Sonnet Info

This page contains all the info I have gathered on Sonnets G3 upgrade for the 6400
Return to The 6400 Zone Home page

Sonnet Technologies, Inc.
18004 Sky Park Circle
Irvine, CA. 92614-6428

Voice (949) 261-2800 Fax (949) 261-2461
email: sales@sonnettech.com

• Letters from Sonnet L2/G3 users-
• Fixing startup crashes and overall stability issues with Sonnets G3's-
• Latest driver update (at least v1.3.7 is Needed for OS 8.6)-
• 1.4.2-1.4.5 installers to test for stability issues?-
• Sonnets G3 compatibility Matrix-
• My Sonnet G3 Comaptibility info page-
• Mac OSX support-
• Remove Sonnet G3 card when installing new IDE hard drives?-
• Clocking Sonnets G3 cards!-

Sonnet announced G3 upgrades for the 6400!: Its about time another vendor gets a G3 upgrade for our computers made. Sonnet just announced the below configurations for all 64xx/65xx and others built on the same mother boards. Newer had announced a 4400 version awhile back but didn't expand into the 6400 world. Sonnets pricing is very aggresive compared to Vimages also.

G3/240 512k cache for $399
G3/300 512k cache for $499
G3/300 1M cache for $599

Click here to get a PDF document of the press release from Sonnet. These prices are all lower than Vimages and from rumors of Vimages next release (the G3/320Mhz card) from MacWorld Expo, it will run around $1399! Thats awfully high even for a copper based G3. I've seen 400Mhz G3's for less than that. Vimage my have to reduce their pricing or get cut out of the market.

On the other hand, Vimage is getting a reputation for being more compatible with other devices than the other G3 card vendors. Remember both Sonnet and Newer had problems with their PDS versions and Vimage is one of the only cards that is compatible with all SCSI cards.

Sonnet says they should have their cards out by next month. I will be starting a new page for info on Sonnets cards as I recieve it.

I have asked MacCPU for a card to review when they get them. I will keep you all posted.

I received this letter from D. Lawson on compatibility issues with Sonnets new G3 cards for the 6400. Here is his letter. Thanks.

[Well, I contacted Sonnet's tech support to find out if there were any hardware incompatibilities with the 6400 (like the Vimage incompatibility with the TwinTurbo cards, the main thing that's holding me back). Here's their reply:

"It's too soon to answer this question since we just shipped the first 50 of these cards to our testing facility. I don't imagine we'll have a problem given that none of our cards have any problem with ixMicro cards right now. The software for our L2 cards will be the same as the software for our other cards.

You are covered against incompatibility by our 30-day money back policy. If you get one of our cards and it's incompatible with your system and we can't fix it, you get a refund as long as it's within 30 days of purchase. Thanks for your interest in Sonnet Technology. "

Perhaps you could pass this on... Thanks.
D. Lawson]

Sonnet ships 20th Anniversary Mac, 5x00, 6x00 G3 upgrades: Ryan emailed me this clip from MacCentral. Looks like their shipping and hopefully I recieve my eval card soon :) Thanks Ryan.

[Staff Report, email@maccentral.com
February 5, 1999, 5:30 am ET

After announcing the cards quite some time ago, Sonnet Technologies is finally shipping its line of G3 upgrade cards for the "non-upgradeable" Power Macs, including the 54/64/65XX, 6360 and 20th Anniversary Macs. Pricing is as follows:

225-240 MHz: $399.95
300 MHz, w/512k cache $499.95
300 MHz, w/1Meg cache $599.95

The 225-240 MHz version achieves a MacBench score of 740, while the 512k cache flavor of the 300 MHz card achieves a score of 930, and the 300 MHz card with 1 meg of backside cache achieves a score of 1045.

Sonnet told MacCentral "We made more of the 300MHz/1MB because it's been the most asked about by about 4:1." More information is available from http://www.sonnettech.com.]

Sonnet's G3 upgrades and the Virtual PlayStation: Sonnet sent me a press release on compatibility with Connectix's Virtual PlatStation and their G3 upgrades. It doesn't mention the 6400 cards but I can assume that the issues will be about the same. The 240Mhz card will probably play slow and the 300Mhz/1M cache card will be much better. I ordered the Virtual Playstation and if I have both at the same time you can bet I will test them :)

[Sonnet G3s and Virtual Game Station Play Together
Crescendo G3 Upgrades Perform Like a G3 Macintosh With Connectix Virtual Game Station

IRVINE, CALIFORNIA. February 3, 1999. The Sonnet Technologies Crescendo PCI G3 upgrade cards, at speeds of 300 MHz/1M or better, perform as well as G3 Macintoshes with the recently announced Connectix Virtual Game Station. As part of that announcement, Connectix stated that Virtual Game Station is “not recommended for Macs with G3 upgrade cards.”

Sonnet, the leading manufacturer of upgrade cards for Macintosh, recently evaluated Virtual Game Station with its G3 upgrade cards and would like to clarify compatibility for the benefit of its customers. “With Connectix’ recent announcement, we heard from a number of customers wondering about compatibility. We checked Virtual Game Station in our compatibility labs and were pleased to discover that our faster G3s play very well,” reported Sonnet President Robert Farnsworth.

For PCI Power Macintoshes, Sonnet tested Virtual Game Station with Crescendo G3 upgrades in a Power Macintosh 7500 using build-in video and found the following results:

Crescendo 300-400MHz/1M G3 - play VGS games as well as an original Desktop Power Mac G3 or iMac;
Crescendo 266/1M or 300/512 G3 - plays VGS games OK; occasional skipped frames and sound glitches;
Crescendo 233MHz/512 G3 - plays VGS games poorly; frequent skipped frames and sound glitches.

Note that Connectix Virtual Game Station requires ATI video drivers (included with Virtual Game Station), and Apple CD ROM drivers. Even though Connectix suggests ATI Rage hardware may be required, Sonnet observed no difference in Virtual Game Station performance in a 7500 whether using built-in video or using an ATI Xclaim 3D Rage Pro PCI card.

NuBus Power Macintoshes will not load ATI drivers and therefore cannot play Virtual Game Station even with a Sonnet Crescendo G3 upgrade card.

All Sonnet processor upgrade products are easy to install, are backed by a three-year warranty, include free technical support, and require no switches, jumpers, or control panels. To locate an authorized reseller or purchase product, visit the Sonnet Technologies web site at <http://www.sonnettech.com>, or call the company.

About Sonnet Technologies, Inc.
Sonnet Technologies, Inc. is headquartered in Irvine, California, and is the world’s leading Macintosh upgrade company. Founded in 1986, Sonnet upgrades more Macintosh models with processor upgrade cards than any other company. Sonnet can be reached at 1-800-786-6260 (USA and Canada), 949-261-2800, or <http://www.sonnettech.com>.]

