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The $40 G5 rescue mission

Adamscomputerrepair

Adamscomputerrepair

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 9, 2015
549
287
As I type this, it’s almost 1:30 AM, everyone is asleep, and I’ve been working on a dirty PMG5 for 6 hours. I purchased it for $40 knowing it was probably broken after the seller quote “Thought about turning it into a table.” I can’t stand people like that, and I’ve always wanted a G5. So, it’s a win win in my opinion.

Anyway, upon first boot, I had zero graphics whatsoever. A quick reseat of the graphics card fixed that problem. Then, I discovered why the seller thought it was broken. Someone had cranked the contrast up 100%. Even I thought the graphics card must be tanking until I started playing around with it. Oh did I mention the hard drive wasn’t wiped?

So this is where I’m at. It’s a 1.8 GHZ G5 with 512 MB of RAM. I’ve tried an SSD and it refused to boot. What should I do with it?
 
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You should be able to adjust the contrast level in the Displays preferences pane. If you haven't already, either configure the existing profile or make a new one.

What exactly did the machine do when you tried the SSD? Did you verify the drive was seen via an install disc Disk Utility instance?

Does everything else seem to operate normally otherwise?
 
It's possible the SSD is just too new for the machine. Way I understand it, they've dropped support for SATA I and that's all the PMG5 supports.
 
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z970mp said:
You should be able to adjust the contrast level in the Displays preferences pane. If you haven't already, either configure the existing profile or make a new one.

What exactly did the machine do when you tried the SSD? Did you verify the drive was seen via an install disc Disk Utility instance?

Does everything else seem to operate normally otherwise?
Click to expand...

Yeah i fixed the contrast. As for the SSD, it will see it when plugged to a USB adapter but refuses in the machine itself.
 
I put a pair of old-fashioned spinning HDDs in my G5, because at the time an SSD felt like overkill - I had the HDDs lying around. In fact I remember following this handy guide, which suggests setting the jumpers to SATA 1:
https://lowendmac.com/schrader/11js/maximize-power-mac-g5.html

Is is a single-processor or dual-processor 1.8ghz model? Confusingly there were several 1.8ghz G5s, one of which apparently used a cheaper motherboard. The next thing I would be tempted to do is max out the memory. Some of them only take 4gb although unless you're going to render video while surfing the internet anything more than 4gb in an old G5 probably isn't going to speed the machine up any more.

You have to add the memory in pairs, starting with the inner slots and moving outwards. If you really want to waste money you can use ECC RAM, but it apparently has to be installed en bloc, e.g. you can't mix and match. There's a control panel switch that toggles between performance and energy-saving mode. Energy-saving mode is very slow.

On a personal level I find that my 2ghz dual-processor machine is just on the cusp of being frustrating when surfing the internet with TenFourFox. I imagine a single-processor 1.8ghz machine would be irritating.

Still, you are now the proud owner of a G5! We are an exclusive comradeship of people who own this giant hunk of metal but no clear idea what to do with it - iTunes feels like a waste of such a glorious beast, but it's too slow for Final Cut - and yet it looks awesome and makes a fantastic click-vvvWWWwooowm noise when it turns on.

Come the winter months you'll appreciate the soft warmth of its exhaust fans.
 
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Well, I installed a Seagate Momentus XT 500Gb laptop SSHD (hybrid 8Gb SSD +500Gb HD) inside the PowerMac G5 and it boots faster than a normal HD and helps with its overall responsive function. Plus it doesn't need TRIM support and I have a large capacity HD to boot. You can get them cheap now; either NOS or lightly used. I too own a PowerMac G5 single core 1.8Ghz, one of the slower models that used an iMac G5 motherboard and works well with TenFourFox as well as Leopard Webkit. It is being used as my legacy file server for my older Macs.
 
AshleyPomeroy said:
Come the winter months you'll appreciate the soft warmth of its exhaust fans.
Click to expand...
I live in Phoenix where from May to October it's 100º+ out and the temps in the other months rarely drop below 40º. In the 20 years I've been here it has never snowed, although we've had frost.

The homes we've been in have all used central air (A/C in Phoenix is not a luxury, it's a necessity).

All of this to say that the exhaust of the G5 is not anything I'm going to experience or appreciate in the winter as central air keeps the house at a steady temp. :)
 
AshleyPomeroy said:
On a personal level I find that my 2ghz dual-processor machine is just on the cusp of being frustrating when surfing the internet with TenFourFox.
Click to expand...

