My company bought a new G5 tower for a specific server application that required YDL 4, so we got YDL 4.0.1. It installed OK, but the machine sounded like a bloody vacuum cleaner. I was told that the latest release, 4.0.91, contained a fix for this, so we paid for ydl.net and I downloaded 4.0.91. I did a complete clean reinstall, but it still sounded like a bloody vacuum cleaner.
Hm.
What followed was a lot of research, cursing, drinking, recompiling, more cursing, more drinking (OK, that was the good part), and still a machine too noisy for the classroom.
Finally, I found the fix. This seems to be relevant if you have a brand new G5 dual proc tower - mine was PowerMac 7,3. There's a patch, but frankly it's probably easier to just open the file and make the edit.
The file is /usr/src/linux.../arch/ppc64/kernel/prom_init.c, which contains fixup code for 'broken' G5 hardware/firmware. Here's the complete patch as published - you can easily figure out the edit from this:
--- a/arch/ppc64/kernel/prom_init.c 2005-07-27 18:34:40.000000000 -0700
+++ b/arch/ppc64/kernel/prom_init.c 2005-08-09 16:18:04.000000000 -0700
@@ -1803,7 +1803,7 @@
if (prom_getprop(u3, "device-rev", &u3_rev, sizeof(u3_rev))
== PROM_ERROR)
return;
- if (u3_rev != 0x35)
+ if (u3_rev != 0x35 && u3_rev != 0x37)
return;
/* does it need fixup ? */
if (prom_getproplen(i2c, "interrupts") > 0)
That fixed it! After all the other to-ing and fro-ing I'd done before I found this, I did a complete reinstall from the 4.0.91 disks, then rebuilt the kernel with this one-line change - blissful quiet. My manager, whose cube is next to mine, wasn't aware the machine was even powered up.
I hope you find this helpful -- OldHippie