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The Absolute Best Laptop that will Boot natively to Mac OS 9.2.2
Apple PowerBook G4 1.0 Ghz 17" Aluminum
Model M8793LL/A - PowerBook5,1 - A1013
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PowerBook_G4_17.jpg)
From wikipedia.org... PROVED FALSE IN 2017
The 1 GHz 15" version of the Titanium PowerBook G4 is the last, and fastest, PowerBook which could natively run Mac OS 9 (version 9.2.2)
HAHAHA.... NOT ! The 17" Aluminum now wins hands down 14 Years Later
OK... so first we take notice to critical info on the Hardware...
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.0_17.html (http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g4/specs/powerbook_g4_1.0_17.html)
1) The PowerBook G4/1.0 17" (Al) features a 1.0 GHz PowerPC 7455 (G4) processor with the AltiVec "Velocity Engine" vector processing unit, 256k on chip level 2 cache, and 1.0 MB level 3 cache
2) NVIDIA GeForce4 440 graphics with 64 MB of DDR SDRAM in an attractive aluminum alloy case with a 17" widescreen TFT display (1440x900 resolution)
3) System Bus Speed: 167 MHz, Cache Bus Speed: 1.0 GHz (Built-in) 256 L2, 1 MB L3
4) PC2700 DDR SDRAM (Min. RAM Speed: 333 MHz), 2 GB Max
So in Theory, and as previously reported by mrhappy (BB for short), this baby boots with the modified iMic ROM natively to Mac OS 9.2.2 and has some VERY Compatible and lightning fast Mac OS 9 hardware. In fact, there are only 2 PowerBook G4 Aluminum models with possible full graphics support in Mac OS 9.2.2; the Apple PowerBook G4 867 12" with GeForce4 420 Go (4X AGP) and the PowerBook G4 1.0 Ghz 17" Aluminum with NVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go (4X AGP). We know the models with the ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 (4X AGP) will NOT give us full graphics support in Mac OS 9.
So first we buy up 3 on ebay (Approx $60 each, plus $20 Shipping each) so we have enough units to verify results from user mrhappy and also dive a little deeper.
Of course we take out an OWC Legacy SSD 120GB from stock and install it into the PB G4 17 because we hate slow booting G4s
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/powerbook-g4-aluminum (https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/powerbook-g4-aluminum)
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PBG4OWC.jpg)
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Disclaimer: Pics done with iPhone... sorry :(
So we put our first victim in FW (FireWire) target mode connect it to a working TI Powerbook G4, and run the famous "Diehard Instant DAW" Apple recovery (available right here from our site); and in less that 10 minutes we have a restored PowerBook G4 with an entire recording studio DAW ready to record music with...
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic1.jpg)
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But alas it is NOT ready yet, we then copy (before rebooting) the famous iMic ROM into the new system folder
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic2.jpg)
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OK ready to Boot ! I am so excited I can barely take it... WTF, what is this crap.... is this error real or an anomaly from booting to OS 9 ?
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic3.jpg)
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So, We now boot to an external FW hard drive that has OS X and see about the cache memory, remember this is NOT the main system memory, but memory on the logic board that cannot be changed by the user.
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic5.jpg)
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic4.jpg)
Hmmm.... no error pop up, but we notice NO L3 Cache is listed (even in OS X)
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic6.jpg)
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic7.jpg)
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So ebay strikes again... we run a diags and indeed the cache fails diagnostics and we remove the SSD and put it in Unit 2. Unit 1 boots to OS9, but the bad cache will slow down the DAW speed tests I want to do later :(
Ahh... Unit 2
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic8.jpg)
Now to Boot...
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic9.jpg)
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic10.jpg)
What, another error...Nope.
I expected to see this message and it is not really an error at all :)
User mrhappy said this would pop up... probably the cardbus or something that OS 9 does not recognize.
After you clear the message, everything runs perfectly... including graphics acceleration !
Also, the reported sound issue has been verified; the internal speakers only work if you plug a 1/8" jack in the audio out port.
FW400 works (I will check FW800 soon).
This unit is Much faster than my TI 1 Ghz in Cubase ! :)
OK, so to summarize:
We have certified that the Apple PowerBook G4 1.0 17" (Identifiers: 17-Inch - M8793LL/A - PowerBook5,1 - A1013)
Boots and runs OS 9 perfectly (using the iMic ROM), no other modifications or open firmware commands are needed !
Reported Notes:
1) "Unsupported USB" error initially on Boot (easily cleared)
2) Internal Speakers will only work if 1/8" adapter or external speaker jack is plugged into headphone jack and then BOTH speakers and Line out work simultaneously
3) On shutdown only... strange LCD flashing and graphic patterns
4) Both USBs Work 100%
5) FW800 works like a FW400 Port, FW400 is "dead"
6) nVidia Graphic Acceleration Works !
7) Ethernet Works ! (see fix)
8) Cardbus Appears "dead"
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awesome, thanks for sharing.
so what about my 1,67 aluminium?
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I am guessing, for your unit, the ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 (4X AGP) is a real problem, also the 7447a will need OF patch... it also has .5MB cache... so the G4 1.0 17" is by far an easier, almost as fast overall (with slower CPU and more cache); and faster graphics (in OS 9) make it a better choice
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so, similar issue as with the minis :/
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how easy is it to remove the monitor? and if you do, how can you control operation mode?
did you check connecting an external monitor? (yeah i know the latter most likely works..)
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i am thinking of running machines like that headless (think "synthesizer", "effect", "render cluster")
maybe there is a way how to get rid of the GPU components, by deregistering it somehow? or by building a little fake driver which doesnt really do anything eycept pretending it would work?
as we know OS9 wont boot correctly when the GPU isnt supported. but maybe one can deinstall/destroy/ignore it totally and then the OS could boot and operate.
in these days i am playing through various scenarios where i am using Xserves and minis as a standalone-something in both, OSX and OS9.
the two main problems with that are:
- how to set the accounts for the remote software (in firewire mode)
- OR: how to get at aleast one useful screen resolution in order to be at least partially able to remote the machine.
- the possible need of an OSX-reinstall (for OS9-only i could use clone images like you do)
these aluminium powerbooks would be just perfect to rip off the mainboards and put 8 of them in a big rackmount enclosure for the ultimative OS9 server farm.
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Oh ya, sure. (Just my Luck.) Recently acquired a near-immaculate Aluminum 5,5 PowerBook G4 17" 1.5GHz (No L3 cache), 2GB RAM. It's really pretty... but so what. And yup, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700. No OS 9... so what indeed is the point of living?
Time to get the cocoanut halves and horsey gallop, in search of a shrubbery. (Enveloped in envy.)
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you can use it for something which is OSX PPC exclusive. that is not much... but if you try hard... and the G4 minis and powerbooks have a built-in audio IO.
Spear? Artmatic Voyager? Powercore Firewire with Noveltech Character? (Wolfenstein ET? ;))
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Gosh IIO, you've saved me. (Gets down off chair, removes noose from around neck.) IT DOES HAVE WOLFENSTEIN!
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(https://img.memecdn.com/first-world-problems-right-here-amp-lt_c_3249795.jpg)
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I also have one of those beauties and it runs Mac OS 9.2.2 really well!
As a word of advice, you have to first restore your hacked OS9 image to a USB pendrive and format the internal drive from there in order to be able to format drives that are larger than 128GB.
I don't get the USB message on my PowerBook but I have noticed that neither AirPort Extreme (it shouldn't work anyway) or Ethernet are working. Mac OS 9 detects that there's Ethernet connected but you can't access anything on the internet :/ (I'm sure the Ethernet port works as it functions fine on OS X 10.5).
Just wondering, have you found a way to only use external headphones while not having sound being blurted out from the internal speakers too? The best workaround I've found is to lower the volume of the speakers/earphones I use so that I can hear audio from my earphones but not the speakers.
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no ethernet would be bad news, since its required for some copy protection schemes and OSC.
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The "Unknown" USB device, if present, would most likely be Bluetooth, as this is the same error that appears on the G4 FW800 if the bluetooth module is present. Internally it is a USB device on a dedicated port. If the module is disconnected the error goes away.
I'd be interested in buying one of these laptops if the remaining compatibility issue can be sorted out regarding the audio (and the ethernet if that's true). Has anyone tried this machine with a Cardbus-to-PCI expander?
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I'm ready to do any testing required if someone comes up with a fix for audio/ethernet.
I'll post a picture with what I get with an Ethernet cable attached. OS9 knows there's an Ethernet cable connected but it doesn't do more than that. If you have any suggestions regarding Ethernet, I'll be happy to try them out :)
(Quite mind-blowing how well it works on OS 9.2 and OS X 10.5.8 - on OS X 10.5.8 you could watch 360p YouTube with LWK without any frame drops)
I'm using the Well-tampered with version of 2013 of OS 9.2.2 btw.
EDIT: It also complains about missing software when going to sleep.
My Internet setup works just fine with OS 9.0.4 (or is it 9.1/9.2?) on my PowerMac G4 Sawtooth.
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Performance/Hardware Test (Updates 08/11/2017)
1) OK... as stated by other members, strange Ethernet TCP/IP Issues (No Internet, No Intranet)
Confirmed, Ethernet will show "linked" when TCP/IP is set to DHCP or manual, but local network cannot ping and internet is unreachable
*** UPDATE: Ethernet WORKS!!!!... Go to "Chooser" Make "AppleTalk" Active then Inactive... this stump starts the TCP/IP and it then works 100%... Local Ping Works and Insternet Browsers are all OK
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/EthernetA.jpg)
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/Ethernet1.jpg)
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2) Firewire 400/800 Test...
FW800 Port work 100% as a FW400 Port
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/FW800.jpg)
FW400 Port is "Dead" and External HD does not show up at all
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/FW400.jpg)
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3) QuickBench Test Results
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/QuickBench.jpg)
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4) CineBench Graphics Acceleration Test Results
CINEBENCH 2003 v1
****************************************************
Number of CPUs : 1
Rendering (Single CPU): 92 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): --- CB-CPU
Shading (CINEMA 4D) : 120 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) : 374 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 505 CB-GFX (Impressive)
OpenGL Speedup: 4.21
****************************************************
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/Cinebench.jpg)
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5) USB Ports
Work Flawlessly with no issues
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6) Internal Speakers
No Sound unless 1/8" jack is plugged in then BOTH internal Speakers and Line out work simultaneously
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*** UPDATE: Ethernet WORKS!!!!... Go to "Chooser" Make "AppleTalk" Active then Inactive... this stump starts the TCP/IP and it then works 100%... Local Ping Works and Insternet Browsers are all OK
great. :)
this could eventually be included in the next OS release, isnt it? halfautomatic, by an applescript placed on the desktop.
...applescript/apple events anyone?
(it will remain in a working condition after a reboot, right? maybe it is enough to place a modified prefs file for appletalk or networking?)
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Wow, that's weird. Nice to know it works though. Does this only have to be done the first time or on every boot?
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No 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"
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Lack of CardBus support would kinda kill my interest in this model. I've made extensive use of CardBus in my TiBooks, including PCI expansion.
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Just out of curiosity, I'll see if I can do this with my 15" aluminum PowerBook G4, model A1106, as I have an 8 GB partition with 10.4.11 installed on it that I'm willing to sacrifice. If it doesn't work, no big deal.
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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
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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…
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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
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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! ;D
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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.)
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Hmmm, images a little large there... wise guy.