Sonnet releases 225/240 G3 for the 6400/6500!: Sonnet has started selling its $399 225/240Mhz G3 upgrade for the 6400/6500 and all others based on the same mother boards. The faster 300Mhz cards are not out yet. MacCPU has posted a short review on the card with comparisons to Vimages 225/240 G3 upgrade. The only thing I want to mention is that in the review they are using a 20th Aniversary Mac which may need more cooling than the 6400/6500 so this is why they used the fan on the Vimage card. With the fan on it covers one RAM slot which reduces the total amount of RAM you can install. I emailed them about this and they said that they only used the fan because they were selling the Vimage card to TAM owners before Vimage OK'ed it so they wanted to make sure it would work. The TAM is a very tight enclosure which has different cooling needs. As far as I know the fan is not needed but No one has confirmed this with me yet.

Update: I called Vimage and they actually have not released their 225/240 card for the TAM system. They didn't feel their card would run well enough to risk pissing customers off. It does run as MacCPU has proved but at what risk? Will it fail eventually? Is loosing a RAM slot worth it? Vimage didn't think so but some people like to push the envelope. I'm one of them :)

Sonnets L2/G3 heatsink does face the RAM chips: Wes emailed about the heatsink on the G3 card resting on the RAM chips and that the manual says it should face away from them. Sonnet sent him a reply saying that the manual is wrong and that the heatsink does face the RAM chips. They did not mention about his saying the heasink touches the RAM chips though? I will have to see when I do my tests if this will cause any issues?

Questions and reply from Sonnet on 6400 G3 cards: Tom Legare sent a couple questions and sent me Sonnets reply. Thanks Tom.

[I am a Power Mac 6500/300 owner, and I am very interested in purchasing your recently announced G3/300/1 MB upgrade that fits in the L2 cache slot. My questions, before I buy, are:


1. You recently stated that your other G3 upgrades work well with the Connectix Virtual Game Station product. Is this true also for these new upgrades that work in the 6400/6500 machines?

2. I'm concerned about heat from the 300 Mhz G3 chip. Does it come with it's own heatsink or cooling fan? Will it shorten the life of my other system components?
Thank you for your help.
Sincerely,
Tom Legare

In answer to your questions:
1) If you buy the 300Mhz/1MB version of our card, it should run VGS just fine but to be truthful with you, the L2/PCI is so new and we're shipping them so fast, we haven't had a chance to test VGS with them. The compatibility statement we posted to our website derived from our tests with the PCI-based Macs like the 8500, 9500 et al. I've passed on a request to test VGS with a 6500 with our card.


2) We have no heat problems with our card. We designed it correctly with a heatsink that is 3X larger than our competitors. We don't even have to use a fan (unlike the other guys). All Sonnet upgrades are conservatively built to run well within engineering design specifications for speed, temperature, and power consumption. This is why Sonnet is able to offer an industry leading 3 year warranty on all our products. I've got one of our 240Mhz cards in the 5400 on my desk and it's been running all day with a constant temperature of 43° C (compared to the 89° C that our competitor's runs at).


We've already managed to sell through the first production run of these cards. We'll be back in stock the first week of March (this time we'll make twice as many) so you have some time to make up your mind.


Thanks for your interest in Sonnet Technology]

I just found out that both Sonnets 300/1M card and my Virtual PlayStation order have been sent out and should arrive shortly. I will be testing both together of course :)

My initial test results of Sonnets G3 upgrades: Well I got the cards in the mail on Tuesday and boy was I giddy! Not only did they send the 300/1M but I recieved all 3 for testing :) I immediately installed the 300/1M in my overstuffed 6400/220 and the 300/512k in the 6400/180. It seems they have revised the installation manual as it now reads that the heatsink does face the RAM chips and it may touch larger capacity DIMMS (ones with chips on both sides of the RAM card). Sure enough on both my systems it touches the bottom of the RAM card closest to it and has a 1/8" gap at the top (this was on a 64M and 32M DIMM). The manual says this will not affect anything and for now it seems correct. The next thing I noticed is that it doesn't reboot when the extension is reached! This is great as the Vimage card wastes a lot of time performing this soft reboot as my tests showed. At the time Vimage was the only player in town but if Sonnets cards are less expensive and reduce startup time then I think we have a winner!

Sonnet news letter: Sonnet sent me a news letter on their L2/G3 upgrades stating that the 240Mhz card has been discontinued and a 250Mhz card with the same price will replace it :) also the same cards for the 6400/6500 will now work in a 4400 or StarMax. They made a change that allows this to work and will reduce the cost of producing these cards as they don't need to make 2 versions. I'm pretty sure the orignal cards Sonnet shipped won't work with the 4400 as they needed to make a change on the card to make it work so Don't try it if you already own one. Doesn't it just keep getting better :)

[Dear Reviewer,
I'd like to update you on new developments with the Crescendo G3 L2/PCI upgrade card that you are reviewing.

1. All three cards are now also compatible with the Power Mac 4400, and the Star Max clones.
2. The low-end 240Mhz speed is sold out. We have replaced it with a 250Mhz card, at the same low price of $399.


Not only does our card now run in more models, but it's just the one card for all the compatible models. Also, we offer a faster speed for our low-end card, but have kept the price at $399.
Thank you. - Joy Hsu]

More info on Sonnets cards from a reader: John sent me some links to a review on Sonnets and Vimages L2/G3 cards plus a Q&A list the reviewer did with Sonnet. Thanks John.

[Found a few links you might want to check out:

http://www.mac-upgrade.com/reviews/sonnet_challenged.html

Interesting to note that the reviewer in the above link found little performance difference between Sonnet's 300 G3 cards with either 512K or 1MB cache (although he wasn't sure his benchmarks adequately tested benefits of backside cache) - might be something for upgraders to think about since the price difference between the 2 cards is $100.

This site also has a review of the Vimage 240 MHz card:

http://www.mac-upgrade.com/reviews/vimage54_64.html
Best,
John]

[One more link on Maccentral.com:

http://www.maccentral.com/news/9902/23.upgradeguy.shtml

This is done by the same guy doing the reviews I just sent you links to. However, this link has some discussion with someone from Sonnet that proves interesting reading. The thing that jumped out at me was the statement that the Sonnet upgrade cards are currently COPPER!?!?!? The person from Sonnet says that it's their heatsink, and not copper vs. silicon that is the reason the card runs so 'cool', but he also hinted that they may use silicon in the future. This is curious to me, because I wonder if Vimages statements (which he dismisses) that you need copper will be proven if Sonnet starts making their 300 MHz cards with silicon instead of copper -- also makes me wonder if I should grab the 300 MHz Sonnet card before they make the switch.

If you get any further insight in this area, I'd be interested in seeing it on your site.

