Adding a pci ata card to a G4

A

audiblefeast

Registered
Hi, and thanks for previous help; great group!

I want to add a newer, faster ata chain to my G4 733 by installing a PCI card. As usual, the mac-specific cards are 4-6x the price of cards advertised for Wintel machines. Is is possible to get Wintel card and find drivers that make it work in a G4?

thanks!
Bruce S
 
It might work - I have some PCI cards from my long-gone PC in my powermac, but they are just USB cards. Of course, the ata chain cards are designed for intel/windows machines, so you could run into problems. For example, you can "flash" a windows video card with mac drivers so that it will work with a mac, but the video card can easily become unstable. (So look out on ebay when people are trying to sell "Mac" video cards!)
 
On the topic of video cards and flashing the PC ones to work with the Mac, it's definitely NOT recommended as eric2006 said. REason being is that there's not enough space in the firmware for it to be flashed to support the Mac. Hence it becomes unstable. It's sometimes worth paying the extra dough for the officially supported video card.

As for PCI ATA cards, I'm not quite sure. Usually if third parties support the Mac with their ATA cards, they will say so. I wouldn't gamble on taking a PC ATA card and using it on the Mac. Best to research before you buy.
 
also with flashing a card for a different platform, you run into legal problems. as far as just plugging one in and trying it, don't buy one to do it. like eric said some simple cards do work. i had a usb card in my 7500 on os 9, and it worked on my patched os x install too. but when i finally got a real g4, i transfered it over (2 ports was nowhere enouph) and the g4 would not even boot. figure that one out. so it is very hit and miss. but my bets are that a contoller like that would not work. and where are you looking for cards? her is arizona, when frys electronics had some, they were very close in price to pc ones. if i wern't out of pci slots, i would have gotten a sata one for mine.
 
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