Hi,

Did anybody else enconuter trouble installing MorphOS 3.14 on PowerMac G5?

Here's my story:

I've got a PowerMac G5 Dual Processor 2,7 GHz (AGP). Not so long ago I've changed the gfx card (Radeon X1950GT PC version instead of X850XT Apple edition). Of course I've lost the possibility to boot into Apple Startup Menu or Open Firmware but I assumed I could live without them. Alas! The computer refuses to boot from MorphOS 3.14 boot cd (always starts from hard drive). But MorphOS does show me a requester that "I probably wanted to boot from CD but something went wrong so I'd better boot with Alt pressed". For known reasons (no display before MorphOS initializes gfx card) I couldn't do that. What I did was:

1. Swap the boot.img on Boot partition to the 3.14 one
2. Tried booting from boot CD again. Worked (but strangely slow). Started copying files, after 30 minutes and 150 MB copied the machine slowed down even more. Aborted operation.
3. Booted again, without CD. Mounted morphos.iso as a virtual drive. Update went smoothly, but after restart all I got was a garbled login screen (and even when I could log in I got another garbled screen and freeze)
4. Swapped Radeon.monitor with the one from 3.13 version. Didn't help.
5. Swapped the SYS:MorphOS folder with the one from previous version (3.13) - worked - resulted in normal 3.13 booting from 3.14 boot.img.
6. Swapped Radeon.monitor with the one from 3.14 version. Result - garbled graphics.
7. Swapped it back - didn't help. All the same - trash on screen.
8. Tried reverting to previous MorphOS version (3.12) - didn't help.
9. Erased whole SYS: partition and copied a fresh installation from my PowerBook - result: The system boots, some gfx is corrupted (like window titlebars), everything works terribly slow. Swapping Radeon.monitor with the one from 3.13 didn't help (but didn't spoil anything either).

Here's a video showing how it works after step 9:

https://youtu.be/dO9cnmXRAfY

I updated two G5 machines and both did work fine, although I didn't update them from the CD.

The first was 7,3/2.7GHz with an original Radeon, but with a broken CD tray. But as OF does work, I updated by USB booting from the ISO.

The second was an "unsupported" 11,2/2.3GHz with an X1950 Pro. I first tried to boot to the Alt menu and select CD blindly, but didn't seem to succeed in that. Then I did steps 1 and 3 from your list (skipped 2) and that did work fine, haven't noticed any issues with this "unsupported" method.

Do you have the right morphos.key in devs: ?
Seems that your MOS is unregistrated and slows down after 30min.......

Updated 3 different G5 (2,3/2,0/1,8GHz, all Radeon9600) with out any problems, but I do t manually.......

Your GRFX-problems may be caused in corrupt prefs in ENVARC:
Prefs of a PB maybe also cause problems on a G5.

Btw: have you copied the right boot.img? (probably, because the G4-image should'nt work - never tried that.....)

[ Editiert durch Amigaharry2 05.10.2020 - 20:40 ]

>> Tried booting from boot CD again. Worked (but strangely slow).
>> Started copying files, after 30 minutes and 150 MB copied the
>> machine slowed down even more.

> Do you have the right morphos.key in devs: ? Seems that your
> MOS is unregistrated and slows down after 30min.......

This is normal when booting from CD, I guess. Unless RegisterISO is used, that is.

Quote:

When booting from hard drive everything is fine (I mean, no additional slowdown).

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If I had a Radeon 9600 I'd do the update by USB. Sadly, the only option for me is a boot CD (as neither Open Firmware nor Apple Boot Menu won't even try to open when no compatible gfx card is present). There is no option to do a "blind" boot by typing the boot sequence not seeing it.

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Maybe, but that wouldn't explain my problems from points 1 to 8.

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Yep, I checked twice to use the correct, mac_ppc64 one.

I'll try again tomorrow, must psych myself up to do it.

I mean, I update it manualy during MOS3.13 is running. Normaly you need only to copy the boot.img and the MorphOS-drawer (all the additional stuff can be done later). If MOS3.13 was running flawless before, MOS3.14 should do also after a reboot.

Quote:
Why not? It's not that long: boot hd:,\boot.img bi dh1:m.iso
Given you copied the boot.img to your boot drive and the renamed iso (m.iso) to dh1:

I think typing that string is blindly doable, may take two or three attempts to type it w/o visual control, but still. Of course you need to know where the :,\ are on the firmware keyboard layout.

Quote:

From what jaca said - the computer won't even try to open the Open Firmware or Apple Boot Menu when no compatible gfx card is present. And that would correspond with my attempts to do so.

@thread:

I just tried to do a clean install with current (slow and buggy) system. I managed to so so (took the computer a large portion of night though), but the outcome is the same - a vanilla MorphOS 3.14 installed from scratch on my G5 machine has trashed screen and window bars, and runs as slow as a continental drift.

Now I will get some debug info and see what's in there.

Next I will try with a different hard drive (maybe it's dying SSD? Who knows?).

Then - if everything else fails - I will search for a compatible, Apple gfx card.

EDIT: The debug says:

Code:

so it's a gfx card driver issue after all it seems?

I've changed the gfx card to an Apple Radeon 9600XT and now everything works normally. It's definitely the Radeon driver that's causing the trouble here.

Hi,

I hijacked this thread since we cannot create a new one.

I have installed a NEC USB card (5 ports) in one of my PCI-X ports (3 ports aren't enough for my use) on my PowerMac G5 2,7 Ghz.

Everything is working flawlessly with the NEC card but the 3 ports on the PowerMac don't work anymore, they cannot be used (nothing connected is recognized).

I tried swapping ports but no luck either.

Is it a known behaviour ?

Cannot confirm this! Useing a NEC-USB-card in my G5/2.3GHz - all ports work flawless.

Quote:

I vaguely remember some MorphZone user (Barren?) had a similar issue with NEC based USB PCI card. If I remember correct - all the additional ports worked well, but the front USB connector refused to work at all.
That was not G5 2,7 but something like 2,0 DP.

Alas, my Belkin USB card (NEC based too) works flawlessly.

Thanks. It seems to be a known problem, so I will live with it.

I'd submit the bug if I were you. The team is reading these, I'm sure.