Upgraded GPU and installing OS X?

[ToniCH]

Hi, I've been trying to install 10.4 to my Cube (10.5.8 now) but I cannot get the installers to boot successufully. I have 3 different Tiger installation DVD's and couple of downloaded isos and they all fail to boot all the way. The DVD's and DVD's created from isos boot until the screen turns bluish and a cursor appears, then nothing. Only difference to this happens when I created an installation USB stick (with Disk utility using original black Tiger installation DVD), the stick appears in boot selector and initially it too boots fine with Apple logo and all but after awhile it freezes with a black box on screen, the rolling something is happening -thing on screen also stops at this point, and then nothing.

While searching for tips on line I saw Apple support saying that the installers only support original Apple graphics cards and one should be installed when installing the OS X. Is this the problem I am facing here? If yes, how do people install OS if they don't have one?

My Cube came with the GF 6200 installed but also a Rage 128 Pro was included, which is the original type I believe (?). Should I swap it in for the OS installation? And is there anything I need to do afterwards to make the 6200 work again? Any software drivers, patches or other extras needed or something?

Any other tips? Thank you! 😎

Ps. curiously, when testing, the OS 9 installer cd booted all the way to the installer. But, I have no use for the OS 9 so....

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Do you have another firewire PowerPC Mac? You could clone or install to the cube via target disc mode.

Go ahead and swap the gpu & see if the installer moves forward.

 

[ToniCH]

Thanks for your reply. I do have a PowerBook G4 12", a G4 Graphite and a G5 but they are in storage too far to fetch for only this purpose. And they have been in storage so long I can't remember their specs or if they boot or even have hard disks in them anymore. Might end up with even larger projects which I really don't want now. Back in the day I had almost all Power Macs and Power Computing PPCs but haven't touched a PPC since the first Intel Macs came to be. So, little lost with this stuff but trying to refigure it out.

But, yes - I guess the easiest at this stage is to swap the gpus and see what happens. What about the other part: do I need to know something or install any extras when I swap the GeForce 6200 back after the installation of a fresh OS? I didn't build this machine and can't ask the guy who did so I have no idea what he had to do to make it work. He obviously flashed it but is there something that must be done to the os to make it work?

Ps. just realized: I do have an iBook G4 14" at home but.... it doesn't have Mac Os in it but Morph OS. Also realized its a powerhouse compared to my Cube (1.42GHz vs 450MHz vs). Damn... 😂

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Thanks for your reply. I do have a PowerBook G4 12", a G4 Graphite and a G5 but they are in storage too far to fetch for only this purpose. And they have been in storage so long I can't remember their specs or if they boot or even have hard disks in them anymore. Might end up with even larger projects which I really don't want now. Back in the day I had almost all Power Macs and Power Computing PPCs but haven't touched a PPC since the first Intel Macs came to be. So, little lost with this stuff but trying to refigure it out.

But, yes - I guess the easiest at this stage is to swap the gpus and see what happens. What about the other part: do I need to know something or install any extras when I swap the GeForce 6200 back after the installation of a fresh OS? I didn't build this machine and can't ask the guy who did so I have no idea what he had to do to make it work. He obviously flashed it but is there something that must be done to the os to make it work?

Ps. just realized: I do have an iBook G4 14" at home but.... it doesn't have Mac Os in it but Morph OS. Also realized its a powerhouse compared to my Cube (1.42GHz vs 450MHz vs). Damn... 😂

Yeah there is no harm with trying the Rage. A 6200 when flashed correctly should be 100% supported in 10.4.11 so should work and not be the issue with the install freezing. I assume the card is flashed with this: *XFX PVT44AWANG GeForce 6200 256MB 64-bit DDR (Arti / nvflash), clock lowered for Cube use* from macelite.wikidot.com. Also, three known good disks all fail, so its not the optical media. Potentially, the dvd drive could be failing and an external could resolve that but you also stated you made a USB installer, so assuming that was made correctly and it seems it was as bootpicker saw it, neither media are the issue either. It looks to be something deeper.
I read that in order to get OSX onto a cube running OS9 is not a straight shot. If I understand correctly (I dont own a cube) the cube required firmware update 4.1.9 that is needed to be applied in OS9 before updating to OSX. It looks like it helps with booting OSX optical media, network booting as well as Target disk mode and other fun stuff. Apple released a help file but that is no longer hosted on their servers. You might find that using wayback. Anyways, here's a link for the firmware update. Per that website it looks like you will need at least OS9.1 installed onto a local drive to apply the update.

