Mac OS 9 Lives

Mac OS 9 Discussion => Mac OS 9, Hacks & Upgrades => Mac OS 9 on Unsupported Hardware => Topic started by: nanopico on May 09, 2016, 08:24:43 PM

Title: nanopico's G5
Post by: nanopico on May 09, 2016, 08:24:43 PM
Word of caution to those following along and may want to help out.
DO NOT MAKE A G5 PRETEND IT IS A G4!!!!

Seriously don't do it. As fun as it was, I currently have a nice paperweight.
(hope to resolve and fix this issue tomorrow).
Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on May 09, 2016, 09:13:26 PM
I would use a G5 case only being a better box than most G4, but that IBM shit do not worth time spent on them.

Calibrating, disassembling, repasting... That isn't fun. And you need a shelf full of G5s to make 1 working.

Most G4 are alive 15 years later, while most G5 are dead or in its way.

 
Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: nanopico on May 10, 2016, 05:11:52 AM
I would use a G5 case only being a better box than most G4, but that IBM shit do not worth time spent on them.

Calibrating, disassembling, repasting... That isn't fun. And you need a shelf full of G5s to make 1 working.

Most G4 are alive 15 years later, while most G5 are dead or in its way.

 


I must be the odd one that has had no issues with the four G5's I have (though I have heard from a lot of people how terrible they are and I have been very glad mine have not experienced any issues). Except for now, but that is my own fault.  I did very similar OF test on a G4 iBook and it would not even get far enough to boot so that it would chime and there was no way to reset the nvram or anything.  Had to replace the motherboard in that one.  The G5 on the other hand chimes, but won't take keyboard commands yet, so all is not lost on that.
Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: DieHard on May 10, 2016, 08:19:18 AM
The G5s are definitely finicky when it comes to "Staying alive"... Many water cooled versions leaked and basically ruined the power supplies (located on the Bottom) and often the system board also.  The "air-cooled" have better luck, but also have a habit of developing a "Sudden Death Syndrome"  sometimes you can take one apart, re-seat everything, and bam, back to life, other times you will change the PS and still no good, or a Logic board swap and you will still be scratching your head wondering WTF is wrong. RAM must go in pairs of equal size and from the middle out, and other ridiculous crap that makes you wonder what Apple was thinking.

Repair guides attached, I have be fixing them since the first model and they all suck.
Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: nanopico on May 10, 2016, 09:25:38 AM
The G5s are definitely finicky when it comes to "Staying alive"... Many water cooled versions leaked and basically ruined the power supplies (located on the Bottom) and often the system board also.  The "air-cooled" have better luck, but also have a habit of developing a "Sudden Death Syndrome"  sometimes you can take one apart, re-seat everything, and bam, back to life, other times you will change the PS and still no good, or a Logic board swap and you will still be scratching your head wondering WTF is wrong. RAM must go in pairs of equal size and from the middle out, and other ridiculous crap that makes you wonder what Apple was thinking.

Repair guides attached, I have be fixing them since the first model and they all suck.

Now I really feel lucky that mine have worked without issue.  I have always suspected repairs would suck.  It just looks like such a mess in there (from a repair-ability stand point).  I'm glad I have never had to tear one apart, but I may be doing that at this point.

But for now, I am putting G5 support of this project pretty far back in my mind until I am in the mood to break these things again.
Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: nanopico on May 10, 2016, 07:39:30 PM
Okay Quick shout for help here.
My G5 does the following.
Boots, chimes, finds the hard drive starts to boot and freezes at a white screen.
Remove the drive and you get the nice flashy folder icon stating nothing found to boot.
It will not respond to keyboard input, can not get into open firmware can not reset nvram.
Will not boot of CD or HD.  Tried three HD's none worked.  They all spin up.  No diagnostic beeps.  I suspect it's a lost cause.  If anyone has either confirmation of that or knowledge of how to resolve that would be awesome!

Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on May 11, 2016, 11:24:29 AM
Did you tried booting via a Firewire drive?
Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: nanopico on May 11, 2016, 11:57:02 AM
Did you tried booting via a Firewire drive?
Not yet, but I'll give it a try.
Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on May 11, 2016, 12:10:15 PM
iMic's G5 is on the hospital too

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/scrap-to-showroom-g5-restoration.1969196/ (http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/scrap-to-showroom-g5-restoration.1969196/)

(http://forums.macrumors.com/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fs32.postimg.org%2Fm4kf9xb2t%2FIMG_0713.jpg&hash=27b7c1a9f08097237f8340acaceb1e15)

Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on May 11, 2016, 12:11:46 PM
http://thinkclassic.org/viewtopic.php?id=128 (http://thinkclassic.org/viewtopic.php?id=128)

That is the G5 original post

It also worth trying : http://thinkclassic.org/viewtopic.php?id=338 (http://thinkclassic.org/viewtopic.php?id=338)
Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: nanopico on May 11, 2016, 12:23:43 PM
Thanks for those.  I'll see where this get's me tonight.
Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: nanopico on May 11, 2016, 07:47:33 PM
THANK YOU! (YES I AM SHOUTING!)
 It's fixed now.
The fix is the mystery reset thingy.  Hold the power button, with for the beep then the startup chime and start hitting enter (though actually I ended up hitting space for it to work).

And now I have my original G5 working again!
Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on May 11, 2016, 09:01:46 PM
Great!

From Classilla author:
Quote
The hold-in-the-power-button part I get: it probably is attempting to flash the firmware. I'm assuming the RETURN key bit aborts it and forces a factory reset, but I don't know.

Hold the power button, with for the beep then the startup chime and start hitting enter (though actually I ended up hitting space for it to work).

And now I have my original G5 working again!

Space bar / " start tapping the enter key as rapidly as possible" actually do something.

We are one step closer to understand what happens just after you press the power button.  :D

All the G5/MacOS9 folks are in Party !

The G5s are definitely finicky when it comes to "Staying alive"...

Power Mac G5 - U3 Heatsink Clamp Mod
http://thinkclassic.org/viewtopic.php?id=106 (http://thinkclassic.org/viewtopic.php?id=106)

Quote
The barely adequate little plastic clips had failed after several years of use.

When I installed a new Logic Board, I made a small modification to the U3 heatsink to prevent this from happening again

Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: iMic on May 17, 2016, 06:18:33 PM
While having a read through this thread I had a sudden realisation about myself.

I spend way too much time around Power Mac G5s.

Glad to hear you managed to revive it, nanopico. As Protools5LEGuy mentioned earlier, I just finished a rebuild of my own machine a few weeks ago. Runs like a dream now.
Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: Protools5LEGuy on May 17, 2016, 11:17:36 PM
While having a read through this thread I had a sudden realisation about myself.


iMic, you are one of our Heroes !

I don't wanna be a troll here, but just as modern new bosses ask "Where you want to be in ten years?" I have to ask "How those G5 are going to be on 5 years?"  Those G5 aren't going to last as the G3 and G4...

Martin Kukač from http://vivapowerpc.blogspot.com.es/ (http://vivapowerpc.blogspot.com.es/) underclocked his G5 in hope of it to last more IIRC.
Title: Re: nanopico's G5
Post by: MacOS Plus on May 17, 2016, 11:22:24 PM
While having a read through this thread I had a sudden realisation about myself.

I spend way too much time around Power Mac G5s.

  Hah, yes, I followed that epic journey over at ThinkClassic! ;)