What have you done with a PowerPC today?

[saxfun]

Today I have fixed Xlibre Xserver (maintained fork of X11):

View attachment 2632644

P. S. No more replacing of Cocoa part with the one from legacy branch. It uses the latest code with moderate patches on top (mostly just fixing syntax for gcc). Installable from PPCPorts now; 10.5 not yet tested, 10.6 ppc works, modern x86_64 works.

if someone has the legacy branch installed, how to install you rely fixed version? deactivate legacy or uninstall? then install the xlibre server?

 

[barracuda156]

if someone has the legacy branch installed, how to install you rely fixed version? deactivate legacy or uninstall? then install the xlibre server?

Do not have both active, that’s it. Reboot after upgrade or installing X server. Run dbus session if the app complains about it.

 

[Andrew-R]

Actually got powerpc Mac, and dual-core G5 at 2.0 Ghz at that! Updated Leopard install, installed Powerfox, now compiling ppcports - libgcc14 (it will take a while..).

So far machine seems to be quiet and stable, temps under load hover near 60 C for CPU and 58-64 for GPU and mem controller.

I control it via RealVnc from Android, but display works too, just not at 1440*900. Lets see if posting works ...

Happines was short lived bevause at around 9AM localtime I wake up to unusual loud fan noise ... screen was frozen. I powered machine off, and then it come back ... with three beeps/flashes! ( I checked other threads, this seems to be memory issue).

I opened up case, removed fancy transparent door, removed fan assembly, replaced cr2032 (old one was reading 2.9 V), re-seated ram (two sticks in innermost slots, not really matched but it was working ok for 30 hours, many of them at 100% load compiling stuff!). Put all case elements back ... same error.

Replaced two ram sticks with two other ddr2 (4200) sticks from PC - now no beeps but no chime either. Tried various ram combinations .. Powermac correctly detects ram sticks installed in wrong slots, so at lest SMC is working? I tried to reset it by pusing little button at the bottom edge of logicboard - it sadly did not help.

I suspect there was power failure - my much newer PC handled it fine, but older machines probably more sensitive to those issues (I already got strange no bios issue on my older PC motherboard with Athlon x2 3800).

Eh .. If ussue will mot resolve itself magically I think I am out of luck... GPU was sitting firmly in place held by its little pcie slot arm - so I did not removed it completely, but I have no other ppc mac compatible gpu, so even if it was "just" GPU it will take some more time until I find/create some replacement.

I am afraid cpu itself or logicboard can be damaged now - but all ways to test this a bit too complicated for visually impaired me (I see bigger components ok with my glasses, but small components .. I really need some unusual close up to see them. Also, no long screwdrivers for cpu heatsink disassembly! Ok, should be fixable by visiting home hardware store ..)

Well, it still fun to tinker with, but I wish those pro workstations had a bit more verbose bootup diag .... (I got service manual describing 7 leds on motherboard. But from my understanding for seeing some of them light up you need to run machine with its case open, and I am a bit reluctant to do this in case overheating will add more damage ...)

EDIT: turned machine on with transparent plastic cover removed.

Strange, aren't fans suppose to go into overdrive in this case? in my case they stayed quiet but spinning.

Yellow led and one above it (3, 4) were illuminated, leds 1 or 7 not. So if I read manual correctly this means main voltage is ok? And cpu also at least sensed?

May be I should wait for longer to see if led #5 ("open firmware arrived") comes on?

 

[srp]

I am afraid cpu itself or logicboard can be damaged now - but all ways to test this a bit too complicated for visually impaired me (I see bigger components ok with my glasses, but small components .. I really need some unusual close up to see them. Also, no long screwdrivers for cpu heatsink disassembly! Ok, should be fixable by visiting home hardware store ..)

https://web.archive.org/web/2016060...d-flashes-with-good-ram-a-case-study.1676857/ You may find this interesting.