G4 Cube Firmware Update 4.1.9 - Macintosh Repository

The G4 Cube Firmware Update 4.1.9 will run only on G4 Cube models running Mac OS 9.1 or later from a local hard disk. If you are using Mac OS X on...

www.macintoshrepository.org

If you have a FW cable laying around, you might try target disk mode with your powerbook g4 15" anyways and restore or clone a functioning tiger image to the cube hdd that way. I read online that a number of folks reported successfully restoring a functioning OSX this way. They did not mention any firmware update being applied.

 

[ToniCH]

My Cube is currently running 10.5.8 so I assume its firmware patched at some point. Or some other wizardry was used to get it in.

Yes, its weird that all the DVDs and the usb drive failed. Only thing I could think of was that Apple support post from years ago that said the installers do not support any other gpus than what Apple has sold.

I do infact have an old firewire harddisk. Hmmm... What If I boot the iBook G4 with the OS 10.4 install er DVD and then install the OS to the external FW-drive? Well, isnt this the same thing in practice as the target disk method? Would that installation work in the Cube or would it end being iBook specific? If it would work I could then clone it to the Cubes future internal SSD.

 

[Amethyst1]

What If I boot the iBook G4 with the OS 10.4 install er DVD and then install the OS to the external FW-drive? Would that installation work in the Cube or would it end being iBook specific?

Mac OS X installs generally aren't machine-specific. There's a few exceptions but they don't apply here.

 

[ToniCH]

I read that in order to get OSX onto a cube running OS9 is not a straight shot. If I understand correctly (I dont own a cube) the cube required firmware update 4.1.9 that is needed to be applied in OS9 before updating to OSX. It looks like it helps with booting OSX optical media, network booting as well as Target disk mode and other fun stuff. Apple released a help file but that is no longer hosted on their servers. You might find that using wayback. Anyways, here's a link for the firmware update. Per that website it looks like you will need at least OS9.1 installed onto a local drive to apply the update.

G4 Cube Firmware Update 4.1.9 - Macintosh Repository

The G4 Cube Firmware Update 4.1.9 will run only on G4 Cube models running Mac OS 9.1 or later from a local hard disk. If you are using Mac OS X on...

www.macintoshrepository.org

Thanks for the link. I looked at my Cube and it said: "Boot ROM version 4.1.9f1. So I guess its updated. 👍👍

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

My Cube is currently running 10.5.8 so I assume its firmware patched at some point. Or some other wizardry was used to get it in.

Yes, its weird that all the DVDs and the usb drive failed. Only thing I could think of was that Apple support post from years ago that said the installers do not support any other gpus than what Apple has sold.

I do infact have an old firewire harddisk. Hmmm... What If I boot the iBook G4 with the OS 10.4 install er DVD and then install the OS to the external FW-drive? Well, isnt this the same thing in practice as the target disk method? Would that installation work in the Cube or would it end being iBook specific? If it would work I could then clone it to the Cubes future internal SSD.

Id recommend TDM and work directly with the cube but if you dont have access to a fw cable, a functioning disk image could be cloned/restored via disk utility or a third party app like Carbon Copy Cloner to your FW HDD. Once the cloned image is on there, try booting off the FW HDD via the cube boot picker. If that works, install the hdd out of the enclosure and into the cube and boot. Buy a round (draft rootbeer of course) for the house on a job well done.

Here's a very funny content creators vid on how to fresh install (vs a clone) osx via firewire on PowerPC macs if you are not familiar.

 

[ToniCH]

Yes I do have a fw cable and an external 2.5" 37GB HD (the enclosure only accepts old 2.5" ide drives). I have tried cloning the 10.5.8 to it and it boots fine over the fw.

But now I need to try to get the 10.4 installed into it. I'd rather not danger my working 10.5.8 installation right away by trying to install directly to the Cube. I'll start with the external drive and If I get it to work then I'll do the same (or clone) to a ssd drive I plan to install as soon as I get a working sata-ide adapter. The adapter #1 didn't work but now I think I have a proper one ordered.