SATA SIL3114 compatibility issues with SSDs in a G4.

[Project Alice]

Hey everyone. I actually replied to the G5 SSD thread, as I thought it would be relevant since the issue there is essentially just SSDs refusing to step down to SATA I.
No replies there so new thread.

I am having all sorts of issues trying to an SSD in my gigabit G4, I never thought this would be a problem. I’ve had an SIL3114 card in it for years, and its primary boot disk has been a 1TB SATA hard disk. Never any problems with it, or the three other hard drives that have been connected to it.

I started out with an SSD I had laying around, a Crucial BX500 240GB. It formatted and appeared to work, until I attempted to install Leopard. The installer would fail. Cloning the existing install didn’t work either, CCC would just say it had successfully completed while cloning 0.00 bytes.
I thought okay, well this SSDs cousin is listed as not working in G5s, so it’s a safe bet this one probably doesn’t work either, I attribute it to SATA I incompatibility.

Fast forward to now. I ordered an OWC Electra 3G 250GB. Listed as compatible with a G5s controller, is known to be able to step down to SATA I properly, and is natively a SATA II SSD. Still having issues.
I started with a clone. CCC completed with errors. The log showed all types of random errors in most the applications, including Finder. I decided to do a fresh install from there. Erased the disk, booted up my leopard installer, started it, did some dishes and went out for coffee. The installers probably been running for over an hour at this point. I get home, and it appears hung in the same spot it was when I left.
Here’s what it shows in the installer log:

So obviously issues with this SSD too. I can’t comprehend why. Anybody have ideas? This makes no sense to me. The next thing I’m going to try is sticking it into a FW enclosure, or a G5 and running the install there and putting it back. Assuming that works I’d be a little paranoid it would eventually break itself.
I could use an IDE to SATA adapter, but this is a Mystic, not an MDD so it has a slower bus. I also removed all the IDE cables except the one for the optical drive. At that point I’d rather stick with the HDD. Plus I don’t have a startech adapter right now, only a couple cheap eBay ones and we all know those almost never work properly either.

Edit: After quitting the installer and attempting to boot back into 10.5.8 on the hard drive, it just kernel panics. I think I’m done with this, and I’ll throw the SSD in my iMac G5 or something. Nonetheless this is super weird.

 

[Amethyst1]

I started out with an SSD I had laying around, a Crucial BX500 240GB.[...] I thought okay, well this SSDs cousin is listed as not working in G5s, so it’s a safe bet this one probably doesn’t work either, I attribute it to SATA I incompatibility.

I have the exact same SSD in my 2007 MBP which is also SATA I and it works without any problems there.

 

[Project Alice]

I have the exact same SSD in my 2007 MBP which is also SATA I and it works without any problems there.

I think lots of people have that SSD for their old Macs. Somethings either wrong with my G4, or the SATA card.

I’m going to run ASD if I can find a version that works on this Mac.

 

[Project Alice]

Well I just spent all day screwing around with this thing, I kept getting kernel panics even without the SSD. Especially if attempting to boot off my network.

I couldn’t get AHT or ASD to work. However, an old copy of MacTest Pro that boots into Mac OS 9.1 worked. It was finding RAM errors. I just tested each stick individually, and all but one stick passed. So, that might be the problem. I’ll have to get another ram stick and find out. I’ll probably run it with 1.5GB unless I have one laying around.

 

[Amethyst1]

I couldn’t get AHT or ASD to work. However, an old copy of MacTest Pro that boots into Mac OS 9.1 worked. It was finding RAM errors. I just tested each stick individually, and all but one stick passed. So, that might be the problem.

So is the SiI3114-plus-SSD behaving now?

 

[Project Alice]

So is the SiI3114-plus-SSD behaving now?

No, it was still acting exactly the same.
I was going to say screw it and put the SSD in my iMac G5 instead, but to make sure it was working properly I put it in a PowerMac G5 before going through the effort it is to open up an iMac. It didn't recognize it all, not in System Profiler or in open firmware. So I returned it. A replacement will be here later and I'll hope it shows better results.

That said, my G4 was still acting weird.
I'm wondering if 1.6GHz is too fast. CPU intensive tasks are fine, but it contiued showing random instability at boot (especially over the network) And a couple of games crashed after about 30 or so minutes of running. I might try lowering it to the next multiplier down.

 

[ervus]

Do you get the same thing with a 3112 card? I think the 3124 firmware is buggy, but I don't know if the 3114 uses the firmware from the 3112 or the 3124.

 

[Project Alice]

Do you get the same thing with a 3112 card? I think the 3124 firmware is buggy, but I don't know if the 3114 uses the firmware from the 3112 or the 3124.

I don't have a 3112 to test, at least I don't think I do. I have some random SATA cards, I'll to look at their controller chips. I would imagine the 3114 uses the same as the 3112, since it's essentially the same thing with 4 ports instead of 2. But I'm not sure.
If the 3112s do work better I could use two of them instead, I don't need the PCI slots for anything else.

But I'm starting to lean towards that SSD being faulty, and the fact that CPU is set to a 16x multiplier adding to any instabilities. I don't recall ever having problems when I had the dual 500MHz card in it. I'll get around to lowering it and seeing if the issues go away.

 

[panzerkiller]

I recommend to use hdd. Ssd is wasted on these old Mac OS. The 2 port version card is $20ish on Amazon, worth to give a shot.

 

[Doq]

I recommend to use hdd. Ssd is wasted on these old Mac OS. The 2 port version card is $20ish on Amazon, worth to give a shot.

That might be a bit disingenuous. While the speed benefits of an SSD won't be seen on our old machines, they will still greatly benefit from latency improvements, which is still a noticeable boon over a spinning HDD.

Also, good luck finding brand new HDDs that's aren't too large. If you want something smaller than 1TB, SSDs are your only option.