# iMac G5 OS X Help



## Soylent Joe (Jun 19, 2011)

Hello all, SJ here. Over the weekend I picked up a spiffy little iMac G5 computer at the goodwill for $80. 17" LCD, 1.8GHz PPC CPU, 512MB DDR, 160GB HDD, *OS X 10.3.9*.







I'm basically looking to get this thing like how it would have been when you unboxed it in 2004, but I don't have what you need to do this, the OS X disc. Around in the system administration stuff I looked for a reformat-type utility with no result. Also if at all possible I guess it would be a good thing to update to a newer OS X release. Could I get some help here?


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## dark2099 (Jun 19, 2011)

Honestly, I think your best bet would just be an e-mail to Apple.   I am not sure what newer OS X releases support the PPC platform, just haven't followed that closely.  And considering that an entirely new version is launching next month I believe, finding and older version would be harder now.


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## mlee49 (Jun 19, 2011)

Joe you find the best garage sale deals.

Sell it to some Machead on eBay for $150.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jun 19, 2011)

Hmm not bad for $80 especially considering resale value of Macs generally, but idk how much use it's really going to be to you, especially with only a half gig of RAM. It can run 10.5 Leopard which is the second to latest release (about to be third) but starting with 10.6 Snow Leopard it's Intel only. Can go to everymac.com and find the specs such as max RAM but I suspect only a gig. 

Mlee is probably on the right track IMO.


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## Soylent Joe (Jun 19, 2011)

mlee49 said:


> Joe you find the best garage sale deals.
> 
> Sell it to some Machead on eBay for $150.



Well I was going to try CL first, just to avoid shipping. I just figured if I could get it updated and cleaned up it could bring a bit more.

Would Apple really be interested in answering my questions?


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jun 19, 2011)

Sure at like a store maybe but you can't get, like, phone support for that thing. What other specific questions do you have?


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## Soylent Joe (Jun 19, 2011)

This takes PC3200U DDR 400 memory. I understand that the "U" means "unbuffered" and that makes it different than the run of the mill DDR 400 you'd see on here. Can I use regular ram in it and if not, where could I find the unbuffered stuff?


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## Wile E (Jun 19, 2011)

Use regular ram.

As far as creating a "new install", you can create a new Admin account, then try deleting the old one.

If that doesn't work, PM me, and I can show you where to acquire 10.3.9 for dirt cheap.

All in all, nice machines, but way too slow for today's stuff. Won't even play most HD stuff. Sell it to a collector and profit.


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## toastem2004 (Jun 19, 2011)

OS X 10.5 Is the latest OS you can use (highly recommend you use it) and the max ram on that is 2GB of just regular everyday PC3200-DDR 1 400. You have yourself a very nice system there, at a steal of a price. Look around the net, its not hard to find a Leopard disc (no cd keys or activations to worry about), or iWork 09 or iLife 08 or whatever year it is.


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## Wile E (Jun 19, 2011)

toastem2004 said:


> OS X 10.5 Is the latest OS you can use (highly recommend you use it) and the max ram on that is 2GB of just regular everyday PC3200-DDR 1 400. You have yourself a very nice system there, at a steal of a price. Look around the net, its not hard to find a Leopard disc (no cd keys or activations to worry about), or iWork 09 or iLife 08 or whatever year it is.



10.5 runs like crap on PPC based Macs. Total dog. I've tried it on a 1GHz iMac G4, 1.25Ghz Dual cpu PowerMac G4 and a 2GHz PowerMac G5, all upgraded with at least 2GB of memory (well, 1.5 in the G4 iMac). 10.4 (Tiger) was the best one in terms of performance with good features.


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## toastem2004 (Jun 19, 2011)

Wile E said:


> 10.5 runs like crap on PPC based Macs. Total dog. I've tried it on a 1GHz iMac G4, 1.25Ghz Dual cpu PowerMac G4 and a 2GHz PowerMac G5, all upgraded with at least 2GB of memory (well, 1.5 in the G4 iMac). 10.4 (Tiger) was the best one in terms of performance with good features.



I shall respectfully disagree. I have run both 10.4 & 10.5 on my Powerbook G4 (1.67GHz / 2G ram / ATi 9700 Mobility) (I now run 10.4 from external firewire drive) and 10.5 has been by far the better choice. I'm sure some of it has to be due to the video hardware as its "pretty" transitions and animations take some power to run. Only in 10.5 does my powerbook read & write to my WHS, and for those who want to torture themselves Virtual PC runs tons better too for some odd reason. (Vista on a powerbook - the looks people give = awesome sauce!)i will say this one negative though, my headphone & mic jacks are non-functional in 10.5 but just fine in 10.4  - but i degrees...