John]

It seems that Sonnet is shipping COPPER based G3 cards for the 6400 but says the low temp readings are due to the heatsink? I say NO! Copper CPU's are the reason for the low temps. All the temp readings I have ever seen for any silicon based G3 has always been around 60C to 100C but Sonnets are coming in around 23C to 45C. This falls right in with the temps I have seen for any copper based G3 CPU. They can't claim the heatsink did it as PowerLogix and the rest have used massive heatsinks on their PCI G3 upgrades and they never had a 30C reading for a non-copper CPU. I'm affraid that Sonnet is up to something and we may get hurt in the end. Vimage had warned about using non-copper G3's in a 6400 and it seems that Sonnet listened. I only hope that Sonnet will not go back to silicon as they said may happen but still keep the prices low.

I emailed both Sonnet and Newer on their cards being copper or not and have not heard from them yet. If your in the market for these 300Mhz cards then buy them now before any changes are made.

Also if you read closely the new 250Mhz card will only run at 240Mhz still on the 6400. It was designed to run at 250Mhz in any Mac with a 50Mhz bus like the 6500. You know this is getting confusing. All of these companies need to advertise speeds for both 40Mhz and 50Mhz systems! Vimage and Sonnet have advertised their 240 as a 240/225 to some extent but not well enough I think. Most of the cards are advertised with the 40Mhz bus in mind and its a "buyer beware" with the 6500! All this still leaves the question about Sonnets 300Mhz cards? I have asked for these answers but am still waiting:(

Answers to my questions to Sonnet: Sonnet has replied to my questions so here they are.

[Tom,
You had questions for Sonnet on our L2 cache slot upgrade card a while back. Here are the responses from engineering that I finally obtained.

1. Are there any compatibility issues with other cards like PCI graphics or SCSI cards that you may have found in beta testing?

Sonnet has found no incompatibilities. Users have reported none.

2. What OS versions will work with them and will VM work with them?

OS 7.5.3 - 8.5.1 with or without VM

3. Does the Geo modem work with it?

We have not tested it and have no reason to believe it does not work. We have never had problems reported with the Geo modem with any previous Crescendo G3 cards, so testing it is not high on our checklist for this model. Out of curiosity, why do you ask? (I replyed to them saying that Vimage had stated the Geo modem did not work with their 240/G3 unless you had OS 8.0 or higher and had to used the latest Apple Telecom software. I am running my geo with OS 8.5.1 and Sonnets cards don't seem to have a problem with this OS - Tom)

4. Is the CPU a Copper based G3?

Yes and no. IBM and Motorola first generation, is not copper. This G3 ranged from 220-300 MHz. The Sonnet 240 Mhz product uses this part.

IBM and Motorola are now producing lower-power, lower temperature, second-generation G3s, from 300-400 MHz. To achieve lower power and higher speed with these lower core voltage parts, IBM happened to use copper Motorola did not. Copper itself is a process detail. The power dissipation of the part and heat sink design are all that matter. Sonnet has designed the cooling system of the Crescendo G3 L2 to use either IBM (copper) or Motorola (not copper) 2nd generation G3 parts. Sonnet's current production is using IBM copper parts, but we have qualified both IBM and Motorola processors.

5. Can the L2 cache speed be adjusted with software like Power Logix's G3 Cache Utility?

No. As soon as we heard about this product we put defenses against it in our software. The PowerLogix utility does not work in the Sonnet Crescendo G3 L2 product. The more they try to make it work, the more defenses we will put in. We see this product as a potential support nightmare. When introduced, we tested the PowerLogix utility and 1/3 of the time it would set the cache ratio to 3:2 and crash within 10 minutes. All Sonnet upgrades are conservatively built to run well within engineering design specifications for speed, temperature, and power consumption as specified by Motorola, IBM, and SRAM manufacturers. In general, as temperature increases, the top speed of a processor or SRAM decreases. Imagine starting your machine with a cache utility set to run at 200 Mhz (3:2) instead of 150 (2:1), (200 MHz is 33% above rated speed!) and as the machine warms up, your system starts crashing? Or even worse, you lost data integrity before losing system integrity, which means that you do not crash, but your accounting entry, spreadsheet, engineering calculation, disk directory, etc., just gives you a bad result? Would you blame the Power Logix software, or the Sonnet Crescendo G3 or would you fault the Apple Macintosh? Who would you call, a reseller, Apple, Sonnet, or PowerLogix for technical support?

Furthermore, the same arguments apply to speed jumper switches that some manufacturers use. According to the top PowerPC design engineers at IBM, high-end processor speed and cache margins degrades slightly over time. This degradation is limited, well-characterized, and allow for in the speed designation on the PowerPC 750 (G3) processors. A processor or cache pushed above manufacturers' specifications may work today, but may not work reliably in six months--long after the switch setting or utility may be forgotten.

6. I heard that the heatsink may rest on the RAM chips or a 64M DIMM. Is this true and will it affect anything if so?

The Crescendo heatsink may just touch the top of tall RAM chips on older DIMM modules and will not cause any problems. Due to the small profile of the cache slot, Sonnet selected the tallest heatsink that would fit the available space for most efficient heat dissipation and cooler operation.

Hope all this helps.
-Joy]

[I have been reading about Newers 300Mhz cards only running at 250Mhz in a 6500 and I was wondering if your 300Mhz cards do the same? Vimages 320Mhz card runs at 325Mhz in a 6500 for comparison. I have been getting a lot of readers asking this question.

 

Sonnet's Crescendo G3/L2 300MHz cards run at 300MHz in every machine. In 40MHz bus machines they run at 7.5x bus = 300MHz. In 50MHz bus machines they run at 6x bus = 300MHz.

-Joy]

The last question is good news for 6500 owners as the card will be 300Mhz in any system its installed into. Joy did mention that Power Logix's cache utility would not work but I have had readers state it does. Use it with caution though as her arguments are true in that with summer heat coming and usage over time will diminish the tolarance the CPU and cache will have for heat. Also it seems that only the 300Mhz cards use copper and the 240/250 card uses silicon (NOTE: both actually use silicon as silicon is what all CPU's are designed on. Copper is replacing Aluminum which is the standard metal for conductive lines in a chip. Motorola and IBM have made a new process to get copper to adhere to the silicon where only aluminum could before. So when you hear someone mention silicon remember that they are refering to a chip made with aluminum and not copper. I just thought you might like to get some of my semiconductor knowledge :)

MacCPU update review for Sonnets 300Mhz cards: John sent me a link to MacCPU's new review of Sonnets faster cards. they did some temp tests which seem to confirm my opinion that the cool running CPU's are not all because of the heat sink but in fact the copper CPU is really the major reason. Thanks, John.

Sonnets 300/1M G3 and ATI's rage Pro on a 6400!: James sent word that this combo is great for CVGS. thanks for the info James. Click here to read more on CVGS on the 6400.

[Sonnets G3/300, a Xclaim VR Rage Pro and the Virtual Game Station make a great combination. I installed the G3 card, and as advertised, works quite well. No problems at all. All benchmarks I have made agree with your published results. My temps run between 25C and 38C depending on cpu load and air temp.