I have a dual 2.5GHz logic board that exhibits the same failure you describe. When I use my thumb and press firmly down on this area before booting, it increases the likelihood that I get a boot chime. This pretty much confirms in my case that the BGA solder job is failing. Maybe you can try the same thing.

You might be able to reflow the board and maybe apply some sort of clamp or brace to reduce the likelihood of failure. I have been meaning to take on this project for quite a while but haven't had the time (or energy)...

 

[Andrew-R]

https://web.archive.org/web/2016060...d-flashes-with-good-ram-a-case-study.1676857/ You may find this interesting.

View attachment 2632892

I have a dual 2.5GHz logic board that exhibits the same failure you describe. When I use my thumb and press firmly down on this area before booting, it increases the likelihood that I get a boot chime. This pretty much confirms in my case that the BGA solder job is failing. Maybe you can try the same thing.

You might be able to reflow the board and maybe apply some sort of clamp or brace to reduce the likelihood of failure. I have been meaning to take on this project for quite a while but haven't had the time (or energy)...

yes, thank you for archive.org version with pictures.

What confuses me a lot -I only have "tree beeps /flashes + fans going up" if I use original two sticks of ram. If I use my spare parts sticks - no beeps, but also no chime , and after some time fans start to ramp up.

Does this "simply"? mean that orig. ram is a toast and only replacement I have at nand also simply incompatible?

I can try to visit same used computer store I visited recently, they had some ddr2 sticks around.

I am a bit afraid about applying pressure to logic board, because what if I (micro) crack it more?

But, well ... you can't learn without trying, thank you for help (I think my cameras at home not really up to task of making good documentation photos - one from 2008 Nokia smartphone and another just blurred way too much after few years ...).

Interestingly, I completely missed that those "late 2005" models with PCIE slots had ONLY PCIE slots! No real PCI connectors?! Modern machines also often lack classical PCI connectors, but this was in 2005! Also, I guess for some use cases 2*SATA was a bit too limited, but may be idea was to use NAS or firewire enclosures?

edit: typos. (I type from Android tablet, with autocorrect off)

 

[Andrew-R]

so on my motherboard this area look a bit different?

Or may be I should remove heatsink and cpu? (cries inside).

aw, there is always such thing as too much light in photography

I pressed a bit in area with "Apple computer" writing and warranty sticker (and where smartphone's flashlight added too much reflection) - but sadly this (along with another SMU reset button press for some 15 seconds) not helped.

 

[srp]

I pressed a bit in area with "Apple computer" writing and warranty sticker (and where smartphone's flashlight added too much reflection) - but sadly this (along with another SMU reset button press for some 15 seconds) not helped.

I haven't had this particular issue with this type of board yet so I'm not too sure... you could also try reseating the CPUs. When I was doing LCS rebuilds I think I remember into this issue a handful of times and resolving it by just reseating the LCS unit. Worth a try if you haven't already.

 

[barracuda156]

@Andrew-R @srp This sounds like the same issue I have with my Quad (through it might boot, but then quickly goes into KP, and then over again three beeps, mad fans and no boot).

 

[Andrew-R]

So I ordered this Kingston ddr2 ram:

Yandex market reviews

edit: from pics posted there I think it named
"800 Kingston KVR800D2N6/2G"

datasheet says

KVR800D2N6/2G 2GB 2Rx8 256M x 64-Bit DDR2-800 CL6 240-Pin DIMM DESCRIPTION This document describes ValueRAM's 256M x 64-bit (2GB) DDR2-800 CL6 SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) 2Rx8 memory module, based on sixteen 128M x 8-bit FBGA components. This 240-pin DIMM uses gold contact fingers and requires +1.8V. The electrical and mechanical specifications are as follows: SPECIFICATIONS Clock Cycle Time (tCK) 2.5ns (min.) / 8ns (max.) Row Cycle Time (tRCmin) 60ns (min.) Refresh to Active/Refresh 127.5ns (min.) Command Time (tRFCmin) Row Active Time (tRASmin) 45ns (min.) / 70,000 (max.) Single Power Supply of +1.8V (+/- .1V) Power Operating 2.016 W (Approx.*) UL Rating 94 V - 0 *Power will vary depending on the SDRAM used.

because it was on sale and seriously discounted. Of course this is 6400 DDR2 (800 Mhz), so playing a bit of russian roulette here, it may work at slower speeds, or fail in powermac specifically.

