Score!! Saved a G4 Power Mac from the trash!!

[spihunter]

Hey Folks,

Saved a G4 Power Mac form the trash at work today!. It was sitting on the floor of the graphics dept. They were going to throw it and a 22" cinema display out!. I'd like to install The new MorphOS 2.6 on it.

Specs:

800 mhz G4
1.5 GB ram
Dvd-rw
Nividia graphics card (not supported I know)
scsi card
wireless network card
80 gb harddrive.

I guess the first thing I need to do before installing MorphOS is to change the Graphics card.

I have several ATI graphic cards (7000, 9200) lying around. I'm guessing that I'm going to have to flash them for Mac compatibilty before they will work?.

Another question is, what is the best/most compatitble PCI sound card to use with MorphOS?. I wouldn't mind doing some sample editing and tracker work on this setup.

[spihunter]

These are people that grip about having to use dual core G5's for graphics work. I think they tried to give it away before but nobody wanted it....

[spihunter]

Looks like I'm going to need to read up on flashing video card BIOS's. never done it before. I've got several unused PC/cards lying around here I could do it with though.

You will have to reflash the video BIOS on the graphics card for it to work.  It seems that maybe your PowerMac may be up-to-date enough to use the on-board sound support so try it first.  If that doesn't work a SoundBlaster Audigy should do the trick.

[spihunter]

Yea, they only have one dual core G5 left in service that they make the new guy use! .
The rest of them are on the newer quad core Xeons....

Tell me about it. I ordered the 2.8 GHz fastest dual core G5 they made just before they switched to Intel in hopes OS 4 would be ported to Apple hardware. Nope. This summer, I got a shiny new iMac 27" 2.8 GHz 4 core, and I couldn't make anyone take the G5, not even the MacHeads here (They already had an extra one:), so I had to scrap it (not allowed to take anything home). However, the iMac is about 4 times faster than the G5 was, so I can't blame your graphics department.

[spihunter]

Sweet! Thanks for the links. That saved me some trouble. I'm going to give this a go when I get home.

Hi Spyhunter and congrats for this nice catch & save!!
You can read these interesting infos about flashing ATI graphic cards for mac:
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/ati-flash
Don't forget to take alook to the resistor mod here:
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/ati-section
Enjoy!

[spihunter]

Hey, Thanks for the tips Iggy!. I'm not sure if it's a 9200 or not. I'm at work now. I'm going to check when I get home.

Also, does anyone know if I can use the ADC port that comes on some Mac video cards with MorphOS?. It's the port that hooks to the Mac cinema displays?

Spihunter,
If you're going to use the 9200, the mod is less intimidating than it seems. I have one in my Powermac.
First, reflash the card using a Mac BIOS (I did this on a PC since the card initially works on a PC).
Next, examine the resistor mods. The instructions will tell you to move one tiny surface moubt resistor from one position to another. This is difficult and unecessary. Simply remove the resistor in question. The card will work fine (mine does).
Finally mask over the pins that must be covered with a strip of celophane tape and cut out the two that need to be covered with a razor or exacto knife.

Plug it into your Mac and you should be good to go. I'd never done this before and it intimidated me. It took me less than an hour and I'm typing this message to you on my MorphOS 2.6 equipped Powermac with my own modified Radeon 9200. It's really not that hard.
Congradulations on the great aquisition and good luck setting everything up.

BTW, once you have MOS installed your computer will be much more responsive. It's a much more effecient OS than OSX and 800Mhz will be more than fast enough (I'm only running a 933 Mhz mysdelf)

[spihunter]

I don't get that either?. maybe that could be pointed at the iphone but not the computers?. They abandon the PPC Macs a long time ago...why not take atvantage of them?.

I've never understood this attitude. I mean, I've never paid Apple anything for the Apple HW I own, so where's the problem really? How is that helping the (admittedly) abusive Apple?

[spihunter]

Hmmmm, It seems that the only compatible graphics card that I have is a 64mb ATI Radeon 7000 PCI card.

Do you guys think it would be worth my time to try and flash this card for Mac compatibility or should I just spend $30-$40 for a Radeon 9000-9200 w/128mb of ram?

[spihunter]

I think your right here. I'm thinking that I should just get a better card. I got the machine for free so I shouldn't sell myself short on the graphics. I'm going to go with a 9000.

Performance wise, the Radeon 8500 and 9000 are probably the best options for MorphOS. Plus they have the advantage of not being AGP 8x yet, which means that you don't have to mess with taping pins or soldering resistors. More information about this here:

http://themacelite.wikidot.com/compatibility
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/pins-3-and-11

Just flash it and you're done. The 8500 has one disadvantage though: There are only Mac ROMs which support 64 MB video memory, so even if you have a 128 MB card, you're stuck with 64 MB.



Just grab a FreeDOS ISO: http://www.freedos.org
Maybe you can install it on a spare HD (like I did), makes things a bit easier. Oh, and while you're at it, have a look at GEM for your daily retro fix.

[spihunter]

I ended up getting a 64mb Radeon 9000 Mac edition for $24 USD. It should be here next week. I went ahead and flashed my 64mb Radeon 7000 so I could have a backup card. flashing was pretty easy.