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Where can I buy a PCI-X SATA Card for the PowerMac G4?

pipetogrep

pipetogrep

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 27, 2021
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Hi all,

I'm trying to get my hands on one of these or something similar to https://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1v4/ or https://www.ebay.com/itm/254669345065. I looked up the vendor and device ID. It's a SiI 3124 PCI-X Serial ATA Controller. They appear to be Mac compatible (or at least flashable?) but I can't find anywhere selling them. I'm hoping that'll allow me to get more performance out of my SSDs than with standard PCI.

Thanks in advance for any help or hints.
 
pipetogrep said:
Hi all,

I'm trying to get my hands on one of these or something similar to https://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1v4/ or https://www.ebay.com/itm/254669345065. I looked up the vendor and device ID. It's a SiI 3124 PCI-X Serial ATA Controller. They appear to be Mac compatible (or at least flashable?) but I can't find anywhere selling them. I'm hoping that'll allow me to get more performance out of my SSDs than with standard PCI.

Thanks in advance for any help or hints.
Click to expand...
Your G4 does not have PCI-X, this is a PCI 64 Bit slot. Only the G5 has PCI-X.

but it looks like the Seritek cards are backward compatible
Seritek
  • Backward compatible with standard 32/64-bit PCI at 33MHz and 66MHz bus speeds
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
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Since it is a 64bit slot, would there be any appreciable performance increase?
 
If you don't need bootability, you can buy a generic Sil3124 card (either PCI-X or not) and install the Mac driver for it.

But you mentioned SSD. So you probably use it as a boot drive.

You can swap the BIOS chip to the ones the Firmtek's firmware supports and try flashing it. I think the card from Hong Kong on eBay uses this method.

There are PB3124 cards that you can swap the BIOS chip easily, no need to use a solder iron.

All PB3124 cards are sold very cheap with eye-watering shipping out of the US...

[not my item]
www.ebay.com

Lot of 2 SILICON IMAGE PCB-312402-E00 4 CHANNEL SATA CONTROLLER PB-312402-000 | eBay

Cards are used and untested. Do you need a lift gate truck for your drop off location?. CRT glass, except for glass with lead content less than 5 parts per million, and clean of phosphor, CRT fines, coatings and frit.
www.ebay.com
 
Interesting. Yes I do need bootability. Where would I find the replacement BIOS chip?
 
If you flash the card from a PC, the chip can be one of these: AM29LV040B, MX29LV040, PM39LV040.

If you want to flash the card from a Mac (using WiebeTech's flasher), only PM39LV040 can be used.
[Correction: WiebeTech's flashers only work with sil3112 and sil3512 cards]

You can buy the chips from many sources. I bought my PM39LV040 from aliexpress. Digikey and Mouser probably have them too.
 
Last edited:
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Once I've acquired the PM39LV040, then what? I'm assuming there is more than just dropping it into the card.
 
Oh, I see. I'd have to try flashing it. Is it possible to flash on a mac or would I need a DOS machine with a 64 bit PCI slot? Where would I find the flasher/firmware?
 
pipetogrep said:
Oh, I see. I'd have to try flashing it. Is it possible to flash on a mac or would I need a DOS machine with a 64 bit PCI slot? Where would I find the flasher/firmware?
Click to expand...
The sure way is to flash it from a PC, using a PC flasher. Here is a successful attempt:

I'm afraid you will have to find out which PC flasher to use. Because I don't have a PC, so I didn't collect info
about it. My original plan was using my Mac to do the flashing by installing a chip socket onto my Sil3512 card, put
a PM39LV040 in and use WiebieTech's SIL3512 flasher to flash SeriTek 2se4 firmware to the chip, then, move the chip
to an Sil3124 card. But I couldn't find an Sil3124 card that fit my budget. So I abandoned the project.

Or you may try this Mac OS 9 flasher (sign-in is needed to see the download link):

silicon image pb3124 - sata 300 speed for powermac g4

silicon image pb3124 - sata 300 speed for powermac g4
macos9lives.com

It doesn't have to be PM39LV040 if the flasher you're using is not WiebeTech's. Anyone of the three chips should work.

