another $10 mac... G4 Tower

[ratdude747]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

i think the 120mm fan may be dead. i plugged it in today and i heard a very loud "dead fan" sound. tm i will hook it up to a monitor and see what it will do and not do.

if it is, i have a couple spare fans.

[Scenic]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

the one in there is temp controlled (sensor is on the hub pcb) and its a ball bearing type. try to put a drop of light oil in there.

did you hear the apple chime after power up?

[ratdude747]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

it did this: turn on, fan noise, looking for boot disk screen.

the noise is actually the video card fan. i will try to oil it... would any rage 128 pro agp work...

also, it wpuld not boot my 10.4 discs... i found an OS 9.2 torrent that i will test it with... it is an .ISO that will boot...

[NxB]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

You can put ubuntu ppc on it. OS9 is garbage, doesn't even have a good web browser.

[ratdude747]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

the only reason i am installing OS 9 is to test the cd booting, as my converted dmg images may have been my downfall. if that works, then i will see if i can use the cd to upgrade it. idf not, then i will find properly pre-converted .iso torrent for 10.4.

the main reason i am not being my usual self by not linuxing it from the start is that i would like. to dualboot it, but i get the idea that it would not work. i am also still testing it. i have never used mac os x much and i would like to learn how to work with it.

[seanc]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

Does that Mac have firewire?

[ratdude747]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

it has firewire.

it ran the 9.2 without issues. however, the edges of my screen got cutoff since my mom accidentally sent down my ancient proview monitor, which maxed out on me. so i cannot install os x until laterr today, when i can borrow my dad's monitor.

[stj]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

is the g4 AGP?
the g3 was PCI 66mhz.

to boot an iso, use openBOOT.
it's a bootmode you get to with a button combo on the keyboard.

ctrl-alt-apple i think.

[seanc]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

You don't mean OpenFirmware do you stj?
If you burn the discs correctly, they should boot just fine.

Find out if it supports booting from Firewire devices by holding the option key, if it brings up a screen with a go arrow and refresh arrow, it does.

What you could do, is extract the ISO/DMG onto a partition of the HDD (formatted as HFS of course) and try and boot from it.

[ratdude747]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

it is actually a dmg to iso issue with disk 1. i found a torrent for disk 1 that fixes it. it is installing tiger right now.

btw, it has AGP...

[seanc]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

Max it out with 2GB of RAM - beware, older PPC Macs are finicky with RAM! Took a while to get my MDDs happy with the RAM selection I was trying to put in them.

Have fun! It bridges the gap between Unix and Windows nicely.

[ratdude747]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

i only have 3 512mb sticks... i stole 2 from my server and left the 3rd in it. i do not have endless pockets here. limiting my server by 1/3 the ram was bad enough.

my setup is working, if i get more sticks, ill upgrade. for now. it will have to do.

[seanc]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

1GB is a good starting point.

As long as you're not trying to run it on the minimum requirements of 256mb RAM - it's just painful.

[Topcat]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

You can put ubuntu ppc on it. OS9 is garbage, doesn't even have a good web browser.

I'm going to have to experiment with that. I ended up with an extra 20" iMac, so one of them will be the linux labrat. Safari in 10.x isn't too bad, but I still put firefox on them anyway and use it. I'd try osx10.3 on that, it should be ok I'd think.... I have 10.5 on a 1.8GHz/1gb RAM 20" first gen g5 iMac, runs smooth as silk......far cry from a G4, but some Mac guru correct me if I'm wrong about 10.3 on a G4...

[seanc]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

10.3 on a G4 wouldn't be a bad plan, but most software vendors cut off support a while back. No new releases of Firefox for instance.

Try 10.4.

I'm running 10.5 on the G4 MDDs (1.25Ghz w/ 2GB RAM) in the office.
10.5 on the iMac G5 2Ghz with 2GB RAM isn't bad, tad sluggish. Doesn't get on with multitasking & streaming Spotify too well.

[ratdude747]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

hmm... it's installed; 10.4 runs pretty well on a G4450mhz w/1.5gb ram. i installed open office beta, firefox and flash 10 as well, i hate safari with a passion. the fan noise is annoying, will a rage 128 agp out of a dell work on this? it has a rage 128 in it now, which if i cannot fix the fan, is virtually dead.

i posted this from it.

[Scenic]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

normal PC cards won't work.
see post #20

[ratdude747]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

not even if it is an identical chipset? sounds like i may be screwed...

[Colt45ws]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

If its just a dead fan, take a 40 or 60 mm cpu fan and attach it to the thing and unplug the fan thats on it.

[Scenic]

Re: another $10 mac... G4 Tower

not even if it is an identical chipset? sounds like i may be screwed...

like colt said, use a different fan first.
or a big passive heatsink.. remember.. the 120mm fan is blowing towards the cards

otherwise.. here are original mac BIOSes and modified ones for flashing gfx cards..

http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2

read the flashing guides too.

with the help of that site, i upgraded my G4 with a FX5200. now i can finally use DVI