Dan Knight
- 2007.06.26
Expected Leopard Compatibility List
Joseph Burke writes:
I haven't seen this on the site yet, so I thought I would just
compile a formal list of machines that I believe will and won't be
capable of running Leopard when it is released. The readers may be
interested.
Machines I feel with 99.99% certainty will run Leopard
out of the box:
- Any model with an Intel, PPC G5, or PPC G4 CPU and/or suitable
graphics card for running Core Image.
Machines I feel with 99.99% certainty will not run
Leopard at all:
- Any G3 based model with a closed (not upgradeable)
architecture. More specifically any G3 iMac, iBook, or PowerBook.
(See "Questionable" at the end of the next section concerning the
Pismo).
Machines that may be able to run Leopard through a forced
installation using XPostFacto or other trickery:
- The B&W G3 Power Mac can be upgraded to a G4 CPU and/or a
flashed PCI video card from the PC side that is Core Image capable.
I am thinking mostly of the Nvidia FX 5xxx and 6200 chipsets. There
were no hacked ROMs for the ATi X1300 or X1550 PCI cards the last
time I checked.
- Any beige PCI Power Mac can also be upgraded to a G4 and/or a
flashed PCI video card from the PC side that is Core Image capable.
(Exceptions here being the 4400 aka
7220, 5xxx and 6xxx series, 7200,
8200 all due to soldered CPUs and CPU upgrades not being recognized
by current versions of OS X or XPostFacto)
Questionable, but maybe:
- PowerBook Pismo with G4 upgrade.
I'm sure I probably missed some models, but for the most part I
think this list covers everything. It is a strange situation that a
machine as old as the Power Mac
7500/100 may be able to run Leopard through upgrading where
newer machines like the G3 iMac
700 and G3 iBook 900 cannot,
but that's what happens sometimes when you buy a machine with a
completely closed architecture.
I know some people will take offense with this list because I
left their favorite model out of Apple's future plans, but that's
an issue to take up with Apple, not with me. Many of the models I
listed as not Leopard capable were already obsoleted by prior
versions of OS X, so the list of remaining models is nowhere
near as large as it seems.
Joseph,
Yes, it appears that Leopard will require AltiVec,
so I think your list is pretty much on the money: any Mac built
around a G4, G5, or Intel CPU and any that can replace the main CPU
with a G4 upgrade. The only possible addition to your list would be
a G4-upgraded Lombard. And we'll
likely need XPostFacto to install Leopard on upgraded Macs.
As for the Power Mac 7500, it's amazing how
upgradable those old PCI Power Macs with CPU daughter cards were -
and how long some people continue to use and upgrade them.
Dan
Why Some Mac Die: Bad Capacitors
John Sawyer says:
I'm surprised at Steven Hunter's
response to "Why Does a Mac Die?", in which he states:
"There's also the issue of old electrolytic
capacitors rupturing (we've seen this on a lot of PC motherboards
over the last 3-4 years) from either age or poor manufacturing.
I've not seen this on any Apple systems yet, but we don't really
have any Macs older than a Blue and White
G3 anymore."
You don't need a Mac older than a Blue and White G3 to see this
problem. This bad electrolytic capacitor problem also hit the first iMac G5 - it was all over the Mac
news sites in 2005. The electrolytic capacitors on many of their
logic boards burst, since their electrolytic fluid was made from an
incomplete formula stolen from a Japanese manufacturer - it didn't
include stabilizers, so the electrolyte was drying out, causing it
to turn to gas, which expanded and burst out the top of the
capacitors. Lots of manufacturers of all kinds of electronic
devices were stung by this - manufacturers of PCs, TVs, etc.
And bad electrolytic capacitors destroyed most of the Mac IIci, IIcx,
and SE/30 models, and a couple
others too. The rubber stopper in the bottom of the capacitor
shrunk, allowing the electrolyte to leak out and eat into the logic
board, eroding circuit board traces. I've worked on hundreds of
these, and in most cases, that's what you find - there aren't too
many of these working any more.
I started fixing Macs in early 1985, and bad electrolytic
capacitors are one of the things that fried most of the first Macs
(that, and bad flyback transformers, and solder joints that cracked
on the power/analog video board) - I fixed hundreds of them, and
had employees who fixed hundreds more. The bad electrolytic
capacitor in the original Macs was the large capacitor in the
horizontal drive section of the video circuit, at the top of the
analog/power board - Apple chose a capacitor that wasn't able to
handle the current and/or heat it was exposed to, so that it
eventually burned out. I don't know what its exact failure mode
was, but possibly the electrolyte dried out there too. This
remained a problem through the original Mac SE - the capacitor Apple used in the
video circuit in the Mac Plus and
the Mac SE wasn't much better than the ones they chose for the
earlier Macs, since I fixed hundreds of those too. Since Apple buys
parts in large quantities at the beginning of a production run to
lock in a low price, it may be that Apple just kept using the
poorly-spec'd capacitors until they used them up.
