G4 Cube Giving Kernel Panic When Installing 10.4

[Tempest]

I have a G4 Cube that has been upgraded with a Geforce 6200 card. It was happily running 10.4.11 when I got it, but I decided I wanted to dual boot OS 9 / X for some game compatibility. All seemed to be going fine, OS 9.1 installed just fine on the first partition, but when I try to install OS 10.4 it gives me a kernel panic when it reads the DVD on reboot (before any welcome or install screen shows up). I get the same with 10.3.

I know 10.4 works on the system because I had it running before, however that was installed by someone else. My copy of 10.4 is a full retail copy, so all I can guess at this point is that it might be my Geforce 6200. Any have any suggestions as to how to get around this issue?

Tempest

 

[Hrududu]

Can you put the original graphics card back in for the OS install to see if thats the problem?

 

[Byrd]

- Check Cube firmware is up to date

- Check PRAM battery - if marginal, replace - Cubes go screwy when the voltage is lower than it should be.

- The 6200 needs 10.4.3 (and there on) to work properly, and pins 3 & 11 of the AGP connector need disabling/covering up.

How is the cooling in your Cube? The 6200 needs a fan, along with a base fan in the unit itself - everything gets far too toasty without these.

JB

 

[Tempest]

- The Firmware is up to date.

- I'll check the battery, but I'm fairly sure it's good as everything was just fine before and OS 9 is working great.

- How do I get 10.4.3? I thought it was only an update (which does me no good unless I can get 10.4 on there). Is there a 10.4.3 (or higher) install disc that I can get somewhere?

Oh and no I can't put the old card back in, I no longer have it.

I have a giant fan on the card. Cooling isn't the problem.

Tempest

 

[Byrd]

The 6200 card will crash the Mac if you install anything below 10.4.3 on it (I believe OS 9 is OK, but unaccelerated); somehow you need to install 10.4.11 on your existing 10.4 install - and the only way around that is by plugging the HD in another PPC Mac, or putting an older graphics card in. Or, install 10.5. My retail version of Tiger is thankfully 10.4.3 so works OK

JB

 

[Tempest]

Ok so there is a retail version of Tiger that is 4.3 or higher? Then I guess that's what I'll have to track down.

I would install 10.5, but my G4 doesn't pass the processor speed check. That and I hear it has some issues when running on a 450MHz cube.

 

[Byrd]

You can get around the CPU speed issue to install Leopard easily enough, however it's probably not suited for the stock 450/500Mhz G4 - with a 1Ghz+ CPU upgrade however it runs well. There is a seller in China selling cheap Cube CPU upgrades at the moment.

The issue you may have heard of is that a PC flashed 6200 in a 10.5 Mac takes an age to start up - the workaround is to remove a particular .kext file to cease this lag. However, there isn't any issue with 10.5 on a Cube, even a stock one.

JB

 

[Tempest]

I do have 1.5GB of memory, would that be sufficient to make 10.5 run adequately or is it really more the processor speed that's the issue?

What's the seller's name with the cheap upgrades?

 

[geeko]

if you have another PPC mac (supported under tiger) you can just start up the cube in target disk mode (hold down T until the firewire symbol shows on the screen) and connect it to the other mac via firewire. using the other mac, instal tiger unto the cube's HDD, and then update tiger to 10.4.11. just eject the cube's HDD like you would any other external HDD, and just restart the cube, and there you go, it should work!

 

[Tempest]

I have a Powerbook G4 laptop, but it's running 10.5. Can I still install 10.4 on my cube?

I guess I'll have to find a firewire cable. I don't think I own one of those.

Tempest

 

[H3NRY]

It will be difficult to tell whether your cube is in target mode without any video. It should work though. Even if your laptop has 10.5 installed, it should let you install 10.4 on an external drive (the cube). If you have an external hard drive, you could install Tiger on that and update using your laptop, then use that to start up the cube. You could also pick up an original stock Mac Rage 128 video card. They sell for about $5 these days. Once you get a 10.4.11 system running, be sure to make an image of it on DVD-R or make a clone of your HD so you don't get stuck again. The 6200 is the video card of choice for cubes, but it does have that one little gotcha!

 

[tmtomh]

There's a retail (non-machine-specific) Tigger PPC install disc that's version 10.4.6. If you can find that, you can use it to install Tiger straight onto your Cube.

 

[Tempest]

There's a retail (non-machine-specific) Tigger PPC install disc that's version 10.4.6. If you can find that, you can use it to install Tiger straight onto your Cube.

Yeah that' would be the best solution, but I can't seem to find it on the 'various sites' so to speak. Even if I could find the image, I don't have a Mac that can burn DVD's, just CD's. I know there's a CD version of Tiger, but I think it's 10.4.0 (or at least the few I've found are).

 

[tmtomh]

Yeah, I've never seen a CD version of Tiger that's any more recent than 10.4.0.

 

[Tempest]

I might be able to burn a Mac bootable DVD on my PC. I think there's a way to do that. I need to find a 10.4.6 DVD iso to try it with first anyway.

 

[phreakout]

Tempest,

To get 10.4.11 on your Cube, you'll need to have the Cube placed in Target Disk mode, hook up a Firewire cable between the Cube and your PowerBook G4, start up your PowerBook while holding down the Option key, select the Cube's hard drive and boot off of that drive. Once booted, download from Apple's web site or use the auto update to get 10.4.11 installed to that drive.

73s de Phreakout. :rambo:

 

[Tempest]

Found a 10.4.6 DVD iso, but my Cube just spits it out (my Powerbook G4 reads it just fine). I wonder why? Maybe the cube's DVD drive isn't as good as the one in my Powerbook? I burned it as slow as I could, but no luck.

I have a friend who is going to let me borrow a video card and a firewire cable, so we'll just have to do it that way.

 

[johnklos]

Just use target mode from your PowerBook. You don't need to swap the video card just to see whether it's in target mode - if it is, it'll pop up on the desktop of your PowerBook.

Leopard runs fine on slower CPUs, but so long as you have enough memory. Since you have 1.5 gigs, Leopard isn't a bad idea.

 

[Tempest]

If I'm only playing games on my G4 does Leopard offer me anything over Tiger? Will older games still play alright?

Also, are you sure that Leopard would run ok with a 450Mhz, 1.5GB memory, Geforce 6200 machine?

Tempest