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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > G5 Quibbles

G5 Quibbles
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awcopus
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Oct 27, 2004, 12:17 AM
 
Just a short list of issues I've noticed with the 2.5 duallie.

1. The included 160GB drive is obnoxiously loud. I've now replaced it with an ultraquiet Western Digital 250GB drive and added a 400GB Hitachi drive, which is also whisper quiet.

2. When I connect my iPod or my wife's iPod directly to the front of the G5 OR to the back, it freezes iTunes, as in I get the spinning beachball of eternal frustration. This is actually way more than a quibble. It's the kind of thing I would imagine would happen to Windows users. Anyone else experiencing this? Would be nice to hear from somebody that there's a way out of this.

3. This is not G5 specific, but it affects the G5. It is not possible to sync 2 Macs using Firewire 800. Target Firewire Disc mode apparently is only supported with Firewire 400. Didn't Apple pioneer this technology? This is a quibble.

Otherwise, I'm having a ball with the machine.
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awcopus  (op)
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Oct 27, 2004, 12:57 PM
 
Originally posted by awcopus:
2. When I connect my iPod or my wife's iPod directly to the front of the G5 OR to the back, it freezes iTunes, as in I get the spinning beachball of eternal frustration. This is actually way more than a quibble. It's the kind of thing I would imagine would happen to Windows users. Anyone else experiencing this? Would be nice to hear from somebody that there's a way out of this.
Problem solved by disconnecting iSight whenever I go to connect iPod. C'mon Apple, this is just silliness.
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cambro
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Oct 27, 2004, 01:03 PM
 
The iPod thing sounds suspiciously like a bad firewire port or a bad iPod. Have you tried other external firewire drives on the G5 or is the iPod the only thing that tanks? Does the iPod work fine on other machines? You might reformat the iPod (in utilities folder).

Update: You replied with the iSight comment as I was writting this! Have you updated all the iSight firmware etc.? I have an iSight/iPod set up on a 1.8 G5 and I haven't noticed this (though I also rarely plug my iPod into the G5).
     
Cadaver
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Oct 27, 2004, 01:13 PM
 
Originally posted by awcopus:
Problem solved by disconnecting iSight whenever I go to connect iPod. C'mon Apple, this is just silliness.
Sounds odd.

I've got a G5 - iSight plugged in to the rear FW 400 port, external HD connected to the FW 800 port (using a FW800 to 400 cable) and a 3G iPod daisy-chained to the external HD. No beachball issues.
     
DeathToWindows
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Oct 29, 2004, 07:34 PM
 
Huh. My 160GB is nice and quiet.

Don't try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.
     
awcopus  (op)
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Oct 30, 2004, 01:05 AM
 
Originally posted by DeathToWindows:
Huh. My 160GB is nice and quiet.
Well, my 250GB Western Digital and 400GB Hitachi drives are more silent in tandem than the bundled Seagate 160GB drive was. But, of course, I'm sure mileage will vary with these things. I never had any intention of using that drive anyway, so it's neither here nor there, except that any purchaser of a $3000 computer has a right to expect the manufacturer to use silent hard drives.

Another quibble is that the optical bay drive door is sort of clunky and the disc tray is too "cheap plastic" (especially in comparison with the dual 1.42 tray) for a high end machine.

I'm also reading too much about how the 1.42 duallie has a superior implementation of Firewire 800, which is backed up by barefeats.com. This is pretty damn absurd.

Finally, I'm wondering whether I should drop $350 on the 9800 special edition (256MB RAM) or hold off for ATI's X800 card (price unknown). Think I'll probably hold off, though I could probably resell the 9800 for a decent price.... so, actually, I'm still wondering about this.
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The Placid Casual
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Oct 30, 2004, 06:09 PM
 
I have a 160 Gig HD in my Rev dual G5 that can be a bit on the 'vocal' side.

I have tested everything, run every diagnostic, the thing works fine...

After much investigation, it seems that it if just the bearing is a bit squeaky now and again...

As for the complaint of the cheap plastic drive... hmm, well it is a component used in thousands and thousands of machines, both PC and Mac around the world. Not much can be done about it...
     
Busemann
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Oct 30, 2004, 06:12 PM
 
Could be a bad FireWire cable as well
     
jamil5454
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Oct 30, 2004, 08:24 PM
 
Any Special Edition card from ATI is crippled.