My 2.0 DP (which scores and performs pretty closely to a 2.0 DC) is a pleasure online with foxPEP and uMatrix. I've even had in-browser YouTube to be a rather smooth experience.

Keep in mind that's all without GPU acceleration, no less. Speaks volumes to the power inside. :)
 
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z970mp said:
My 2.0 DP (which scores and performs pretty closely to a 2.0 DC) is a pleasure online with foxPEP and uMatrix. I've even had in-browser YouTube to be a rather smooth experience.

Keep in mind that's all without GPU acceleration, no less. Speaks volumes to the power inside. :)
Click to expand...

I used to have a 2.0DP before the CPU and memory controller kicked the bucket last year. Only lasted a month, but foxPEP and uMatrix made browsing so good! Which makes the 1.8Ghz I have now slow in comparison. :( Oh well, I can't complain when I got 1.8Ghz G5 for free.
 
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AshleyPomeroy said:
I put a pair of old-fashioned spinning HDDs in my G5, because at the time an SSD felt like overkill - I had the HDDs lying around. In fact I remember following this handy guide, which suggests setting the jumpers to SATA 1:
https://lowendmac.com/schrader/11js/maximize-power-mac-g5.html

Is is a single-processor or dual-processor 1.8ghz model? Confusingly there were several 1.8ghz G5s, one of which apparently used a cheaper motherboard. The next thing I would be tempted to do is max out the memory. Some of them only take 4gb although unless you're going to render video while surfing the internet anything more than 4gb in an old G5 probably isn't going to speed the machine up any more.

You have to add the memory in pairs, starting with the inner slots and moving outwards. If you really want to waste money you can use ECC RAM, but it apparently has to be installed en bloc, e.g. you can't mix and match. There's a control panel switch that toggles between performance and energy-saving mode. Energy-saving mode is very slow.

On a personal level I find that my 2ghz dual-processor machine is just on the cusp of being frustrating when surfing the internet with TenFourFox. I imagine a single-processor 1.8ghz machine would be irritating.

Still, you are now the proud owner of a G5! We are an exclusive comradeship of people who own this giant hunk of metal but no clear idea what to do with it - iTunes feels like a waste of such a glorious beast, but it's too slow for Final Cut - and yet it looks awesome and makes a fantastic click-vvvWWWwooowm noise when it turns on.

Come the winter months you'll appreciate the soft warmth of its exhaust fans.
Click to expand...

It is a single core. Am I using DDR or DDR2 Ram? I literally have a desk drawer full of both so getting it to 4GB is a piece of cake.
 
Adamscomputerrepair said:
Yeah i fixed the contrast. As for the SSD, it will see it when plugged to a USB adapter but refuses in the machine itself.
Click to expand...

Most SSDs are set to operate at SATA-III (6Gb/s rates) and, unlike most SATA HDDs, don’t gracefully adjust to slower SATA protocols such as the SATA-I (1.5Gb/s rates) of the G5’s SATA bus. If you have the SSD as a secondary drive to a primary SATA HDD, the Apple SATA bus may or may not recognize it (at least, this was my recurring experience with mine).

OWC does sell SATA SSDs which will work on slower SATA set-ups (i.e., SATA-I/II). Also what works is adding an internal PCI SATA card with Mac OS X boot support, and place the SSD you already have onto that SATA bus. This is ultimately what I ended up doing with my setup (which also freed up the two Apple SATA drive bays for file server support).
 
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I will admit to having never put an SSD in a G5, but have dealt a lot with SATA 3gb/s Macs which can also be finicky about SSDs. Specifically, some SATA 6gb/s drives are known to run at 1.5gb/s. I've found that Samsung Evos work reliably, although I passed on buying that for the last I bought(another applications-and the dirty "W" word at that) because Samsung was running ~$20 more than Crucial for 500gb.

In any case, once I get moved, which is my BIG task for the next couple of days, I may try a couple of different SSDs in the dual 2.7 I have handy and see what happens.
 
SanDisk SSD Plus is working in my G5 and G3 Beige without Problems
In my iMac G4 is a Samsung Evo 860 mSATA with adaper, also working well.

I got 4x1 GB of RAM for around $14 (PC-3200, 2.5v, unbuffered, 8-byte, nonparity 184-pin DDR SDRAM)

What SSD you have there? Did you connect it to the upper or lower?
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