Mac OS 9 booting on: PowerBook G4 17" Aluminum 5,1 (Detailed Posts)

[Aurora]

Don't forget that you need to have OS 9 drivers installed on your HDD before doing anything. Also, I have my doubts if it'll work on your machine and even if it does, you'll get no graphics acceleration

[johnie89]

After you clear the message, everything runs perfectly...  including graphics acceleration !

I'm having an issue where it will only display 256 colours - even though earlier I had 1 million when running the Mac OS 9.2.2 Easy Install for Unsupported G4s - ISO CD Image.

Also, sleep isn't working.  I'm running this on the same model as used in the guide (17" G4 5,1)

Anyone have any ideas?

[IIO]

for all things sleep you might want to downgrade to the orginal powerbook sleep controlpanel, as it differs. you might also want to add the battery controlpanel and remove dual processing.

i recently had drag and drop not working on a QS after installing our "universal" with imic ROM (and appletalk was turned on once, but that might have been caused by a different language/prefs file.)

will see what up with that.

[Syntho]

I mistakenly bought an 867 Aluminum Powerbook G4 instead of the Ti   

Has anyone gotten the wireless working on it? Does OS9 even work with wireless? If I can't get that working, I'm screwed. Having wireless in OS9 was the entire point of buying the thing. I hate losing money.

EDIT: the curse of the G4 will never end, I swear. DH knows about the hell I went through a few years back trying to get a 1.25ghz MDD to work. I spent weeks on it and it was always unstable no matter what. My fingers and knuckles were so bloody from tearing shit out of it that it was unforgivable. I eventually trashed it and bought another, exact duplicate off Ebay, and guess what? It was DOA and wouldn't even power up. I got so sick of it that I swore off G4s and started using 9600s (which have never once failed me to this day!).

Ok, so I have this other cheap 867 G4 QS I bought last year to see if my curse was over. Well, I just booted it up and it's got a time/network error so it probably needs a new battery, it says that there's some kind of weird memory issue going when OS9 starts up, sometimes it makes weird beeping and flashing, the freakin' startup chime isn't a chime half the time and is nothing but a long burst of nasty white noise/distortion, and sometimes it just hangs and won't boot up at all.

....and now I have a POS Aluminum Powerbook that I'm not even gonna use because the wireless won't work in it among other things.

Money down the drain constantly, and nothing but headaches on ALL G4 machines. It never ends!

 

PS: I do have a dual cpu QS machine that DH gave me, but I need to try it. If I boot it up and it has problems too, I'm probably going to kill myself. I'd rather an OS9 laptop more than anything right now but funds are running low. And so is my luck and tolerance.

[madalynmcworm]

I mistakenly bought an 867 Aluminum Powerbook G4 instead of the Ti   

Has anyone gotten the wireless working on it? Does OS9 even work with wireless? If I can't get that working, I'm screwed. Having wireless in OS9 was the entire point of buying the thing. I hate losing money.

EDIT: the curse of the G4 will never end, I swear. DH knows about the hell I went through a few years back trying to get a 1.25ghz MDD to work. I spent weeks on it and it was always unstable no matter what. My fingers and knuckles were so bloody from tearing shit out of it that it was unforgivable. I eventually trashed it and bought another, exact duplicate off Ebay, and guess what? It was DOA and wouldn't even power up. I got so sick of it that I swore off G4s and started using 9600s (which have never once failed me to this day!).

Ok, so I have this other cheap 867 G4 QS I bought last year to see if my curse was over. Well, I just booted it up and it's got a time/network error so it probably needs a new battery, it says that there's some kind of weird memory issue going when OS9 starts up, sometimes it makes weird beeping and flashing, the freakin' startup chime isn't a chime half the time and is nothing but a long burst of nasty white noise/distortion, and sometimes it just hangs and won't boot up at all.

....and now I have a POS Aluminum Powerbook that I'm not even gonna use because the wireless won't work in it among other things.

Money down the drain constantly, and nothing but headaches on ALL G4 machines. It never ends!

 

PS: I do have a dual cpu QS machine that DH gave me, but I need to try it. If I boot it up and it has problems too, I'm probably going to kill myself. I'd rather an OS9 laptop more than anything right now but funds are running low. And so is my luck and tolerance.

I found the wireless only works in WEP mode. Not sure where you are located, but I purchased a linksys AP from a thrift store for $6, put it in 'B' only mode, and turned on WEP encryption (which sucks, but it is better than just open network).

Alternatively, there are many usb powered "travel routers". If you read the modes on them, some allow you to use the wired connection as your ethernet connection and they make the wifi connection for you.

Good luck!

[GaryN]

EDIT: the curse of the G4 will never end, I swear. DH knows about the hell I went through a few years back trying to get a 1.25ghz MDD to work. I spent weeks on it and it was always unstable no matter what. My fingers and knuckles were so bloody from tearing shit out of it that it was unforgivable.

…and here I am, happily using my MDD which, except for a couple of glitches which were eventually proven to be software problems, starts up every time, and hasn't crashed or panic-ed since like, forever.

I eventually trashed it and bought another, exact duplicate off Ebay, and guess what? It was DOA and wouldn't even power up.

You were lucky. Most of the big desktop computers bought on ebay arrive smashed to bits.

I mistakenly bought an 867 Aluminum Powerbook G4 instead of the Ti   
Has anyone gotten the wireless working on it? Does OS9 even work with wireless? If I can't get that working, I'm screwed. Having wireless in OS9 was the entire point of buying the thing. I hate losing money.