We will see tomorrow/in few days.

 

[Andrew-R]

@Andrew-R @srp This sounds like the same issue I have with my Quad (through it might boot, but then quickly goes into KP, and then over again three beeps, mad fans and no boot).

This is double-sad, considering amount of work you did on this Quad for this community...

Sadly, I do not think I have any useful suggestions apart from "try some other ram modules"?

 

[Andrew-R]

I think Rene Rebe had (or even have currently?) very same model of powermac:

So, it seems memory controller chip really under this massive heatsink-on-top-of-daughterboard assembly, no easy access for me 🙁

 

[barracuda156]

This is double-sad, considering amount of work you did on this Quad for this community...

Sadly, I do not think I have any useful suggestions apart from "try some other ram modules"?

Well, 2.3 DC is alive, but yeah, less stuff can be done, and testing on 10.5 is in effect dropped.

 

[srp]

@Andrew-R @srp This sounds like the same issue I have with my Quad (through it might boot, but then quickly goes into KP, and then over again three beeps, mad fans and no boot).

You should consider sending an email to Louis Rossmann inquiring about a mail-in repair service. I don't think he works on PowerPC Macs but if you explain what you're doing with them he might be able to help you, or at least know somebody who can help you.

He is very responsive to emails from my experience, it's worth a shot.

 

[Andrew-R]

and this is what I meant as "mismatched" memory I extracted from this working (!) powermac. One stick is already marked as 6400-u, second one need googling.

Machine was 100% working at arrival, so it just "quality" of my main power that ruined it 🙁

my only hope that memory slots/controller was not damaged, so hopefully I'll able to do some planned testing (for example qemu with kvm-pr acceleration) on it.

I guess using prebuild Leopard repo is wiser decision, comparing to pushing my luck further with day-long compiles (at some point in 2009 I was compiling for weeks literally - Gentoo on 180Mhz SGI O2 with R5000 processor and 256 Mb ram, over NFS from my Duron-950 😉 ) But at that point it was younger machine,and younger building )

 

[srp]

Spotify is back on PPC!

I rebuilt the important parts of librespot 0.8.0 in C - zeroconf, pairing/auth and key exchange, dealer/WebSocket command handling, track audio handling including fetching and decrypting the ogg vorbis track blobs... even some not-so-important features like artist metadata and lyrics synced to the timestamp:

This functionality is built right into AquaCenter, with full on-device vorbis streaming from 24kbps all the way to 320kbps. This will be available in the next update which I am almost ready to release.

This allows your device to act as a Spotify Connect receiver - meaning you can do just about everything except for searching for songs or seeing your playlists directly. You'll need a Premium account to use this feature.

 

[AdamBuker]

Spotify is back on PPC!

I rebuilt the important parts of librespot 0.8.0 in C - zeroconf, pairing/auth and key exchange, dealer/WebSocket command handling, track audio handling including fetching and decrypting the ogg vorbis track blobs... even some not-so-important features like artist metadata and lyrics synced to the timestamp:

This functionality is built right into AquaCenter, with full on-device vorbis streaming from 24kbps all the way to 320kbps. This will be available in the next update which I am almost ready to release.

This allows your device to act as a Spotify Connect receiver - meaning you can do just about everything except for searching for songs or seeing your playlists directly. You'll need a Premium account to use this feature.

If you get Apple Music working, I'll give you a cookie.

