ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB or 256MB Video Card Mac G4/G5 Issues

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ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB or 256MB Video Card Mac G4/G5 Issues

Replaced bad Mac ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card G5 (Powered from AGP slot only) with newer available Mac ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB Video Card G4/G5 Edition #280583225530 (powered by 4-pin cable off Super Drive's power). It worked on full power up from off, but was a mess when you re-start computer (ie: installing software requiring a re-start or just a regular restart). It appears that the new 9800 Pros use too much juice causing this problem.

Apple had no solution other then to confirm the card was the issue.

I bought it on eBay from "AppleMacanix". Great support!. They sent me a new card that they suggested: "really recommend our New Mac 9700 128MB card. It's very low powered, it does need the 4-pin connector, but it's a smaller connector (the adapter is included) and draws much less power".

The 9700 works great with no problems. They even sent me the new 9700 before I sent back the 9800...pretty cool.

This seems to be an issue with the older Power Mac G5's with AGP slot (No longer supported by Apple..they consider "Vintage").

FYI: I have an older 2004 Power Mac G5 single processor as follows:

Model Identifier: PowerMac 7,2

Processor Name: PowerPC 970 (2.2)

Model: ST3160023AS

Revision: 3.05

Volumes: Capacity: 148.92 GB

System Version: Mac OS X 10.5.8 (9L31a)

Processor Speed: 1.6 GHz

Number Of CPUs 1

L2 Cache (perCPU): 512 KB

Memory: 512 MB

Bus Speed: 800MHz

Boot ROMVersion: 5.1.5f2

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro: Chipset

Bus: AGP

Slot: SLOT-1

VRAM (Total): 128 MB

DIMM0/J11:

Size: 256 MB

Type: DDR SDRAM

Note: These MACs with 8X AGP Pro graphics shipped with NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra with 64MBDDR SDRAM or ATI RADEON 9600 Pro with 64MB DDR SDRAM. Mine was custom built with a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB option, which is what I replaced.

Just wanted to put this out there as I couldn't find any information on the web about this.

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Apr 29, 2011 6:59 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

238,979 points

Apr 29, 2011 10:33 AM in response to Community User

Thank for the report, good to hear! 🙂

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Answer 2

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Apr 29, 2011 8:13 PM in response to Community User

Just wanted to put this out there as I couldn't find any information on the web about this.

I would say this is because the issue is the card, not the machine.

If the machine was the issue, there would be many reports of this, but there aren't.

All graphics cards from the Radeon 9800 XT to the X800 XT, from the Geforce 6800 GT to the 7800 GS use far more power than the 9800 Pro and are used without problem in the G5.

The 256 MB version of the 9800 doesn't use any more power than the 128 MB version, and the external connector pulls power from a separate power rail, thus reducing the draw on the AGP slot.

Settling for a Radeon 9700 is one thing, but selling it as an option due to power issues in a G5 is one heck of a way to cover one's butt.

The old 2x AGP graphics Sawtooth is the only machine that might potentially have power issues with the 9800 Pro, but this was due to a 200W PSU and only if other upgrades were present.

The card that you sent back probably had capacitor issues, thus the garbage on restart.

I've seen the issue many times, and it isn't due to "lack of power".

It is due to a compromised (read damaged or junk) card.

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Answer 3

Apr 29, 2011 8:40 PM in response to japamac

Concur with Japamac's summary. My experience with power supply and graphic card issues has been that if the PS cannot handle the graphic processor, it will just shut itself down. Click. Restart again. The situation I had with the weakened PS was that the machine would run fine with a Safe Boot, which doesn't actually load the card drivers and doesn't really ramp up the GPU. However, as soon as the GPU kicked in as NVDANV40HAL loaded, click.

If these supplies can't handle the load, they will tell you in uncertain terms.

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