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gigabit ethernet > wireless
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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
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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"
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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...
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Is your unit...
Apple PowerBook G4 1.0 Ghz 17" Aluminum
Model M8793LL/A - PowerBook5,1 - A1013
if not, please give serial number
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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.
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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 :(
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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 8)
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Wow... I am Surprised :) Check ethernet please
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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)
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When booting from the os9 unsupported CD for the first time on my FW800 1.42 DP I got the same message you did about there being a problem with the cache, followed by no longer having any L3 cache under OS X. It definitely did work before, and I'm extremely hesitant to try on my second FW800 1.42 DP. On my single 1.0 FW400 model (which is supported) the unsupported disk does not produce this error. The second USB device error seems to be in regards to the bluetooth controller, and can be ignored safely. Have you had any luck reviving your L3 Cache? PRAM reset hasn't done the trick. Plenty more to try... Hopefully OS9 compatibility doesn't require a permanent sacrifice of L3 Cache...
The Absolute Best Laptop that will Boot natively to Mac OS 9.2.2
Apple PowerBook G4 1.0 Ghz 17" Aluminum
Model M8793LL/A - PowerBook5,1 - A1013
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OK ready to Boot ! I am so excited I can barely take it... WTF, what is this crap.... is this error real or an anomaly from booting to OS 9 ?
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic3.jpg)
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So, We now boot to an external FW hard drive that has OS X and see about the cache memory, remember this is NOT the main system memory, but memory on the logic board that cannot be changed by the user.
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic5.jpg)
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic4.jpg)
Hmmm.... no error pop up, but we notice NO L3 Cache is listed (even in OS X)
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic6.jpg)
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/PB17Pic7.jpg)
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So ebay strikes again... we run a diags and indeed the cache fails diagnostics and we remove the SSD and put it in Unit 2. Unit 1 boots to OS9, but the bad cache will slow down the DAW speed tests I want to do later :(
[/size]
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FYI there's lots of machines faster than that PB 1.0 but they just require hacks to boot (PBG4 1.5, prolly 1.67, dual 1.42 MDD, 1.42 mac mini)
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what do you mean by "just hacks"? the mini requires almost the same modificiations as the alu powerbooks. and the 1.5 and 1.67 are on the to-do list.
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What about the NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 in the G4/1.5 12"?
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Hi, I have a 17" 1Ghz PB G4 and a 15" 1.67Ghz PB G4 that I would like to run OS 9 on, but I can´t download the fixed ISOs. Not allowed because of capacity/no premium account. Are these ISOs available anywhere else?
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Hi, I have a 17" 1Ghz PB G4 and a 15" 1.67Ghz PB G4 that I would like to run OS 9 on, but I can´t download the fixed ISOs. Not allowed because of capacity/no premium account. Are these ISOs available anywhere else?
This has been an issue only as of lately, just make a "free" account on Adrive, we are working on this :(
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A few weeks ago I took an offer of this machine with 1 Gig of RAM for 70 bucks and I took it.
Tested the machine with the original 60Gb 4200rpm drive and worked really slow on Tiger+Leopard, but fast on Panther.
I ordered 2 Gigs of RAM and the feeling were the same, only a little faster on Panther, but the drive were starting to give troubles.
So I decided to get the best 44 pins to mSATA adapter + a 240 mSATA drive. Total 33 Euros for the adaptor + 57 for the mSATA.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/410MnmPfWbL.jpg)
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61FLHLVZHiL._SL1000_.jpg)
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I have inserted a cardbus USB 2.0 card with NEC Chipset. I will report back if it works or not.
2 Things:
Where can I find iMic ROM file?
Should there be an order in the partitioning of a drive for a system to be the first chosen after a Apple+Alt+P+R
I am going to multiboot Mac OS 9 + Panther + Tiger and Leopard and enjoy it with a original M-Box with Protools and Logic in Mind.
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Ninester and I were just checking this mSATA + adapter scenario out today and considering same for a Mac mini. After viewing this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T35isLn-OhQ and noting the “doesn’t work” report in the comments, coupled with the fact that there was no follow-up video of the thing actually working… well, kinda-sorta nixxed the idea. BUT, do please report your success as the OWC, I assume 44 pin IDE SSDs - - (yes Mr. Happy, I remember) are a bit more expensive… and quite possibly… slower.
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would there be DOM / flash drives which fit into the HD slot of am mini? the kingspec stuff for example is not higher than a 40 pin IDE plug is.
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Interesting, 110.
Moved comments/response to General Hardware
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,4435.msg31470/topicseen.html#new
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Back to Powerbook 5.1 17", everymac have removed the wayback machine links for disassembling the machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20100413102532/http://www.ifixit.com:80/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/1 (https://web.archive.org/web/20100413102532/http://www.ifixit.com:80/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/1)
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Ninester and I were just checking this mSATA + adapter scenario out today and considering same for a Mac mini. After viewing this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T35isLn-OhQ and noting the “doesn’t work” report in the comments, coupled with the fact that there was no follow-up video of the thing actually working… well, kinda-sorta nixxed the idea. BUT, do please report your success as the OWC, I assume 44 pin IDE SSDs - - (yes Mr. Happy, I remember) are a bit more expensive… and quite possibly… slower.
As I have mentioned, the OWC Legacy IDE Drives are simply an mSata with an adapter in a pretty package, I am not sure what chipset is used... I imagine the adapter and mSata that PT5 is testing should work 100%... if not, we will have to hunt down the chipset used in the OWC or if they have made some modification
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So I decided to get the best 44 pins to mSATA adapter + a 240 mSATA drive. Total 33 Euros for the adaptor + 57 for the mSATA.
It is more like the best adaptor plus the cheapest >128G drive. I hope it to be working. Most drive should saturate the ATA 100 bus.
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Interesting, 110.
Moved comments/response to General Hardware
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,4435.msg31470/topicseen.html#new
unfortunately it mighzt be that i am wrong. both models i could find on ebay have a power connector which is some 2 mm higher than the rest of the thing. it might still fit into a G4 mini with some trickery.
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The adapter is working, but it came as cable-select as default and in that way TDM was not working, even from the Mac OS X control panel / Target Disk Mode option. Without that pin connected, it acts as master and works flawless.
My mSATA disk specs in Amperes are even better than suspect. DC +3.3 450 mA
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damn, i didnt even notice that this is the unsupported powerbook thread. we should really come back to topic here.
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When booting from the os9 unsupported CD for the first time on my FW800 1.42 DP I got the same message you did about there being a problem with the cache, followed by no longer having any L3 cache under OS X. It definitely did work before, and I'm extremely hesitant to try on my second FW800 1.42 DP. On my single 1.0 FW400 model (which is supported) the unsupported disk does not produce this error. The second USB device error seems to be in regards to the bluetooth controller, and can be ignored safely. Have you had any luck reviving your L3 Cache? PRAM reset hasn't done the trick. Plenty more to try... Hopefully OS9 compatibility doesn't require a permanent sacrifice of L3 Cache...
First time I rebooted the machine after opening it, my L3 cache went. "DieHard Syndrome"? I opened it again to make the Cable select to Master SSD drive converter change and I noticed the 2 memory chips of the L3 cache are heatsinked thru the keyboard!!
Then I put more presure to the keyboard screws, and Voila! , the L3 cache came back.
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Performance/Hardware Test (Updates 08/11/2017)
3) QuickBench Test Results
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/QuickBench.jpg)
QuickBench 1.5?
Pictures 1 to 7 MacBench 3 results
Picture 8 and 10 (no 9) MacBench 5
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Is My math right?
MBytes are KBytes/1024
Then, if I compare MB 3 and 5 results with QB 1.5 results the chinese 240GBytes drive is lightly faster than the 120 GB OWC Golden solution.
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*1024 :)
but yes, for transfer speed you usually use true numbers.
for storge size they use *1000 for gigabytes and up.
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So I decided to get the best 44 pins to mSATA adapter + a 240 mSATA drive. Total 33 Euros for the adaptor + 57 for the mSATA.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/410MnmPfWbL.jpg)
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61FLHLVZHiL._SL1000_.jpg)
My mSATA disk specs in Amperes are even better than suspect. DC +3.3 450 mA
Performance/Hardware Test (Updates 08/11/2017)
3) QuickBench Test Results
(http://www.macos9lives.com/smforum/images/diehardposts/QuickBench.jpg)
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Summary: Lightly better sequencial and lightly worst random.
Don’t know if PT5 used 1.92 or 2.1 to initialize his Zheino.
What a Journey! First the adapter were in cable select and that make me open the machine twice.
I connected the machine in TargetDiskMode to a Dual 867 MDD with instant DAW and from there I partitioned. Then had some errors choosing the right format for every system. Mac OS 9 loved HFS Extended , but all Mac OS X demanded somehow Journaling. A Tiger install on Mac OS Extended never let me dual boot without errors.
The PCMCIA/cardbus USB2.0 Nec chipset card is recognized and serves voltage, so you can only use it to charge the phone or a electric cigarrette... but nothing more
This machine needs some more love from Mac OS 9 hackers to make cardbus work, but otherwise a 1440x900 desktop is still awesome.
By the way, after restoring Instant DAW and dropping the unsupported MacOS ROM from the unsupported CD, you will need to take the M-Audio extension/Panel out on extension manager. Also deselect all ATI ones and choose the nVidia ones.
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Congrats! One of the very few times I've ever read the instructions
(very small green sheet with the Zheino) and I caught the jumper
configs before just slapping it in there and all back together again.
Quote: "Master mode (Not Connect)."
Thanks for the QuickBench results!
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Please let us know the functionality with ProTools after you pull up a project or 2 :)
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can one still download the iMic Rom needed for this? I have a AL5,1 sitting here screaming to run OS 9
thanks
Kevin
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think I found it.
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So where can I get the Mac Os 9.2.2 boot disc software so I can take my old G4 powerbook and turn it into an Only Mac OS 9 and no longer OS X
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Would a SCSI CARD work with this setup ?
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Would a SCSI CARD work with this setup ?
AFAIK PCMCIA card doesnt work, at least my USB 2.0 card isnt recognized
My Powerbook is loosing the cache... :(
Still is a GHz and 17"... :D
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Heat sink pad on upper lid is critical, replace it and no CPU overheating and it will fix cache error
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I once "repaired" it forcing more tension on the keyboard or memory screws.
Opening the Powerbook to try to repair/repaste is very, very, very, down in my list on TO DO things.
THanks for let me know that can still be recovered with some time.
Today, in my studio, my PB 17 just works powered down as a Firewire Hub. ;D The Mac Pro on one side connected with a fw800 cable and the FW 400 on the PB connected to the Audiophile and that to a Hackintosh in Yosemite...
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I had to use another configuration for the tests about the FW AP
A FW 800 to 400 cable as DieHard told us.
That config worked last year but after updating to latest Win 10 and MacTell have screwed the chance to run Mac OS 9 on it
again.
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Hello,
Any updates on fixing the issues?
I suppose the video glitches on shut down and FW issues aren't really fixable, BUT this "USB missing" alert on startup and sound issues seem to be an easy fix (please, forgive my ignorance if they're not).
Sleep mode seems to be doable as well, since this PB uses the 7455 CPU...
Also I'd die for a working Cardbus slot, but I suppose it's not a priority for the community and it's rather unlikely to ever be fixed...
Nonetheless, thank you all for making OS9 on this machine possible. You people are simply the best.
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Just got it running on my Aluminum G4!