System Config:
VM on
All extensions on
Speed Doubler on
Ram Doubler off
136 Meg Ram
Maxtor 10.0 Gig Drive
Original CD drive (gotta get that fixed soon)
Sonnet G3/300 1M card
ATI Xclaim VR card, 8 megs of memory and the newest 1.3.3 drivers.
The game station will upgrade the existing ATI files as needed.

Using the game station with two test programs ( Soviet Strike and Star Wars Masters of Teras Kasi) presented almost no problems at all. The sound was broken at first, however a note on the Connectix site stated that the BSR sound feature should be turned off. After turning the BSR sound off, the sound was smooth. I am using a Gravis Firebird stick, and really need to get the game pad. Using the stick for most of the games is for me a little awkward. I must say that it was easy to configure thru the game station options panel. Very straight forward and simple setup.

Color presentation was a little lacking with the ATI VR card. I expect better and crisper color and detail with the new ATI 128 VR card, which should come in next week. However, the color saturation and detail was good with the old VR card and would be acceptable under most applications.

I was present at an Apple Business Presentation in Dallas Texas last month. They demonstrated the Game Station on a blue and white G3, quite impressive. After the presentation, I was able to talk to one of the techs who when asked about the upgrade cards stated, "I would not run Game Station with anything less than 300 MHz. Anything less will be to jerky."

Hope this information is helpful, and as always may God Bless!
DrJIM]

Here's an update he just sent me on a question I asked him. Thanks

[> I will post this. Thank you very much. I knew with a Rage Pro it would be
> acceptable. Was there any wierd graphics at all like random lines printing on
> the screen? I think the Rage Pro's speed keeps this from happening. And the
> tech is probably right about the 300Mhz speed. I don't think anything slower
> is going to play properly. Even having just the 512k cache might slow it too
> much?
>
> Tom

No lines or weird graphics noted with the two games I tried. The tech also agreed with the statement that 512 cache would not work. I checked out the Mac's Only web page, and found a better list of games that had been tested. Most on "real" G3's and iMacs. However there were several upgrade macs, but no 6400's. It is probably safe to assume that the 6400 is the very lowest platform that can support the game station effectively. I will send you an update when the ATI 128 VR card is installed. BTW ATI is posting a rebate of $50.00 to owners of the older cards. The price drops below 200.00 !!!! :-)

Later,
DrJIM]

Another review of Sonnets cards but not so good:( John sent me this link to MacSpeedZones review of Sonnets cards and they found somthing quite disturbing! Thanks for the link John.

[Here's another review of the Sonnet cards I found:

http://www.macspeedzone.com/5.0/upgrades/CrescendoL2.html

This review concerns me a bit - they seemed to have a lot of problems with crashes on bootup with the Sonnet cards, and an update to their review says that Sonnet has confirmed the problem - the update recommends holding off on purchasing these cards.
John]

It seems that Sonnet is aware of a problem were the card may crash during boot and might be connected to having serial devices? I will admit that I had some boot crashes during the 1st boot after the install of each but none after that, and I boot my 6400 a few times each day. Although I don't keep my Epson printer turned on until I need it, I do have a GV modem on all the time. On a side note, I did try loading the Cresendo extension 1st and this caused all sorts of crashes during boot? I don't think their theory of compatibilty with the Geo is correct as mine worked flawlessly once I removed RamDoubler (which is known to cause problems with the Geo modem)

Latest Sonnet Cresendo update: here is a letter I recieved from Sonnet on an update for the Crescendo extension which is supposed to solve a conflict with serial port devices at boot with L2/G3 cards.

[Dear Sonnet Crescendo G3/L2 Reviewer: Please dowload the latest software update to the Crescendo G3/L2 products. It can be found on this web address:
http://www.sonnettech.com/tech/software/default.html#accelerator]

Sonnet announces 400Mhz L2/G3 card: Here is a press release from Sonnet on their new 400Mhz/1M G3 card for 6500's and other based on the same mother board. it states its for the 50Mhz bus systems but I was wondering if it would work on our 6400's? I read at Accelerate Your Mac that the current line of G3 CPU's can only have a 8x bus/CPU ratio which means on a 6400 it would only run at 320Mhz! Quite a differance and not worth it if true! At just under $1000 it will be competition for Newer's soon to be released 400Mhz card.

Letter from a satisfied Sonnet L2/G3 user: Here is a letter Mike sent on his experiences with Sonnets L2/G3 cards. Thanks Mike.

[I resisted as long as I could, but when sonnet released a 300 with that price I had to buy it, especially with all that copper/non-copper talk. My card runs at 23° to 31° never more, even after a couple hours of playing quake. It is awesome, and since the Control Panel upgrade I have had no start-up freezes. My only problem is that in some of my games, quake in particular, the sound is totally trashed. Cracks, pops, stutters it is horrible and only present when the G3 card is active. I noticed more of a speed increase from the 200 to the 240 G3 then from the 240G3 to the 300G3. Yes, I have used both, since Bob over at Maccpu accidently shipped me a 240 G3 first. I have some real world tests that I generated to compare from no card to 240 to 300. If you want I could email my results to you, but the general point will be that my testing follows the following pattern, marginal to fast to faster for all of my test results. The 240 usually ran about 20° hotter then the 300. No other problems, could not imagine using sys 8.5.1 without it. Just today, saw that vimage had some price cuts. I now own the sonnet, but that extra 20 mhz that the vimage card is going to offer for the same price makes me think. Now that I have a taste for some speed, more is good, less is bad. Oh well, 300 is good enough. Mine is the 1meg backside card, do not know how it is better then the 512 meg card. Such an exciting time for us Performa owners, wish someone could figure out how to beef up the on board video memory.
See ya,
Mike Neumann]

Issues with the Sonnet G3 and the Geo modem: By now many of you may have heard about people having issues with their new Sonnet L2/G3 and the internal geo modem. As I stated in my review, my Geo modem does work with both Sonnets and Vimages G3 cards but there might be some combination of things going on in other systems causing it not to work. Until recently most peoples complaints I have read about never stated what exactly was happening and that the 2 just didn't work together. Most of these complaints were from 6500 or TAM users but Jose has emailed to let me know that he has an issue on his 6400's Geo modem with Sonnets G3 card. Thanks for the info Jose. Below is a letter from Jose with a reply from me and then another reply from him.

