2026 PowerPC Challenge, is it happening?

[PentaxEnthusiast]

How one stores their laptops/portables yields equally vigorous accusations

Yanno Id love to try a new paste but my AS5 spawned babies somehow because I keep finding tubes of the stuff around - in my office, out on my garage bench, in the guest bedroom (how and why? lol) so I can’t in good conscience buy a tube of something else to try.

I actually just used up the last of the tiny tube of AS on redoing the compound in my IBM ThinkPad 770! At my old job, I built several conference room systems for a price that beat the Dell alternative, and *warranty* wasn't really an issue as I *was* the warranty. So I ordered up a bunch of NT-H1 and now have an excess of it; all good, because I stand by it being good stuff! Should I ever use it all up, I may try something else, but I have three big tubes, so it'll be a while...

By that time, my son may be old enough to start building computers of his own (assuming the big corps don't achieve their goal of turning the idea of having a PC into a *subscription*).

 

[PowerRCP-G3]

Here is a recap of what happened yesterday.

Day 29: With only a few days left, there wasn't much else to test on the PowerBook G4 that already hasn't been tested. So, I downloaded a few miscellaneous programs.

 

[phunguss]

Day 26-30

I was a little under the weather, so I didn't make a lot of progress. I picked up a $10 Project Dual G5 2.0GHz from Free Geek Minneapolis.

I picked up some perf-board from Micro Center. I pulled a couple PWM fan headers from a donor broken PC motherboard.

I did manage to solder up my LCS pump to PWM converter.

I had to rewire my fans as they are the DELL standard and not the "everbody not DELL" version. Dell on the left, "normal" on the right.

When I plugged it in to test it, only one of the fans came on. I rechecked my soldering and discovered I misplaced one wire, so I fixed that and reconnected everything. Still only 1 fan. So I wondered, did I somehow fry something in my probing and testing?
I searched a little more and found out that the PWM signal in a computer is typically the 25KHz range. The Arduino Pro Mini has pins that produce 490Hz and 980Hz. Depression set in, I didn't want to have to re-engineer the whole thing with some extravagant code. It can of course use counters to actually create the 25KHz, but other searches showed that the fans don't care, as long as the PWM percentage is correct for what your intended speed is. Days go by.

Here we are on Day 30, and I get back into it. I go back to retest the wiring harness and pin 2 is no longer registering any voltage. Again I think that I fried something. So I restart with the ASD CD and run the hardware tests. Intake fans not working properly. What? I look and sure enough, neither is running. FEAR: oh I fried something so bad! So dug deeper. I recall that I tried to remove the original wiiring harness from the motherboard, but then realized it also powered the intake fans. So I removed it again and saw that I had it 1 pin off. The pins/socket are keyed, but I must have pushed a pin through the plug. I aligned it correctly and seated it in. Now the intake fans were working.

Back to ASD CD and run the CPU and fans tests. All fans and CPUs pass, the PUMP fails (fans too fast). I have one of my PWM running full board and the other slowly so I will go back and do benchmarks to see if either changes speeds.

Nope... something is wrong. recheck my wiring and layout. Oh, I have my voltage divider resistors backwards. Must have been brain fog when I was not feeling well.

I will keep working on this tonight and update this post with progress...

[EDIT]
I got the resistors sorted correctly, but I am still getting a full 11.8V on the driver circuits, so I think the controller is getting the wrong Fan Speed readings from my PWM fans, or at least not what it expected. I then though I would try to turn down the max speed to 50-60% to see if that would be acceptable to the G5Q, but the Arduino Pro Mini 5V stopped communicating and I could not update it. Project for later or next year. I still have to 3D print a fan cowl to cover the air coolers. It is fully working under load, so I am going to leave it as is.

Pre-Benchmark temps: High 30s

During load: low 70s

1 minute post test completion, back down to low 30s

 

[Trash80toG4]

I certainly hope so after all it's been put through just to get to you!

If the HDD doesn't get here tomorrow it's a freebie . . . as far as I can tell.

VisionTek PCI card for the second display is being shipped to me this weekend. I hope it can drive 1200x1920 portrait off DVI so I only have to switch the main 1440 screen manually to VGA.

Dunno, maybe the PCI card (more memory?) will push out something closer to 1440p via VGA? That'd make manually switching to VGA on both panels worthwhile. Suddenly it's a K_M & USB3 switch for getting the MDD'03 up and running on the rack-n-desk with the two HP Docks and the RPi CM4 setup all on two screens. They'll share the 10 port USB3 dock that's on the way. I could deal with that!

 

[PowerRCP-G3]

Here is a recap of what happened yesterday.

Day 30: With two days left and the RAM still not arriving in the mail, I decided that the best thing to do is to do a playthrough of Warcraft III.

 

[phunguss]

Day 31

The final countdown! New to me, a G5 Dual 2.0GHz from Free Geek Minneapolis, sold as-is for $10. This will be Unit F.