At the very least, SJ, upgrade the OS to 10.4 at minimum and add at least 512MB more ram. just know that Flash is no longer updated for PPC, nor is java. Apple had dumped PPC and almost all 3rd party support has too. (universal builds just didnt last)  You can run a modified Firefox 4 though, it really helps web nav on these old machines - http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/


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## Wile E (Jun 19, 2011)

I have far less issues with SMB networks on 10.4. Sure, I could connect fairly easily to my server in 10.5 most of the time, but lord forbid I wanted to access a Samba share on the Mac from a Win box. 

Also, on 10.4, I could at least play most 720p mkv with subtitles, on 10.5 I could not. It's performance was far inferior in everything. It only looked prettier.

10.5 even runs worse than 10.4 on my White Core 2 2.33GHz 20" iMac.

10.5 was a piece of crap. Thank God most of the performance issues are fixed in 10.6. It's a shame they didn't code it to run on PPC Macs.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jun 19, 2011)

> PowerPC is being dropped from Snow Leopard because there is no similar performance advantage with the PowerPC architecture in going 64-bit as there is in moving from x86 to x64. X64/AMD64 offers twice as many general purpose registers as x86, and that's where virtually all of the performance boost derives. The performance gain usually offsets any performance loss associated with using larger data items by ~15% but not uncommonly by as much as 25%.
> 
> Not the case with PowerPC. The number of general purpose registers is unchanged between 32-bit and 64-bit PPC, so applications are left with the performance loss of using larger datums in 64-bit mode. As a result, PowerPC apps typically run a little slower in 64-bit mode than in 32-bit mode.]



Source


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## Soylent Joe (Jun 20, 2011)

Alright, got 10.4 installed. It seems to be running a lot faster and works well. Now to get some memory in there.

Is there any way to revert it to the "Welcome" video with the current install? Maybe though the disc? I had to put in some personal info for the start-up process and would rather not let the next owner have it.


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 21, 2011)

mlee49 said:


> Joe you find the best garage sale deals.
> 
> Sell it to some Machead on eBay for $150.



try $300


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## timta2 (Jun 22, 2011)

Soylent Joe said:


> Alright, got 10.4 installed. It seems to be running a lot faster and works well. Now to get some memory in there.
> 
> Is there any way to revert it to the "Welcome" video with the current install? Maybe though the disc? I had to put in some personal info for the start-up process and would rather not let the next owner have it.



As Wile E stated above, you can create a new account (using fictitious info) using the "Accounts" control panel in System Preferences. Then delete the old one. If you are really paranoid you can also use the "Erase Free Space" option in Disk Utility to wipe it. You can also choose secure options like 35 pass erase if you want. 

10.5: How to reset Leopard back to the Setup Assistant 
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2007110800450816


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## Soylent Joe (Jun 22, 2011)

Alright thanks.

Jeez no one told me how much the DDR 400 was going to be. The stuff is basically twice as expensive as DDR2 that's twice as fast.

Currently got the high bid on a matching bluetooth wireless KB & mouse on fleabay for $25, maybe I'll win it.

For some reason Safari is hella slow on the machine, and seems really outdated. The newest FF doesn't support 10.4. What other web browser could I use?

Lastly, is there any way I could get my Zonet ZEW2500P working with the iMac? It doesn't automatically recognize it and I spent about 45 min. looking for a Mac driver for it with no luck.


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 22, 2011)

i may have some ddr 400 laying around unused.

edit: nope, its pc-133


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## MT Alex (Jun 22, 2011)

Soylent Joe said:


> For some reason Safari is hella slow on the machine, and seems really outdated. The newest FF doesn't support 10.4. What other web browser could I use?



Call me kookie, but back in my Mac days I always preferred Netscape Navigator.  NN 7 was a nice browser.


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## Wile E (Jun 22, 2011)

Soylent Joe said:


> Alright thanks.
> 
> Jeez no one told me how much the DDR 400 was going to be. The stuff is basically twice as expensive as DDR2 that's twice as fast.
> 
> ...


http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/


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## timta2 (Jun 22, 2011)

You could also try Camino or Opera.

http://www.macupdate.com/find/mac/web browser



> Call me kookie, but back in my Mac days I always preferred Netscape Navigator. NN 7 was a nice browser.



It looks like the last version of Navigator was released in 2008 and has been unsupported since. I too remember good times with it (even back to the initial release based on Mosaic), but at some point it really started sucking in the early half of the 2000's.   