[Hello Tom,

Yes, I have had to zap the PRAM often. I just installed this G3 upgrade card this past Friday (3/12) evening. The speed increase is astounding. In the past 36 hours, I must have had to do the "zap PRAM-rebuild desktop" combination at least six times.
Actually, I was about to do it again just now before signing on because I had a rough patch of having to do 3 "soft restarts" (Apple-control-power key) due to the MAChine starting up but freezing when it got to my desktop. But I got lazy and just went for it. Bad start-ups could be another little bug rearing its ugly little head. Humph!?!
Regarding the Geoport/Express modem, actually I haven't any real complaints about it since buying the computer. [Although, I might get an even faster web experience with this new G3 upgrade plus a(n) external v.90 56K modem (USB thru USB PCI??). With the upgrade card, websites have almost doubled in loading time!!]
The actual connection problem was a connection warning: "The modem has reported that there is no dial tone." I could hear the modem being initialized but there was no usual dial-out tones. The phone line was double-checked AOK. So the PRAM-rebuild desktop combos began.
I am using AOL 4.0 and OS 8.1. Is there a newer version of Telecom past 3.1.3? I thought I read something about 3.2.x from OS 8.5.1 but that certain functionality had been left out?? What I have now is fully working although there are moments of slight connection grief, but it's manageable.
Once I'm back online, I haven't experienced a crash with the modem (yet, <knocking on wood>).
Thanks for your time.]

<< Version 3.1.3 is the latest to my knowledge. I use AOL 4 also and I get connection problems even with my external 33.6 GV modem so I wonder if your problems and mine are somewhat related to AOL and not the Sonnet G3. Have you tried removing it to see if your connections get better? So its not really crashing but it just doesnt detect a phone line connection, right?

Tom >>

[Hello Tom,
Yes, my modem problem lies in it's inability to detect the phone line connection. But it did crash the next time I logged on after writing you. It froze up somewhere between "connecting to the network" and "checking the password." Next time I'd better knock on my windowsill (LOL).
My connections to AOL have rarely been 28.8K on my 28.8 Geoport. Usually, I get connected at 26.4K , but have been on at a dismal 19.2K. About a year ago, I had some miraculous connections at 32.6K, but, of course, AOL had to change that AOLNet number!
But, the Sonnet G3 card is the latest addition to my system and that's when all the troubles began: connecting to AOL , starting up the computer, and doing the PRAM- rebuild desktop combo. I have "reseated" the Sonnet card as suggested in their brief troubleshooting guide, but the problems persist. I have also written to Sonnet support, but they have yet to get back to me.
You have a great site. I read about the 6400 to 6500 motherboard upgrade and am wondering if there's anyway of just swapping VRAM. I would love to have even just thousands of colors (let alone millions) at 832 x 624 with my 6400!!
Maybe my modem problems will fade if I eventually pick up a PCI-USB card (Entrega's 4 USB port upgrade) and Best Data's SmartOne 56K v.90 USB modem. Thankfully, the Mac catalogs supply whatever CompUSA continuously fails to stock & deliver.

Well, take care. I've passed along your website to several others who could benefit from the info you've gathered.

Jose Nacario]

Another letter on a Geo modem issue with Sonnts G3: Ralph replyed to a message of mine giving me some info on what is happening to him. Thanks Ralph.

[Mr Koons,
Just read your response to my post yesterday about Geo/Crescendo incompatibilities.
Glad to hear Im not the only one having trouble! I think you may be rightr in saying that its a 50 MHz bus problem. For a short time, i was actually able to connect with my Crescendo and geoport, but would soon get a bus error. Then eventually I was not able to connect at all. This is a little strange in itself and I have not been able to figure why it would work (very poorly), then stop working. This is a typical symptom of user error I know, but I retraced my steps very thoroughly and was still unable to get the Crescendo to work with the geo.
BTW, on one of the Apple tech pages (search under 'G3' and 'Geoport/Express'), Apple states that they will not support Geoport for their own G3 models. There was no explanation on the site, but I wonder if they ran into similar problems and decided to pitch the geoport idea altogether.

Incidentally, I thought your review was great, I've been struggling with this geoport thing a while now and just wanted to let people know.

Keep me posted on any developments, and let me know if I and/or my system can be of any help.
Cheers!
Ralph]

Issues with Sonnets L2/G3 in general: To date the only complaints I'm getting are either startup crashes or issues with the Geo modem. Sonnet had released an update to their Crescendo extension to fix the startup crash and this may also fix issues with the Geo modem? If you are experiencing either of these issue, it has been found that if you rename the extension with a "Z" or "~" to get it to boot towards the end of the extensions that these problems will be drastically reduced. I have started getting some startup crashes with the 1.3.4 update of their extension that I was not having during the review with v1.3.2 but adding the "Z" to the front of the name has fixed this problem for me. Please let me know if you are having any issues with your Sonnet L2/G2 card so I can find out if there are any more problems.

Letter from MacCPU on why they say the Geo will not work with Sonnets G3's: I just received this today and thought you all might be interested in it. It sems that MacCPU may not have had much issues with the Geo modem themselves but just read about many issues mostly with TAM's and decided to be safe and say the Geo doesn't work with any G3 upgrade! Although I respect there reasoning for probably not wanting to deal with people wanting refunds, but it does seem to give a the wrong impression.

[Tom - Because we (at MacCPU) have never shipped an upgrade to a Geoport person the problems were ones we *read about,* mainly on the TAM page and with TAM people. And it was a freezing/crashing problem. We really didn't give it a second thought because we know how picky the Geoport has always been.

I wish you had a TAM to do tests on.
-Barb :)]

More Sonnet/Geo issues arising: I have recieved a few more letters from Sonnet G3 users stating that they are having problems with their Geo modems. Please let me know if you're having issues and which version Crescendo extension you have. I have found a few things you can try to help stablize your system. Add a Z to the front of the crescendo extension (zCrescnedo) to make it load later. Also make sure you have Apple Telecom 3.1.3 as its the newest version for the Geo modem. Another thing to try is to re-rebuild the desktop as the Crescendo installer forces a rebuild but this rebuild does not always perfrom correctly and leaves some generic icons. This may cause problems with other Apps in the future.

This one is from Accelerate Your Mac

[Dana sent an update to his 6500/Sonnet G3 Upgrade conflict problem: " Conflicts with three ATI extensions that had to be disabled by Conflict Catcher - I was experiencing freezes on start up and other wierd behavior. Also, I can no longer print to my Epson Stylus Color 600 [He later replied with a solution] With regards to my Sonnet 300/150/1 MB installed in my Pmac 6500, I've decided to keep the card. The latest version of the software (1.3.4) caused episodic crashing when performing functions using the menu bar. I've reverted to the prior version of the software, renamed it Zcrescendo to load last, and turned off background printing. My printer now works, and I don't experience start-up crashes any longer. "]

I actually found the 1.3.4 extension to cause more startup crashes on my 6400 too and went back to the 1.3.2 version with the Z on the front and it has worked for a week with no startup crashes so far. The Geo is still running strong to. "knock on wood" :)

More info on Sonnet/Geo issues: From the emails I have gotten about this issue, it seems that OS 8.1 may be the problem? Most people that wrote me had OS 8.1 running. They did have Telecom 3.1.3 too which is good. Also one person said reverting to the older 1.3.2 version of the Crescendo extension helped until he ran Remote Access. So if any of you are having this issue I will gladly send out the earlier 1.3.2 version of the extension. I will have it named zCrescendo which seems to help out also. I wrote Sonnet with this info and we'll see what happens. I was told by Sonnet that the 1.3.4 version was mainly to fix a serial port issue on TAM systems.

