PowerMac G4 (Mirror Doors) won't startup

My g4 wont startup. I get the Power LED to light up while pressing it, but then it fades off after releasing. I have followed advice as per other posts about the same issue. Those who had success seemed to be a result of PMU and logic board resets, but these have not worked for me. I have gone as far as replacing the front panel board, but the machine is still not starting up. I tested the power supply voltage and it seems to be working, but I can not get this thing to work. I suppose it could be a dead logic board. Does anyone else have any suggestions before I pitch this thing?
G4 mirror doors

I understadn you have tried advice in 'all the other posts' but that can cover a lot of ground, so to be a bit more specific....
Do you hear the HD spin up?
Have you added any hardware recently?
Although you have tested the voltage on the power supply, have you also checked the individual cables going to both the MB and the HD?
If you have 3rd party cards, USB hubs, etc, remove them, then do the PMU resets, etc)
Since you have been inside the machine, verify all connectors, ram, et al are firmly seated, and the cables are not cut or insulation scraped away.
If you have anything in the front drive bays, make sure the ribbon cable is not pinched or cut. (that happened on mine, grounded out the system, and had the same problem you are now experiencing - new ribbon cable fixed it.)

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PowerMac G4 (Mirror door drive) shuts down automatically when starting up.

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Greetings,
I have been trying to purchase an internal DVD drive for my Mac G4 with mirrored doors. All the DVD drives I've tried all have 5.125" wide doors and will not work on my Mac. The CD drive in the Mac now is 4.875". MacMall has nothing that will fit this Mac and they told me my size is not standard. Does anyone have any ideas, suggestions please??
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Hi-
Compare the following two drives:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/DVR109AB/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Pioneer/DVR112DBK/
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PowerMac G5 Dual 2mhz Won't startup - HELP!

Hi all,
I have a G5 (as stated above) running Tiger. Today it's totally fallen over and the fans are going crazy at every opportunity.
It started up fine this morning and then froze, so I tried re-starting it but I'm just getting as far as the Grey screen with the apple logo and 'clock' which spins until finally I get a 'no entry' symbol. I've tried re-setting the PRAM, the SMU and running disk utility. The first 2 made no difference and it crashed midway through running a verify on disk utility ('checking catalogue'). It's also frozen while starting up from the CD.
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Arrgh! So it froze in safeboot and won't startup again... I shall persivere.
To answer your questions->
Have you tried disconnecting everything except display, and wired keyboard and mouse?
*Currently there's the G5 and monitor with the mouse and keyboard connected via the hub.*
If you Option boot - hold down the Option(alt) key on Startup - does Startup Manager find the boot DVD and internal boot drive, and regard them as viable Startup Discs?
*Yes, but... it'll sometimes allow me through to the 'choose your language' screen, sometimes as far as 'repair disk' on disk utility, or sometimes just crashing when I choose the DVD as the starter disk. It's bizarrely inconsistent. How do I just use it as a startup disk without upgrading OR repairing?*
Will the Apple Hardware Test run?
*I'm a bit of a novice (read: eejit!) at this, do you mean the Repair Disk in DU? Or the fsck command? I've done both, is this summit else I should try?*
Were any changes made to hardware or software just prior to the problem appearing?
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*For a wee while, every now and then the Wacom pad would freeze, but I found that by unplugging it from the hub and plugging it in again that would release it. (at the moment it's disconnected and I'm using an Apple mouse.)*
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cheers again,
Sarah

G4 Dual 1.25GHz (Mirror doors) won't boot

Hi
I wonder if anyone can help me? My Mac as per subject line has ceased to boot for no apparent reason. Albeit it had several expansion cards, more memory, bigger hard drive etc. failure did not occur after performing any of these upgrades but just out of the blue. Stripping it back to base configuration as best I can (can't do much about the HD) made no difference nor did pressing the cuda button nor did removing the PRAM battery for a while.
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G4 Dual 1.25GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3)

The no entry symboly means that OS X cannot find a key system file which it needs to boot. Try here for some solutions.

G4 PowerMac Mirror Door Upgrade of ATI 9000 Pro to a 9600?