I have a few questions though
1. Can I dual boot with Tiger?
2. To enable the speakers, does the device plugged into the headphone jack have to be a working device, or could I just cut the plug of a cheap garbage pair of earbuds and use that?
3. In System Profiler, my Cardbus slot is located under the PCI slot (I have a broken ethernet port on this machine, not sure if that affects the PCI bus at all), is there any possibility the slot might just work? (See attached for screenshot.)
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Update: I'm typing this from the 17" PB G4!
One odd thing nobody has mentioned - there's a high pitched whine that comes from the area near the DC in jack. On OSX, it only happens when the machine is under some loads or scrolling through certain menus, but it's near-constant under OS9. It seems to cease when the trackpad button is active, for whatever reason.
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That type of phenomenon is called "microphonics" and can especially affect SMD caps and inductors. The idea is that the component changes size slightly as current passes through it, which is audible if the waveform pulses are at sound frequencies. It can sometimes be cured by judicious use of rubber pads or RTV silicone.
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Is there any way to get external speakers or headphones working on this?
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I'm using a cheap chinese USB sound card - it works out of the box.
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Just got it running on my Aluminum G4!
I have a few questions though
1. Can I dual boot with Tiger?
I Have mine dual booting with 10.4.11
2. To enable the speakers, does the device plugged into the headphone jack have to be a working device, or could I just cut the plug of a cheap garbage pair of earbuds and use that?
A Dummy plug will enable the speakers to work, however on mine only the left speaker works so not sure if that's a thing or if speaker is cooked?
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I know this was asked before, but someone on this website told me that the DLSD G4 PowerBooks will boot into OS 9 with simple open firmware commands. Can someone try this, as I was able to get the boot loader to see OS 9 universal installer from this website, but when I tried to boot it the system turned off, possibly incompatible video or sound maybe.
Here is the link: https://mac-classic.com/articles/mac-os-9-on-unsupported-systems/
He told me to apply some screamer script. but still getting the samething. Can someone give this a try and see what is the reason why once OS 9 disc is selected, it will start booting, but then turn off.
Thanks,
I think we are making progress, if we can get the G4 DLSD 15 and 17 inch models to boot, I think we can safely say the G4 PowerBooks can all support, though unsupported OS 9.2.2
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I know this was asked before, but someone on this website told me that the DLSD G4 PowerBooks will boot into OS 9 with simple open firmware commands.
Well, he actually said "I don't remember if it was a DLSD Model..." (Double Layer SuperDrive/High-Resolution)
Which unfortunately, is all the way up to a 5,8 model and uncharted territory, the more you stray, from the chips/chipsets and other board features of the OS 9 compatible hardware, you will be SOL when it comes to a workable OS9 unit; the 7447a is OK, but you are introducing DD2 (instead of DDR1 PC2700 like the unit I made this thread about) and other motherboard changes.
If you have an old G4 desktop or older Mac OS 9 native G4 laptop...
The 7447a will still need OF patch, but then you can put the unit in target mode (the 5,8 model still has a FW port) and install to the Laptop's HD (as I did here), then replace the ROM file with the iMic ROM, after that try to boot, if that does not work and it "reboots" it's safe to say the 5,8 models are too different for the iMic ROM
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A Dummy plug will enable the speakers to work, however on mine only the left speaker works so not sure if that's a thing or if speaker is cooked?
Your speaker might be cooked - mine work just fine. Btw, have you tested them under OS X?
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Your speaker might be cooked - mine work just fine. Btw, have you tested them under OS X?
I just noticed the speaker issue when I checked the dummy plug for GigaG... haven't tested under OS X.
I've mostly been using headphones and had the volume cranked/maxed while playing drums so I could have fried it doing that! Haha! ;D
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Heat sink pad on upper lid is critical, replace it and no CPU overheating and it will fix cache error
Can you elaborate it, please?
I have two thermal blue strips unused from a nvme disk.
Back to Powerbook 5.1 17", everymac have removed the wayback machine links for disassembling the machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20100413102532/http://www.ifixit.com:80/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/1 (https://web.archive.org/web/20100413102532/http://www.ifixit.com:80/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/1)
The guide to dissasemble
Page 1 https://web.archive.org/web/20100413102532/http://www.ifixit.com:80/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/1 (https://web.archive.org/web/20100413102532/http://www.ifixit.com:80/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/1)
Page 2 https://web.archive.org/web/20100413104658/http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/2 (https://web.archive.org/web/20100413104658/http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/2)
Page 3 https://web.archive.org/web/20100413104703/http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/3 (https://web.archive.org/web/20100413104703/http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/3)
Page 4 https://web.archive.org/web/20100412203936/http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/4 (https://web.archive.org/web/20100412203936/http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/4)
Page 5 https://web.archive.org/web/20100413104708/http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/5 (https://web.archive.org/web/20100413104708/http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-Aluminum-17-Inch-1-1-67-GHz-Hard-Drive-Replacement/246/5)
Page 6 has pictures broken on all wayback machine backups AFAIK
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Heat sink pad on upper lid is critical, replace it and no CPU overheating and it will fix cache error
Can you elaborate it, please?
I have two thermal blue strips unused from a nvme disk.
OK, so this is one of those weird mind fucks that makes you think you are crazy, I just watched 3 videos from OWC and a bunch of videos from other people and the thermal pads are no where to be seen ?!!
Finally, this manual on page 75 shows the pad and comments on it, even though all the photos in the rest of manual ignore it and do not show it on the logic board; on page 75 they even explain it may "stick" to the top cover (as it often does):
https://www.applerepairmanuals.com/the_manuals_are_in_here/PowerBook_G4_17in.pdf
(http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3912.0;attach=9611;image)
NVMe pads should work fine, just test the thickness, or research the part numbered mentioned in the manual for specs.
It is also explains on subsequent pages that you can re-do the actual CPU arctic silver/pads if you remove the logic board, I never did that procedure on this model, the easily accessed thermal pad that covers the 2 chips corrected the cache error when I put back it back in place and secured the top lid; but knowing the age of these units, a complete breakdown, cleaning and cpu re-arcticing is probably a good idea for longevity as they run hot; maintenance on older macs (especially these laptops) is not for the squeamish. It's funny that the Pismos are older, yet are sooo much easier to work on... literally a fraction of the time to break down an entire G3... unless you are talking iBook, I just throw those away as I hate them, so many hours of my life wasted simply changing a hard drive in those piss-poorly designed units.
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Just recently returned to this wonderful place. Well I have acquired a 17" G4 1Ghz. Upgraded the HD to MSATA 128GB. Target firewire to my Powerbook (TI) restore the Die Hard DAW, all good. I replaced the rom but the little shit will be not boot. Just a flashing folder. Is this because I have not installed OS9 drivers? Slightly confused, any help would be much appreciated.
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>Is this because I have not installed OS9 drivers?
I've said this on previous posts, but here it is again:
To boot into OS 9, the OS 9 drivers must be installed on the Hard Drive, by erasing the whole hard drive.
You CANNOT install the OS 9 drivers on a single partition.
DiscUtility 11.1 will accomplish this, and after erasing and installing the OS 9 drivers, it will partition the Hard Drive.
DiscWarrior 4.3 will "bless" all Systems. Just run it on any partition you want to be bootable, and it will be.
If a Partition has information on it for Copy Protected applications, Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.7 is able to clone a partition, preserving the copy protection on the cloned drive. You must manually select "clone" instead of copy.
Drive Genius 2.2.1 is able to clone a whole hard drive rather than just a partition. I have never tested whether it copies the OS 9 drivers, which are installed on the first 8 invisible partitions. To test this, you would need 3 Hard Drives (NOT partitions)
1) a bootable OS X hard drive with Drive Genius on it
2) a hard drive with OS 9 drivers installed and with a blessed OS 9 System Folder
3) a hard drive that you want to clone OS 9 to
Please report back your results!
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yep, no OS9 drivers, no OS9 boot.
requires a reformat of the whole drive.
and in case you only have 10.5.x installed, discutil wont do it anymore, so you have to do it via console (or via a 10.4.x or OS9 bootabale media - this is how we basically suggest it for the macmini by providing a CD image)
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Well I finally made the destination and could have saved myself a whole load of coasters and going the scenic route! :(
I did think OS9 drivers were the issue but needed to verify hence the last message. Several attempts in Target Firewire mode with my TiBook to no avail - Tried Diskwarrior, I purchased this many years ago and managed to get it boot and rebuild but nada. I went hunting for Jaguar OS discs also, found them and burnt them. Wouldn't boot. Tried OS 10.4 disc 1, no drivers. In the end my last shot was the Disc for Unsupported machines - to my suprise, booted straightaway and installed in 10 mins. Everything now setup. Just finished installing my old Logic Pro and dug out the XS Key, a long with Reason 2.5. Got an old Mbox so will grab LE from here also. Just need to decide the most stable interface. Firewire Edirol FA101 could be my next purchase. Recently acquired an old Triton and JV1080 also so will be getting everything midi'd up to my MT4. Will be interesting to see how it pans out over the next few weeks. Currently working in Live/FL Studio on MacBook Air M1 & Mac Pro.
As for the Powerbook G4 17" - this is the 1GHz version with 2GB ram installed. Fastest machine to date for me re OS9, so snappy and amazeballs. I have a few TIBooks, 1 with a MSata, it flies but sounds like a wind tunnel on full whack after a while.
The only issues with 17" is the speakers. Cannot figure out the exact part to replace. When I first got the machine I had OSX 10.4.11 installed but audio only worked through plugged in headphones, can live without it but would be nice at some point.
Thank you all to making this possible.
Cheers,
Shea.
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I decided to pull the trigger on a first generation PowerBook G4 A1010 867Mhz. I really like the 12" form factor 8)
What will be the best/easiest way of installing MacOS 9 on it? Any chance that it can dual-boot with Sorbet, or even better triple-boot: MacOS9, Sorbet, Linux ? (yeah, Linux guy, sorry!).
I do not have a Titanium that I can connect over Firewire... I do have a G3 Clamshell 366Mhz (no firewire) with MacOS 9.2.2 and a PowerMac G5 with Firewire (but running MacOSX Sorbet, Linux & MorphOS)
Thanks!
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Heat sink pad on upper lid is critical, replace it and no CPU overheating and it will fix cache error
Can you elaborate it, please?
I have two thermal blue strips unused from a nvme disk.
NVMe pads should work fine, just test the thickness, or research the part numbered mentioned in the manual for specs.
So, guys, how thick those thermal pads should be? Mine is also complaining about cache problems upon boot. ASD 2.1.4 shows L3 cache = 0 :(
And I see no remains of any kind of thermal pads attached to either top lid or any of the two chips.
Also, on mine, the left side fan is noisy and right side fan is dead and loose (unglued). Anyone have any spares lying around?
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Answering my own question..
Not willing to pay "premium price" for boutique cooling products, I ordered 1 mm thick no-name silicon thermal pads.
At first I tried one layer. No change, cache still disabled. I then put two layers (2x 1 mm) of thermal pad and cache briefly came back to life. PowerLogix's CPU Director was able to see it for a moment, but then the machine froze and afterwards the cache remained disabled.
2 mm is definitely too much because with two layers keyboard has a bump in the area where the cache chips are located.
Now comes the interesting part. I was given another machine that had many parts, especially top cover, missing. Powered it up and it had no problems with cache and it did not complain about unknown USB device!!!
Ran it for a couple of hours without the cover - cache chips were only getting warm, not hot, like on the machine with problems.