In the 9800's case, it would b e much better to go with a 9800 XT or Pro than a SE. The SE has nearly half the fillrate power of the 9800Pro/XT. If you decide to get a 9800XT, I would wait for the x800 to come out for mac because the 9800XT is way more expensive than a 9800Pro but only marginally faster. Which card do you have now?
     
awcopus  (op)
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Oct 30, 2004, 08:30 PM
 
Originally posted by jamil5454:
Any Special Edition card from ATI is crippled.

In the 9800's case, it would b e much better to go with a 9800 XT or Pro than a SE. The SE has nearly half the fillrate power of the 9800Pro/XT. If you decide to get a 9800XT, I would wait for the x800 to come out for mac because the 9800XT is way more expensive than a 9800Pro but only marginally faster. Which card do you have now?
Just got the machine and making do with the stock 9600 as I piece this all together. Figure I'll wait for the X800. Seems like it shouldn't be too long of a wait, and from what I've read it sounds like the X800 is a beast (in a good way).
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awcopus  (op)
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Oct 30, 2004, 08:33 PM
 
Originally posted by Busemann:
Could be a bad FireWire cable as well
This problem is solved, basically, by my not having the iSight and iPod connected at the same time. I discovered this "solution" on the Apple Discussions board and it worked like a charm. All of my units' firmware is up-to-date, the firewire cables are all solid, everything works... unless both are connected. Sort of eerie that other people aren't running into this issue, but if this is my glitch, and my only one, I'll take it!
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Luca Rescigno
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Oct 30, 2004, 09:42 PM
 
Originally posted by jamil5454:
Any Special Edition card from ATI is crippled.

In the 9800's case, it would b e much better to go with a 9800 XT or Pro than a SE. The SE has nearly half the fillrate power of the 9800Pro/XT. If you decide to get a 9800XT, I would wait for the x800 to come out for mac because the 9800XT is way more expensive than a 9800Pro but only marginally faster. Which card do you have now?
That's because the 9800SE has a 128-bit memory bus. But guess what? There is no 9800SE for the Mac! Yeah, the one being sold as the 9800 "Special Edition" is actually a 256 MB Radeon 9800 Pro. That's it. It's not a Radeon 9800SE.

"That's Mama Luigi to you, Mario!" *wheeze*
     
rhogue islander
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Oct 31, 2004, 10:02 PM
 
Congrats on the new machine.

I too find the seeks of my Seagate to be a little on the loud side. I was contemplating a WD to use instead.

The plasticky clackiting of the DVD drive door is a little disappointing, especially after the mercedes like 'clump' the door on my Quicksilver used to make.

Very quiet and very fast otherwise (rev A Dual G5).
     
awcopus  (op)
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Nov 3, 2004, 11:16 PM
 
Originally posted by rhogue islander:
Congrats on the new machine.

I too find the seeks of my Seagate to be a little on the loud side. I was contemplating a WD to use instead.

The plasticky clackiting of the DVD drive door is a little disappointing, especially after the mercedes like 'clump' the door on my Quicksilver used to make.

Very quiet and very fast otherwise (rev A Dual G5).
So, the western digital 250 GB drive runs extraordinarily silently. Just a fabulous drive. Fast, quiet, capacious.

Unfortunately, my Hitachi 400GB drive, though quiet most of the time, has started making a kind of low drone noise on a periodic basis. I'm going to call newegg tomorrow and arrange for an exchange. The drive is definitely not supposed to be making this noise.

Otherwise, I think I've gotten used to my G5's noises. The fans come on infrequently and the liquid cooling sound is unusual but extremely subtle (I've got hypersensitive hearing) and I'm okay with it now.

LOVE my G5 and looking forward to upgrading the graphics card as soon as the X800 is available.
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awcopus  (op)
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Nov 6, 2004, 05:18 AM
 
All of a sudden, I have a major problem.

The menu bar on the right side of the screen, with my login name, the time, the volume icon, my Airport Extreme icon.... whenever the mouse scrolls over this part of the screen it turns into a spinning ball of death!

Also, I seem to have lost the ability to restart or shutdown my machine by selecting "restart" or "shutdown".

I've run the hardware test using the supplied CD, and it says everything is fine. I've repaired my internal discs and repaired all permissions... but this problem remains.