As far as tin whiskers go, I've never seen that on a Mac, and
I've inspected plenty of bad Mac logic boards for signs of damage -
not that one would necessarily be able to see such thin shorts, but
if there's a visible sign of damage (which is rare), usually it's a
charred chip. But most logic board damage isn't visible - usually
it's an internal chip failure, usually either the processor chip or
a failed custom chip, since custom chips aren't made in the same
quantity as standard chips, and they're not made for long before
they're replaced with a different design, and so they don't go
through as rigorous a design and manufacturing shakeout as standard
chips.
John,
Thanks for sharing your experiences with old Macs.
Now I have a good idea why my SE/30 no longer works. And my late
production run Mac Plus did go in for service once to have a bad
solder joint repaired.
Dan
1 GHz PowerForce G3 Upgrade Card Back
Hello Dan, I'm a big fan of the site and a subscriber to several
Google Groups.
I just liked to see if you knew that the PowerLogix PowerForce
G3 upgrade card [for the beige and B&W G3 Power Macs] seems to
be sold by Other
World Computing again. What I find peculiar about it
reappearing on their website (have no idea when, haven't checked it
in months) is that they removed it because I believe PowerLogix ran
out of supplies of the G3. It's not only cheaper than the similar
G4 upgrades by Sonnet, it also doesn't lower the bus speed of the
computer.
I've been a Mac user for a long while and believe in the "low
end" philosophy.
I would greatly appreciate a reply but understand if you don't
have the time to write one.
Edward
Edward,
Thanks for the heads up. The new version of the
PowerForce G3 is "only" 1 GHz, not quite as fast as the former
1.1 GHz one, but it's also quite cost effective at US$160. As OWC
points out, the only difference between a G3 and a G4 upgrade is
that the G4 has AltiVec, which the classic Mac OS doesn't take
advantage of (although some applications do) and which isn't
necessary for OS X (at least until Leopard ships).
What's most interesting is that OWC is also
positioning this as an upgrade for the
"Yikes" Power Mac G4, the only G4 Power Mac without AGP
support. Give up a 350 MHz or 400 MHz CPU with AltiVec for a
1 GHz CPU without it.
It's all a matter of tradeoffs. OWC is also
selling a 500 MHz G4 upgrade from Sonnet for US$149. For video
work, this would definitely be the better choice because of
AltiVec. Looking ahead to Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5), G4 is the
only way to go, and it provides Core Image support in Tiger as
well.
If I were using a B&W G3 daily, I'd definitely
consider the 1 GHz PowerForce upgrade.
Dan
Panther Install Tip
Joe Schmeaux writes:
Hi Dan,
I recently had the same problem as Kevin De Mers [see iBook G3 Won't Boot Past Mac OS X
10.2.1] while trying to install Panther on my Lombard. About a year ago, I got a Lombard
for $100 on Craigslist. It was
running 10.3.9 and 9.2.2, it had a 6 GB hard drive and 320 MB
of memory in it. Performance suffered because of the slow, small
hard drive and less than maxed out RAM, so I decided to move the 40
GB drive and one of the the 256 MB RAM sticks from my WallStreet to my "new" Lombard. I added
the RAM and swapped the drives, and the 40 GB drive (with 10.2 and
9.2) booted without any problems - and curiously, the 6 GB
drive booted into Panther on the unsupported WallStreet without
XPostFacto or
bootx.
I then tried to upgrade to Panther on the Lombard, only to get a
kernel panic, rendering the drive unbootable (and I found out later
it was unmountable in Tiger on my G4 Mac
mini using a universal drive USB adapter I got from OWC - the machine just froze until I
unplugged the drive). Unfortunately, I didn't have time to figure
it all out then, so I swapped the drives again until just a few
weeks ago when I could finally sit down and work on it.
I put the 40 GB drive in the WallStreet and booted into my
Jaguar installer CD. I ran Disk Utility to erase and repartition
the drive. I then swapped the drives back and loaded 9.2 on the
smaller partition of the 40 GB drive now in the Lombard. I then
tried to install Panther but got a kernel panic again. I tried once
more and got the first CD to install. Then I tried the second CD,
and after a few kernel panics, I finally got it installed on the
third try, only to have it kernel panic during software updating.
Arrgh!
I spent a little time on Google and found something in the
XPostFacto support forum
(which, of course, I can't seem to find now, in order to provide a
link, but it shouldn't matter) in which a guy having the same
difficulties removed one of the two 256 MB sticks and was able to
install 10.3 on his Lombard. I tried it (after using Disk Utility
to erase the partition), and it worked like a charm. I did the
install and the updates with 256 MB, and after it was installed
successfully, I put the other RAM stick in. It's now working
beautifully - I'm typing this on it right now - and the performance
with a 40 GB 5400 rpm drive is significantly faster than it was
with the cramped 6 GB 4200 rpm drive.
