Dumb Question: I Need To Get A PCI USB Card For My G4 MDD, But...

2112st

2112st

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Oct 8, 2023
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Hey folks,

So, I need to get a USB card for my G4 MDD. But given the age of this machine-should I look on eBay for used cards, or can I get a new card that might be outfitted with USB 3.0 but settle for the slower speeds? Or is the plug-in slot on the G4's motherboard only meant for older PCI cards?
 
phunguss

phunguss

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Dec 24, 2023
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33 MHz 64-bit PCI slots, not PCIE which are most modern products. If you can find a modern one in non-PCIE, it might be a crap shoot whether it works or not. I found several generic PCI cards at my local Free Geek, and they worked fine in the Graphite AGP and Quicksilver. If you can get something extra cheap on eBay used, then it won't be much of a loss if it does not work.
 
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joevt

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Mar 5, 2023
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A USB 3.0 card uses XHCI. You need USB 2.0 EHCI or 1.1 OHCI for PowerPC Mac unless you want to try and port a XHCI driver (there exists a third party open source XHCI driver for Mac OS X but I don't think it's appropriate for Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 but I haven't tried).

USB 1.1 is 12 Mbps (≈1.2 MB/s)
USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps (≈53 MB/s)
USB 3.0 is 5000 Mbps (4000 Mbps before 8b/10b encoding) (≈330 - 460 MB/s)
A 33 MHz 64 bit slot is 2133 Mbps (<266 MB/s)
I think most USB PCI cards are 32 bit (1066 Mbps) (<133 MB/s)
Most USB 3.0 cards are PCIe and PCIe to PCI 64 bit are nearly impossible to find so the best you could get is 32 bit. I'm not sure about 66 MHz - that might be equally rare as 64 bit.
 
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Certificate of Excellence

Certificate of Excellence

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For my Powermacs, I look for PCI USB2 cards that have a NEC or TI chipset. I have several usb2 & usb2/fw400 combo cards with VIA chipset that are flaky and inconsistent in OSX. My NEC/TI cards are rock solid. VIA are typically cheaper yes but I dont recommend them in PPC boxes. Common brands that I do own and use in my Powermacs who include the NEC/TI chipset are: Sonnet, Siig, Belkin, and Adaptec; I'm sure there are more beyond that. Here’s a Belkin card that lives in my QuickSilver. You can see the NEC chipset clearly marked.
IMG_0761.jpeg

Good luck. :)
 
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trag

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Oct 25, 2021
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The details are lost to memory, but there was a specific NEC USB chip and a specific TI (?) chip recommended for Firewire in PCI PowerMacs, way back in the day.

I'm sure it's posted about somewhere in the annals of Mac discussion...

I think NEC D720101GJ was the recommended USB chip back when. I can't find anyting that references the recommended TI Firewire chipset. Lots of stuff about using "a TI chip" but nothing metioning the actual chip number.
 
2112st

2112st

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Certificate of Excellence

Certificate of Excellence

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trag said:
The details are lost to memory, but there was a specific NEC USB chip and a specific TI (?) chip recommended for Firewire in PCI PowerMacs, way back in the day.

I'm sure it's posted about somewhere in the annals of Mac discussion...

I think NEC D720101GJ was the recommended USB chip back when. I can't find anyting that references the recommended TI Firewire chipset. Lots of stuff about using "a TI chip" but nothing metioning the actual chip number.
Click to expand...
The Texas Instruments TSB43 series is the one to look for.
 
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