Hello! I have a MDD G4, 1.25 GHz DP, 10.5.8. Last night I installed a Radeon 9800 Pro 128M AGP (DVI) card, replacing the stock Radeon 9000 68M (ADC). My main motivation for doing this was to have a 128M card, so as to run a larger monitor at full resolution. I didn't really look for the 9800 Pro, but I found it at a good price, and the info I found indicated that it would work in the MDD. One salient point if you're not familiar with the 9800 pro - apparently the AGP bus doesn't provide enough power for it, so it requires a secondary power connection from a molex connector, using a splitter from one of the hard drive power connectors.
In fact, the card does work, more or less. I get great display at 1920 x 1080. But there are two problems. If I shut down the machine and then try to power it back on, one of two things happens: (1) it won't power on at all. I press the power button, and literally nothing happens. (2) It will power up and give me the boot chime, but then show in the center of the screen a small picture/icon of the Radeon card, with a little ATI logo in the corner, and in the upper right corner of the graphic a flashing red molex connector and its wires, signifying that it's not getting power from the molex. Of course, it was working and getting said power before I shut it down, so something changed on shutdown, it would seem. The "solution" I have found to this problem is (if it powered on and gave me the flashing molex icon) is to manually power it down with the power button, and (if it didn't power up at all just do this) unplug the machine for 30 seconds to a minute, then plug it back in. Then it will start up normally. Furthermore, if I try to restart, I invariably get the flashing molex graphic. I then have to manually shut down, unplug, replug, and power on. The machine seems to sleep OK. I can put it to sleep and wake it, seemingly regardless of how long it has been asleep, with no problem. When this first happened, I thought perhaps a cable or something was physically pressing the motherboard reset button (it is pretty cramped in there). But no, the button is clear. I never had these problems with the stock Radeon 9000 ADC card. So, what is going on? Something seems to be messing with the card's ability to get power. Is something interfering somehow with the machine's power management? I'd like to use the 9800, but if I can't properly start up and restart, that's a pretty big PITA. Is the 9800 just too much card for the MDD? Is there some solution to this problem that will allow me to use the 9800? Or should I stick with the 9000 or another ADC card? Thanks! Rob J. -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