I also noticed, that the guy with PB G4 5,1 prototype on YouTube had problems with cache.
Protools5LEGuy reported that tightening the keyboard screws - i.e. applying more pressure to cache chips, brought cache back to life.
All this and my experience (I'm an EE) tells me that this is more of a contact than thermal problem. Bad batch of mobos, bad soldering, imperfect soldering jig, failing cache chips or something inbetween. The problem might be similar to failing GPUs on G3 portables or 2011 15" MBPs.
It also might explain why one does not see thermal pads in various videos and don't find thermal pads in machines that have been "serviced" *. Absence of thermal pads will guarantee that the machine will disable failing cache upon startup and nobody, except technically minded people, will notice this in OSX.
* The first one that I bought have traces of "repair" - one of the caps near the cache has been fiddled with.
More later..
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Appreciate the guidance from this thread, I have a 17” pb G4 1ghz booting with macos 9 with similar symptoms. I was able to get past a few of these annoyances:
Ethernet- smc 2208usb gives me 10/100, limited by usb bandwidth. A bit slow but usable.
Unknown device at startup- removed the bluetooth board, resolved
Speaker disabled: etch cut on the audio connector board, internal speakers always on. Boot chime doesn’t come through, logic seems reversed at initial power-on.
Promising platform!
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So this is Pretty hilarious that even in the Apple Service manual it mentions the thermal pad and then all pictures after they mention it, have the thermal pad missing; obviously the unit they dis-assembled had the thermal pad stick to the top
In the winter on 2023 or Spring of 2024, we will hear more about the 17" 5,1 as the units that I used to start this post have been shipped to "FBz Industries" for further evaluation and dissection.
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Looks like it might be a “Laptop Winter” here at the ol’ Ranch.
And yes I’ve already read through all these posts (twice, so far)
pre-warming up to the eventual task.
Thanks DH! ;)
It would be nice to have an OS9 functioning 17" G4
here upstairs... instead of the trusty, high-mileage G3 iBook.
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Just a quick note, anyone having trouble using ethernet on the A1013 PowerBook G4 1Ghz 17", you need to use a switch that lets you configure port negotiation manually. Set the port on your switch to either 10Mbps or 100Mbps and it will work.
There's something a bit wonky with the OS 9 ethernet driver and the port on this PowerBook negotiating 1Gbps. I imagine if you use a 100Mbps switch it would probably work with that too.
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Hello all,
Trying to get a PowerBook G4 17" Aluminum 5,1 booting into OS9 using a 250gb SSD. Drive verified and works well when installed in a G4 mac mini OS 9 install...
Used the Unsupported G4 image as a first attempt. Target boot installed from a 1ghz Tibook in OS 9 to the PB g4 17". Install was successful. Upon reboot of the PB G4 17", it displays the flashing folder with ?
Do i need an additional rom to make this work? Having a hard time finding the original iMic rom, but it was my understanding that the unsupported image might work...
If anyone has an additional rom or image for me to try, I would be very grateful for the assistance.
Thanks!
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vectrex, PowerBook 5,1 is one of the easiest to make it work in OS9. Do a forum search, I think there is a ROM for it made by iMic somewhere, and, IIRC, I've posted my version of it too. Mine has even less changes applied to original ROM compared to his version.
BUT(!), you have 250GB drive. Is it partitioned properly to be OS9 bootable? 192GB is the limit, in case you didn't know ;)
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Hi ssp3,
Amateur mistake on my part, it was the drive partition size as you had mentioned, thanks for the gentle reminder!
This post can serve as a good reminder for anyone else forgetting this step in the future. I did not require any additional rom modification as I used the 'Unsupported G4's' image located on the downloads page, so that may be helpful for anyone else who comes across this post in the future.
Thanks!
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Haven't been active here for more that 4 years, so I thought I'd ask whether some progress regarding getting Cardbus to work under OS 9 has been made? I've seen a post regarding USB 2.0 potentially working, so yeah, I truly hope Cardbus working is just a matter of time 8)
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Haven't been active here for more that 4 years, so I thought I'd ask whether some progress regarding getting Cardbus to work under OS 9 has been made? I've seen a post regarding USB 2.0 potentially working, so yeah, I truly hope Cardbus working is just a matter of time 8)
Hello! I was working on this exact thing until the backlight on my 667 DVI TiBook's display died :( So I ended up pivoting to some other projects.
I bought a replacement inverter board in the hopes that it will fix the issue. If so, I will resume this effort soon. Given that the EHCI stack has already been built, the CardBus piece of the equation would hopefully be relatively trivial to solve. Stay tuned.
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Hello! I was working on this exact thing until the backlight on my 667 DVI TiBook's display died :( So I ended up pivoting to some other projects.
I bought a replacement inverter board in the hopes that it will fix the issue. If so, I will resume this effort soon. Given that the EHCI stack has already been built, the CardBus piece of the equation would hopefully be relatively trivial to solve. Stay tuned.
BRUH, i won't be able to sleep tonight out of excitement, fingers crossed!
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A vote from me as well for the cardbus!
My Firewire doesnt work at all, installed using the unsupported image install, which worked well in target disk install from a TiBook.
USB works great on all slots.
''unsupported usb device, click ok" prompt shows at every boot, unaware of how or what to use to silence that.
Also would share that these machines have major heat issues which can cause the lower ram slot and the ram itself to become defective. Spent several days diagnosing what i thought was an L2/L3 cache freezing. in both os 9 and OS X, but it turns out it was the lower ram slot all along (the one closest to battery). pitch the bad ram *whizzzzzzz*. I havent tested to see if the lower ram slot is permanently knackered.
Dropping the processor speed (which affects cache too) in the energy savings settings helps immensely with heat, but some of you might be doing more with the machine and in that case you can flip it over on your lunch break and cook an egg on the underside. Suprisingly working well at a crippled 666mhz! (devil hand emoji)
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A vote from me as well for the cardbus!
That's basically the only issue I have with this model - I would love to be able to plug my Cardbus SCSI card which only works under OS9 - need to use my Ti for this purpose instead.
''unsupported usb device, click ok" prompt shows at every boot, unaware of how or what to use to silence that.
AFAIK it's the Bluetooth - back when I was more knowledgable about those stuff I was able to write a script for OF to disable it, unfortunatelly now I don't know how to do that anymore, though the answer is definitely here, somewhere on this forum.
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@LarsG5 I apologize, I think I misunderstood what you were originally asking about :P I've been working on bringing true USB 2.0 speeds to NEC-chipset CardBus USB 2.0 cards for TiBooks under OS 9 (which I just finished!) so your post caught my eye, but now I realize you were talking about CardBus working specifically on the 17" AlBook, which it sounds like currently it doesn't at all. Unfortunately, the only CardBus Mac I own is my 667 DVI TiBook; I have no AlBook of my own to test on. Really wish I had one now.
HOWEVER... I designed a test probe app for you to run on your 17" AlBook. This simple app will determine if the CardBus port can be reached under OS 9 on the AlBook. After you run it, a text log file will be generated; please send me that file. Based on my CardBus work thus far, I am fairly confident that a proper CardBus solution could be developed for the AlBook, but again, I'd need a test subject first. (Care to loan me yours? Haha)
Additionally you can test out the app on your own TiBook, as it will also recognize CardBus cards themselves and document their properties, such as whether they are (in the case of a USB card) NEC-chipset or some other incompatible chipset like VIA.
Here's the repo where you can find the test probe app (called CardBusCompat.bin) as well as the system extension I developed to unlock USB 2.0 on CardBus in OS 9:
https://github.com/UnexpectedBomb/MacOS9-USB2-EHCI/releases#release-cbrel
Just expand via Stuffit and launch. Let me know if you have any trouble.
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=== CardBusCompat 1.0 ===
Read-only: writes only the config-address selector, which is how any config read is addressed.
--- MACHINE: is there a CardBus bridge? ---
bridge vendor-id 0x0000104c
bridge device-id 0x0000ac56
CardBus bridge FOUND.
--- CARD: what is in the slot? ---
No USB 1.1 function published UNDER THE BRIDGE. Either no card is inserted, or
Mac OS 9 does not recognise it (some cards are invisible to Mac OS 9 entirely).
USB 1.1 functions published in total 0x00000000
of those, NEC (vendor 0x1033) 0x00000000
--- MACHINE: can we reach config space the way the extension does? ---
Cannot test: no card function is published, so there is no known-good answer to check
the raw path against. Insert a CardBus card Mac OS 9 recognises and run this again.
========================= VERDICT =========================
MACHINE: UNKNOWN - a CardBus slot exists, but testing it needs a card Mac OS 9 recognises.
CARD: NONE - no card detected in the slot.
===========================================================
A log named 'CardBus Compatibility Log' has been written to your startup disk.
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@vectrex thank you for running that compatibility checker and providing the results! I'm realizing I had an outdated version on the repo; if you re-download now it should be v1.6. My fault. Run that one and it should tell us what we need to know about the AlBook's CardBus landscape.
Already this result confirms that your CardBus controller is a TI PCI1510, which Mac OS 9 had never seen before (hence the "dead"-ness of the port). The original v1.0 checker had a defect that made it unreliable at properly detecting inserted cards, so that's another reason to want the results coming from v1.6 if you had a card inserted when you ran it.
Edit: The most important part will be whether the "compatible" line contains the generic "cardbus-bridge", as the TiBook's does.
If it does... game on. I might be able to design a universal CardBus fix that would work for AlBooks too, without ever needing to get hands on one myself.
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Thanks UnexpectedBomb!
Here is the latest report:
=== CardBusCompat 1.6 ===
Read-only: writes only the config-address selector, which is how any config read is addressed.
--- MACHINE: is there a CardBus bridge? ---
bridge vendor-id 0x0000104c
bridge device-id 0x0000ac56
bridge revision-id 0x00000000
name = cardbus |
device_type = cardbus |
compatible = pci104c,ac56 | cardbus-bridge |
model = TXN,PCIXXXX-00 |
bridge AAPL,address 0xf2009010
bus-range = (ABSENT)
driver,AAPL,MacOS,PowerPC = ABSENT (the ROM did NOT match this node; no socket driver, no Card Services)
CardBus bridge FOUND.
--- CARD: what is in the slot? ---
Mac OS 9 published NOTHING under the bridge.
No USB 1.1 function published UNDER THE BRIDGE. Either no card is inserted, or
Mac OS 9 does not recognise it (some cards are invisible to Mac OS 9 entirely).
USB 1.1 functions published in total 0x00000000
of those, NEC (vendor 0x1033) 0x00000000
--- MACHINE: can we reach config space the way the extension does? ---
Subject: the CardBus BRIDGE itself, because no card function is published.
chain (the extension takes the FIRST AAPL,address it meets):
level 0x00000000
name = cardbus |
device_type = cardbus |
AAPL,address 0xf2009010
level 0x00000001
name = pci |
device_type = pci |
AAPL,address = (ABSENT)
host-bus reg[0] (second candidate base) 0xf2000000
level 0x00000002
name = device-tree |
device_type = bootrom |
AAPL,address = (ABSENT)
level 0x00000003
name = Devices |
device_type = (ABSENT)
AAPL,address = (ABSENT)
subject bus 0x00000000
subject device 0x00000013
CANDIDATE 1: the extension's own rule (first parent AAPL,address).
base 0xf2009010
CONFIG_ADDRESS 0xf2809010
CONFIG_DATA 0xf2c09010
cycle type: 0 (the subject is on bus 0)
trusted reading (ExpMgr) 0xac56104c
raw reading (type-1) 0xac56104c
selector retries (0 is ideal) 0x00000000
RESULT: this base reproduced the known-good answer.
