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Macnor · Oct 24, 2003, 09:08 AM

I just received panther and what a disappointment it is. If you have a g4 sawtooth with a nividia 4mx 32mb graphic card you should not buy os x 10.3

It only works when I use my old ati card, with the nividia card the computer will start but the screen goes black after 10 sec.

Now I understand why. Under system requirements it does say that you have to have a Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer. The card is not supplied by apple so I guess panther is not for me. Its not even close to being worth $129.

Moose · Oct 24, 2003, 09:18 AM

Originally posted by Macnor:
Now I understand why. Under system requirements it does say that you have to have a Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer. The card is not supplied by apple so I guess panther is not for me. Its not even close to being worth $129.

This is only for the install.

After you install, it should work just fine.

Should.

Macnor · Oct 24, 2003, 09:24 AM

No, it will not work. But I just found a work around that lets me start up. By deleting the nvidia graphics driver it will start up and work ok, but no quartz extreme and very lousy screen updates. It is alot better with the old ati card installed.

Is this a bug or do apple not want to support me.

This ruined my day

mitchell_pgh · Oct 24, 2003, 09:32 AM

Originally posted by Macnor:
The card is not supplied by apple so I guess panther is not for me.

You said it... It's not for YOU and around .05% of the mac community.

Moose · Oct 24, 2003, 09:34 AM

Originally posted by Macnor:
Is this a bug or do apple not want to support me.

Try a different nVidia card. Or look for drivers for Panther on nVidia's site.

typoon · Oct 24, 2003, 10:09 AM

I have a Sawtooth. I also have th Radeon 9000 Mac edition and it works great!

aapljack · Oct 24, 2003, 10:11 AM

This makes me a little nervous. I have a Sawtooth G4 with a GigaDesigns 1Ghz processor upgrade and a Radeon 8500 graphics card. I hope it works ok on my system!!

-b

typoon · Oct 24, 2003, 10:17 AM

Originally posted by aapljack:
This makes me a little nervous. I have a Sawtooth G4 with a GigaDesigns 1Ghz processor upgrade and a Radeon 8500 graphics card. I hope it works ok on my system!!

-b

Should work fine. Let us know how it works.

Macnor · Oct 24, 2003, 10:31 AM

I have done some investigating and the problem seems to be isolated to nvidia cards. Since it works fine under jaguar it should also work under panther I would think. But there is clearly a problem with the geforce driver in panther

nerd · Oct 24, 2003, 10:37 AM

I have a flashed Radeon 8500 in my Dual 533 and it works fine under 10.3. Hope this helps you narrow it down.

Brad

clebin · Oct 24, 2003, 11:05 AM

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
You said it... It's not for YOU and around .05% of the mac community.

Exactly - he said it. So what are you getting so uptight about?

If you have a non-Apple supplied nVidia card, you might be advised to wait for new drivers. Sounds fine to me.

Chris

chris v · Oct 24, 2003, 11:15 AM

Can anybody else corroborate this? One of my work machines is a Sawtooth 450 with an after-market Nvidia GeForce 4 MX in it.

Who exactly would update the driver to work with this card in this machine? Apple or Nvidia, and what are the chances of that actually happening in the next six months, if indeed this is a showstopper for such machines?

CV

Macnor · Oct 24, 2003, 11:20 AM

I found this locked discussion that might give some more insight.

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=178795

Seems to be the combination of sawtooth and geforce graphics card not supplied by apple that causing problems

3.1416 · Oct 24, 2003, 02:38 PM

Originally posted by aapljack:
I have a Sawtooth G4 with a GigaDesigns 1Ghz processor upgrade and a Radeon 8500 graphics card. I hope it works ok on my system!!

No problems for me on a Sawtooth with a Powerlogix 1.2GHz G4 and Radeon 8500.

typoon · Oct 24, 2003, 03:29 PM

Originally posted by clebin:
Exactly - he said it. So what are you getting so uptight about?

If you have a non-Apple supplied nVidia card, you might be advised to wait for new drivers. Sounds fine to me.

Chris

Sounds like it's something to do with nVidia cards. I know my non-Apple supplied Radeon 9000 Works like a champ on my Sawtooth upgraded with Panther

dtriska · Oct 24, 2003, 03:39 PM

This might help.

chris v · Oct 24, 2003, 05:14 PM

Originally posted by dtriska:
This might help.