End of Support for Netscape web browsers:
http://blog.netscape.com/2007/12/28/end-of-support-for-netscape-web-browsers/
Netscape X for Mac - Download.com
http://download.cnet.com/Netscape-X/3000-2356_4-25805.html


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## Fitseries3 (Jun 22, 2011)

i JUST did a reinstall of 10.5.8 on a 21" imac JUST like that one. 

pm me and i'll give you the DL of the iso


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## Soylent Joe (Jun 22, 2011)

Fitseries3 said:


> i JUST did a reinstall of 10.5.8 on a 21" imac JUST like that one.
> 
> pm me and i'll give you the DL of the iso



Wile E says the G5's can't handle 10.5. How is it treating you?


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jun 22, 2011)

It can with enough RAM.


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## Fitseries3 (Jun 23, 2011)

Soylent Joe said:


> Wile E says the G5's can't handle 10.5. How is it treating you?



runs great. 

i been doing apple software developing for just over a year now. 

10.6 wont run on ppc macs because they didnt write it in ppc architecture.


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 23, 2011)

Fitseries3 said:


> runs great.
> 
> i been doing apple software developing for just over a year now.
> 
> 10.6 wont run on ppc macs because they didnt write it in ppc architecture.



what software have you developed? id love to look it up!


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## Fitseries3 (Jun 23, 2011)

well last time i spoke of it here on tpu the thread got deleted because it violates apples EULA.

remember what i did with all those sr2's i built and sold?


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 23, 2011)

oh, i see. i wasnt sure if you were talking about actual programs i could use for apple rather than hacks.


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## Fitseries3 (Jun 23, 2011)

not hacks at all. 

just kexts, and bootloaders. 

i have done a few small things on actual mac's but nothing worth mentioning. 

im still learning with hopes to become someone, someday.


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## Wile E (Jun 25, 2011)

Soylent Joe said:


> Wile E says the G5's can't handle 10.5. How is it treating you?



They can handle it, but not nearly as well as Tiger.


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## Soylent Joe (Jul 7, 2011)

Got a problem. I bought some 8.5GB DVD+R's today so I could put 10.5 on one to install (It's bigger than a 4.7GB DVD). Turns out I can't get the G5 to recognize 8.5GB DVD's. I've tried the one I burnt 10.5 to and a blank one, it just acts like it's trying to read it for about 30s before spitting it out. The G5 reads 4.7GB DVD's just fine and I haven't had any problems with the drive before. What could it be?


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## timta2 (Jul 7, 2011)

Is it possible that it's one of the older Superdrives that doesn't have Dual Layer support?. You can use System Profiler to check. Apple has used standard Pioneer internal drives as their "SuperDrives" for years. You can get the newest one for like $30 at Newegg.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA23199

SATA DVR-219
Pioneer CD/DVD Burner 24X DVD+R 12X DVD+R DL 24X D...


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## Soylent Joe (Jul 7, 2011)

timta2 said:


> Is it possible that it's one of the older Superdrives that doesn't have Dual Layer support?. You can use System Profiler to check. Apple has used standard Pioneer internal drives as their "SuperDrives" for years. You can get the newest one for like $30 at Newegg.
> 
> http://support.apple.com/kb/TA23199
> 
> ...



Well you're right about one part, it doesn't support DL burning. But even if it doesn't support burning DL's it should still read them right? I've tried other media and the problem seems to be just with DVD9's (DL DVD's) and nothing else. It won't read them, just spits them out after gargling it for some seconds.

I opened it up to see if I could ghetto rig an extra lappy DVD burner to it to test and there was just no way, the power/data connection was impossibly placed.

Also, it's an AIO iMac so that standard SATA DVD burner there couldn't fit.


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## (FIH) The Don (Jul 7, 2011)

i got a 512mb ddr1 stick you can haz for free 

its the one you need, was in a old mac mini g4 i fixed for a customer yesterday


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## Soylent Joe (Jul 7, 2011)

(FIH) The Don said:


> i got a 512mb ddr1 stick you can haz for free
> 
> its the one you need, was in a old mac mini g4 i fixed for a customer yesterday



Nah I've got all the memory I need man, the problem now is with that drive. Something's up


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## toastem2004 (Jul 7, 2011)

I had to burn my 10.5 disc @ 1x on a PC using UltraISO. My g4 Powerbook would read it then. Funny thing is it has the DL super drive and can read dvd's it burned at up to 8x just fine, but i had no choice but to burn the 10.5 disc and iLife 08 @ 1x & 2x respectivly for them to be read on my mac.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 7, 2011)

Yeah it doesn't support dual layer. Too old. Run into this all the time at work.


