AMD-8131 PCI-X Midbridge Chip (2003-05 PCI-X Power Mac G5 only)

Have you ever wondered why there’s an AMD chip on the back of your Power Mac G5’s logic board, or what it’s even doing there? For higher end Mid-2003 thru Early 2005 Power Mac G5s, that’s the PCI-X “Mid Bridge” chip. This is what handles all your expansion cards! Although, it doesn’t appear in Late-2005 […]

Apple’s Magic Mouse: A futuristic marvel

Not everyone is a fan of the original Apple Magic Mouse or the Magic Mouse 2, some even give it about as much flack as the original Round USB mouse. Not to borrow an old slogan.. I “think different.” Ergonomics are the chief complaint about the device itself, the sharp edge of the multitouch surface […]

8BitDo Pro 2 Bluetooth gamepad with PowerPC OS X Leopard in wired mode

Official documentation says this controller requires at least macOS Ventura 13.2 or above, and that USB wired connection is only available for macOS or iPadOS with USB-C ports. Even if you can adapt a USB port to a Type-C on a PowerPC Mac and get a peripheral connected, a newer device is overwhelmingly likely not […]

Adapters, accessories and cases: What do I use with my M4 MacBook Air?

Time and time again, the ports on our devices change – prompting many of us to consider at one point or another whether or not to start buying USB-C accessories. Back when the TouchBar MacBook Pro came out, I held out for a while as accessories in general felt overpriced.. not that I was looking […]

Trying a 6 TB RAID0 Array in a Power Mac G4

They say if you format a drive with the GUID partition table you can install virtually any size drive in a PowerPC Mac, only you may not be able to boot off of it. An Apple Partition Map is required to boot on a PowerPC Mac, however, this partition scheme is limited to 2.19 TB. […]

Upgrade your Mac to Bluetooth 4 & Wifi 5 with a Broadcom BCM94360CD

Although this topic has been documented elsewhere, it will also be covered on Low End Mac for our readers. While bluetooth and wifi technology have since moved onto newer standards – Bluetooth 5.3 and Wifi 6 respectively, this adapter offers a pop-in replacement where the old AirPort card was. Rather than shoehorning a full-on PCIe […]

Low End Mac Mailbag: Brydge Stone Pro Thunderbolt 3 Dock, works with TB 1&2

Fresh to the Low End Mac mailbag from FaceBook User Michael Vega: “Possibly known knowledge, but I wanted to show a proof of concept and I’m glad it works. I have a thunderbolt 3 dock, but it works with Thunderbolt 2/1 Macs. My work laptops are a current generation of Lenovo PCs with Thunderbolt 4, […]

Fanxiang 1 TB mSata SSD in a Hi-Res 15″ PowerBook G4: So far so good

It’s been nearly a year since the SK 128 GB mSata SSD was taken out in favor of a larger capacity, 1 TB Fanxiang SSD. Since the Hi-Res PowerBook G4 15″ 1.67 isn’t limited to a 128 GB storage drive capacity, it seemed a suitable candidate to take advantage of this upgrade. The largest drive […]