Ther pertinent part: "My solution was to boot with the ATI card, replace the OS 10.3 nVidia Kernel Extensions with the nVidia Extensions from 10.2.8 and then on reboot the nVidia card worked with OS 10.3 in both sawtooth computers. "

I'm guessing the files to replace world be: (from 10.2.8)

/System/Library/Extensions/NVDANV20Hal.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/NVDANV10Hal.kext

Does anybody know if this is correct? (I can't find any .kext files specifically labelled nvidia)

I can't afford 10.3 AND a Radeon card right now, so unnless this workaround works, I'm stuck with 10.2 on my Sawtooth.

CV

macarita · Oct 24, 2003, 07:16 PM

hmmm,
i bought my dual 533 g4 direct from apple with a nvidia geforce2 mx card w/32MB. that's not after market if they gave you that choice when you ordered it right?
will i be likely to have problems with panther with this card too?

Samanoske · Oct 24, 2003, 07:49 PM

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
You said it... It's not for YOU and around .05% of the mac community.

retard ?

sc_markt · Oct 24, 2003, 09:30 PM

It figures! I just received a Geforce4 MX via UPS today and installed it not more than 45 minutes ago specifically so I can run Panther.

And it says on Apple's web site "Supported video cards: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 MX, or GeForce4 Ti; any ATI AGP RADEON card. A minimum of 16MB VRAM required" here.

Any sawtooth/aftermarket Geforce4 MX users with 10.3 out there?

- Mark

kulverse · Oct 24, 2003, 09:40 PM

Im running a dual 450 upgraded to a dual 800 and a radeon 8500. Works fine.

I posted this for the guy above who was worried about his processor upgrade working. it will be fine.

BurpetheadX · Oct 24, 2003, 09:46 PM

Originally posted by aapljack:
This makes me a little nervous. I have a Sawtooth G4 with a GigaDesigns 1Ghz processor upgrade and a Radeon 8500 graphics card. I hope it works ok on my system!!

-b

I have the exact same setup except on a digital audio. My Radeon 8500 is PC- flashed, and my Giga Designs is overclocked, works great.

Talis · Oct 24, 2003, 10:05 PM

I have a Sawtooth (450mhz) and an Asus GeForce 2MX (32mb) from a PC that I flashed with a Mac BIOS, and it works flawlessly with Panther.. though perhaps it's only an issue with 4MX's and not 2MX's. FYI, my 2MX is flashed with the v1055 BIOS.

Maybe there is an updated BIOS for the 4MX, if so, that may solve the problem.

emdash · Oct 24, 2003, 10:52 PM

Screen-refresh issues all over the place here on this Sawtooth 450 with aftermarket GeForce 4MX. I installed in a different partition and am safely back in Jaguar to tell the tale, but the message is, Don't do anything to compromise your Jaguar install if you have this particular combination of hardware!

I hope the issue will be resolved soon....

chris v · Oct 24, 2003, 10:59 PM

Originally posted by emdash:
Screen-refresh issues all over the place here on this Sawtooth 450 with aftermarket GeForce 4MX. I installed in a different partition and am safely back in Jaguar to tell the tale, but the message is, Don't do anything to compromise your Jaguar install if you have this particular combination of hardware!

I hope the issue will be resolved soon....

Someone here stated that he was able to work around this by copying nvidia kexts from t 10.2.8, bud didn't exactly specify what files he replaced, and where. You wanna guinea pig this for us, since you've got a Jag backup?

As I stated above, the only possible candidates (I don't know if these are them or not for sure) I could find in 10.2.8 are:

/System/Library/Extensions/NVDANV20Hal.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/NVDANV10Hal.kext

Give it a whirl.

CV

dlefebvre · Oct 24, 2003, 11:35 PM

Originally posted by aapljack:
This makes me a little nervous. I have a Sawtooth G4 with a GigaDesigns 1Ghz processor upgrade and a Radeon 8500 graphics card. I hope it works ok on my system!!

-b

No problem with my Sawtooth G4 with a PowerLogix 1Ghz and Radeon 8500.

emdash · Oct 25, 2003, 01:40 AM

Someone here stated that he was able to work around this by copying nvidia kexts from t 10.2.8, bud didn't exactly specify what files he replaced, and where. You wanna guinea pig this for us, since you've got a Jag backup?

OK.... Need a little guidance, tho. The system says, " 'NVDAblahblahblah.kext' could not be moved because 'Extensions' cannot be modified." Just for the sake of acting like I know more than I do, I even tried it in the terminal, but I got similar rejection notices.

