Power Mac G4 MDD and the USB 2.0 chip

[Dandu]

I have a question: the Power Mac G4 MDDs include a USB 2.0 chip (NEC D720101F1), even though Apple marketed the machines as USB 1.1 only — possibly to highlight FireWire instead.

I have a motherboard (without anything else) that allowed me to confirm that it really is a USB 2.0 chip. But I was wondering: has anyone ever managed to actually use USB 2.0 on these machines? I found some old threads showing that third-party drivers more or less enabled USB 2.0 back in 2003, but I couldn’t find anything after that.

Did Apple ever enable USB 2.0 in Tiger or Leopard? Is it a hardware limitation? Does anyone know?

 

[Durosity]

My memory may be wrong, but as I recall when they officially announced USB 2 support with the later MDDs (the FW800?) that enabled USB2 support on the original MDDs that had the correct chipset. What OS is your MDD running?

 

[Dandu]

I have only the Logic Board, now (so i can't test)

 

[croissantking]

This is quite interesting. Sort of implied Apple held off on USB 2.0 support to avoid stealing Firewire’s thunder. Seems silly in hindsight.

@Durosity I thought the PowerMac G5 was the first model to support USB 2.0 officially.

 

[mac27]

according to EveryMac, the Power Mac G5 is the first Mac to officially support/include USB 2.0.

 

[Durosity]

Yep, my memory is getting bad in my old age.. just had a look at my MDD 1ghz G4 with FireWire 800 and it only does USB1.1 under 10.4.

 

[Dandu]

And the chip on the logic board is USB 2.0

 

[croissantking]

And the chip on the logic board is USB 2.0 View attachment 99273

Is this a FW800 board?

Worth investigating if it's hardware, firmware or software that's preventing it from running at USB 2.0 speeds. If it's hardware then maybe there's an empty resistor footprint that can be populated/removed to enable this. I suggest reading the datasheet.

 

[Dandu]

Yep, it's a FW800 board (630T4357/630-4497)

 

[croissantking]

NEC µPD720101 datasheet is available here.

Looks like the chip is on the underside of the board – I'm surprised having it so far away from the ports would be at all optimal.



The FW400 logic board appears to have an unpopulated BGA footprint in that location, so could likely accept a USB 2.0 chip. I don't understand why they populated it for the FW800 board if they're not using USB 2.0 since presumably the northbridge (was it still Uni-North on these?) has USB built in.

 

[Coloruser]

Later iMac G4, PowerBook G4 Revisions also Support USB 2.0: Apple Support Docs

The intrepid chipset seems to be the defining factor.

 

[croissantking]

If anyone wants to try, I've attached the driver that 'CreateMac' (the Korean site that claimed they got USB 2.0 working) originally hosted, thanks to the Internet Archive.

Double clicking the image file fails with an error saying that it's corrupt on my M1 Macbook Pro. Reading some forum posts from back in 2004 some people were complaining about the same error. Maybe it can be repaired?

 

[obsolete]

The FW400 logic board appears to have an unpopulated BGA footprint in that location, so could likely accept a USB 2.0 chip. I don't understand why they populated it for the FW800 board if they're not using USB 2.0 since presumably the northbridge (was it still Uni-North on these?) has USB built in.

For what it's worth, I thought USB was in the southbridge, KeyLargo.

 

[croissantking]

For what it's worth, I thought USB was in the southbridge, KeyLargo.

Ah, you see, I’m not that well versed with New World PPC hardware. That makes sense – I/O is usually in the southbridge.

 

[obsolete]

Went searching for a reference to check my memory and found this nice resource: https://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/Driver:Mac_68K:Tech_Info#PowerPC_G4_Desktops

The MDD is notably absent from the list, though
It looks like Apple eventually integrated UniNorth and KeyLargo in Pangea for iMacs.