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Author Topic: Upgrading older G4's to Leopard  (Read 9174 times)

Offline chriskleeman

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Upgrading older G4's to Leopard
« Reply #15 on: October 28, 2009, 11:15:33 AM »
QUOTE(krissel @ Oct 28 2009, 12:23 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Chris, do you still have the original video card in the DA?  If so, that may be why you have the sleep problem.  I put a Radeon 8500 in my DA. The only time I have any difficulties with sleep is when I forget to unmount my swim MP3 player or one of my flash drives from the 7 port hub I use with the DA. No problems with other externals.


Hi Kris,

Not to hijack the thread a little, but yes, I still have the original video card in there. I'm also booted from 10..4.11 when this has been happening. I haven't had the time to fool around with cloning my MBP to the SATA drive yet, although there is a partition waiting for it. I haven't seen any more kernal panics after I re-seated the memory, but when awakening from sleep, all I get is a frozen machine with the dreaded spinning beach-ball. So, when using the DA, until I can get some time to trouble-shoot it better, I've just been booting up and shutting down.

I did confirm that the machine will run on Leopard from the external hard drive, but it was fairly sluggish compared to Tiger. That's when I got the Firmtek SATA card and a SATA drive from OWC. I do vaguely remember you posting about needing to have more video RAM to run Leopard? Thinking.gif

Looks like I can pick up a Radeon 8500 for somewhere around $50-$70 on eBay. I really don't want to put too much more into this machine, but I guess if I want it to run right, I'll need to spring for the video card.

CK
« Last Edit: October 28, 2009, 02:39:08 PM by chriskleeman »
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Offline iGuy

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Upgrading older G4's to Leopard
« Reply #16 on: October 28, 2009, 08:31:44 PM »
My celebrating was premature.  Headgap store just sent me an email.  They had to refund my money, they were sold out.
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Offline iGuy

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Upgrading older G4's to Leopard
« Reply #17 on: October 28, 2009, 09:16:10 PM »
I have made few purchases on ebay but am not comfortable buying from an unknown individual.  I would appreciate opinions on the link provided. The price is right and looks like what I need.  Leopard 10.5.4 or 10.5.6 shouldn't make a difference since both will be brought up to date with Software update.  

Leopard 10.5.4
« Last Edit: October 28, 2009, 09:16:54 PM by iGuy »
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Offline Paddy

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Upgrading older G4's to Leopard
« Reply #18 on: October 28, 2009, 10:48:12 PM »
Looks legit - though the auction ended 16 minutes after you posted here! Did you buy it?

If not, it would appear when you search on "MAC OS X 10.5.4" that the cheapest Buy it Now item is $149 at the moment. Searching on Mac OS 10.5 yields similar results.

Every retailer seems to be out of it - or is charging an arm and a leg.
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Offline krissel

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Upgrading older G4's to Leopard
« Reply #19 on: October 29, 2009, 01:15:44 AM »
QUOTE(chriskleeman @ Oct 28 2009, 12:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
[ That's when I got the Firmtek SATA card and a SATA drive from OWC. I do vaguely remember you posting about needing to have more video RAM to run Leopard? Thinking.gif

Looks like I can pick up a Radeon 8500 for somewhere around $50-$70 on eBay. I really don't want to put too much more into this machine, but I guess if I want it to run right, I'll need to spring for the video card.

CK


Hijacking...

I do think the extra video RAM helps with the response time. I also saw a major difference when changing from the ATA drive to SATA  and the Maxtor enterprise level HD I have is also faster than the Seagate SATA.  All those things add up to a noticeable speed improvement.

Your sleep problem could also be caused by the SATA card. I read about some of the cards having sleep issues with G4s depending on their firmware version. What is the firmware version on your card? I have 5.13 which is an older firmware and may be what you need.  Here is an interesting discussion about a guy who had sleep issues and solved them by downgrading the firmware (scroll way down the page):

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/913...?taxonomyId=163

With more digging I found this at the Sonnet site:

QUOTE
What version of the firmware do I need for a Tempo SATA card installed in a Power Mac G4? My computer doesn't seem to work properly.   May-12-09

The Sonnet Tempo SATA card is made for us by Firmtek. The company provides the latest firmware on the card which is v5.31. Some customers have experienced problems with this version of the firmware in older G4 machines. Firmtek has reposted an earlier version of the firmware and encourages users experiencing problems to downgrade the firmware to the earlier 5.13 version found at:

http://www.firmtek.com/download/SeriTek1S2_513.zip



Also of note:

QUOTE
Why can't I install Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) on a drive attached to the Tempo SATA card?   May-12-09

The Tempo SATA is bootable with Mac OS X. For some users the drive does not show up when the\u160 Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) DVD is inserted. This is a bug in the Leopard installer program.

In this case, using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the current boot drive to the\u160 hard drive on the Tempo SATA allows the drive to be seen by the Mac OS X installer.



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Offline iGuy

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Upgrading older G4's to Leopard
« Reply #20 on: October 29, 2009, 05:49:31 AM »
No, didn't buy it.  I will continue search.
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Offline Xairbusdriver

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Upgrading older G4's to Leopard
« Reply #21 on: October 29, 2009, 05:13:37 PM »
QUOTE
Headgap store just sent me an email. They had to refund my money, they were sold out.
I should have called them first! Sorry.

OK, I did call Bob just now. He's just as unhappy about not having 10.5 as most others are. But they do have 10.4.x and the Kitchen Sink DVD has all the upgrades to 10.4.11 on it. I didn't actually see a link to it on their site but he said it selling for $137. That might be without the DVD, but he said the installer and the DVD would be in one box. I'm assuming there is still a shipping fee on top of that, also. Your call, but I know this guy (and his wife and daughter) and I'd vouch for their honesty. yes.gif But I did have a good experience on eBay, once, also. wink.gif So, they aren't all bad. dntknw.gif
« Last Edit: October 29, 2009, 05:25:13 PM by Xairbusdriver »
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Offline iGuy

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Upgrading older G4's to Leopard
« Reply #22 on: October 29, 2009, 05:42:18 PM »
Thanks for your time and concern, ab.  I was able to purchase Leopard 10.5.4 today while at work.  I bought it from the ebay seller I posted the link to above.  I had a feeling he would put another one up for sale and he did. I received an email from paypal saying it shipped.  I notice he has already posted another one on ebay.  He must have quite the collection.

I will let you know how this works out.  I should receive it late next week.
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Offline chriskleeman

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Upgrading older G4's to Leopard
« Reply #23 on: December 11, 2009, 11:52:20 AM »
Hey iGuy,

Were you finally successful in your quest for Leopard? Inquiring TS'ers would like to know!

And hijacking...

Kris, that was the way to go with the reverse Firmware update. Humming along nicely, no more Kernel Panics, no more freezes waking from sleep. Now I'm gonna bring Leopard over and see how it roars. Still using the GeForce MX2 video card, which does have 32 MB VRAM, so we'll see how that fares. Working nicely with Tiger.

CK notworthy.gif
« Last Edit: December 11, 2009, 03:30:51 PM by kbeartx »
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Offline krissel

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Upgrading older G4's to Leopard
« Reply #24 on: December 11, 2009, 10:37:21 PM »
Great.  clap.gif

 Let us know how Leopard runs.  smile.gif
« Last Edit: December 11, 2009, 10:37:57 PM by krissel »
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