PCI USB 2.0 card for PowerMac G5

[sheapuppy]

Looking for a PCI card to add additional USB 2.0 ports to my PowerMac G5 late 2004 (no PCIe slots, only PCI-X). I am running Tiger and the other Sorbet Leopard on 2 separate drives. I'd like to find one that is compatible with both.

Any recommendations would be appreciated!

TIA.....JP

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Looking for a PCI card to add additional USB 2.0 ports to my PowerMac G5 late 2004 (no PCIe slots, only PCI-X). I am running Tiger and the other Sorbet Leopard on 2 separate drives. I'd like to find one that is compatible with both.

Any recommendations would be appreciated!

TIA.....JP

I have a few different brand cards that work well. Siig, sonnet, adaptec etc. More important than brand, Ideally you want to look for cards with an NEC chipset. I’ve used cards with a VIA chipset and yeah they mostly worked most of the time but did fail on me a few random times which was a pita, so I don’t recommend them for PowerPC Macs. VIA is typically a bit cheaper but the few bucks more you pay for an NEC card pays you back with consistent ease of use. All of my VIA usb cards have since been moved to windows boxes where they work just fine.

Good luck.

 

[TheShortTimer]

I'd like to find one that is compatible with both.

Any PCI USB 2.0 card that has an NEC chipset will be okay.

Belkin cards always use NEC chipsets and can be easily found inexpensively. If you're buying online and you're unsure or the packaging doesn't mention the chipset, look at photos of the card and check for the NEC logo.

Save yourself the headache and forget any cards with a VIA logo on their chips. They're hit and miss.

Edit: posted my reply instantaneously with @Certificate of Excellence.

 

[sheapuppy]

I have a few different brand cards that work well. Siig, sonnet, adaptec etc. More important than brand, Ideally you want to look for cards with an NEC chipset. I’ve used cards with a VIA chipset and yeah they mostly worked most of the time but did fail on me a few random times which was a pita, so I don’t recommend them for PowerPC Macs. VIA is typically a bit cheaper but the few bucks more you pay for an NEC card pays you back with consistent ease of use. All of my VIA usb cards have since been moved to windows boxes where they work just fine.

Good luck.

Thanks for your recommendation. I found a local seller with a D-Link DFB-A5 PCI card. It has 3x FW 400 (one internal) and 2x USB 2.0 ports. I also looked at the specs and I think this is gonna work:

https://legacyfiles.us.dlink.com/DFB-A5/REVA/DFB-A5_DATASHEET_1.00_EN.PDF

I asked the seller, and it has an NEC chip. Yay!

 

[TheShortTimer]

Thanks for your recommendation. I found a local seller with a D-Link DFB-A5 PCI card. It has 3x FW 400 (one internal) and 2x USB 2.0 ports. I also looked at the specs and I think this is gonna work:

https://legacyfiles.us.dlink.com/DFB-A5/REVA/DFB-A5_DATASHEET_1.00_EN.PDF

I asked the seller, and it has an NEC chip. Yay!

That's brilliant news!

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

D-Link

I don't trust this vendor. Ask the seller about actual photos of card.

 

[sheapuppy]

I think this card should work. Thoughts?

 

[Project Alice]

I think this card should work. Thoughts?

Looks like an NEC chipset. It should work.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

NEC for usb is solid, the very minor concern is the Agere controller for the FW. Apple moved away from TI & towards Agere (I assume because the chip is smaller) in their systems and with this some reports of AIO Macs and audio interface incompatibility arose. Agere reports Mac compatibility from 9 to osx, so I assume this has been fixed but I did want to mention it.

 

[TheShortTimer]

I don't trust this vendor.

Why don't you trust D-Link?

 

[Project Alice]

I don't trust this vendor. Ask the seller about actual photos of card.

Why don't you trust D-Link?

D-Link makes fine products. They're consumer grade. But they're fine. I have had lots of D-Link stuff over the years, and I've never had issues with it. Same with netgear. I think the only working USB 2.0 card I have right now is a D-Link. I have a Netgear GA-511 PCMCIA 1Gb NIC that I use for my PowerBook's that works wondferfully.
I would however not buy router's from them, those are the only devices I have had any problems with. But then again I think all consumer routers are trash so. That's a conversation for another time lol

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

Why don't you trust D-Link?

Too much backdoors in their networking hardware. Don`t know about internal devices.

 

[Project Alice]

Too much backdoors in their networking hardware. Don`t know about internal devices.