I am considering upgrading my G4 PowerMac Mirror Door mac. Specifically the graphics card in hopes of better performance. I was considering the ATI Radeon 9600 XT or Pro. However, I have noticed that some cards work only in the G5. Anyone have any idea what card, if any, is the fastest, best performing card I can place into this machine? I should mention that currently, I have the stock ATI Radeon 9000 Pro, that came with the machine. The procs are twin 1.25 Ghz Power PC, 1 MB L3 Cache per Proc. 2 GB DDR SDRAM. Thanks in advance for any help on this topic!
PowerMac G4 Mirror Door Mac OS X (10.4.6)
PowerMac G4 Mirror Door Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Hello.
I am running a nearly identical MDD as yours and would highly recommend the 9800 Pro. It supports all there is to offer with Tiger, and is the best card you can buy for your current model.
I've read some problems with the 9600, and the 9800 is considerably faster, of course at a price, but if your looking for the best, there really is no other option.
Good Luck.
G4 MDD 1.25GHz DP FW800-ATI 9800 128MB-2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.3.9) G4 Gigabit Ethernet 1.5GHz OWC-ATI 9000 OEM 64MB-1.5GB RAM

PowerMac G4 "Mirrored Drive Doors" 2x1GHz Hard Drive Upgrade

I have a PowerMac G4 "Mirrored Drive Doors" 2x1GHz with one 75 GB PATA hard drive.
I want to install two 500 GB PATA drives.
1) How is this done while transferring all the data from the 75 GB drive to the new drives?
2) Is a master/slave configuration the only option for two PATA drives?
Regards,
David

I prefer not to cut pin 28 wire so I’ll go with the master/slave (device 0/device1) configuration.
I do not know to what you refer. I have two 300 gig drives in my MDD, connected without modification to the cable (to which the original 80 gig was connected). The drive jumpers are set as cable select. Repeat - no modification of the cable was ever done. In fact, but this is from memory, I believe I could not boot from drives that were jumpered as "master" / "slave".
Can anyone confirm the number of PATA drives that will fit in a MDD?
As shipped, the MDD is wired for up to four hard drives. There are two cables and each will let you connect two drives. One of the buses is slower than the other - the faster one is where the original drive is located.
Are the bays under the CD/DVD drive set-up for SCSI drives?
No. You need a scsi card to use scsi drives.

Can no longer boot to OS 9.2.2 on a Dual Processor Mirrored Door G4?

Hope someone can put me out of my misery...
I've been running my Mirrored Door (MDD) Dual G4 for years and have always booted into OS 9, but today, the Mac has decided to boot to OSX.
From the Startup Disk Control panel in OSX, I have selected the OS9 system folder as the startup system, but after a restart, OSX still loads. However, on a restart, I notice that I get a quick OS 9 smiley face along with the question mark before it boots into OSX.
The thing is that when OSX is up and running, I can start Classic manually and OS runs OK so I presume the OS 9 Sytem Folder is OK.
Is there something I can do to get the boox booting back to OS9?
Thanks in advance.

If you still have issues after following Kenichi's excellent advice, let us know if you changed anything, ie. added a new disk, added a new application, moved disks, moved the OS9 System Folder, etc.
a guaranteed-to-work very last resort is to
let it boot into OSX,
backup the OS9 System Folder to a subdirectory (make sure it's not in the top level of the boot disk).
use the MDD restore cd's to perform a partial restore, in which you select to restore OS9.
You would then need to re-install any other updates to OS9 since 2003, usually iTunes, QuickTime, etc. There's a definitive list of 6 updates that we keep posting in these forums, but I just can't remember them just now.
- hang on ... Carbonlib v1.6, iTunes v2.0.4, QuickTime v6.0.3, Authoring Support v1.1.9, AppleScript v1.8.3 and MRJ 2.2.6 (Java).
Plus any printer / scanner drivers you may need. But all of these could probably be salvaged from the backup you made of the OS9 System Folder.
If you're like me, I backup the OS9 System Folder every week and keep 4 generations. Mine is about 300MB, 92MB compressed, worthwhile in these days of 120GB-500GB disks.

Can no longer boot to OS 9 with Mirrored Door Dual processor G4?

Hope someone can put me out of my misery...
I've been running my Mirrored Door (MDD) Dual G4 for years and have always booted into OS 9, but today, the Mac has decided to boot to OSX.
From the Startup Disk Control panel in OSX, I have selected the OS9 system folder as the startup system, but after a restart, OSX still loads. However, on a restart, I notice that I get a quick OS 9 smiley face along with the question mark before it boots into OSX.
The thing is that when OSX is up and running, I can start Classic manually and OS runs OK so I presume the OS 9 Sytem Folder is OK.
Is there something I can do to get the boox booting back to OS9?
Thanks in advance.

Hi-
You may need to repair your OS 9 volume, or, may need to rebless the OS 9 system folder.
Follow the instructions for OS 9 in this document.

Mirrored doors G4/ great computer, but some questions --- keep or retire?