CANDIDATE 2: the canonical rule (host bus reg base).
base 0xf2000000
CONFIG_ADDRESS 0xf2800000
CONFIG_DATA 0xf2c00000
cycle type: 0 (the subject is on bus 0)
trusted reading (ExpMgr) 0xac56104c
raw reading (type-1) 0xac56104c
selector retries (0 is ideal) 0x00000000
RESULT: this base reproduced the known-good answer.
Both bases reach the same registers, which is the UniNorth aliasing, measured.
ORACLE PASSED: the raw path reproduced a known-good answer.
========================= VERDICT =========================
SOCKET: NOT BOUND - the ROM did NOT attach a socket driver to this bridge.
Mac OS 9 carries socket support for two CardBus controllers only,
TI PCI1210 (pci104c,ac1a) and TI PCI1410 (pci104c,ac50). Card Services
itself is loaded by the same rule, so on this machine the whole PC Card
stack is absent, not merely idle. Every PC Card will appear dead.
Please send this log: the 'compatible' line above is the exact data needed.
MACHINE: YES, AS FAR AS AN EMPTY SLOT CAN SHOW - the config-address pair is verified
by a type-0 read of the bridge. Nothing was in the slot, so the type-1 path
the extension uses for a card was not exercised. Re-run with a card inserted
to confirm the rest; any CardBus card will do, it need not be supported.
CARD: NONE PUBLISHED - Mac OS 9 published no card. The slot could not be swept to confirm.
===========================================================
A log named 'CardBus Compatibility Log' has been written to your startup disk.
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@vectrex that result is looking VERY promising. One final run please, on
v1.8 (I found and fixed a reading bug in the version you had, so a fresh download is needed). It's up on the repo now.
The checker now dumps the bridge's own registers, which tells us whether Open Firmware ever configured your CardBus slot or left it untouched. That should finally decide how fixable this is.
Run it once empty and once with any CardBus card inserted. Best case scenario: the checker recognizes an inserted card and detects its functions. If it does, I could cut a custom ROM for testing and theoretically have this thing functional for the first time ever.
EDIT: I made a newer v1.9 checker that also tell me what version of the Mac OS ROM you are running, so I will know how to patch it. Run v1.9 instead, especially with a card inserted.
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Love the realtime AI fixes
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Love the realtime AI fixes
;D Honestly, this is an interesting problem to me, having just done a bunch of CardBus work AND having done similar "enablement" work on the FW800 MDD already. The AlBook seems to have similar hardware-blocking woes, and I think it's possible that some of the other stuff I've developed for the MDD FW800 (namely the FireWire port extension fix) could also help out the AlBook. Once I get Bluetooth and Airport Extreme released, they should hopefully apply to the AlBook as well.
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now that you say it, yes, some of the not supported powerbooks do use USB 2 for the keypad, for example.
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Hi, so here's the log from my Al, v. 1.9, hopefully I did everything correctly. This one is with a generic USB card in the Cardbus slot:
=== CardBusCompat 1.9 ===
Read-only: writes only the config-address selector, which is how any config read is addressed.
--- IDENTITY: which Mac, and which Mac OS ROM ---
model = PowerBook5,1 |
compatible = PowerBook5,1 | MacRISC3 | Power Macintosh |
MacOSROMFile-version = 10.2f1 |
--- MACHINE: is there a CardBus bridge? ---
bridge vendor-id 0x0000104c
bridge device-id 0x0000ac56
bridge revision-id 0x00000000
name = cardbus |
device_type = cardbus |
compatible = pci104c,ac56 | cardbus-bridge |
model = TXN,PCIXXXX-00 |
bridge AAPL,address 0xf2009010
bus-range = (ABSENT)
driver,AAPL,MacOS,PowerPC = ABSENT (the ROM did NOT match this node; no socket driver, no Card Services)
CardBus bridge FOUND.
--- CARD: what is in the slot? ---
Mac OS 9 published NOTHING under the bridge.
No USB 1.1 function published UNDER THE BRIDGE. Either no card is inserted, or
Mac OS 9 does not recognise it (some cards are invisible to Mac OS 9 entirely).
USB 1.1 functions published in total 0x00000000
of those, NEC (vendor 0x1033) 0x00000000
--- MACHINE: can we reach config space the way the extension does? ---
Subject: the CardBus BRIDGE itself, because no card function is published.
chain (the extension takes the FIRST AAPL,address it meets):
level 0x00000000
name = cardbus |
device_type = cardbus |
AAPL,address 0xf2009010
level 0x00000001
name = pci |
device_type = pci |
AAPL,address = (ABSENT)
host-bus reg[0] (second candidate base) 0xf2000000
level 0x00000002
name = device-tree |
device_type = bootrom |
AAPL,address = (ABSENT)
level 0x00000003
name = Devices |
device_type = (ABSENT)
AAPL,address = (ABSENT)
subject bus 0x00000000
subject device 0x00000013
CANDIDATE 1: the extension's own rule (first parent AAPL,address).
base 0xf2009010
CONFIG_ADDRESS 0xf2809010
CONFIG_DATA 0xf2c09010
cycle type: 0 (the subject is on bus 0)
trusted reading (ExpMgr) 0xac56104c
raw reading (type-1) 0xac56104c
selector retries (0 is ideal) 0x00000000
RESULT: this base reproduced the known-good answer.
CANDIDATE 2: the canonical rule (host bus reg base).
base 0xf2000000
CONFIG_ADDRESS 0xf2800000
CONFIG_DATA 0xf2c00000
cycle type: 0 (the subject is on bus 0)
trusted reading (ExpMgr) 0xac56104c
raw reading (type-1) 0xac56104c
selector retries (0 is ideal) 0x00000000
RESULT: this base reproduced the known-good answer.
Both bases reach the same registers, which is the UniNorth aliasing, measured.
ORACLE PASSED: the raw path reproduced a known-good answer.
--- BRIDGE: its own PCI configuration ---
0x04 command/status 0x02100007
memory decode enabled: YES
I/O decode enabled: YES
bus master enabled: YES
0x10 socket register base (BAR0) 0xa0003000
0x18 bus numbers and CardBus latency 0x20010100
primary bus 0x00000000
SECONDARY (CardBus) bus 0x00000001
subordinate bus 0x00000001
0x1c memory window 0 base 0x90000000
0x20 memory window 0 limit 0x9ffff000
0x24 memory window 1 base 0x00000000
0x28 memory window 1 limit 0x00000000
0x2c I/O window 0 base 0x00001000
0x30 I/O window 0 limit 0x00008ffc
0x34 I/O window 1 base 0x00000000
0x38 I/O window 1 limit 0x00000000
0x3c int line / int pin / bridge control 0x040001ff
=> PROGRAMMED. The bridge has a secondary bus number, so firmware or software has
already configured it and a driver could inherit that work.
--- SLOT: the socket's own card-detect register ---
Skipped: AAPL,address and BAR0 disagree, so nothing here is safe to dereference.
AAPL,address page 0xf2009000
BAR0 page 0xa0003000
The registry had no bus-range, so the sweep below uses the secondary bus
number read from the bridge's own config space instead.
--- SLOT: raw sweep of the bridge's secondary bus ---
This sees the card itself, whether or not Mac OS 9 published anything for it.
sweeping bus 0x00000001
device 0x00000000
function 0x00000000
vendor/device 0x00351033
class-code 0x000c0310
= USB 1.1 (OHCI)
device 0x00000000
function 0x00000001
vendor/device 0x00351033
class-code 0x000c0310
= USB 1.1 (OHCI)
device 0x00000000
function 0x00000002
vendor/device 0x00e01033
class-code 0x000c0320
= USB 2.0 (EHCI)
functions that answered in total 0x00000003
========================= VERDICT =========================
SOCKET: NOT BOUND - the ROM did NOT attach a socket driver to this bridge.
Mac OS 9 carries socket support for two CardBus controllers only,
TI PCI1210 (pci104c,ac1a) and TI PCI1410 (pci104c,ac50). Card Services
itself is loaded by the same rule, so on this machine the whole PC Card
stack is absent, not merely idle. Every PC Card will appear dead.
Please send this log: the 'compatible' line above is the exact data needed.
MACHINE: YES - the config-address pair is verified (type 0, on the bridge) AND a card
answered a type-1 sweep of the slot's bus, so both cycle types work here.
CARD: NEC chipset present, but Mac OS 9 published nothing for it (raw sweep only).
===========================================================
A log named 'CardBus Compatibility Log' has been written to your startup disk.
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And this one is with the Cardbus slot empty:
=== CardBusCompat 1.9 ===
Read-only: writes only the config-address selector, which is how any config read is addressed.
--- IDENTITY: which Mac, and which Mac OS ROM ---
model = PowerBook5,1 |
compatible = PowerBook5,1 | MacRISC3 | Power Macintosh |
MacOSROMFile-version = 10.2f1 |
--- MACHINE: is there a CardBus bridge? ---
bridge vendor-id 0x0000104c
bridge device-id 0x0000ac56
bridge revision-id 0x00000000
name = cardbus |
device_type = cardbus |
compatible = pci104c,ac56 | cardbus-bridge |
model = TXN,PCIXXXX-00 |
bridge AAPL,address 0xf2009010
bus-range = (ABSENT)
driver,AAPL,MacOS,PowerPC = ABSENT (the ROM did NOT match this node; no socket driver, no Card Services)
CardBus bridge FOUND.
--- CARD: what is in the slot? ---
Mac OS 9 published NOTHING under the bridge.
No USB 1.1 function published UNDER THE BRIDGE. Either no card is inserted, or
Mac OS 9 does not recognise it (some cards are invisible to Mac OS 9 entirely).
USB 1.1 functions published in total 0x00000000
of those, NEC (vendor 0x1033) 0x00000000
--- MACHINE: can we reach config space the way the extension does? ---
Subject: the CardBus BRIDGE itself, because no card function is published.
chain (the extension takes the FIRST AAPL,address it meets):
level 0x00000000
name = cardbus |
device_type = cardbus |
AAPL,address 0xf2009010
level 0x00000001
name = pci |
device_type = pci |
AAPL,address = (ABSENT)
host-bus reg[0] (second candidate base) 0xf2000000
level 0x00000002
name = device-tree |
device_type = bootrom |
AAPL,address = (ABSENT)
level 0x00000003
name = Devices |
device_type = (ABSENT)
AAPL,address = (ABSENT)
subject bus 0x00000000
subject device 0x00000013
CANDIDATE 1: the extension's own rule (first parent AAPL,address).
base 0xf2009010
CONFIG_ADDRESS 0xf2809010
CONFIG_DATA 0xf2c09010
cycle type: 0 (the subject is on bus 0)
trusted reading (ExpMgr) 0xac56104c
raw reading (type-1) 0xac56104c
selector retries (0 is ideal) 0x00000000
RESULT: this base reproduced the known-good answer.
CANDIDATE 2: the canonical rule (host bus reg base).
base 0xf2000000
CONFIG_ADDRESS 0xf2800000
CONFIG_DATA 0xf2c00000
cycle type: 0 (the subject is on bus 0)
trusted reading (ExpMgr) 0xac56104c
raw reading (type-1) 0xac56104c
selector retries (0 is ideal) 0x00000000
RESULT: this base reproduced the known-good answer.
Both bases reach the same registers, which is the UniNorth aliasing, measured.