Somebody please tell me that there's a solution to this. I'm feeling completely defeated over here. What happened?

I'm going to try an Archive and Install unless somebody has some insights into dealing with this issue that's less dramatic. I've read of people with this problem in the Apple Discussions forum (under MacOSX, not G5), and they have had no success with reinstalling the OS!

Upgraded to 10.3.6 in the hopes that would solve this problem. Installation went smoothly, but the problem remains.
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StiZeven
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Nov 6, 2004, 07:35 PM
 
Seagate HDs are no longer the 'quiet ones' like they used to be (when they were 120GB and lower and when Seagate wasn't being cheap and still used the foam SeaSheild backing which absorbed some of the sound). Sure, they may still be just a bit more quiet at idle, but if you're not running a fanless system, then you'll never hear a slightly more audible idle in other models even over a quiet cooling system.

To me (and to the concerns posted in this thread) any truly quiet drive will have and a near silent seek. The new Hitachi, WD and Maxtor beasts are all quieter and are much faster than any Seagate. I once ordered and popped in two Seagate 160GB drives and the seek noise was so distracting (in my very quiet Dell Precision) that they quickly went back. Now I am running 2 Maxtor 300GB drives and not only are they silent, but they are bloody fast (and have huge 16MB caches). The only drives that I know that are silent in both seek and idle are the Samsung 160GB models. Not only that, but they are dirt cheap along with 3yr warranties as well (check NewEgg).

In my experience, if HD seek noise bothers you like it bothers me, stay away from new Seagate HDs for the desktops, and stay clear from Toshiba HDs for the notebooks. Fujitsu makes the quietest notebook HD as far as I know.
     
jamil5454
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Nov 6, 2004, 08:27 PM
 
Originally posted by awcopus:
All of a sudden, I have a major problem.

The menu bar on the right side of the screen, with my login name, the time, the volume icon, my Airport Extreme icon.... whenever the mouse scrolls over this part of the screen it turns into a spinning ball of death!

Also, I seem to have lost the ability to restart or shutdown my machine by selecting "restart" or "shutdown".

I've run the hardware test using the supplied CD, and it says everything is fine. I've repaired my internal discs and repaired all permissions... but this problem remains.

Somebody please tell me that there's a solution to this. I'm feeling completely defeated over here. What happened?

I'm going to try an Archive and Install unless somebody has some insights into dealing with this issue that's less dramatic. I've read of people with this problem in the Apple Discussions forum (under MacOSX, not G5), and they have had no success with reinstalling the OS!

Upgraded to 10.3.6 in the hopes that would solve this problem. Installation went smoothly, but the problem remains.
Open up a Terminal and type "ps -ux" and tell us what that says.
     
awcopus  (op)
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Nov 6, 2004, 11:41 PM
 
Originally posted by jamil5454:
Open up a Terminal and type "ps -ux" and tell us what that says.
Originally posted by jamil5454:
Open up a Terminal and type "ps -ux" and tell us what that says.
No need. Here's the story.

As part of my troubleshooting, I started to compare the two systems in my office, a dual 1.42 G4 and the dual 2.5 G5, because they are essentially identical and only the G5 was manifesting this bizarre problem. A thorough comparison brought to my attention that in the menu bar of my G4 there was a Stuffit Deluxe drop-down menu that was not present on my G5, in spite of the fact that I had installed the software there as well. I opened up System Preferences on the G5 and G4 and compared the settings for Stuffit, discovering that they were identical. Attempts to change the settings on the G5 created a spinning ball and completely nonresponsive system for about 2 minutes, after which nothing changed.

Bullseye! Once I threw away every instance of Stuffit Deluxe 8.0.2, not only did I regain use of my system's restart and shutdown functionality, and not only did I resolve the spinning ball over the menu bar items, the entire system seems to have accelerated.

For good measure I re-repaired permissions and ran another hardware check. Everything checks out perfectly and I am back on my feet.

What a relief. I am happy to use the G4 for Stuffit duties for the foreseeable future and keep my G5 humming along.
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rhogue islander
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Nov 8, 2004, 12:22 PM
 
I use the 7.0.3 version of Stuffit Standard on my revA Dual 2.0 with 10.3.6 without any issues.
     
   
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