Mac OS 9 booting on: Mac mini G4 (Detailed Posts)

[Protools5LEGuy]

7448 and the L3 cache

A 7448,,,  where? 
... and with L3 cache? 

   PowerPC 7455 (G4) I were wrong.

[Hyram]

Ta-daa!



For Fury's edification, here's the adaptor in some detail:



Adaptor bought via:
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/381616689178

- Input Voltage: 5 Volts
- Chipset: JM20330
- 1 x 52-pin Mini PCI-E SATA female connector
- 1 x 44-pin IDE 2.5inch male connector
- Compliant with SATA specification 3.0.
- Compliant with UDMA6 ATA/133 specification.
- Supports 50mm full-height mSATA SSD.
- Supports 3.3V Mini PCI-E SSD (mSATA Module).
- Mximum capacity: 2 TB
- Max sequential read: 100MB/s
- Max sequential write: 50MB/s


As mentioned in that epic macrumors thread from a few years back:

"The JM20330 chip does not work correctly with TRIM, and performance will suffer if the OS is using TRIM. Windows XP does not do TRIM, but Windows 7 and above do TRIM on all SSDs by default, so it must be disabled."

Remember, I bought ten of these two years ago, knowing full well that these aren't a patch on the Marvell-based red Able-Delo-ddonick jobbies, because they were headed for the insides of some old iBook G4's that are part of a performance-visuals rig. Speed wasn't even remotely a consideration, the goal was getting rid of moving parts where possible. Their job is to run "iVideo", a combination videclip database and playback app (think iTunes for movies) - five iBooks sourcing key-word-searchable short clips from a 2TB portable NAS and playing them into an Edirol video mixer for further processing. A 16GB mSATA went into each one, which was plenty to hold OS X and little else.

I still had two left in the spares-box, so when v7 appeared I found a Samsung MZMPC032HBCD 32GB mSATA drive and tucked it into a spare adaptor and tackled the Mini. With pleasing results, I ordered a Toshiba THNSNF128GMCS 128GB mSATA off eBay and it arrived just as v8 landed so I started a'fresh, and the chart above was with the new 'build'.


Hey Ross, you know that "mouse-death" problem? I struck it just about every time I booted the installer CD, sometimes I'd have to punch 'er in th' guts two or three times until I got a boot I could actually drive Drive Setup with ... until I tried something odd and I never encountered the pointer-freeze again. I used an Apple Pro Mouse. Yep, that's right, forget the Logitech & Microsoft & two-dorra horrible rodents, with an old Pro Mouse plugged in, I never encountered the freeze.

Weird, huh.

[Jubadub]

Hey Ross, you know that "mouse-death" problem? I struck it just about every time I booted the installer CD, sometimes I'd have to punch 'er in th' guts two or three times until I got a boot I could actually drive Drive Setup with ... until I tried something odd and I never encountered the pointer-freeze again. I used an Apple Pro Mouse. Yep, that's right, forget the Logitech & Microsoft & two-dorra horrible rodents, with an old Pro Mouse plugged in, I never encountered the freeze.

I also noticed this when I switched from my Microsoft USB mouse to an Apple ADB one (connected to a Mac ADB keyboard) using iMate (an ADB-to-USB adapter). Not sure if that actually solved the issue, or if I'm still equally likely to stumble on it, but so far, it has yet to happen again.
(A downside of this adapter, though, is that the keyboard is only being recognized after boot, no matter what, thus preventing me from accessing OF on it etc..)

By the way, regarding the sound issue, I realized that there's another problem with it (in my case, anyway): the sound is partly messed up. At first, I thought the speakers I connected to it were faulty, but then I noticed two things:
1) They work perfectly under OS X;
2) The exact same issue persisted with all my other speakers and earphones/headphones, which are known to be working.

[RossDarker]

Only apple mice I have now are:

Wireless Mighty Mouse from iMac G5
Wired Mighty Mouse from 2008 Mac Pro
And 2x Magic Mice version 1

Maybe Mac Pro Mighty mouse would work?

Used to have an Apple Pro mouse, with a iMac G3 Indigo summer 2000 dvd-rom slot load,
but that was sold with everything it came with and box a few years ago, which did include the mouse.