Firmware for these cards are very old. You may encounter problems with some new drives not recognized or hang, etc.


pipetogrep said:
Or maybe I could use something like this since I don't have a PC for the job? https://www.ebay.com/itm/271313593344
Click to expand...

Looks like its software won't run on Mac. May it work via a virtual machine?

Sorry if it sounds rude or rush, English is not my native tongue.
 
Last edited:
eBay? $40 is a decent price: https://www.ebay.com/itm/132581321334?hash=item1ede766a76:g:57kAAOSwTcphaK52

Also…

www.ebay.com

4 Port SATA PCI Controller Card For Apple Macintosh PowerMac G3/G4/G5 *SSD *OS X | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 4 Port SATA PCI Controller Card For Apple Macintosh PowerMac G3/G4/G5 *SSD *OS X at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com

www.ebay.com

2 Port SATA PCI Controller Card Apple Macintosh PowerMac G3/G4/G5 *SSD *OSX OS 9 | eBay

RAID Support at OS X Disk utility.
www.ebay.com

MODS, NOT MY AUCTION(S)!
 
eyoungren said:
eBay? $40 is a decent price: https://www.ebay.com/itm/132581321334?hash=item1ede766a76:g:57kAAOSwTcphaK52

Also…

www.ebay.com

4 Port SATA PCI Controller Card For Apple Macintosh PowerMac G3/G4/G5 *SSD *OS X | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 4 Port SATA PCI Controller Card For Apple Macintosh PowerMac G3/G4/G5 *SSD *OS X at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com

www.ebay.com

2 Port SATA PCI Controller Card Apple Macintosh PowerMac G3/G4/G5 *SSD *OSX OS 9 | eBay

RAID Support at OS X Disk utility.
www.ebay.com

MODS, NOT MY AUCTION(S)!
Click to expand...
I already have one of those. I'm specifically looking for a 64bit PCI SATA card. Those auctions are for 32 bit cards.
 
@for this

Looks like its software won't run on Mac. May it work via a virtual machine?
Click to expand...
That's my plan. I have Linux machines out the wazoo. They are on modern hardware. If that type of flasher would work, it may be an elegant solution. I wonder if I could flash the existing chip or if I have to buy a new one.
 
I thought I'd bump this thread as I'm looking for the same thing: 64bit PCI SATA card.

There are a lot of threads on cards using the Sil3112 chip, but these are all 32bit as far as I can tell and the resulting speed is not really different than IDE (or SATA on IDE via a converter). There are various PCI-X cards on ebay but most of them are RAID cards and probably not compatible? It looks like the Sil3214 chip can be either 32 or 64bit PCI. If I can find a 64bit PCI card with the Sil3124 chip, are the odds good that it will work?

I'm reading through this thread also:

forums.macrumors.com

PCI SATA Cards - What is the state of compatibility?

So I have a rather nice MDD G4. Its running 10.4 server, and does a pretty great job of housing my files. Currently it has 4x 80gb HDD's in raid, and a 40gb boot disk, I want to "kick it up a notch" and seriously upgrade the storage capacity, from about 320gb to somewhere around 4tb. I don't...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
ervus said:
I thought I'd bump this thread as I'm looking for the same thing: 64bit PCI SATA card.

There are a lot of threads on cards using the Sil3112 chip, but these are all 32bit as far as I can tell and the resulting speed is not really different than IDE (or SATA on IDE via a converter). There are various PCI-X cards on ebay but most of them are RAID cards and probably not compatible? It looks like the Sil3214 chip can be either 32 or 64bit PCI. If I can find a 64bit PCI card with the Sil3124 chip, are the odds good that it will work?

I'm reading through this thread also:

forums.macrumors.com

PCI SATA Cards - What is the state of compatibility?

So I have a rather nice MDD G4. Its running 10.4 server, and does a pretty great job of housing my files. Currently it has 4x 80gb HDD's in raid, and a 40gb boot disk, I want to "kick it up a notch" and seriously upgrade the storage capacity, from about 320gb to somewhere around 4tb. I don't...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
Click to expand...
Hmmm...

SATA2-PCIX02 | RAID Controller | 4 port SATA II PCI-X RAID Card (Internal)-Silicon Image Sil3124 | Host Cards

www.ioi.com.cn www.ioi.com.cn
 
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