In any event, these are the files that look relevant:

GeForce.kext
GeForceGA.plugin
NVDANV10Hal.kext
NVDANV20Hal.kext
NVDAResman.kext

All of them are 1.2.20 in Jaguar and 1.3.0 in Panther. Panther also adds one more, NVDANV30Hal.kext, also 1.3.0.

Any ideas?

+ spiral + · Oct 25, 2003, 02:01 AM

I tried starting a few threads about this before: Panther will not boot correctly with a GeForce #MX card on a Sawtooth motherboard. I've exchanged emails with 4 other posters and that had the same issues.

You can replace video drivers and take them out and all sorts of things, but then you are basically disabling/cripling your card and at that point you might as well use the original card.

Go to eBay, sell your GeForce and buy a ATI 8500. I did and have spent 0 hours troubleshooting since then. Alternatively, you could wait for updated driv... yeah that's: e ... b ... a ... y

tsukurite · Oct 25, 2003, 02:23 AM

Originally posted by aapljack:
This makes me a little nervous. I have a Sawtooth G4 with a GigaDesigns 1Ghz processor upgrade and a Radeon 8500 graphics card. I hope it works ok on my system!!

-b

It works great. I just upgraded to the 1.4ghz chip today prior to installing Panther. Booyah! When combined with the power of the Radeon 8500, this box has a new lease on life. Have fun!

chris v · Oct 25, 2003, 02:13 PM

I think I'll swap the Radeon 7000 from my Quicksilver Dual Gig with the GeForce 4 MX in my Sawtooth, and see how that goes.

CV

Macnor · Oct 27, 2003, 07:47 AM

The solution to this bug is not to replace or erase the nvidia drivers, but to remove memory so you only have 256 mb ram in your machine. It sounds stupid but it works.

Now quartz extreme works on my computer with my 4mx card.

Apple still needs to resolve this bug quickly and I am sure they will.

cgc · Oct 27, 2003, 10:42 AM

Originally posted by aapljack:
This makes me a little nervous. I have a Sawtooth G4 with a GigaDesigns 1Ghz processor upgrade and a Radeon 8500 graphics card. I hope it works ok on my system!!

-b

My 400Mhz G4 Sawtooth with Radeon 8500 works like a champ.

Macnor · Oct 27, 2003, 12:33 PM

This is a sawtooth and nividia bug, so if you have a ATI card that work in a sawtooth, we don�t need to know about it.

The tread is for losers like me with a sawtooth and a geforce card.

- - e r i k - - · Oct 27, 2003, 03:40 PM

My ex-G4 400Mhz with a flashed PC-radeon 8500 works like a champ too. At least for my friend who's overjoyed about it.

eevyl · Oct 27, 2003, 04:38 PM

I have an eerie feeling that Apple is not going to fix this...

Mac OS X 10.3 Tip: Update Third-Party Video Card Drivers Before Installing

That doc points me to look in Nvidia.com, and they say:

NVidia FAQ for Mac OS

Basically, Apple sends me to NVidia, and NVidia sends me to Apple... that's what I call a... infinite loop...

eScrib · Oct 27, 2003, 04:53 PM

I'm running Panther on my Dual 533 with a GF2MX card that came with the box from Apple.

Here are a few of my issues...

http://www.eas.purdue.edu/~eribble/color1_sm.jpg
http://www.eas.purdue.edu/~eribble/color2_sm.jpg
http://www.eas.purdue.edu/~eribble/color3.jpg

I really think the nvidia drivers in Panther stink.

legacyb4 · Mar 4, 2004, 08:50 PM

Was this ever resolved?

Before becoming aware of this situation, I finally (after Carbon Cloning) upgraded my G4 Sawtooth to 10.3 last night and started to run into the same problems.

I've got 1G of RAM and an Apple GeForce 2MX (pulled from a G4/500) that was working beautifully under 10.2.8. After upgrading to 10.3, I found that I was stuck in 800 x 600 and any attempt to switch up to 1024 x 768 would just black the screen out and hang the machine. In addition, any attempt to drag windows would leave major artifacts and problems with screen refreshing.

I updated to 10.3.2 with no luck either...

Cheers.

Originally posted by Macnor:
I just received panther and what a disappointment it is. If you have a g4 sawtooth with a nividia 4mx 32mb graphic card you should not buy os x 10.3

It only works when I use my old ati card, with the nividia card the computer will start but the screen goes black after 10 sec.

Now I understand why. Under system requirements it does say that you have to have a Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer. The card is not supplied by apple so I guess panther is not for me. Its not even close to being worth $129.