OS9 wireless is WEP only. So, yes it works and yes it's a pain in the ass to set up if you have newer equipment on the same router. Will it work on the 867 Pbook? Maybe…probably…not… Sure, if you trade it for a Ti…

[macStuff]

I mistakenly bought an 867 Aluminum Powerbook G4 instead of the Ti   

Has anyone gotten the wireless working on it? Does OS9 even work with wireless? If I can't get that working, I'm screwed. Having wireless in OS9 was the entire point of buying the thing. I hate losing money.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Wireless-WiFi-Network-Dongle-Bridge-RJ45-Ethernet-Port-2-4GHz-Adapter-Cable-/382019136249?epid=1100056572&hash=item58f21d6af9:g:Us4AAOSwB-1Y2Usx

[mrhappy]

CardSlot (Cardbus) also appears to be "Dead"

That's kind of a drag... I bought a fancy Cardbus interface to use in this machine but was unable to get it working... I guess that explains it! Plan 'B' I guess!

[FdB]

I've got two wifi cards that worked in my G3 Lombard and Gary's absolutely correct... both slow, and a total pain in the arse  to set up and use. So much so, that I don't use either one anymore and the Lombard has been "dedicated OS 9" since last used, period. (And direct wired via ethernet when only absolutely necessary.) The AeroCard worked with OS 9 and the NetGear worked with OS X. (Never liked the Lombard running OS X.)

[FdB]

Hmmm, images a little large there... wise guy.

[macStuff]

gigabit ethernet > wireless

[DieHard]

No (Ethernet) upon Restart it is "Dead" again

Also Stuck at 10mb and Half Duplex" very weird when it works.

CardSlot (Cardbus) also appears to be "Dead"

Unfortunately Built in Ethernet is Dead

[macStuff]

hmmm
isnt cardbus basically the same as pci slots?

isnt it likely that these peripherals may just be located in a different address in the OpenFirmware device tree?
might any openfirmware wizard take a look at writing a script to modify the devicetree?

i think its probably pretty easy to take the closest "os9-supported" model and compare the device tree in openfirmware to the 17"  one that is having the anomalies? noting the differences may be a good place to start debugging this?

heres a link to the last time that devicetree was posted - that had a happy ending didnt it? who says lightning doesnt strike twice... *shrug* never know
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,762.msg3395.html#msg3395

"dev / ls"

[Astroman]

I had no problems booting the 'Holy Grail' reliably over a couple of days with just the modified 10.2.1 Rom and use Sonicworx and Bias.

Differences to the process described in the start post:
no error messages about memory and USB
no graphic accelleration
booth firewire ports dead
PCMCI dead

yet the thing was usable, but didn't reveal groundbreaking performance compared to a BW G3 450 MHz.
Sonicworx calculations scored about 30% higher than on the G3

After exchanging the Rom to version 10.2.1v1 it hangs on the grey screen after attempting to boot. Any clues ? In particular the differences mentioned above puzzle me...

[DieHard]

Is your unit...
Apple PowerBook G4 1.0 Ghz 17" Aluminum
Model M8793LL/A - PowerBook5,1 - A1013

if not, please give serial number

[Astroman]

System Profiler writes: ID406, Powerbook 5,2 serial V73384P2NRV
graphic is idententified as ATI, Jasper_A
resolution 1280x854
btw sound is flawless with internal speakers and headphones

ps: well, my eyes betrayed me... what I considered 17" is 15" indeed   
and one model of that series came with ATI instead of Nvidea graphics.

[DieHard]

System Profiler writes: ID406, Powerbook 5,2 serial V73384P2NRV

and one model of that series came with ATI instead of Nvidea graphics.

Yes, I kinda had a feeling it was a totally different model, since the results above have been verified on more than 1 unit; the 5,2 will like likely have no Video support (for acceleration), which is IMO the most important feature

[Astroman]

yeah, pretty wiered stuff - that latest iMic Rom doesn't seem to work here, so I exchanged it by the version that succeeded and I replaced the System folder by the one from the 'unsupported G4 ISO' to have a more comparable setup.
Booted in full screen, but then switched back to small and remained like that, regardless of what the control panel indicated (it identfied the resolution properly).
Solved by adding the monitor panel which has those plugin additions in the Extensions folder, there's a button 'default' that immediately switches to full screen.

There is some graphic accelleration active now as the waveform drawing in Peak is much more snappy than before. No complaints at all about it's performance.

PCMCIA slot still dead, but the Firewire port is at least shown now by System Profiler.
USB works flawless, so the system is usable 

[DieHard]

Wow... I am Surprised   Check ethernet please

[Astroman]

yes, that's on schedule as well. I revitalized my classic MacOS skills only recently since I got a Pro Tools TDM rig el cheapo and I do a lot of recording with an iPad, but there's also a few apps on Windoze that I rely on.
Networking would be more convenient than connecting/disconnecting pendrives or external disks.
The graphics accelerator is definitely not active (icon slashed on boot), but there may be different drawing routines active in the 2nd system setup. It's a very obvious improvement in performance.
AFP connection with a MacMini running Yosemite failed with an error, likely protocol/security based.

ps: Ethernet works and transmits between the MacBook and the BW G3 twice as fast as USB, 500 MB (disk image) is almost exactly 5 minutes.

pps: after reactivating my Synology NAS with services for Macintosh I repeated the same operation and yielded a 5 times higher data rate, oops... same 500 MB in just 1 Minute.
System Profiler reported the MacBook's ethernet as 10 half duplex, which I considered just a fake value, as it should be at least 100Mbit according to specs.
Added here just for completeness, as I have the 'wrong' model anyway.
(while not perfect, it's quite usable in it's current state)