settle for an ssd boot/app drive and a 7200rpm data drive. keeping it simple. I am intrested in running vanilla wow. I wonder if the PPC port is still suported? not talking about mainstream wow, but private server vanilla wow. lol just found the files for that..

 

[1042686]

I agree on the SSD. Raid configs are loud too - truly forgot about that little detail as it’s been many years since I’ve run one in a box. The weird fan ramp up is specifically the fan that cools the back side of the logic board & north bridge. I wonder if that sensor is messed up or perhaps the heatsink is clogged. Guess I’ll run ASD & recalibrate. If it still persists, I’ll reinstall the old boot drive & see if it continues & then worst case scenario I’ll pull the box apart for a good cleaning.

 

[AphoticD]

I agree on the SSD. Raid configs are loud too - truly forgot about that little detail as it’s been many years since I’ve run one in a box. The weird fan ramp up is specifically the fan that cools the back side of the logic board & north bridge. I wonder if that sensor is messed up or perhaps the heatsink is clogged. Guess I’ll run ASD & recalibrate. If it still persists, I’ll reinstall the old boot drive & see if it continues & then worst case scenario I’ll pull the box apart for a good cleaning.

The fans ramping on sleep could be due to the software RAID.

It might be worth pulling out the RAID drives and dropping in a solo HDD with a fresh install and see if it still exhibits the same behavior.

I had some weird quirks on my Sawtooth when it was setup with software RAID with two 7200rpm SATA drives adapted to the PATA interface. Sometimes it would stall while booting and sometimes it would refuse to shut down.

 

[1042686]

It was fine before with its single spinner so I’m almost certain it’s raid0 config gremlins.

I did pick up an Adaptec 2100S scsi Raid controller but it is PCI so a no go on the 11,2 (a fun future adventure for my QS or MDD Or pciPMG5) . It would be nice to take that load off the cpu with a controller that is OS X friendly but I don’t have one & would rather push that $$ to SSD solutions.

Who knows maybe I’ll run across one at the thrifts stinky cheap like I did the 2100s.

 

[1042686]

OK, so the "fix" I've found is to simply set the sys prefs energy saver slider (say that 10 times) to never turn the hard drives off. This worked great for a week until opening TFF beach balled the system, forcing a hard reboot to recover the desktop. On another front, the seller shorted & refunded me one of the SSDs I bought. I guess they ran out - they were a slammin' price at $16USD shipped. Anyhow, I do have the single SSD and will get it installed and post some comparative benchmark scores as some point.

For now, I am taking my wife out on a date. In-laws are here to watch the kiddos so that SSD will have to wait for another day

I will tell you one thing. The sounds of those spinners going in tandem has really kind of grown on me.

 

[VanneDC]

enjoy your date night might look for a new SSD drive myself for the G5, the 64 gigger is prob a bit on the cramped side..