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## Soylent Joe (Jul 8, 2011)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> Yeah it doesn't support dual layer. Too old. Run into this all the time at work.



So then my only other option for upgrading to 10.5 would be to go through the long, drawn-out process of converting the 10.5 .iso to a .dmg?


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 8, 2011)

Uh well a commercial 10.5 disc would work fine. Why are you having to use a burned one? Perhaps this info is in the thread, sorry...


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## Soylent Joe (Jul 8, 2011)

Hm I found one on eBay for $10 shipped. How does Apple fit 10.5 onto a single non-DL DVD? They must be wizards.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Jul 8, 2011)

Yeah good question--and to be honest I just always assumed these older drives couldn't read DL but maybe there is something else going on here. This thread looks like it could be of help:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t43370.html


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## timta2 (Jul 8, 2011)

Soylent Joe said:


> Also, it's an AIO iMac so that standard SATA DVD burner there couldn't fit.



Ah, haha forgot about that!  I was really just saying that the drive might be faulty. It's possible that the iMac just uses a generic Matsushita/Pioneer/etc optical drive typically used in a laptop or similar device.

In addition, I was being a dumbass and didn't clearly read what you wrote the first time around. I though you were saying that you were having problems burning dual layer discs, duh!


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## Soylent Joe (Jul 8, 2011)

Really I'm about tired enough of messing with it now to be content with 10.4. It just grinds my gears that I bought some horribly overpriced DL DVD's and it won't read them.


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## toastem2004 (Jul 9, 2011)

Well, the retail disc is a DL disc, as its a universal disc meaning it has both PPC & intel libraries on it. I really doubt the iMac drive cant read DL disc, i'm thinking its more an issue with them being "burned" more than anything. Thats why on my mac i had to burn the disc's so slowly; to try and make the pits more distinguished and reflective. i do not see how converting the ISO to DMG will help. Have you tried using an external dvd drive or maybe a usb to ide/sata converter?


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## Soylent Joe (Jul 9, 2011)

toastem2004 said:


> Well, the retail disc is a DL disc, as its a universal disc meaning it has both PPC & intel libraries on it. I really doubt the iMac drive cant read DL disc, i'm thinking its more an issue with them being "burned" more than anything. Thats why on my mac i had to burn the disc's so slowly; to try and make the pits more distinguished and reflective. i do not see how converting the ISO to DMG will help. Have you tried using an external dvd drive or maybe a usb to ide/sata converter?



The thing is, I burned it as the lowest setting. Also and most importantly, I've tried completely blank fresh-out-the-box DL DVD's in there and it would not read them, just spit them out. But, as I understand DVD movies are on DL DVD's and it does actually play DVD movies. Something's just not right.


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## TheMailMan78 (Jul 9, 2011)

Download Applejack also. Great program to maintain that OS. That and Onyx.


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## timta2 (Jul 9, 2011)

I wonder if it's possible if maybe the lens is dirty? I have a drive that I know I need to hit with compressed air when it has trouble recognizing discs and it ejects them. I just stick the sprayer straw thing in there and sure enough, it recognizes discs when they are inserted again.


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## Wile E (Jul 9, 2011)

Soylent Joe said:


> So then my only other option for upgrading to 10.5 would be to go through the long, drawn-out process of converting the 10.5 .iso to a .dmg?



No. A dmg is just a compressed iso. When you burn it, it decompresses, defeating the purpose.

Just grab the CD install version.


Soylent Joe said:


> The thing is, I burned it as the lowest setting. Also and most importantly, I've tried completely blank fresh-out-the-box DL DVD's in there and it would not read them, just spit them out. But, as I understand DVD movies are on DL DVD's and it does actually play DVD movies. Something's just not right.



Did you burn OS X on a PC? That hardly ever works properly. If you didn't, you may just have shitty DL discs.

Again, just grab the CD version if possible.

You can also use an external Firewire drive if you want. In Disc Utility, use the restore option. Use the iso as the source, and the firewire drive as the destination. After it's done copying, restart the mac and hold down the Option key. That will let you select any bootable volumes that show up.


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## Soylent Joe (Jul 9, 2011)

Wile E said:


> No. A dmg is just a compressed iso. When you burn it, it decompresses, defeating the purpose.
> 
> Just grab the CD install version.
> 
> ...



Well I don't have any firewire drives and I don't want to go about buying a CD version secondhand. I guess it will be keeping 10.4. No hits at all on CL yet, I'm going to have to drop it to $200 to even get bites I think.


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## Wile E (Jul 9, 2011)

eBay it. You'll get more hits.

And who said anything about buying? You already own a legit copy, borrow(cough) somebody else's CD version.


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