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spitty27 · Jul 2, 2004, 05:01 PM

my friend recently came accross ram in my schools "tech junkyard" and decided to put it in his g5 (im not sure if they were ddr 333 or ddr 300). he has a 1.8ghz g5 (just like the one i have described in the sig). everything is running fine and normal, and now he has the original 2x256 chips, and the rest of the slots are filled up with 128 chips, for a total of 1.25gb ram, and about this mac recognizes it perfectly...

i thought only ddr 400 will work on the g5, was i wrong? in that case, he offered to give me two 128 chips to install in my g5. i cant wait.

also, we got 2 160gb 7200rpm ultra ata hd's. we know it wont install in the g5, unless you unplug the superdrive and use the harddrive instead, so we were thinking of external cases. since ide and ultra ata cables are the same, technically, this harddrive should work in any 3.5" hd enclosure, right? also: i've found a $25 case (im looking for the cheapest) but i also want to be able to boot from the external drive, to lets say, install tiger or something on it. if anyoen could direct me to the cheapest enclosure for my harddrive and also be able to boot from it, that would be amazing. and one last thing: this enclosure should not kill the harddrive if plugged in for indefinite amounts of time - i don't want to have to unplug it and plug it in for the times i ened to use it, remember, if i boot up from it, chances are that i will be spending a few hours on the drive.

sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance to whomever does the research. (as foe insentives to help me and my friend out, we've got tons of gmail invites to those who try. i've got orkut as well). thanks again.

EDIT: i was not sure if this should have gone under powermac or peripherals, so excuse me if i was wrong

cal6n · Jul 2, 2004, 08:40 PM

Interesting. What does the "memory" section of Apple System Profiler show? Can we have a screenshot?

As far as booting from an external enclosure, get a good quality firewire case. EZquest, LaCie or Maxtor spring to mind and are available used. I just bought an EZquest Cobra 20 Gb on ebay for �40 (about $60) and dropped a 120 Gb maxtor into it with no problem. My MDD and my 800 MHz Ti PB both boot off it, no problem and the original 20 Gb drive has breathed new life into a friend's 350 MHz iMac.

Just make sure the external drive is on before plugging in the firewire cable and remember to eject the drive before unplugging it.

Now about that invite...

spitty27 · 12:16 AM

here we go:
http://speedyj88.myvnc.com/public/G5SystemPro.jpg
[Inline images must be no wider than 480 pixels. -- tooki]

looks like the g5 accepts both pc2700 and pc3200

tooki · Jul 3, 2004, 12:22 AM

Only the 1.6GHz Power Mac G5 can use PC2700 (DDR333) RAM. All other speeds require PC3200 (DDR400) RAM.

tooki

spitty27 · Jul 3, 2004, 12:24 AM

but the system is recognizing his ram...and to the best of my knowledge he notices some speed increase

tooki · Jul 3, 2004, 12:28 AM

Well, RAM can be overclocked -- but it's not a good idea.

System Profiler is reporting the chip timing that the EPROM on the RAM modules report. But the RAM is being overclocked (400MHz rather than 333MHz), and so unreliability or instability are possible.

tooki

spitty27 · Jul 3, 2004, 02:16 AM

oh i get it now. ill see if his g5 dies first. if its still running stable and all by the time i get back from my summer trip (aug 15) ill go ahead and install it in my machine. if it blows up ill be sure to let him read this thread

thanks for your help

roders · Jul 3, 2004, 05:51 PM

I reckon your all your memory's being throtled back to 333Mhz (PC 2700).

Spliffdaddy · Jul 3, 2004, 07:05 PM

So the L.A. public school district throws away DDR333 RAM and 160GB hard drives?

spitty27 · Jul 3, 2004, 08:31 PM

well, first off, its a private school, theyve got the resources for almost anything. secondly, they update their computer systems every summer, and thirdly, they have this huge closet with old stuff not being put to use, so we (techies) can just go in there and take what we want.

Catfish_Man · Jul 3, 2004, 08:38 PM

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
So the L.A. public school district throws away DDR333 RAM and 160GB hard drives?

Damn, my (former) school district doesn't even buy that kind of equipment. The computer classes are still on P2 350MHz machines...

UnixMac · Jul 3, 2004, 10:39 PM

I got my RAM from crucial because I heard they were good, but has anyone gotten a much better deal anywhere else for good quality PC3200 400mhz RAM? I would love to bring it up to 4GB.

tooki · Jul 3, 2004, 11:24 PM

Originally posted by roders:
I reckon your all your memory's being throtled back to 333Mhz (PC 2700).

Nope. That's not how RAM works in Macs.

tooki