Laserwriter issues with Sonnets G3?: I found this on Apples 6400 forums. Tom is having printing trouble with a Laserwriter 300 unless VM is turned on. Has anyone else had this problem?

[This information might save you some time. If you upgrade your Performa 6400 with a Sonnet G3 L2 card and experience problems using your printer, make certain that Virtual Memory is turned on. I just spent about two weeks troubleshooting a printing problem with my 6400 and a Laserwriter 300. Turns out that when VM was disabled, the LW 300 would print the entire document on the top half of the paper. Turning on VM elimanated the problem.

I want to say that Barb Moriarity of MacCPU was very helpful and patient with me during this adventure. It is rare to run across good, service-oriented companies these days and MacCPU has been a real pleasure to deal with every step of the way. I highly recommend them.
Tom Seay]

Some opinions of mine on the L2/G3 upgrades: For awhile now I have been wondering why Vimage does a double boot and Sonnet does not? I think I might know but not 100% positive. Vimage's card is very stable as long as it gets past the second boot. The problem here seems to be the ability of your graphics card to re-sync fast enough on the second boot for the CPU to recognize it. I had run some tests by making Vimage's extension load before Speed doubler by putting a space before the V and found that on a few occasions my monitor on the ATI card would remain black on the second boot but the computer keeps booting. This has been the most common problem with Vimage's cards with third party PCI video cards. Maybe if Vimage could give more wait time in the middle of the boots that video cards could sync faster and work. Now Sonnet appears to be 100% compatible with all video cards and it doesn't double boot. BUT it is having stability problems during boot. People are finding that it will crash sometimes right at the extension or a few extensions past it or just before the finder loads. And then some Geo modem owners report instability and crashes using the modem. I feel that Vimage programmed in the double boot to make it more stable when running but a side affect was incompatibility with video cards and Sonnet does one boot to work with video cards but paid the price with stability!

I gave this info to Vimage and they are going to look into it. I am going to see if there is some way to make the Vpower extension load a little later which might give more time for the monitor to sync? As for the Sonnet card I have found that making the extension load later helps stability but I am still getting a boot crash at the finder every now and then. I think the Apple Menu Options pref file is getting corrupted because trashing it helped my startup crashes so toss it out if you have this problem. I also just moved the Crescendo extension to the control panels folder and made it load at the very end. This way every startup driver is launched before the G3 kicks on and hopefully this will stop the crashes?

On a side note with Apple Menu Options. I was having shutdown freezes for a day until I did the remove extensions until you find the problem one and found removing the Apple Menu Options control panel allowed my computer to shutdown fine. I trashed the prefs and then everything was fine. Maybe the Sonnet G3 is somehow corrupting this control panels pref files which is causing all these other problems?

Sonnet updates Crescendo extension but didn't post it: I received word from a Sonnet G3 user that he got version 1.3.5 of the Crescendo extension. I checked Sonnets web site and they still have 1.3.4 posted. I emailed to find out what changed and here is their reply.

[Reply to: Re: *** SONNET CRESCENDO SOFTWARE UPDATE ***
Hi Tom,

Talked to our software engineer. The only difference between v1.3.4 and v1.3.5 is that it enables support for a part that was back ordered and is now shipping. No updates, potential bug fixes, or enhancements have been added to v1.3.5.

Regards,
Mike]

Another possible reason for why Sonnets cards are unstable?: Jordan writes to let us know that his 6400 with Sonnets 300/1M card does not crash during boot but will crash some time later after use. He thinks its possible that the Heatsink is overheating the RAM chips they sit next too. The heatsink does touch large RAM chips like 64M DIMMS so this may be possible? Thanks Jordan.

[Tom,

I have been getting random crashes with the Sonnet card again. It never happens at start-up but whenever its running. My screensaver was on and when I moved the mouse, it froze! It started freezing agin in Netscape too. I never had this problem with the Vimage card. Come to think of it I never had a random crash with the Vimage card at all. I think I might know why there are so many crashes. Yesterday, I removed the Sonnet card right after I shutdown. Boy was the heatsink hot! Although the CPU is running cooler, I think the heatsink is so close to the ram chips that the ram chips are getting too hot. I have (2) 64 dimms installed and although the heatsink is not touching the ram chips it's about 1 to 2 mm away. I noticed with my graphics card installed, the internal fan doesn't blow that much wind over the CPU and ram chips. I think the ram chips are getting too hot for them to run properly and thus causing crashes. Of course, I have no real evidence to back this up, just speculation.
Jordan]

And still more stability fixes: Mike says that his issues with Sonnets card was resolved by removing the AppleVision extenion (the one at the end of the list with a degree symbol in front). This extension is supposed to only be needed for Apple Vision monitors, ColorSync monitors, or flat panel monitors. It gives more settings options like geometry settings. Try removing it if your having issues and don't have one of these types of moniors. Thanks Mike.

Sonnet reply to question on Mac OS X compatibility: Philip email Sonnet and asked if their G3 upgrade cards would work with Apples newest OS, OS X and here is Sonnets reply. Thanks Philip

[Reply to: RE: G3 Cards and OSX
We are currently testing our cards with the OS X server. Right now it's a very convoluted process to get things to work, but we're working on it. Please include ALL previous emails. I will be able to help you more effectively. Thank you,
Christy
Sonnet Technical Support
support@sonnettech.com]

I don't quite understand if they mean it will work but will be difficult for us to figure it out or their having difficuties getting it to work at all? At least their testing :)

Flash: Sonnet has a beta driver released v1.3.6b2 for their L2 G3 cards to make them OS 8.6 compatible. Donato just informed me that its posted on their site and I downloaded it and will see how it works! Its about time :)

Update - Sonnets OS 8.6 driver is out!: Sonnet just posted the final 1.3.6 version on there web site. Go and get it :)

Sonnet crashes to much for me now!: Since updating to OS 8.6 I have had many boot crashes with Sonnets card that I cannot stand it any more! In just the past few days it took 2-3 boots before it made it all the way each time I wanted to use the computer. I had it so I removed Sonnets card and put in Vimges G3 and placed Sonnets card in my backup 6400. So far no crashes with Vimages :) Sonet really needs to find out why their card is so unstable or they are going to loose new customers.

Possible Solution to the boot crashing with Sonnets G3: I posted a letter from Anton on my previous update where he had mentioned that turning off Speculative Address may cure the crashes? But he could not find a way to have Power Logix's G3 cache profiler (this is the utility that can deactivate it) boot before the Crescendo extension to be effective. Well I found away and it seems more stable now. Click here to read how I did it.