ORACLE PASSED: the raw path reproduced a known-good answer.
--- BRIDGE: its own PCI configuration ---
0x04 command/status 0x02100007
memory decode enabled: YES
I/O decode enabled: YES
bus master enabled: YES
0x10 socket register base (BAR0) 0xa0003000
0x18 bus numbers and CardBus latency 0x20010100
primary bus 0x00000000
SECONDARY (CardBus) bus 0x00000001
subordinate bus 0x00000001
0x1c memory window 0 base 0x90000000
0x20 memory window 0 limit 0x9ffff000
0x24 memory window 1 base 0x00000000
0x28 memory window 1 limit 0x00000000
0x2c I/O window 0 base 0x00001000
0x30 I/O window 0 limit 0x00008ffc
0x34 I/O window 1 base 0x00000000
0x38 I/O window 1 limit 0x00000000
0x3c int line / int pin / bridge control 0x044001ff
=> PROGRAMMED. The bridge has a secondary bus number, so firmware or software has
already configured it and a driver could inherit that work.
--- SLOT: the socket's own card-detect register ---
Skipped: AAPL,address and BAR0 disagree, so nothing here is safe to dereference.
AAPL,address page 0xf2009000
BAR0 page 0xa0003000
The registry had no bus-range, so the sweep below uses the secondary bus
number read from the bridge's own config space instead.
--- SLOT: raw sweep of the bridge's secondary bus ---
This sees the card itself, whether or not Mac OS 9 published anything for it.
sweeping bus 0x00000001
Nothing answered. The slot is genuinely empty or the card is unpowered.
========================= VERDICT =========================
SOCKET: NOT BOUND - the ROM did NOT attach a socket driver to this bridge.
Mac OS 9 carries socket support for two CardBus controllers only,
TI PCI1210 (pci104c,ac1a) and TI PCI1410 (pci104c,ac50). Card Services
itself is loaded by the same rule, so on this machine the whole PC Card
stack is absent, not merely idle. Every PC Card will appear dead.
Please send this log: the 'compatible' line above is the exact data needed.
MACHINE: YES, AS FAR AS AN EMPTY SLOT CAN SHOW - the config-address pair is verified
by a type-0 read of the bridge. Nothing was in the slot, so the type-1 path
the extension uses for a card was not exercised. Re-run with a card inserted
to confirm the rest; any CardBus card will do, it need not be supported.
CARD: NONE - nothing answered a raw sweep of the slot's bus, so it is genuinely empty.
===========================================================
A log named 'CardBus Compatibility Log' has been written to your startup disk.
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@LarsG5 Those logs are just what I needed, thank you! Working on a solution now. Stay tuned.
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Following in LarsG5's footsteps here (if it is relevant), i've attached txt logs (with and without card). Didnt have a generic usb so i used an adaptec scsi 1480 card.
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Following in LarsG5's footsteps here (if it is relevant), i've attached txt logs (with and without card). Didnt have a generic usb so i used an adaptec scsi 1480 card.
Definitely relevant. The fact that your card was a non-USB card set me on a path to create a universal solution that restores Card Services itself, making any type of card usable: SCSI, Ethernet, FireWire, USB, you name it. A patched ROM file is in the works as we speak.
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Definitely relevant. The fact that your card was a non-USB card set me on a path to create a universal solution that restores Card Services itself, making any type of card usable: SCSI, Ethernet, FireWire, USB, you name it. A patched ROM file is in the works as we speak.
Dude, you're the best! Tbh I didn't even think of using my Adaptec SCSI 1480 card, but I also have a Linksys 802.11g card I could use laying around if that would be of any help to you. Of course there is no 802.11g support within OS9 regardless, but still.
Regarding me lending you my Al - I live in Europe, so concidering the shipping cost and, especially, time it would take to get to you, we might actually be better off solving the Cardbus issue here, or perhaps you might even be able to find one faster locally.
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👋powerbook 12” 1.5 ghz
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@UnexpectedBomb,
Excellent. thanks so much for doing this! As @LarsG5 has indicated, if you need any other cards in the slot to test, let us know. I have a SeriTek/1SM2, RME Cardbus card for multiface..etc, so if any of that is relevant to the reports, happy to try those out.
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Regarding me lending you my Al - I live in Europe, so concidering the shipping cost and, especially, time it would take to get to you, we might actually be better off solving the Cardbus issue here, or perhaps you might even be able to find one faster locally.
Ah yeah, in that case I think the back-and-forth on this forum actually is better :)
@LarsG5 @vectrex I now have a patched ROM (MacOSROM.albook-cb1.hqx.sit) for you to try booting, as well as a new v2.0 compatibility checker (CardBusCompat.bin.sit) to help me diagnose if anything goes wrong. Here's the sequence I'd ask for:
1) Run the v2.0 compatibility checker app FIRST, on your "stock" ROM with a card inserted, to give us a baseline
2) Back-up your current Mac OS ROM somewhere safe
3) Boot from another volume and install the patched ROM, reboot
4) Run v2.0 compatibility checker again to generate a second log
5) Send me both logs
It should boot fine, but make sure you have a recovery plan just in case it doesn't and you need to swap it back out. Try out your CardBus cards once booted and see what happens. As a bonus, NEC-chipset USB cards should now operate at USB 2.0 speeds; SCSI cards should hopefully do their thing as well (I assume your SCSI card is specifically the PowerDomain APD-1480 which would be a key test subject).
Good luck! I am optimistic that we have a solution here. Getting working confirmations from both of you would be huge. If it doesn't work, send me a copy of your current stock ROM and I'll investigate.
EDIT: I forgot... for USB 2.0 speeds on a CardBus card, you will ALSO need to install the EHCI system extension (CardBus_EHCI_Ext.bin) from my repo here:
https://github.com/UnexpectedBomb/MacOS9-USB2-EHCI/releases#release-cbrel
CardBus USB will still work without it, but at the old 1.1 speed. To me, the SCSI card is the much more interesting test here, and I'd want to know specifically how the compatibility checker reads with one inserted on the new ROM.
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👋powerbook 12” 1.5 ghz
If only the 12" had CardBus :(
I noticed your mention of iSight in your signature... a very interesting piece of hardware for its era. Adding it to my (growing) OS 9 to-do list!
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hopefully got it right. tested with the scsi 1480 in the slot, i dont have a usb card yet.
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hopefully got it right. tested with the scsi 1480 in the slot, i dont have a usb card yet.
Yep, you did everything right. The ROM boots, and Mac OS 9 now correctly recognizes the AlBook's PCI1510 CardBus controller for the first time ever... this was proven in the logs when:
driver,AAPL,MacOS,PowerPC = ABSENT changed to PRESENT
...so we're already deep in uncharted OS 9 territory, my favorite place to be ;D That's the first two hurdles cleared.
What didn't happen is Card Services being registered, which caused OS 9 to publish nothing for your inserted SCSI card. I've updated the checker to v2.4 and am attaching it here; please run it on the same new ROM, this time with the SeriTek inserted. The question is whether anything appears under the CardBus bridge, which will tell me where to go next.
Edit: @LarsG5, if you can jump in with a similar test running v2.4 on the new ROM with your USB card inserted, that would be awesome.
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revised, here is the new seritek report. should the seritek drivers be loaded?
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revised, here is the new seritek report. should the seritek drivers be loaded?
No need to load the drivers, you ran it just fine. The latest log was helpful. Unfortunately I'm still running into a wall with Card Services, but I might have a lead. There is a single bit that Apple's PC card software checks before proceeding with CardBus bring-up:
- If that bit reads "clear", I have another candidate ROM for you to try that could potentially solve this.
- If that bit reads "set", the lead is dead because the problem is further downstream. At that point I'd realistically have to punt on this until I can get my hands on a real 17" AlBook to test. (I'd also have to punt if it reads "clear" but the candidate ROM still fails).
So here's one final shot at pinpointing the issue: run the new v2.5 compatibility checker. It will tell us on the AlBook if that bit is clear or not. Then we'll make a decision from there.
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Here is v2.5 log
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Hi, sorry for the delay, it's been a crazy week.
Sooo... Attached down below you will find 5 logs: 4 with my Nec USB Cardbus card and one with my Linksys WPC54G Cardbus card, which is basically a plug n play alternative for the 802.11g Airport Card (at least under Tiger).
Idk whether those made with the v.2.0 tool are still relevant, but I'm attaching those nonetheless.
BUT, no matter what I did, the Cardbus still appeared dead on my machine, even with the new rom installed. Idk whether I did something wrong, but just letting you know I wasn't able to make it work :(
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@vectrex and @LarsG5 thanks to both of you! Getting logs independently from each of you helped big time. Comparing the results of the stock ROM as a control vs the new ROM was critical.
I also compared your logs against my Titanium PowerBook where the slot works as expected. Out of everything the machine reports about its own capabilities, exactly one item differs, and it is the "bit" that I referenced earlier that the PC Card software checks before it will start. Everything else matches the Titanium exactly, and your two machines match each other exactly. So with all of that confirmed, I am confident that the problem is this one bit currently reads "clear" and never gets set on the AlBook (almost certainly because Apple never shipped OS 9 for them).
The attached ROM sets this bit and keeps the card slot fix from the earlier build, since both are needed. I built the same change for my own Titanium PowerBook, booted it, and confirmed the bit actually changes, so the mechanism is tested and should work for you as well. The testing sequence is the same drill as before:
1) Run the v2.6 compatibility checker app FIRST (attached here)
2) Boot from another volume and install the new patched ROM (albook-cb2), reboot
3) Run v2.6 compatibility checker on the new ROM to generate a second log
4) Send me both logs and see if any of your cards respond.
The key thing we are looking for now is for the the stack to actually start, meaning the CardBus slot is alive for the first time. I'm hoping this is the ROM that does it.
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here are the logs, 'new' denotes new rom.
when i had the seritek card in with new rom, prior to installing driver, it showed up on the desktop as a grey card, no name attached. I installed the driver, it disappeared. Screenshots indicate the cards appear with the same vendor ID
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It worked!! The CardBus slot is alive on the AlBook under OS 9! That's a first.
The SeriTek showing up as a blank card icon and then vanishing once you installed its driver is the next thing to troubleshoot, and this should be much more straightforward. Could you run the v2.6 checker again with the SeriTek driver installed and the card in the slot? The log lists what the system has attached to the card, so comparing that against the run you already sent should show what the driver changed when it took over. The cards aren't working quite yet, but we are closer than ever. Just the fact that the card appeared on the desktop at all is huge.
Regarding the ASP screenshots, the vendor ID showing in both is 104C, which is Texas Instruments, and that is the slot controller itself rather than either card. ASP is showing the slot and not looking past it at what is plugged in. Your two cards do have different IDs but this can only be seen in the logs, they may never show in ASP (which I think is normal).
Edit: On second thought, I think it's possible that the SeriTek card is actually working as intended... the card may have disappeared from the desktop because the driver claimed it. Did you try connecting a drive to that card?
Edit II: I have a new v2.8 compatibility checker (attached); run that one instead, but with the extension and card installed prior to booting. Then run it a second time with the SeriTek card inserted and extension disabled, and send both logs. The difference between runs will isolate what the driver does, so we can figure out how to make it cooperate.
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Regarding getting info for PCI devices, I have a "lspci for Open Firmware" script that you can use in Open Firmware to get info about connected PCI devices. Latest version is from June 15, 2026 and has support for CardBus bridges.
https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/erics-apple-network-server-700-tinker-log.3987/post-41227
You'll need to be able to connect to Open Firmware using serial or telnet.