 

[Eightbitgamer757]

I'm not sure if this counts under PPC or Early Intel, maybe both? I finally decided to give my mid 07 iMac a purpose and turned it into a file server/minecraft server for my PPC machines, it works great even with the massive differences between El Capitan and Sorbet Leopard. I repurposed an old router to act as a network switch between them, and I can connect everything over ethernet flawlessly! It was truly awesome to see my G5 run Minecraft PPC Edition without all the heavy compute tasks, only worrying about rendering. I can even remote into the iMac natively through Finder on both the iBook and PMG5, I'm technically posting this on the PMG5 remoted through the iMac as we speak!

 

[srp]

If you get Apple Music working, I'll give you a cookie.

Have you tried the AirPlay addon in the current version of AquaCenter? I don't have Apple Music but I just tested using the Music app with local media on my iPhone and it worked. Just make sure the speaker is started/waiting in AquaCenter then select it with your phone and it should start playing.

 

[travsG5]

Have you tried the AirPlay addon in the current version of AquaCenter? I don't have Apple Music but I just tested using the Music app with local media on my iPhone and it worked. Just make sure the speaker is started/waiting in AquaCenter then select it with your phone and it should start playing.

Yep, I can use Apple Music over airplay this way. Very cool, thank you, this application has a ton of potential! I'm not seeing album art though, just a blank window.

 

[Smithwick’s]

If you get Apple Music working, I'll give you a cookie.

PowerFox can access and play music from the homepage but just runs into errors logging in. Not sure if there has been any progress on JIT, but that could easily lead to something native.

 

[Appleuser201]

PowerFox can access and play music from the homepage but just runs into errors logging in. Not sure if there has been any progress on JIT, but that could easily lead to something native.

It actually could be due to its user agent showing itself as FireFox 120x by default which is over a couple years old. Despite the brower engine being current, this user agent discrepancy causes some logins to break. You'll want to change it to the current FireFox user agent or a mobile device.

 

[srp]

Yep, I can use Apple Music over airplay this way. Very cool, thank you, this application has a ton of potential! I'm not seeing album art though, just a blank window.

The AirPlay experience in the current version is pretty barebones. I redesigned it in this next update and DACP controls/song metadata should all be working now, so keep an eye out for when I release this new version.

 

[Andrew-R]

View attachment 2633033

and this is what I meant as "mismatched" memory I extracted from this working (!) powermac. One stick is already marked as 6400-u, second one need googling.

Machine was 100% working at arrival, so it just "quality" of my main power that ruined it 🙁

View attachment 2633034

my only hope that memory slots/controller was not damaged, so hopefully I'll able to do some planned testing (for example qemu with kvm-pr acceleration) on it.

I guess using prebuild Leopard repo is wiser decision, comparing to pushing my luck further with day-long compiles (at some point in 2009 I was compiling for weeks literally - Gentoo on 180Mhz SGI O2 with R5000 processor and 256 Mb ram, over NFS from my Duron-950 😉 ) But at that point it was younger machine,and younger building )

We are SO BACK!

Installed two new Kingston 6400 low profile DDR2 memory, reset SMU, and voila!

ok, forum does not know about tiffs but png worked!

Spoiler

 

[WriteNow]

I just finished a writing project with a Power Macintosh G4 running Jaguar. The initial work was done in TextEdit. I had planned to finish off with AppleWorks 6 to generate Word compatible files (which, based on what I needed, plus past experience) should have worked. Although, for various reasons, I ended up using a modern PC (shudder) with Word (shudder) to create the final Word document. At least, this did help remind me of why I hate Windows and Word....

I mostly did this because I wanted to spend some time with this Mac. But it did help to remind me of value of using an old computer that is disconnected from the Internet to get things done. No Internet=No Distraction.

 

[mac57mac57]

@WriteNow, I absolutely love your avatar. The WriteNow v4 app, running on a 680x0 Mac, was brilliant - relatively simple and easy to use, lightening fast and equipped with all the features you really need while writing, unencumbered by all the bloat that programs like Word have these days. I still try to use WriteNow for major writing tasks to this day. Thanks for (visibly) supporting the use of vintage software!