UPDATE: It is still crashing but no where near as much as it used to. I run OS 8.5 and 8.6 on the same computer and when I switch OS's is when it seems to crash now. After another boot it gets stable again.

Speculative Addressing issue with Sonnets G3 cards update: Joey of www.joecard.com has made a little extension named Rom Fixer that will disable Speculative Addressing like how Power Logix's G3 Cache Profiler does. The main difference is that his extension needs no control panel but you can't turn on Dynamic Power Managment like with the G3 cache control. You still need to due the hack to the Crescendo extension that I posted before to get Joey's fix to work also. Thanks Joey.

[Dear Tom,
again it´s me. I´ve created a little thing of software which is used with my g3 cards for TNT/NITRO/Tsunami and the one for Tanzanias to disable the speculative adressing. It worked well with Sonnet and Vimage cards. You can post it on your web site. Maybe it solves some of the stability problems lots of users claim.
Yours
Joey]

I have checked the Vimage card and they already turned off Speculative Addressing so only Sonnets cards need it. I tried his Rom Fixer with the hack to the Crescendo extension and it does disable the Speculative Addressing and booted fine.

Letter from a Sonnet user that tried the Power Logix trick: Mark sends word that the Hack worked for his 5400 stability issues with Sonnets G3 as well. Thanks for the info Mark.

[Tom,
Yes mine's the same now.
It has had occasional boot crashes at start up in other apps as you describe below, It now does not crash during normal use (yet!), my 5400 in its unaccelerated condition didn't achieve this, a very big advantage for the Sonnet Card/Power Logix patch/OS 8.6.

I have an extra 64M of RAM on the way (up to 108 M) so I will see it that increases stability and speed further after I turn Virtual Memory off.

Keep up the good work and go to bed its 11.20 am in the UK, it must be late in the US!
Mark]

UPDATE on the Crescendo hack: Carl emailed to give me info on his tests with my Crescendo extension hack to fix Sonnets G3. Thanks Carl.

[Thanks Tom, once again your page has provided the support found nowhere else. I used the Crescendo hack and the Powerlogix control panel.......along with the font fix extension, and everything purrrs along perfectly with 8.6.
I did start-up the next day, and my screen went black right at the point where the first extension (newly hacked Crescendo) loads. I restarted with extensions off, looked in the Prefs folder and scrapped the only 4 itmes with the time of crash. I trashed them, and now it works fine. One of them was the new OS preferences file. This has been the cause of a couple of infrequent problems. Maybe the Appearance manager has a "bug to be identified".

Regards,
Carl]

He later emailed me the names of the pref files he had to trash.

[The 4 pref files were: Date & Time, Control Strip,Sound,MacOS......I always make a habit of dumping TSM and ASLM pref files too, but I didn't to solve the blaclout problem on startup.

I missed one. It crashed again on startup, and I also dumped File Exchange prefs. Then it works fine. SO it has something to do with one of those 5.]

I checked all of these and they all are of type "APPC". On my Hack info page I tell you to make the Crescendo extension type "scri" to get it to load before the other extensions. I wonder if "APPC" even loads before "scri"? I will try and see what happens.

UPDATE: I just tried it and changing the type to "APPC" did not make them load early. I suppose those few items load early or have their pref files changed early for some other reason? Maybe they were just corrupted from past use?

Reply from Sonnet on Hack: Anton wrote Sonnet on the topics the Hack fixes and here is their reply. It seems they don't think these are a problem. Tell that to me and the others that get more stable systems with the Hack. Thanks Anton. I will email Joey and see what he thinks too.

[Tom,
I just read your page about the patches for the speculative access and want to relay a reply I got from a Sonnet technician. I was out of town for the last two weeks and have not had time to try your patch, but it sounds to me that it might still be wortwile to do, despite Sonnet's claim. Maybe the collective user experience will show Sonnet that this might be beneficial. Also Joey of www.joecard.com might have the technical expertise to judge whether Sonnet is right or not.
Anton

------begin included message----
>Anton R. Schep,
> To address your first question, Speculative Adressing is left enabled to allow protection >for I/O addressing. As for D(ynamic)P(ower)M(anagement), it is left is it's state to maximize the
>performance of the processor. At this point, Sonnet has no plans on modifying these 2 features.

>Mike J. Wong
>Hardware/Software QA Analyst
>Sonnet Technologies, Inc.]

A real problem found with Sonnets G3: Most of us have been having the startup crashes or random freezes with Sonnets G3 but now it seems there is a repeatable problem with Sonnets cards and some sound apps. Peter wrote to Sonnet with some issues he was having and Sonnet told him to return the card as they are aware of these issues! I wonder when they were going to tell us? Thanks Peter. Peter would like to hear from anyone else who is having similar issues and so would I. Thanks

[Hi Tom.....
You will be very interested in this letter I eventually received from Sonnet. There IS after all a major issue with these cards. Why they have taken this long to admit it is a mystery... but at least they have admitted it!!! Feel free to post this on your fabulous site.
Peter
------------------------------------------
Letter from Sonnet....

Reply to: RE: Problem with Crescendo G3/L2 300Mhz/1Mb on a 6400/200.
Peter,
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but it seems to be time to get a G3. We have been receiving emails and calls from customers with sound problem, especially with Cubase. Our engineers are aware of the problem, and I will forward your letter to them to add to my proof that Cubase isn't working with the G3 processors.


I am sorry that I can't help you on this one, but our G3 cards are not compatible with Cubase. Please return your card to the reseller you purchased it from, and get a refund. If you purchased the card directly from Sonnet, please send your invoice number in your reply email and I will issue an return authorization number.
------------------------------------
On 7/6/99, Peter and Tracey wrote:
Problem with Crescendo G3/L2 300Mhz/1Mb on a 6400/200.Hi... I purchased your Crescendo G3/L2 300Mhz/1Mb a little while ago and have had persistent problems when running certain applications. Booting is 100% ok. Speed and general operation is 100% ok. Generally freeze free and stable (and temperature nice and cool too @ 23-31 c'grade).


Pretty good so far :)
However..... now the boring stuff... :( I use the computer for music and media ( I know it's not the best.. but v. tight budget)


When running Quicktime movies sporadic stuttering (and yup my discs are not fragmented and my scsi terminations are ok).


When running audio/midi sequencer applications such as Cubase VST (www.steinberg.net) , which is my main app (and the reason I bought your card to get faster performence) the audio processing part of the app. is unusable. When running audio into the recording/DSP side of the app , the audio always freezes into a 'stuck cd ' style loop after a few seconds.


The actual DSP part of the program seems to be operating smoothly and there seems to be no strain on the G3 processor. The 'freezing is happening around the ASIO part. I have tried to use both the Apple Sound Manager and the 'low


level' DAV driver but the results are the same. It feels like a timing issue of some sort. It's so frustrating as everything else about your card is great !!!!


