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[ssp3]

@vectrex, to be sure, always check the data transfer integrity with this tool. ATTO speed test is not enough..

[smilesdavis]

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.

[UnexpectedBomb]

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.

[vectrex]

@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!

[UnexpectedBomb]

@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 

[vectrex]

@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 

Incredible! Looking forward to it!