I don't know if this will solve Kevin's problem. He didn't
specify how much RAM he has, but if he has more than 256 MB, it
sure couldn't hurt to try installing Panther with less (I think 128
MB is the minimum needed to install Panther). If it does work and
it keeps running without problems for a while, I'd think twice
about visiting that same store for service. Logic boards are
expensive. If Kevin's isn't shot, perhaps the service department of
that store isn't up to snuff - or worse!
Hope this turns out to be helpful.
Joe Schmeaux
Joe,
Thanks for sharing this tip and your experiences.
I've forwarded your email to Kevin.
Dan
Can't Install Tiger from eMac DVD
Otto Schlosser writes:
Hi, Dan. I have a problem that you might have addressed already,
but if you haven't, it may be of interest to your readers. I bought
a Tiger install DVD on eBay to use on my AGP Power Mac G4. It booted fine from the
DVD, started the install process, then put up a dialog stating that
it couldn't be installed on this system. I looked at the DVD and it
was for the eMac G4. I'm curious why it won't work with another G4
Mac. (I tried to fool it with XPostFacto, but no go.) Is there a
hack to enable this, or is this simply a lesson about reading the
fine print?
Thanks, Otto
Otto,
There are two kinds of Mac OS install discs -
universal ones and ones tied to specific models. The installers on
the second kind of disc are tightly coupled to the computer they
came with and may not be able to install the Mac OS to other
Macs.
Apple does this so someone who has, an older Mac
and buys a new Mac won't be able to simply (and illegally) use the
install disc to put the new OS, which is licensed to that new
computer, on the older Mac.
If the eBay auction never mentioned that this was
an eMac install disc, you may have some recourse there.
If you want to run Tiger on your Power Mac, you'll
have to obtain a full install CD.
Dan
'About This Mac' Sometimes Misreports Dual
Processors
Jon Brumbaugh says:
Dan,
A reader wrote about a year ago [see Have I Been Taken on eBay?] that he
purchased a Dual 533 MHz Mac off
eBay, and thought that perhaps he'd been took, since "About this
Mac" was only showing a single 533 MHz processor. I wanted to share
that I had a similar incident when I did a new install of OS X
10.4 on my G4 Dual 500 MHz. After
installation, I was checking a few things to make sure everything
was displaying properly and noticed that my system was only showing
a single 500 MHz processor. I went into the system profiler, and it
did show two CPUs. "About this Mac" again only displayed a single.
I ran all of my software updates till I could not update it
anymore, rebooted, and it finally displayed correctly showing the
Dual 500 MHz. I just wanted to share this, as it seems to be a
small glitch in OS X that appears to be fixable with the
software updates.
Thanks for the great website!
Jon Brumbaugh
Jon,
Thanks for the info. This is news to me. I've
forwarded your email to Paul Kindig and will post a link from that
mailbag column to your letter in this one.
Dan
What 'Book Should I Get?
Leo LeBron muses:
What machine should I get?
Okay, I have many old machines I collect as a hobby. My primary
workhorse is my 400 MHz B&W G3.
It's awesome I can run Tiger on a machine now 8 years old, and it's
just as quick as ever. However, I have been in need of a portable
machine for a while now and have been burning through them as of
late. I got a 300 MHz WallStreet
to replace my 233 MHz model, but the batteries won't hold a charge
anymore. So I got a 400 MHz Pismo,
and it complemented my desktop quite nicely.
One problem I had was I was burning through hard drives in the 3
months it was working. First a 40 GB I got from a friend's HP died,
so I swapped in the original 6 GB. I was just barely able to
fit Tiger and all my documents in there. This was the version with
the original AirPort inside, and it had 256 MB more RAM than the
seller said it did, and the battery actually holds a descent
charge.
However, when the 6 GB HD in the Pismo died, I went out and
bought a new one, an 80 GB Seagate. I tried reinstalling Tiger, but
as luck would have it, my Tiger DVD was very badly scratched, and
installation failed. Luckily, I image all my discs when I get them
on my B&W, in case something like this happens. However, I lack
a DVD burner at the present time. So I popped the drawbridge and
connected the new HD to the secondary IDE bus (disconnecting my Zip
and DVD/CD-RW drives). Installation was flawless, and so I shut
down my B&W, removed the hard drive, and popped it back into my
Pismo, making sure I reconnected everything perfectly. However,
upon reboot, I heard the dreaded 4 tones and flashing sleep light
(corrupted ROM).