I mean, we’re talking about PPC Macs here running ancient operating systems as it is.
I don’t think installing a USB card is going to introduce any more security holes. Just like everything else, have a good firewall.

I’d also wager if you got a D-Link NIC that you could probably flash OEM firmware on it for whatever chipset it is, effectively making it not a D-Link anymore.
You don’t need to use the card manufacturers drivers either. The drivers that came with my GA-511 actually refused to install on Windows 2003 (because server) but downloading the drivers from Realtek works just fine, and Windows doesn’t even know it’s a netgear card. Just shows it as a Realtek NIC. Since this is a Mac forum, you’re not using the manufacturers drivers anyway. You’re using Apple’s drivers.

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

You’re using Apple’s drivers.

Always was interested. Are they written by Apple or they still from hardware vendor with Apple branding?

 

[sheapuppy]

D-Link makes fine products. They're consumer grade. But they're fine. I have had lots of D-Link stuff over the years, and I've never had issues with it. Same with netgear. I think the only working USB 2.0 card I have right now is a D-Link. I have a Netgear GA-511 PCMCIA 1Gb NIC that I use for my PowerBook's that works wondferfully.
I would however not buy router's from them, those are the only devices I have had any problems with. But then again I think all consumer routers are trash so. That's a conversation for another time lol

Funny you say that because I worked for D-Link many years in early 2000s. It was a booming time for wireless adapters, access points, routers, and switches. We kicked a** when it came to cool gadgets. Looking back, we were the first company that came up with products that I would consider prototypes of today's products. Examples:

1) i2eye, really cool "videophone" to call love ones, before webcams became the norm, and of course FaceTime with iPhones
2) Hardware media player, which turned into TiVO, and now technically any DVR
3) The DCS camera series, before Ring cameras became ubiquitous

That said, I always felt that our routers and APs were wonky to configure. In addition, there were many revisions to the main chipsets, usually from Atheros or Broadcom, so it was hard to keep up with the quick changes that were happening.

 

[Project Alice]

Always was interested. Are they written by Apple or they still from hardware vendor with Apple branding?

I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, they are from the hardware vendor but would go through Apple's QA process with Mac OS. If there's an issue with a driver that comes in Mac OS, we would submit feedback to Apple, not the vendor.

There was a D-Link USB wifi adapter that I used to use back in the day that had drivers for Tiger, but not in Mac OS. It had to be installed, and D-Link's own software utility had to be used to connect to a network.
I would say for all intents and purposes that unless you installed the driver through a 3rd party installer like that, anything working OTB in Mac OS would be Apple's driver. My point with that comment was that, when you install a device with a chipset that Mac OS has drivers for, Mac OS is going to list it as that chipset. IE my GA511 card shows up in system profiler as a Realtek 8169, not a Netgear GA511.

Funny you say that because I worked for D-Link many years in early 2000s. It was a booming time for wireless adapters, access points, routers, and switches. We kicked a** when it came to cool gadgets. Looking back, we were the first company that came up with products that I would consider prototypes of today's products. Examples:

1) i2eye, really cool "videophone" to call love ones, before webcams became the norm, and of course FaceTime with iPhones
2) Hardware media player, which turned into TiVO, and now technically any DVR
3) The DCS camera series, before Ring cameras became ubiquitous

That said, I always felt that our routers and APs were wonky to configure. In addition, there were many revisions to the main chipsets, usually from Atheros or Broadcom, so it was hard to keep up with the quick changes that were happening.

That's interesting, I didn't know that about D-Link. I was a child in the early 2000's so I didn't notice a lot of that stuff. The main thing that I remember catching my eye in the early 2000s was when my dad would take me to compUSA or Best Buy, and I would see all the G4 Macs. I didn't exactly understand what they were compared to the PCs we had at home but I thought they were the coolest looking things I had ever seen lol

 

[TheShortTimer]

I mean, we’re talking about PPC Macs here running ancient operating systems as it is.
I don’t think installing a USB card is going to introduce any more security holes. Just like everything else, have a good firewall.

Totally agree.

As I've mentioned previously, the average script kiddie won't even know what a PPC computer is. Let alone PPC Tiger or Leopard. Hackers are predominantly looking for computers running Windows due to the user base and Microsoft's historically poor approach to security.

A dedicated firewall is more than sufficient if you're really concerned and is a good idea regardless of whether your setup is ancient or bleeding edge.