Would appreciate anyone who could give me some advice here. I still have the Power Mac Mirrored Door G4/1.0 GHz Dual Processor running (purchased in 2002). It's not my only mac, but I still use this one for some tasks. It's running 10.2.9. As is, will leopard make this run even slower than necessary? (512K ram)
Just saw a warning notice that I'm about to have a drive failure. (the one hard drive/ ata). The warning (either from tech tools pro or disk warrior) may be true-- don't know. The computer still runs great.. no signs of failure, except that I probably need to get rid of 10.2.9.
If/when the drive does fail, is it worth replacing the hard drive? If yes, what's the maximum size to replace it with? Can you tell me the exact specs to look for? The original is a seagate...use that brand again?
I only have 512K ram in there. Upgrade at the same time I do the hard drive?
As is, 512K RAM, if I install leopard is it going to be VERY VERY slow?

Hi! Your machine can handle large ata drives probably up to 750gb without any problems. It has 4 ram slots so sticking 4 512mb sticks of ram brings you to 2 gigs and it won't be too slow on Leopard. It won't be as fast a a G5 or MacPro but it will run Leo just fine. 4 sticks of RAM will cost about 65 bucks and a new 500 gig hard drive will cost 80 bucks or so. So for about 150 bucks you can move up in the world. I often buy new hard drives off eBay for less money for projects myself. Tom

G4 Mirror Door Video card

We have an older G4 Power Mac that we use for Video editing. Recently upgraded to FC Studio, Motion 3 wil not run on this machine due to Video card not supporting open GL. Our IT depart purchased a ATI Radeon 9600 Pro PC/Mac edition, they were told it would work.
The machine will boot, but ther is no display visable.
Is this machine capable of running this software? IF so which Video card do we need to purchase?
Info:
G4 1.42 mhz Mirror door
OSX 10.4.10
Motion 3
Curent vid card AGP ATI Radeon 9000 pro
New Vid card ATI Radeon 9600 PC/Mac (no display)
TIA
Bob

ATI does have a 256 meg VRam 9800 card built specifically for the 2x/4x agp PowerMac G4's like yours and I bought mine through OWC, although I don't see it currently listed for sale. It would be a better choice than the 128 meg vram card, if you can find it.
That being said, I wouldn't bother to even load FC Studio 2 on this powermac of yours. Motion 3 will barely operate and FCP will launch and then laugh in your face. It's not a pleasant experience; I know firsthand as I loaded Studio 2 on my Quicksilver G4 dualie as a test while awaiting delivery of my Mac Pro last summer. You desperately need to update/upgrade your hardware.

G4 mirror door + wireless?

Hi
I have a G4 mirror door + broadband connection and want to setup a wireless network as i plan to buy an iBook for internet access around the house.
I think I need to buy an Airport card to go into my G4... is this correct? I'm not sure if i can use an AirPort Extreme Card or if i have to use an older Airport card?? I also presume i'll need an Airport (Extreme?) base station and a wireless enabled modem/router. Is this correct?
As you can see i'm a bit confused as to the varients of Airport...
Thanks for reading plus any help you may be able to give
R.

You will need an original airport card for your G4 MDD. An airport express will work for what you are trying to accomplish. To sum it up in a nutshell, you hook up the airport express directly to your broadband connection. Set up the airport express as a router by checking the box in the network tab of the AE admin utility to distribute IP address so that your AE acts as a wireless router. You could also go with a wireless router like a linksys WRT54G. Like you said you could also get an airport extreme base station but the cost is much higher. You are on the right track but just need to decide on the type of router you want to use.
Here are some links to obtain an original airport card. The prices have really shot up. About 6-8 months ago these could be had for $80-$100.
http://www.welovemacs.com/ibkap.html
http://www.lacomputercompany.com/cgi-bin/rpcart/featured.cgi?group=air
http://www.macsolutions.com/orapaica.html
You could also try ebay for a cheaper price on the card:
http://search.ebay.com/airport-card
Information on the airport express can be found here:
http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/specs.html
http://images.apple.com/airportexpress/pdfs/L304895AAPxpsTO.pdf
Here is a link to the tech specs on the powermac G4 mdd:
http://download.info.apple.com/AppleSupport_Area/Manuals/specs/desktops/L22813AEN.pdf

I Have a silver w/Mirror doors dual 867 running OSX10.2. I try to install OS9.2.1 I get "THIS PROGRAM CAN NOT RUN ON YOUR COMPUTER" Message I need to be able to run Classic.

I have a powermac Silver with mirror doors 867 dual processors running OSX 10.2 no problem there but I need to run Classic but when I try to install OS 9.2.1 I get a "THIS PROGRAM CAN NOT RUN ON YOUR COMPUTER" message.

Your G4 (MDD) dual 867MHz model Mac requires the model-specific version of OS 9.2.2 which originally came with that machine. It can not use any other version of OS 9.
The model-specific version of OS 9.2.2 can be installed using the original disk set which came with that machine; that disk set boots to OS X 10.2, but the installer on it can install OS 9.2.2 (Classic) as an option.
There is no stand-alone install disk (such as a retail, i.e. white-label, CD) which can be used to install Classic on that model G4.