Just using a Dell badged mouse, in System Profiler it is Logitec. I still get mouse stuck every now and then but ok for me now. Take "shut down" app from the CD Extras folder and put in your Utilities folder, then assign it to an FN key. Then you can press that key when you next get stuck, to shut down safely.



About the sound, how messed up is it for you. Distorted? Maybe not right word to use, but I only notice just the slightest of this, barely noticable, when I have the volume really quite high, it can help if possible to use an apps in game sound controls, but I don't notice it really. It was when ELN set the ROM so the Mac mini had Quicksilver identity, that I noticed a lot of distortion or whatever, but we are back on G4 Cube identity which seems much better for sound.

[Jubadub]

After rebooting my mini many times today, I finally got the mouse issue for the first time with the setup I described in my previous post. =| It was bound to happen, afterall.
On that note, I should point out that I noticed the exact moment the freezing occurs is sometime after the Start Up screen pops up, whilst (or slightly before?) extensions get loaded.

The sound issue I have on my end is pretty bad. Even if volume is decent, the "distortion" may be best described as "sound tearing". It seems to happen for specific sound outputs, rather than any sound output. The affected outputs are always the same. That is to say, they are not "randomized".
I'd say the "tearing" is bad enough that no music can be really appreciated: It gets irritating/annoying pretty fast.
... But on second thought, I'm also being a bit stupid: I'm still using the v1 install of the ISO (still "detected" as a G4 Cube) since I was quite content with it, but to make sure we always stay on the same page as far as troubleshooting goes, I'll make sure to update to v8 ASAP. I'll reinstall everything from scratch using the CD (after backing up my programs etc.).

[RossDarker]

You can use "Update to v8.sit", to update from v1 if you want to not loose any data. That will give you all the new stuff replacing any old stuff, it's attached to a post above. And yeah v1 does use a different ROM to the one in V5 and after that

[Ninester]

After rebooting my mini many times today, I finally got the mouse issue for the first time with the setup I described in my previous post. =| It was bound to happen, afterall.
On that note, I should point out that I noticed the exact moment the freezing occurs is sometime after the Start Up screen pops up, whilst (or slightly before?) extensions get loaded.

The sound issue I have on my end is pretty bad. Even if volume is decent, the "distortion" may be best described as "sound tearing". It seems to happen for specific sound outputs, rather than any sound output. The affected outputs are always the same. That is to say, they are not "randomized".
I'd say the "tearing" is bad enough that no music can be really appreciated: It gets irritating/annoying pretty fast.
... But on second thought, I'm also being a bit stupid: I'm still using the v1 install of the ISO (still "detected" as a G4 Cube) since I was quite content with it, but to make sure we always stay on the same page as far as troubleshooting goes, I'll make sure to update to v8 ASAP. I'll reinstall everything from scratch using the CD (after backing up my programs etc.).

With version 7, I had zero mouse or keyboard problems over many boots and clean install. This with M$ mouse and Dell keyboard.

Now I have installed the version 8 upgrade, Apple USB keyboard with same M$ mouse. Mouse locks up at end of every 5 or 6th boot.  On shutdown I see that mouse still has power, so I unpluged from Apple keyboard straight into powered hub, mouse happy now.  Will continue to swap things around.

Analog out sound broken up as in old comments.  Switched to cheap USB DAC, sound now excellent through powered desktop speakers.

BTW, RossDarker, having fun with the mini, thanks for your effort!

[RossDarker]

It must be coincidence, v8 is similar to v7, no rom or extension changes.

[IIO]

ninester did you use the full install and therefore lost your prefs..?

[Ninester]

It must be coincidence, v8 is similar to v7, no rom or extension changes.

I opened trash can to compare what the updater replaced with old color labeled system items thrown away. Was a bit mystified on same for same items.  Are there any change logs published?

Thx!

[Ninester]

ninester did you use the full install and therefore lost your prefs..?

No sir, just the updater. As RossDarker noted, must be coincidence.  My QS does the random mouse freeze as well in 9.2.2.  Overall, really happy with 9.2.2 over my OS 7.6 days, last century.

[RossDarker]

Reason you might have some same items, it's just for incase you have older versions. E.g you have installed 9.2.1, with older ATI Drivers on that volume, the updater will just replace the items if they already exist, and if it needs to, so in this case it would update the old ATI drivers to the new ones that run on the Mac mini. As you know DarthnVader's got his custom ATI drives for the Mac mini, which the update will put in place of the old ones.