It did have a graphics card, so I popped it open to install a HD, and it was rather dusty. It is listed as a Radeon 9800, but it was actually an X800 XT 256MB. I decided to power it on anyway. I did get a chime, and eventually video, but the desktop never fully loaded. I got a blue screen with a spinning beachball cursor. The PSU was making some crackling/hissing sounds.

I saw the janky wire on the GPU so I pulled it. Oof, that is a substandard repair. This fan did not spin at all. Luckily I have a pile of old damaged cards for donors. The matching fan/cooler I had also had a gritty fan. So I disassembled the fan and found this tiny resistor floating around on the magnet.

Which, in it's journey, had marred up the plastic separator on the windings.

I cleaned up the dings, and reassembled, and next time I powered on, the fan was working great.

I tried to eject the optical drive to run the ASD but it would not eject. I tried to find the eject with a paper clip, but no luck. I removed the drive. The eject button actually missing. Manual ejection showed the drive full of dust as well.

Since my Unit B is listed as "flaky", I think I will possibly try a PSU swap and see if that is the issue. I pulled the PSU from this Unit F, and it was a bit dusty.

You can barely see any green board! This machine has obviously been running a long time, and in a dirty environment. Time to get the air compressor and some baby wipes and clean this up. Then I will check caps, and do the PSU swap if needed.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

@phunguss any idea where the resistor came from?

 

[phunguss]

@phunguss any idea where the resistor came from?

Likely from the damaged donor card. It had been poorly handled, and had lots of missing components on the back side. This was just a visual inspection without a microscope.

The previous owner obviously thought there was something wrong with the thermal compound, and they replaced it extra thick.

 

[phunguss]

Day 31 finalizing

Unit F PSU after a blowout. Still ticking and hissing.

Pulled the PSU from Unit B, dust bunnies in the bottom of the case.

So maybe that's why Unit B is flaky.

Cleaned it up, installed in Unit F. I can get 10.4 and 10.5 to load under safe mode, but the ASD will not run. Maybe I will try an older version.

Maybe next year....

 

[PentaxEnthusiast]

Well, I did not get around to doing the thermal compound replacement yet, but I've been playing more games on it!

 

[phunguss]

Day 32: Wrapup

My latest acquisition of the G5 Dual 2.0GHz kept giving me issues. I replaced thermal compound on CPUs, replaced power supply... but I still could not get anything but a safe boot (or this goofy glitch).

I figured maybe the repaired X800 XT was actually faulty. I swapped out a known working 9560 and it booted fine. I mistakenly had the ASD 2.6.3 disk in, so I swapped that for the 2.5.8 and ran the tests.

Everything came back fine.

Benchmarks show starting low 20-30s

Not too bad of temps for air cooled.

Cinebench R10 gave the highest temps of mid 60s

So, all said and done, 3/5 on dual processor PowerMac G5s, and 1/1 on a Quad (4 out of 6 working great).

Thanks, everybody for posting on this unofficial 2026 PPC Challenge!

 

[PowerRCP-G3]

Here is a recap of what happened yesterday.

Day 31: With my video series coming to an end, I decided to make the final day one to remember. I played Warcraft III and got my DVD of Shrek 2 transferred on my iPod Classic with the PowerBook G4. Stay tuned for when I post an update on my Power Mac G4 nicknamed Entrapta.

 

[Trash80toG4]

HDD for the MDD'03 finally made it to Raleigh, so we'll see if it makes it here "tomorrow by 9:00PM "or it's "free" on Tuesday.

Banged away at getting the new KVM setup yesterday and borked it but good.

Finally feel great today after a nice long nap. Got up at a reasonable hour and moved the wall mount for the main screen over to the next stud. Crazy spacing, but it's now in just the right spot. Managed to get everything straightened out and working correctly! Treated myself to a few fingers of Fireball to celebrate and hit the sack.

Ordered up some cables and a VESA mounting plate adapter for fun times next weekend. Hopefully the card obsolete flashed and refurbed for me shows up. It'll be nice to get the thing back on the rack where it belongs and driving both screens.

 

[Trash80toG4]

HDD for the MDD'03 finally made it to Raleigh, so we'll see if it makes it here "tomorrow by 9:00PM" or it's "free" on Tuesday.

Banged away at getting the new KVM setup yesterday and borked it but good.

Finally feel great today after a nice long nap. Got up at a reasonable hour and moved the wall mount for the main screen over to the next stud. Crazy spacing, but it's now in just the right spot. Managed to get everything straightened out and working correctly! Treated myself to a few fingers of Fireball to celebrate and hit the sack.

Ordered up some cables and a VESA mounting plate adapter for fun times next weekend. Hopefully the card obsolete flashed and refurbed for me shows up. It'll be nice to get the thing back on the rack where it belongs and driving both screens.