Need recommendations on improving my G4 mirror door

Machine has been running great since I bought it, but I've about cleaned up all I can to my original 80GB HD and now am running about 6GB free space. Things aren't as snappy as it was before as booting I get the blank desktop for awhile while the beachball spins till all the icons show up. Rather annoying having to wait for a simple system really...sooo, I want to do what I can to speed it up.
1. I'd like a larger HD. I haven't shopped in ages, so I'm a bit rusty on my technologies like SATA and such. I know this is pre-SATA, so am I still able to find a compatible drive for this machine? If so, which one is a recommended fast one? I've never been able to really play with Final Cut Express so I want something that would be fast and better. Can I get SATA on this if possible?
2. I have a WD external "Book" drive. It takes a good few minutes before the d%mn thing shows up on my desktop, which is another annoyance. My work PowerMac G5 externals are always on right away. Is it just the age of my machine? It shouldn't take more than a minute but sometimes, it doesn't even show up even after connecting/disconnecting the USB 2 cable. I am using a USB 2 PCI card (got it at the now defunct CompUSA, but mac dude at the store said this was compatible w/ all the macs he sold...CompUSA brand though). I notice my System Profiler will beachball for a long time then when it stops, then I am able to view my "Contents > Hardware > USB" and see the ports.
3. The beachballs are driving me nuts. The machine is old so I don't want to really spend too much more money, but I want to be able to survive wait times and speed things up till I can afford a new machine. Is it better just to get a Core Duo 2 Mini and forget this one? I find I use external drives now anyways, but I can't really stretch the $1K mark for a low end iMac. But the speed difference is much better on the base iMac than a Mini, but then again, if I'm "getting by" with this old G4, a Mini is light years ahead right? Any advice? $799 is a big stretch, so I'm looking at these cheap tweaks for my machine now. My main thing is to get a bigger HD and stop the beachball spinning.
Let me know which hardware I need, as I don't know what is still "compatible" with this older box.
Also, are there any good hardware upgrades for this? I notice for the older PMG4s but mirrored door seems to have no CPU upgrades. I only own a single one, is there a dual one for this, or even an Intel for it?
Thanks for any help offered!
Message was edited by: applrob

How much RAM do you have? You should max it out.
*How Big a Hard Drive Can I Put in My iMac, eMac, or Power Mac?*
http://lowendmac.com/macdan/05/1024.html
Look at these links
Mac Tune-up: 34 Software Speedups
http://www.macworld.com/article/49489/2006/02/softwarespeed.html
52 Ways to Speed Up OS X
http://www.imafish.co.uk/articles/post/articles/130/52-ways-to-speed-up-os-x/
Tuning Mac OS X Performance
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/performance.html
11 Ways to Optimize Your Mac's Performance
http://lowendmac.com/eubanks/07/0312.html
The Top 7 Free Utilities To Maintain A Mac.
http://mac360.com/index.php/mac360/comments/thetop_7_free_utilities_to_maintain_amac/
Mac OS X: System maintenance
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=607640
 Cheers, Tom

Old Reliable G4 mirror suddenly won't power up....YIKES!!

my trusty, G4 MDD, almost 4 years old now, never had problems, all of sudden will not power on at all when the power button is switched on....I tried resetting the button on the motherboard next to the battery (PMU?) and still nothing...
from my research, it sounds like a power supply, but is there any thing I can do at this point to at least try to get this thing powered up?
I'm not really anywhere near a mac tech, but I do have other issues
a) in case it is a power supply and it needs to be replaced, will it affect the files on my boot drive?
b) I do have a spare 733 Quicksilver...I had been running a separate audio drive that I'm sure I can probably install on the Quicksilver to at least retrieve my audio files, but if I remove the boot drive on the 1.25 mirror door, can that simply be installed on the Quicksilver also to retrieve some other very important stuff...
HELP!

so regardless of whether it's the boot drive or the supplemental drive, it doesn't matter?
Correct. Either one can be installed in an enclosure and will be seen as an external.
now, if I install the old boot drive from the MDD into a firewire enclosure, can I plug that drive into my spare Quicksilver and boot from that? if so, how do I do that? (provided the drive isn't messed up)
Go ahead and try it. Connect the external device to to the QS and check System Preferences. If it is bootable, System Preferences / Startup Disk will list it. At that point you can select it as your startup drive and restart.
By the way, I suspect you already know this, the power supplies of the QS and the MDD are not interchangeable.

PowerMac G4 (Mirror Doors) won't startup

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