This is where I am at now: Should I buy a new CPU card (the CPU
card holds the ROM chip, so that would fix the problem), perhaps
getting a faster card, or should I sell the Pismo, as well as the
WallStreet? I am sure I could get a few hundred for both machines,
as the WallStreet has the much coveted DVD kit, and the Pismo has a
sought after original AirPort card (genuine). Add the amount I
would get for both machines to some $300 I have set away, and what
would be a descent machine I could afford? I need something
portable, as I am heading off to college, but also because I use my
laptop for on site diagnosis of other people's computers when I go
and fix them.
So what is your advice?
Thanks.
- Leo V
Leo,
First off, DVD burners are cheap nowadays. I
bought some 1-2 years ago when the 8x SuperDrive in my eMac failed,
replacing it with a 16x dual-layer Pioneer drive for US$60. Today
OWC (where I got my drives) is selling an
18x dual-layer SuperDrive for US$40. It might be a nice
addition to your B&W G3, and I can also recommend
NTI DragonBurn as a nice alternative to Toast if you need more
capabilities than OS X offers.
What may have happened is that the Tiger installer
put the B&W G3's ROM on the new hard drive, which then
attempted to overwrite the Pismo's ROM at startup. It may be
possible to restore the ROM by booting from an OS X installer
or a hard drive that had OS X installed on a Pismo. Maybe.
If not, it looks like replacing the CPU card is
your only option for getting the Pismo up and running. There are
some G4 options in the US$300-400 range that might even let you run
Leopard when it ships later this year.
A good alternative would be a used G4 iBook, where you should be able to
get a nice 1.0-1.5 GHz setup for US$600 or so including a Combo
drive. You'll have a 1024 x 768 display like you do now, but you'll
also have the additional speed of AirPort Extreme ($29 refurbished
from the Apple Store), a
much faster CPU, and a graphics processor that will run Tiger's
graphics much more smoothly. And you'll definitely be ready for
Leopard.
Dan
MacBook Pro Design Rooted in Aluminum
PowerBooks
Hi Dan,
I wanted to write and say how much I'd enjoyed reading your article comparing your new MacBook
Pro with your trusty old TiBook. There were many parallels with my
own experience, and it was interesting to see two machines that I
know very well from a different perspective.
Like you, my first new Mac 'Book (and in my case, first ever
Mac!) was a first generation titanium PowerBook G4 running at 400
MHz, though being new to the Mac at the time (I'd been a long time
Amiga user up until '01) I took the plunge straight to OS X
from day one and never looked back. That was an excellent machine
and would probably have lasted me as long as yours lasted you if it
weren't for an unfortunate encounter with a hard floor after I
tripped over its power cable around 2 years ago. MagSafe came too
late to save it, sadly. Happily my home insurance paid for a
replacement in the shape of a late model
(summer '05) 1.67 GHz Aluminium PowerBook G4, which is still my
main computer today. Two months ago on joining a new company, that
'Book was joined by a 2.16 GHz
MacBook Pro, which is almost identical to your new
purchase.
What was particularly interesting for me in reading your account
of your new machine is how many of the features you're enjoying
(the better enclosure design, sleep light in the latch release,
backlit keyboard etc.) were also features on late model PowerBook
G4s like mine. I've found that what I enjoy most about the shiny
new MacBook Pro I use in my office is how it's almost identical in
use to the two-year-old G4 that I still use at home. There are a
few subtle differences, notably the slightly larger screen and the
invaluable ability to run any Windows software work requires
through Parallels
(I heartily recommend you give Parallels a try
when you get chance - it's a very cool piece of software), but in
general sitting with either machine just feels very comfortable and
familiar. Perhaps it's a case of Apple having got the fundamental
design for a laptop of this type right years ago and (sensibly)
leaving it untouched since.
Anyway I hope your new MacBook Pro brings you as many happy
years as the old titanium 'Book it replaces - I'm fully expecting
to get another three years or so out of my Aluminium 'Book, and who
knows, maybe that Mac's eventual replacement will be just as
familiar when the time comes?
Cheers
Patrick
Patrick,
I have no hands on experience with the 15"
aluminum PowerBooks, but from the moment I first saw it, I knew it
fixed a lot of problems with the TiBooks - starting with the
aluminum look of the keyboard (I never cared for the TiBook's black
keyboard). Where the TiBook was thin and attractive, it was also a
more utilitarian design. The AlBooks with their more curved edges,
wider trackpad, backlit keyboard (on some), and vastly improved
WiFi range have it all over the TiBooks.
Apple has lead the way with great notebook design
since the first PowerBooks, using almost the same form factor for
several years and generally continuing to use a new 'Book design
for several models with minimal changes. Every new design is better
than its predecessors, and the non-pro MacBook took off in a neat
new direction we may see mirrored in future pro models, especially
the slightly recessed keyboard and easy access to the hard drive
and RAM slots.
Yes, your next 'Book may be very familiar.
Dan
Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
