Powermac G4 USB 2.0 Card Support

Based on the description, this should work in your Mac.

One of the prerequisites with PCI USB and or PCI FireWire cards is that it has to have an NEC chipset in it to operate properly in older Macs.

NEC chipsets are supported for sleep and deep sleeping Macs.

Sometimes, even with the NEC chipset, they can run flaky in sleep mode on Macs.

At least in this case, there is some chance that it should function well in your Mac.

If it does give you issues, you have the 14 day return policy to return it.

I'd try it. I'd bet it would work fine;)

My Mac does the same thing. I believe it's just either current getting to the speaker during startup or a test during startup for the driver that powers the internal speaker . Either way, no big deal.

As far as this other PCI USB card goes, some cards w/o the NEC can work fine, but every Mac model is a variable. I read the specs and that review and the reviewer doesn't mention the type of G4 he is using.

The chipset doesn't appear to be an NEC chipset, either. It will work, most likely, but you may encounter sleeping/deep sleep issues with this card in your Mac.

You'll know only when you install it. If you can sleep your Mac, now, w/o issues, if you try and sleep your Mac with the new card installed and you try to put your Mac to sleep w/o it not waking up after sleeping, then it's an issue with the card and can't be resolved. The reviewer did say that he had some problems with using certain USB devices with this card, though. He mentioned the bulit-in USB ports did function better for some devices than the card.

I think you'd be better off with your original choice 😉

I have a PCI card with an NEC chipset that worked well and let my Mac sleep under OS X 10.4.11 Tiger.

As soon as I upgraded to OS X 10.5, I lost the ability to sleep my Mac with that card.

Caveat Emptor 😉

If you plan on running OS X 10.5 Leopard, be aware that you'll run into snags installing on this machine.

10.5 needs minimum 867 Mhz CPU.

A combo drive for reading the OS X 10.5 installation DVD.

512 MBs of RAM minimum. 1 GB of RAM is recommended.

AT least 9 GBs of free HD space. I recommend at least 20 GBs or greater.

And you'll need to purchase a set of OS X 10.5 Leopard retail discs.

Do not purchase any grey colored discs from any third party. These will not work!!!!

You need to ask for direct sales at Apple by calling 1-800-MY-APPLE.

Hopefully, Apple still has a supply of Leopard discs in stock to still sell.

You may need this helper application to get your Legacy Mac up and running on OS X 10.5 Leopard.

http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/Framework.cfm

May have same issues and requirements running OS X 10.4 Tiger on this Mac.

If you do not have OS X 10.4 Tiger retail discs, my same instructions apply.

Leopard requirements/10.5.x...

* Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor

minimum system requirements

* 512MB of memory (I say 1.5GB for PPC at least, 2-3GB minimum for IntelMacs)

* DVD drive for installation

* 9GB of available disk space (I say 30GB at least)

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=mac+os+x+leopard+retail+10.5

You have to call Apple & likely ask for a Product Specialist to get it, if they still have it! Helps to tell them you have an iPad/iPhone & you can't run 10.6.

There are workarounds if the 867MHz is the only hangup...

http://sourceforge.net/projects/leopardassist/

The VIA chipset is often the cause of failure to sleep or wake from sleep issues.

They also often require drivers which are often incompatible with other components of OS X.

THE best USB PCI card to use is one with the NEC chipset.

FULL Explanation:

B8B574BC-BB45-4B3E-9D9B-F97EBB3230BC.html

Some Syba cards do have the NEC chipset.

This $5 card is also fine.

My G4 is my only, primary Mac. I am, too, going to be "upgrading" to a newer G5 soon.

I need to stay with a PowerPC Mac as I can't afford to both splurge for a brand new Mac and update all of my core software and graphics software to Intel versions in the forseeable future.

I upgraded my video in my Mac with a 256 MB VRAM ATI 9600 some years, ago.

I, also, have my Mac running wirelessly with the help of an aftermarket WiFi PCI card.

Works great!

As far a memory is concerned, I would just bite the bullet and max your G4.

There are two models of PowerMac G4 400 MHz models.

An older one used PCI video, the other used AGP video.

If you own the PCI video slot version, you can only max the RAM to 1 GB.

If you own the AGP model, then you can max out your RAM to 2 GBs.

My, opinion, it's worth maxing out the RAM.

OS X likes as much RAM as it can get. The more you install, OS X will be better for it.

Especially, if you decide an try to install and run OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Forgot to mention, even if you decide to upgrade your video card, it won't really help with today's video protocols and formats.

With the card I am using, I can, barely, playback 720p videos ( there is some frame drops and frame stutter) and I can't play any 1080p videos at all. The frame rates on 1080p videos is awful to watch on my Mac.

I think with a much older Mac as yours, you'll have similar issues or worse.

I am not sure what is the best third party video card you can use in your Mac and whether or not you'll be able to find one.

I am not sure what is the best third party video card you can use in your Mac

For the Sawtooth, the best available is the Radeon 9800 Pro.

It's in my signature at the bottom of each of my posts.

I noticed, for some reason, it's missing from my last two posts.

Maybe because I responded those last two times on my iPad?

It's a 1.25GHz CPU Power Mac, maxed to 2 GBs of RAM, with an ATI 9600 256 MB video card and various

PCI USB 2.0/FireWire and WiFi cards.

The 9000 is a pretty good card. It doesn't have any Core Image support (needed for Leopard), but is a good card.

If you want to know how far a Sawtooth can go, look at my website All_Things_PPC.html.

Check the Sawtooth page, and then check all of the benchmark pages.

If you put a 1.8 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM and a 9800 Pro, you will have a machine that is pretty much as fast as the first generation G5's.

The dual processor comes into play with OS X operation and only dual processor aware third party apps.

It is, however, light years faster than what you currently have.

Last bit of advice; don't spend "new price" money. Get parts at bargain prices and the upgrades are worth it.

With smart shopping, for about $600, you can build a mini-ITX 3.3 GHz i5 with 8 GB RAM, Radeon 5770, 1 TB hard drive Hackintosh that runs Lion.

Just keepin it real...