iMac G3 (Rev A -> C) G4 CPU Upgrade

[LightBulbFun]

exactly what i was looking for thanks very interesting indeed it does not properly identifier the CPU but still picks up on the L2 cache heh (the CPU Type field is pulled directly from OF if you go into OF and temp edit it to say "PowerPC is Awesome" it will show up as that in OS X heh)

I did notice your firmware is not fully up to date, the latest is 4.1.7 I do recommend you update as it may fix CPU and CPU speed recognition issues, as the firmware does share a common (source)codebase with other machines for example on my Pismo OF properly identifies it as a PowerPC G4 despite at the time of shipping the 7410 was not a thing and the Pismo never had any sort of factory G4 option, but it does share firmware updates with the first gen TiBook which does use a 7410. so do update your firmware if you can

 

[belgaonkar]

Do you think updating the firmware would allow me to install 10.5? To update the firmware I would have to install 9.2 and then update it. Kinda burdensome. 

 

[LightBulbFun]

I dont know what sort of issues your having with leopard (if you could describe them it would help a lot) but i have seen firmware updates help with leopard (specify a G4 cube).

in regards to OS9 you may be able to boot (albit slowly) from a USB stick of some kind or if your HDD has OS9 drivers installed simply dragging over a valid OS9 system to the root of the drive will work too

 

[johnklos]

Getting 10.5 running on older hardware is tricky but doable. There are ways to use kexts from 10.4 on systems that weren't supposed to ever have 10.5. I've read about PowerMac 9600 type machines with Leopard, for instance.

My upgraded tray-loading iMac motherboard has a Sonnet G3 accelerator with FireWire, so I'm happy with Tiger and a 2 TB hard drive (you can't go larger, at least not for the boot volume - I've tried). If I didn't have the Sonnet, I'd definitely upgrade with a G4. It's a print server for an ImageWriter II and it's where I can still run Classic, so Tiger fits well.

Leopard is definitely good for newer hardware. My current full time machine at work is a G5 running Leopard.

 

[LightBulbFun]

trust me I have had a lot of experience running OS X (leopard inc) on vastly incompatible/unsupported hardware check out some of my posts over on Mac Rumours for some details (10.4.11 on a 604 anyone? )

 

[belgaonkar]

Would you look at that! A simple firmware upgrade fixed the "about this mac" tab. Ive gotta upgrade the firmware on all my iBooks!

 

[LightBulbFun]

Very awesome! told ya the firmware update would solve the issues Does System profiler/Open Firmware properly identify the CPU now as a PowerPC G4? (it should) Just need to solve the Thermal issues now and run leopard (and maybe figure out how to upgrade the L2 cache to 1MB hell the CPU supports a maximum of 2MB L2 but i have never seen anything with that much backside L2)

 

[belgaonkar]

yes open firmware sees that it's a PowerPC G4. Ive now gotta disassemble it, clone a 10.5 install on the hard drive, re-assemble it and see if it will finally boot into 10.5.

 

[TarableCode]

disassemble it

RIP

 

[belgaonkar]

Done about about 20-30 times now, so I can do it in about 15min to disassemble and 20min to re-assemble. Ive worked on quite a few clamshells.

I would try to use Target Disk, but it doesn't have a firewire port. I tried by external DVD drive, but the computer doesn't give enough power through the single 1.1 port. I can't just stick the DVD in since 300MHZ clamshells only have a CD rom. Only chance is to clone a fresh install off my Quicksilver.

 

[LightBulbFun]

it might be worth it to fit a DVD drive to that clamshell also Good to see its now Fully detecting the G4

BTW do you have any more clamshells for sale and what shipping to the UK is like? just wondering (I would not mind making a G4 clamshell my self)

 

[belgaonkar]

PM me, ill make room and sell you one. I was saving a few just to have a couple stock ones and couple of G4 ones. Shipping is like $30~ to London

 

[LightBulbFun]

Ill think about it (I just spent a lot of dosh recently so not sure if i can budget one) but good to know there is one available and that shipping aint as bad as i was expecting

 

[belgaonkar]

BAM! Time to reassemble and upgrade to 10.5.8. I chopped the end off an iMac heatsink and stuck it on. Ill try to max it out and test its cooling capabilities.



*Yes it's a lot of thermal paste, I added a bunch on before powering it with no heatsink. A proper amount will been installed during the assembly stage.

 

[belgaonkar]

Heatsink seems to be more effective, hasn't locked up yet. Ordered some JB Weld and will use that to permanently attach the heatsink to the aluminum logic board cover. Its a little ghetto right now 

 

[LightBulbFun]

wow! even though i had a strong feeling it would work its still so amazing! the first iBook clamshell running a production version of leopard does everything on the iBook work in leopard like Sound sleep brightness control etc? id think it should... btw got any system profile shots in leopard?

in regards to the heatsink mod keep in mind once you cut the heat pipes they stop working as heat pipes as the gases/fluids leak out so they just act like normal copper now, i do recommend using thermal adhesive or some thermally conductive adhesive to bond the heatsink to the cover like the stuff they use to bond the heatsink onto the GPU of say a Rage 128 or Radeon 9000 Mac cards if you know what im talking about to get maximum thermal transfer, and a fan defiantly helps.

but indeed i hope you can get it working nice and stable and get some geek bench scores Geekbench 2.2.0 is the latest for tiger and 2.2.7 is the latest for leopard

 

[belgaonkar]

The iBook doesn't have a speaker. I pulled it out when I tried to stuff a fan in it. I just need a whole new top case, the power button is popping out and needs to re seated every time I take the top case off. Brightness controls and everything seems to work. I noticed the iBook was pinged at 90-99% on activity monitor just running the machine at idle. Disabled dashboard and spotlight to lighten the load.  Now it runs at 20% load. I doubt it will be able to run through Geekbench without choking up.

 

[belgaonkar]

I hate the site's picture uploader so much. It shows up normal on my desktop, but not on the site. Go figure.

 

[TarableCode]

Maybe shadowkiller would speed things up?

Search for "shadowkiller-13.dmg" on google to get a working link.

It speeds my iBook running 10.3 up a decent amount.

 

[FacnyFreddy]

Have you looked at an mSATA to IDE (2.5") bridge box setup?

I got both of my Pismo's using them now along with my G4 mac mini (Filemaker Pro Server) jamming right now. Boot times are very fast and 128GB (~121GB formatted?) seems to work well.

Toshiba 128GB mSATA and the newer JM20330 chipset adapters work alright. A bit "warm" but not hot. (wish there was an easy way to throw in a 10ohm resister there w/o having to cut circuits and bring the voltage down to 4VDC... they would run about 10% cooler from what I have heard)

The mSATA-IDE bridge adapters require regular reboots since there is no trim support "built in" for onboard garbage collection.

Leopard (10.5. on my pismo is much nicer after going SSD. But its only running at 500Mhz for the G3 and 400Mhz for the G4... road to 550MHz is still a journey.