If you can boot Mac OS X, then there's my pciutils fork on GitHub.
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Down below you'll find my logs.
Sooo... After installing the new rom, an icon shaped like a Cardbus card popped up on my desktop, so that's a good sign.
BUT, I still wasn't able to actually make the USB card work - it's almost as if there was some kind of a fail safe built into OS 9 that doesn't let the card work.
I have tested the card with a receiver for a wireless mouse and with a regular thumb drive. Mouse was working on a boot screen just fine, but as soon as OS 9 finished booting, it became dead. When it comes to the thumb stick, as soon as the system booted, I got a message as if I yanked it out of the slot without properly ejecting it within the system, even though it was plugged in all the time.
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Thanks @joevt, I will let someone more qualified jump in with respect to Open Firmware and serial.
That seems like progress @LarsG5! Will see what @UnexpectedBomb says about your results but that is promising that you have activity like that.
Here is my latest test which seemed to go quite far as well:
So essentially, the drive is identified in Drive Setup as something to initialize (which i didnt, bc i didnt want to lose the data) AND Silverlining also was able to detect the drive and provide hardware credentials/spec..etc so thats pretty wild! I was able to click mount in silverlining though the drive did not appear and i didnt get the blue led indicator on the seritek card to validate the mount.
That being said, there is a possibility that the drive I was testing needs a reformat to OS 9 spec, so i will run another test with a known Mac OS Extended structure to see if it was actually an issue with the drive itself.
Having to manually mount a drive via silverlining or scsiprobe is typical behavior for this seritek card as it behaves like a SCSI disk via the E-Sata connection (as tested on my TiBook). Will report back on the other drive test when i have time, but here are the current results to mull over.
Thanks!
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That seems like progress @LarsG5! Will see what @UnexpectedBomb says about your results but that is promising that you have activity like that.
Definitely! It looks like there is no hardware issue, so that's a huuuuge deal!
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That seems like progress @LarsG5! Will see what @UnexpectedBomb says about your results but that is promising that you have activity like that.
Definitely! It looks like there is no hardware issue, so that's a huuuuge deal!
This is awesome. Both of you got farther than I expected on this last go-around!
@LarsG5, your AlBook now looks identical to a TiBook where these cards work. Same entries, same names, same drivers attached, right down to matching sizes. Your USB card is fully recognized and its own internal hub came up. So the CardBus slot has done its job! Now we just gotta figure out what killed the devices during boot, and I already have a suspect. Three questions for you:
1) Do you have my CardBus USB 2.0 extension installed? If so, remove it, reboot, and try again. It could be that your card already works perfectly fine at 1.1 speeds as-is, and I would just need to troubleshoot my 2.0 extension to get it working with the AlBook.
2) What did the message about the thumb drive actually say, did it name the card or the disk?
3) Does a mouse work if you plug it in after the desktop has loaded? (with or without the extension)
@vectrex, very exciting results on your end as well. Silverlining read its make, model, capacity and exact sector count off it; that is real conversation with a real disk through CardBus. Huge progress. I do believe the MS-DOS format is the top suspect for why it didn't mount. Also makes sense why Drive Setup wanted to initialize it. Definitely try a Mac formatted drive and see if it works!
Regarding SeriTek, running the checker once with the SeriTek extension on and once with it off was the perfect test. With it on, the card slot entry gains notes that the extension wrote there itself, including the drive being large address capable, which matches the sector count Silverlining reported. With it off, those notes are gone. So the extension is finding your card, talking to your drive, and writing down what it found. That chain seems completely functional end-to-end.
I've attached a new checker, version 2.9 (are you tired of this yet? haha). It can now tell the difference between a card that a driver has formally taken over and one a driver is quietly working with anyway, which is what the SeriTek does. Run it and send me the log once again. I think we are in the home stretch now.
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1) Do you have my CardBus USB 2.0 extension installed? If so, remove it, reboot, and try again. It could be that your card already works perfectly fine at 1.1 speeds as-is, and I would just need to troubleshoot my 2.0 extension to get it working with the AlBook.
I'll try that as soon as possible
2) What did the message about the thumb drive actually say, did it name the card or the disk?
It named the disc - I'll try to take a screenshot for you
3) Does a mouse work if you plug it in after the desktop has loaded? (with or without the extension)
With extension no, it's simply dead; without extension though I'll let you know.
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Lots of testing here in the past couple of hours so i will try to be concise:
Havent changed anything since the last new ROM swap and.....*IT WORKS*
Tests:
1. Seritek (2-esata ports) hooked up to OWC Mercury Elite Pro enclosure (ssd) via e-sata (my OWC Elite-AL Pro would lock up over larger sustained transfers, maybe this is a raid issue as this enclosure allows for hardware 0 raid striping of drives).
The Mercury Elite Pro enclosure with single SSD worked perfectly.
2. After installing Silverlining my firewire port on the 17" powerbook now works!
The hardware always seemed fine and this is how i was target booting the 17" PB between my TiBook to swap roms.
Firewire in OS 9 refused to work with my base install of the Mac OS 922 UnsupportedG4.iso, now it works great once Silverlining was installed.
Pic attached of a larger Mb's file being transferred over firewire directly to the 17" PB and on to the Elite Pro (via Seritek).
3. Early on, I conducted initial speed test of the flaky Elite AL-pro dual raid using ATTO tools. May run this again with the solo ssd elite pro, uninstalled ATTO tools as they were giving me trouble with Silverlining.
4. Once everything with the Seritek was working, i ran the CBC v.2.8 test to generate a report. Checked here saw the v2.9 tester, so I ran that as well. Reports Attached.
5.During boot, Seritek lights flicker, but nothing during extensions loading at startup. I still dont get any solid or blinking status lights on the Seritek card, which is different (i think) from when it is in my TiBook. Silverlining is great because it will remember and automount the drive *IF* it is connected to the same seritek port. if i swap to the other port and attempt to manually mount in silverlining, it gives me a warning about potentially corrupt/drive issues however the drive does mount and is seemingly OK. If I switch it back to the old port, restart and i do not get the automount option and I get the same error.
So basically, if i initialize the drive on the same port and always make the connections to that port, everything is gravy. I suspect that would be the same if i was using the other seritek e-sata connection.
5. Now for a really crazy thing. I wanted to test an unknown card to see if that worked so I installed drivers for my RME Hammerfall DSP Cardbus card, installed OMS, plugged DC power into it's Multiface box and viola! *IT WORKS WITH THE CARDBUS SLOT*!!!
I am able to load and adjust DSP settings for the interface and playback RME test tones in Peak via ASIO drivers. Havent attempted any recordings but it seems completely functional. The RME card appears on the desktop as a generic unlabelled grey card just like the seritek had, but unlike the seritek, when RME drivers are installed, the grey card remains. Not sure if this means anything or matters because it seems to be functioning just fine.
Not sure if I am forgetting anything, see attachments for logs and images.
Very brilliant @UnexpectedBomb, this is really incredible work you are doing!
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Wow, congrats! ;D
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@vectrex, to be sure, always check the data transfer integrity with this tool. ATTO speed test is not enough..
(http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=6744.0;attach=12193;image)
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As of September 15–16, 2026, the forum has just reached a major milestone on the 17" Aluminum PowerBook G4 PowerBook5,1: a patched Mac OS ROM now brings its Texas Instruments PCI1510 CardBus controller to life under Mac OS 9. The SeriTek CardBus SATA card is already talking to disks, and the tester reports successful disk transfers.
So there are really three answers:
Question PowerBook
Fastest PowerBook with CardBus, period 17" PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz Hi-Res/DLSD, PowerBook5,9 (2005)
Fastest officially OS 9-bootable CardBus PowerBook Titanium G4 1 GHz, PowerBook3,5
Fastest currently demonstrated on MacOS9Lives with working unsupported-OS9 CardBus 17" AlBook 1 GHz, PowerBook5,1
The MacOS9Lives result is extremely recent. On September 15, 2026, UnexpectedBomb reported that the patched ROM made CardBus appear under OS 9 for the first time. Shortly afterward, vectrex demonstrated a SeriTek 2-port eSATA CardBus card actually communicating with and transferring data to an SSD.
Can the new AlBook CardBus ROM patch be made to work on PowerBook5,8 / 5,9, especially the 1.67 GHz 15"/17" DLSD?
If yes, the 1.67 GHz 17" PowerBook5,9 could become the fastest Mac OS 9 PowerBook with functional CardBus, substantially faster than your 1 GHz TiBook. But I have not found a MacOS9Lives verification yet for 5,8/5,9, so I would not call that working yet.
And importantly, the forum is now testing real PCI/CardBus devices, not merely getting the OS to boot.
I’d target the PowerBook5,9 1.67 GHz 17" next and check whether its CardBus controller/chipset matches closely enough for this new ROM patch.
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Now for a really crazy thing. I wanted to test an unknown card to see if that worked so I installed drivers for my RME Hammerfall DSP Cardbus card, installed OMS, plugged DC power into it's Multiface box and viola! *IT WORKS WITH THE CARDBUS SLOT*!!!
BOOM! We did it!! That's the best confirmation we could have gotten: a brand new contender card enters the fray and immediately starts working. Feels good to finally solve this one.
Something I've been pondering is if it's possible to boot the AlBook from the SeriTek... and also how the AlBook responds to sleep/wake commands with a card inserted. Sleep seems like it's broken across the board on unsupported G4's. I might have to fix Sleep on the FW800 MDD first (because I actually have one to test on, haha) and then come back to the AlBook later for a similar solution.
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@UnexpectedBomb - Willing to test more, let me know! Really glad to have this milestone completed thanks again!
Would be great to figure out how to get rid of the USB device prompt (or get it working) on each boot (bluetooth i think someone said?).
Did we sort out system sound on the 17" PB? I think it works when plugging in headphones, dont think it works out of onboard speakers, but TBH i am always using ASIO drivers (via usb pre cardbus). Will verify what is going on my machine when im at it next.
@SSP3, thanks for the tip!
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@UnexpectedBomb - Willing to test more, let me know! Really glad to have this milestone completed thanks again!
Would be great to figure out how to get rid of the USB device prompt (or get it working) on each boot (bluetooth i think someone said?).
My pleasure! I'll keep that in mind. I just so happened to have been working on an OS 9 Bluetooth driver prior to taking up the AlBook CardBus pursuit in parallel... I think I am over halfway there. My FW800 MDD was giving a similar USB message after I installed the internal A1044 Bluetooth module, and I've since gotten that message to go away. So we'll not only eliminate that same pesky USB device prompt on the AlBook, we will soon be pairing real keyboards and mice in OS 9 8)
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@UnexpectedBomb - Willing to test more, let me know! Really glad to have this milestone completed thanks again!
Would be great to figure out how to get rid of the USB device prompt (or get it working) on each boot (bluetooth i think someone said?).
My pleasure! I'll keep that in mind. I just so happened to have been working on an OS 9 Bluetooth driver prior to taking up the AlBook CardBus pursuit in parallel... I think I am over halfway there. My FW800 MDD was giving a similar USB message after I installed the internal A1044 Bluetooth module, and I've since gotten that message to go away. So we'll not only eliminate that same pesky USB device prompt on the AlBook, we will soon be pairing real keyboards and mice in OS 9 8)
Incredible! Looking forward to it! 8)
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Sooo... I can confirm my USB Cardbus card WORKS!