Graymalkin · Mar 4, 2004, 09:06 PM

The issue at hand is with Sawtooth motherboards, third party nVidia graphics boards, and your main memory. There was a problem in 10.3 and 10.3.1 where Sawtooth motherboards with more than 256MB of RAM wouldn't work correctly with non-Apple nVidia boards. The solution at the time was to use the kernel extensions from 10.2.8 or remove RAM until you were at 256MB. With the 10.3.2 update the drivers were fixed to work correctly with most if not all third party nVidia boards.

If you're using 10.3.2 and it still isn't working you're probably going to need to pick up a new graphics card. This is the first time I've heard about an Apple supplied card not working in Panther.

legacyb4 · Mar 4, 2004, 09:48 PM

As I'm waiting for 10.3.2 to load, I was reading up on various boards about this and am currently running with:

- Sawtooth G4/400 (with dual 500)
- GeForce 2MX (Apple issue from a G4/500)
- 2 x 128MB DIMM

I was able to switch up to 1024x768 with QE; so far so good. After 10.3.2, I'm going to try adding in the rest of the RAM (1 x 256MB, 1 x 512MB) and see what happens.

Cheers.

Originally posted by Graymalkin:
The issue at hand is with Sawtooth motherboards, third party nVidia graphics boards, and your main memory. There was a problem in 10.3 and 10.3.1 where Sawtooth motherboards with more than 256MB of RAM wouldn't work correctly with non-Apple nVidia boards. The solution at the time was to use the kernel extensions from 10.2.8 or remove RAM until you were at 256MB. With the 10.3.2 update the drivers were fixed to work correctly with most if not all third party nVidia boards.

If you're using 10.3.2 and it still isn't working you're probably going to need to pick up a new graphics card. This is the first time I've heard about an Apple supplied card not working in Panther.

ginoledesma · Mar 4, 2004, 09:53 PM

I'd recommend getting a Radeon 8500. Better card in all aspects, unless you can get a GeForce 3 vanilla card that will probably edge out, though slightly, in 3D games. The ATI Radeon 8500 works like a charm -- QuickTime acceleration, smooth 2D/3D acceleration, and is perhaps the best card you could give any Sawtooth-based system.

::maroma:: · Mar 4, 2004, 10:42 PM

I have a G4/500 Sawtooth with some upgrades. Every version of OS X has worked perfectly.* Here are my upgrades:

GigaDesigns 1.25GHz G4 Card
GeForce3 64MB (flashed Windows version)
ACARD ATA100/133 PCI Card
30GB HD
30GB HD
80GB HD
160GB HD
256MB RAM Chip
512MB RAM Chip
Pioneer DVDRW Drive (was DVD-RAM Drive)
Iomega Zip250 Drive (was Zip100)
Logitech MX-500 Mouse
Belkin Bluetooth Adapter

The only real trouble I've had is with the GeForce3 card. In earlier versions of OS X it was giving me a real bad flicker. Particularly when I did certain things like type text, scroll windows, etc. But now 10.3.2's flicker is not as bad. Still there, but not as eye-destroying as before. Or maybe my eyes are slowly being destroyed.

mitchell_pgh · Mar 4, 2004, 11:05 PM

Originally posted by Samanoske:
retard ?

I stand by what I originally said.

The guy said that Panther was a disappointment... in reality, it was his hardware that was a disappointment... He then goes on to say it's not worth the $129.

Well, to most people, it was worth the $129.

dtriska · Mar 4, 2004, 11:27 PM

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=204094

legacyb4 · Mar 5, 2004, 12:53 AM

Well, this is an aging G4 and I really wasn't planning anything big for it other than general use and an iTunes server for the house.

The upgrade to 10.3.2 went without problems and though I kept the 1024 x 768 resolution and QE, window redraws are definitely off with the "disappearing" window effect when I boost the RAM above 256MB.

Guess I have to wait for the next fix and hope for the best. Good thing my l laptop is flawless though...

And yes, Panther was definitely worth the upgrade cost despite issues with older hardware.

Cheers.

Originally posted by ginoledesma:
I'd recommend getting a Radeon 8500. Better card in all aspects, unless you can get a GeForce 3 vanilla card that will probably edge out, though slightly, in 3D games. The ATI Radeon 8500 works like a charm -- QuickTime acceleration, smooth 2D/3D acceleration, and is perhaps the best card you could give any Sawtooth-based system.