[FdB]

if 2.1 doesnt have any new features, one should ban it from everywhere.

Just might have to retract my complete agreement with IIO concerning the use of Mac OS CPU Software 5.9 / v.2.1
over Drive Setup 1.9.2 …due to current QuickBench results from a 1.5GHz Mac mini - 1GB RAM with the
Zheino/Ableconn combo, re-initialized for each test and running clean installs of v.5 and v.8.

However, cold-boot startup time did increase to 50 seconds [v.8 with DS v.2.1]
…over previous 34 seconds (optimized OS) & with Drive Setup 1.9.2
But, I do still use 1.9.2 to format external drive(s) with the mini.

Also, current updated costs per GB of OWC, Zheino, DogFish
and the KingSpec DOM for the Mac mini:

OWC                                      120GB = $1.06/GB
Zheino / Ableconn combo      120GB = $0.54/GB
DogFish combo                      120GB = $0.43/GB
KingSpec - 44 Pin           32GB DOM = $2.47/GB

Still, would be interesting to see QuickBench results from an OWC in a mini.

[RossDarker]

Are you saying 2.1 gives faster boot time than 1.9.2, or the other way round, reading that post slightly confused me. When you say v8 with 2.1, the one that opens when you start of the v8 CD is 1.9.2, not 2.1. Drive Setup 2.1 is still on the CD, but you must open it yourself if you wish to use it.

[FdB]

Other way around.

Read/Write QuickBench results are better with v.8 initialized with 2.1.
Boot times DO increase with 2.1.

But check those transfer size rates per second…
in comparison to the Zheino initialized with 1.9.2.

I can wait 16 seconds more for the mini to boot with a 2.1 initialized disk
…if it’s going to give me improved read/write performance while I work.

And also, the Mac mini QuickBench results for the Ableconn/Zheino combo
(in a Mac mini) approximate the QuickBench, OWC SSD results from DieHard’s
1GHz Powerbook. (But that’s a 1.5GHz mini’s processor up against a 1GHz PB.)
At nearly half the cost of the OWC, the Zheino is no slouch in the mini.

Still like to see PT5’s QuickBench results in his similar PB after using 2.1
…to see how the Ableconn/Zheino combo compares, head-to-head.

Intend to do additional MacBench 3.0 comparisons (not QuickBench) later on.

DH’s OWC PB QuickBench results attached.

[DieHard]

From Fury,

Read/Write QuickBench results are better with v.8 initialized with 2.1.
Boot times DO increase with 2.1.

But check those transfer size rates per second…
in comparison to the Zheino initialized with 1.9.2.

I can wait 16 seconds more for the mini to boot with a 2.1 initialized disk
…if it’s going to give me improved read/write performance while I work.

Great job Fury !!! If true for all units, this is something that was never discovered before.  We need M.A.R.L. Labs to verify that the boot times differ and the transfer rates.  The different versions of the drive setup copy different OS drivers to the HD, but I cannot imagine why there are such differences; again, we create more questions than answers...

[IIO]

what should an app have to do with a longer boot time?

i am using my hacked v1.8 something driver setup (german) in my 9.2.2. (US) since 16 years and never had any issues with it. (formatted about 45 to 50 HDs with it)

[IIO]

DH: while you re on it, test it against a disk formatted with the disc utility shell script as well.

[FdB]

And here are the MacBench 3.0 results…

They seem to confirm the difference between using 1.9.2 and 2.1.
Overall, individual reported numbers vary slightly over the
QuickBench results, but not by a great difference.

Both MacBench 3.0 Comparison’s “report order”
has been rearranged to match the QuickBench format of:
Sequential Read - Sequential Write - Random Read and Random Write sequence.
[SR-SW-RR & RW]

The V5 “Disk Mix” numbers appear odd in the sense that the 1.92 results
report a 519.77 score versus a 435.95 score for 2.1.
(A reduction instead of an increase, by comparison.)

My apologies for the small text… trying to keep my image file sizes down.
(Ahh hell, I’ll leave the V5 text “at size”.)

[RossDarker]

Maybe it's the version of the "Mac OS 9 Drivers" that are put on the disk. Like 1.9.2 puts older drivers on, 2.1 puts newer. Maybe I'm totally wrong, but different versions of these OS 9 Drivers could have different speeds.