It was the EHCI driver that was blocking it the last time. After I deleted the extension, it works like a charm!
Now I need to check my SlimSCSI 1480 card to confirm the Cardbus slot is fully operational as well as I'll try uploading some screenshots as soon as possible, but damn, this is HUGE!
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2. After installing Silverlining my firewire port on the 17" powerbook now works!
The hardware always seemed fine and this is how i was target booting the 17" PB between my TiBook to swap roms.
Firewire in OS 9 refused to work with my base install of the Mac OS 922 UnsupportedG4.iso, now it works great once Silverlining was installed.
Pic attached of a larger Mb's file being transferred over firewire directly to the 17" PB and on to the Elite Pro (via Seritek).
By that do you mean the FW400 port or there was something wrong with your FW800 port which now started working?
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Sooo... I can confirm my USB Cardbus card WORKS!
It was the EHCI driver that was blocking it the last time. After I deleted the extension, it works like a charm!
Now I need to check my SlimSCSI 1480 card to confirm the Cardbus slot is fully operational as well as I'll try uploading some screenshots as soon as possible, but damn, this is HUGE!
Glad to hear that both the modified ROM and your card have been exonerated here! So it's 100% my extension. I tried replicating your issue on my TiBook using USB 1.1 Apple devices (namely M2452 and M4848) plugged into my USB CardBus card, but was unable to. Can you look at Get Info on the EHCI extension you were using and tell me what version it was? The latest release version is 2.4i. If you were running an older version, that may explain the trouble you experienced, and if you were indeed running 2.4i then that means I still have some work to do!
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Would you please be so kind and attach the newest version here? I cannot find it anywhere, the one on your site is from September 5th/6th and that's the one causing problems, thanks.
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Would you please be so kind and attach the newest version here? I cannot find it anywhere, the one on your site is from September 5th/6th and that's the one causing problems, thanks.
Of course! Here is the final release build. I looked at the repo and discovered I was an idiot and had forgotten to update it; the repo still had v2.0, exactly as you said. My fault. Try this latest version and see if you have success; it has been fully vetted on my TiBook. Some testing questions I'd have for you once it's installed:
1) If you boot the AlBook with the USB card inserted but no devices attached to it, does it recognize your USB thumb stick as USB 2.0 once you plug it in? What about on your TiBook?
2) Does your wireless mouse receiver work on the TiBook in the card WITH the extension installed there?
Trying to determine the exact conditions that cause attached devices to die; maybe it's the mouse receiver specifically that doesn't like the extension, or maybe it truly is the extension itself. It's tough because I haven't been able to replicate on my TiBook. Let me know what various combos of devices and/or the extension on/off does for you. If USB 2.0 is working, you'll know it because it will give your mounted thumb stick a special USB 2.0 icon on the desktop.
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Thanks for the file.
I have just tested the newest extension on my Al and well, no change whatsoever. My USB card works fine without the extension, but with the extension I get the message shown in the picture attached (Picture 3.png, "BEZ NAZWY" is the name of my thumb drive). If I then unplug my thumb drive from the card and plug it in again, the system shows nothing, as if there was no USB stick plugged into the USB Cardbus card. Stock USB ports work fine with the extension, although I don't see the USB 2.0 indicator you've mentioned.
The extension itself created 4 logs though, so I'm attaching those here - perhaps they might give us a clue, what causes it to have a conflict with the newest ROM.
Regarding testing the extension on a Ti, you'll have to give me a few days, I'll get to it as soon as possible and let you know the results.
Regardning my wireless mouse receiver, well, I think the problem is with the mouse itself, so I wouldn't pay much attention to it at the moment. It presents similar behaviour (sometimes working, sometimes not working, sometimes working only on a boot screen) even on stock USB ports under OS 9, so yeah...
As a final note, I'm also attaching a screenshot from the Apple System Profiler with no extension loaded and with my USB thumb stick plugged into the Cardbus card (Picture 1.png).
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I have just tested the newest extension on my Al and well, no change whatsoever.
Thank you for the thorough testing. Your logs confirmed that this is indeed an existing bug in my extension. While our USB cards are mostly the same, it turns out there is one crucial difference: yours needs a small "handshake" before the OS will take it over, and my extension skips that handshake on these USB cards. My card (SIIG-brand) doesn't require the handshake, so that's why I never had a problem with it and couldn't replicate. I want this extension to be as robust and compatible as possible, so I'm glad to know that USB cards like yours are out there, otherwise I could never account for them.
This is where the TiBook comes in: with the same v2.4i extension and your same USB card inserted but on a different machine, if the same problem occurs then I know for a fact it's your card needing that handshake and I'll have a path forward for a solution. And thanks for the update on the mouse, that is helpful to eliminate from the equation.
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Ho, so I've tried your newest extension with my Ti and the results are exactly the same as with my Al.
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im basically brainstorming to find the right forum for bringing nubus era hardware to mac os 9 specs, if i had more hands on time thats what one of my 8100s' future is: reaching mac os 9
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im basically brainstorming to find the right forum for bringing nubus era hardware to mac os 9 specs, if i had more hands on time thats what one of my 8100s' future is: reaching mac os 9
Why would you want to do that? OS9 is quite "heavy" for the NuBus era machines. RAM/RAM slots are limited, bus speed is 40 MHz max. NuBus throughput is also so-so. Then there was an issue with some Nu...something 90 chipset.
You best bet is OS7.x.x. Or 8.1 if HFS+ is important. Or 8.1 system, but with the Finder from 7.6.1. + sticky click extension + ADB to PS2 adapter + Logitech optical mouse :D
Been there, done that. Stable system. Even on WGS9150 with Newertech G3/300 + Jackhammer + UW SCSI drives.
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Ho, so I've tried your newest extension with my Ti and the results are exactly the same as with my Al.
Bingo. It's my extension that needs adjusting.
Attached is an updated v2.5 of the USB 2.0 CardBus extension. There's a chance this fixes it on the first try; if not, the EHCI logs generated will likely tell me exactly what to do next. Either way, we should have your USB card running at 2.0 speeds shortly.
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Hi, no change with the v2.5, here are the logs
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Hi, no change with the v2.5, here are the logs
Got it. I think I need to dig deeper into this one. I'm attaching a diagnostic version of v2.5. It will still fail as before but it will produce additional logging that will help me narrow down the problem.
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Here are the logs.
I'm also attaching photos of my card - you cannot get more generic than that...
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Here are the logs.
I'm also attaching photos of my card - you cannot get more generic than that...
After checking out those logs, my suspicion is that your USB drive might be MSDOS-formatted; my USB 2.0 driver only accepts Mac OS Standard (HFS) or Mac OS Extended (HFS+) for the time being. There should be a fifth log file called "USB Disk Log", either on your boot volume root or in your System Folder; send me that log and I can confirm. If your GOODRAM is already HFS/HFS+ then this theory is dead and we'll look elsewhere. If you already have another drive formatted to HFS/HFS+ then definitely give that one a try, or format your current GOODRAM to that and see if it fixes it (unless you have important stuff on there, in which case I'd wait until I get that log from you).
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After checking out those logs, my suspicion is that your USB drive might be MSDOS-formatted
You are right, I didn't think to mention that before, but yes, it was indeed FAT formatted.
There should be a fifth log file called "USB Disk Log", either on your boot volume root or in your System Folder
I cannot find such log anywhere on my HDD :/
Format your current GOODRAM to HFS+ and see if it fixes it
That's exactly what I did - I formatted my thumb drive to HFS+ on Tiger and well, it made a difference. I attach the logs below.
Right after booting OS9 the whole system freezes for around 30 second, then I get the message shown in USB unreadable 1.jpg and USB unreadable 2.jpg.
When I try formatting my thumb drive with Mac OS Standard, I get the message shown in Mac OS Standard.jpg.
When I try with Mac OS Extended, I get the messages shown in Mac OS Extended 1.jpg and Mac OS Extended 2.jpg. Then it proceeds to Initialize.jpg but there is no progress going on, the whole system freezes.
Soo, in conclusion, you are definitely onto something here.
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(Photos part 2)
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You are right, I didn't think to mention that before, but yes, it was indeed FAT formatted.
Perfect, I'm glad that was it. Also, the USB Disk Log was a diagnostic file that I had generated in earlier builds but I forgot that I removed it, sorry about the wild goose chase, haha.
We're super close now to getting USB 2.0 working. I'm thinking maybe there was some weirdness somehow with the Tiger formatting of the drive... it's strange that even with the correct formatting, your drive still did not mount. This could just be OS 9 being picky about it. So I'd try formatting it directly in OS 9:
1) Boot without the USB drive inserted
2) Once the desktop is loaded, plug it into an on-board USB port, not the card
3) Assuming it mounts, go Special > Erase Disk... (or initialize it if asked)
4) Format as HFS or HFS+
5) Try plugging it into the card
Let's see if that works. My hope is this is the last hurdle and you'll have USB 2.0 in Mac OS 9 at that point.
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Hi, no change :(
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Hi, no change :(
Bummer. At this point I think I will have to punt. If/when I ever get my hands on a 17" AlBook, I will revisit this conundrum; in the meantime, I think having the CardBus slot alive and functioning at any capacity is a big win, even if it's just USB 1.1 for now. Thanks for your testing and patience @LarsG5, you and @vectrex helped make this breakthrough possible for AlBook owners everywhere 8)
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I was just about to propose the same - I'm happy the Cardbus slot works, it's a huuuge improvement as is!
So, what's your next goal then? Maybe fixing the sound issues?
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This is amazing thanks so much for your work! I haven't tried it yet but I'm looking forward to it! I bought a very small Ethernet to WiFi adapter a while ago and had plans to swap it with the CD drive and solder the connections to the Ethernet port. Very happy I don't need to do this now! :D
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So, what's your next goal then? Maybe fixing the sound issues?
Funny you should ask. I am almost done with something even bigger... One final issue to iron out and then it's ready. I think you're gonna like it. Stay tuned for an announcement soon.
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hell yeah dude, you're the best!
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With the release of a true AirPort Extreme driver for Mac OS 9, I'm very curious if any of you AlBook owners can now connect to a modern wireless network. Let me know if anyone is successful! Bluetooth is probably 95% done, just fine-tuning a few more things before it gets released.
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''unsupported usb device, click ok" prompt shows at every boot, unaware of how or what to use to silence that.
I just released my Bluetooth driver today. Install it and see if that message goes away. You can even try pairing something while you're at it ;D
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should we stay online for AES67, MADI, Thunderbolt 5, HDMI and EtherCAT or will it take a few more days?
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should we stay online for AES67, MADI, Thunderbolt 5, HDMI and EtherCAT or will it take a few more days?
;D I'm going to keep pushing G4 hardware to the limit, I can promise you that.
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;D I'm going to keep pushing G4 hardware to the limit, I can promise you that.
How about figuring out the serial port support so that we can finally use our old Opcode MIDI interfaces? ;)
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see all we need is an idea!
today's ideas: Mac OS 9 VST SDKs (https://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=7901.0) - since noone has a RTAS/TDM SDK anymore (maybe they could be RE'd from the later v9 floating around? hm.... we want to compile our own plugins because we can? who will trace the Mezzanine Mac Mini G4 for a PCI board?
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;D I'm going to keep pushing G4 hardware to the limit, I can promise you that.
How about figuring out the serial port support so that we can finally use our old Opcode MIDI interfaces? ;)
@smilesdavis is doing a lot of interesting audio interface work, I bet he'll cook something up!