Are other users having this problem? Any tips? Am I doomed to having to buy a new mac?


I have tried other similar applications (e.g. StudioVision Pro from www.opcode.com) and they seem to do the exactly the same thing too so it's not just 'cubase'.


I have tried working on a 'bare-bones' system folder and also removing the 'Mac Picasso' video card but the problems still remain.


Also if I remove your Crescendo card (or disable your extension Ver 1.36) the problem goes away completely.


I really really look forward to hearing from you......
(and I hope this mail made sense)
Best Wishes
Peter]

Sonnet releases 10x G3 upgrades: Here is a press release from Sonnet on their new line of G3's that utilize a 10x Bus to CPU ratio. This allows a 40Mhz system to run a 400Mhz CPU! right now its only for PCI and Nubus Macs but hopefully they will make a L2/G3 like this for us :)

Sonnets Crescendo v1.3.7 update: So far this extension is working great on my 6400. I am very pleased with it. I haven't had one boot crash I can relate to this extension. I did have one or two but I was trying to install OS X so I don't think I can blame the G3 for those. Now that I have your attention, I'll have more on OS X in a bit. Its not good news so far though :(

8/7/1999 Issues with Sonnets G3's and Ram Doubler?: Boy it just doesn't stop with Sonnet! I got this info from MacFixIt. The G3's they are refering to are for PCI versions and not L2 G3's but maybe this info will help some of you.

[Doublers and G3 upgrades In reply to my posting regarding a keyboard input problem linked to RAM Doubler on my G3-upgraded Power Mac 7500, Neal McAuley (of Sonnet Technologies) said that Sonnet was aware of a problem (the exact symptoms were not described) with both RAM Doubler and Speed Doubler on G3-upgraded Macs. They found that reinstalling the Doubler software after installing the G3 upgrade fixes the glitch.]

9/17/1999 Sonnet announces 500Mhz L2 G3!: Looks like the G3 vendors are really going to use the new 10x CPUs for us too. Power Logix first announced the 400Mhz G3 for the 6400 and now Sonnet announces the first 500Mhz G3 for the 6500. The price is high considering a new G4 is only $600 more but for those that want a really fast 6500, now is your chance. It will most likely only run at 400Mhz in the 6400 due to our slower bus speed so I wouldn't consider it to 6400 owners.

[Crescendo G3/L2
Sonnet's breakthrough 500 MHz cards reach out to 20th Anniversary Macintosh owners as well. The 500 Mhz card, which also works in the Power Mac 5500 and 6500, expands Sonnet's offerings which previously ranged from 250 to 400 MHz for these machines.

Pricing
Encore G3 500/1MB for G3 Power Macs $899.95
Crescendo G3/PCI 500/1MB for PCI Power Macs $999.95
Crescendo G3/L2 500/1M for "Upgrade-challenged" Macs $999.95]

10/14/1999 Sonnet G3 upgrade and OS 9 compatibility: Justin writes that he tested a beta version of OS 9 with his Sonnnet G3 and they worked. Thanks Justin.

[Just wanted to let you know that Sonnet's G3/L2 240/512 is compatible with OS9. I've a 6400/180 using 9b5c3 with Crescendo v1.3.7 and have had no problems so far.
Thanks!
Justin]

Here is a letter from Robert with a reply from Sonnet on this matter.

[I emailed Sonnet whether their card would work with OS 9. They said:
>
> > Robert,
> >
> > We'll be compatible after OS 9 is released, I'm sure. A good idea would be not to upgrade
> > your OS until you know the processor you have is also compatible. This way you won't lose
> > any performance while you wait.
> > Christy
> > Sonnet Technical Support
> > support@sonnettech.com
>
So, they're taking a reactionary approach to the whole thing, which I suppose is okay, but don't you think they'd be able to get their hands on a developer release and make sure their product works *before* OS 9 is released?
Oh well ... just thought that could help. :)
Have a good one!
Robert ]

I'm not sure why the G3 vendors don't get a copy of OS 9 before it ships but this happened with OS 8.6 also and we all had to wait until upgraded drivers came out. So far it looks like at least Sonnets will run and I hope they all will when the final version of OS 9 ships.

10/24/1999 Sonnet and OS 9: They just sent out a press release stating all of their current G3 product line is OS 9 compatible. This is great news. No more worrying for Sonnet users :) If you have the current 1.3.7 version of the Crecsendo driver your fine.

Possible fix for Sonnet boot crashes?: Kanji snet me some info on a possible fix for Sonnets boot crashing? It is from an extension called ROAM which loads your ROM into RAM like the new iMacs and G3/4's. Let me know if you try it and it works. Thanks Kanji.

[Hi Tom.
Thanks for your hard work. It really helps me. Now about the boot freeze of Sonne Crescendo G3, few people reported they have the solution. They said that since they have installed the soft called ROAM, they never experienced the boot freeze. ROAM is the app which makes rom in ram. You can get it from here.

http://www.stg.com/employees/sbytnar/projects/rom_accelerator.html

I myself wanted to try it. However it says it won't work with OS8.1 so I have to give it up. Duh.
Kanji]

11/4/1999 Update on using ROAM to alleviate Sonnets boot crashing: Bill writes that he has been using ROAM for awhile and it did cure his boot crashes. Thanks Bill. Click here to read more on ROAM.

[Just to confirm some info I saw on your site. I have used ROAM since it started and am a beta tester. It does solve the boot hang with sonnet g3 cards from what i can see. It doesn't always work when the sonnet ext. load first. It works best if the ROAM init loads before the sonnet init.

Also I preordered the final odf OS 9 from OutPost.com so i recvd it on saturday the 23(the release date). My sonnet l2 g3 card works great. As someone commented on your site my computer is running tha fastest it ever has. Running smoothly too. Almost never crashes.
Bill]

12/10/1999 Fixing a hot Sonnet G3 with a screw driver: Fred send word that his heatsink was not on all the way which doubled his CPU temp readings! Thanks for the info Fred.

[Hi Tom
First of all, thank you VERY much for your site which really helped me to upgrade my 5400/160 with a sonnet G3/300 512k cache card. Now, it1s up to me to give some tips that may help somebody.


+ High temperature
The first time I ran Metronome, the reported temperature was about 65 °C. Hot ! A close view to the card showed me that the (nice purple) heatsink was not tightened enough. There was a space between the heatsink and the G3 chip! I screwed the heatsink so as it touched the G3 chip. Now the average temperature is 39 °C. No fan needed, just a screwdriver !

+corrupted pref file
I had some random crashes, especially when using my stock geomodem (ok, I know Apple claims it is not compatible with G3). I trashed the 3Mac Os preferences2 file, and now everything1s fine.
BTW,this evening I applied the sonnet clocker patch. Everything seems to be ok. Mac bench reports a 5% gain. Quite normal when changing from 300 Mhz to 320 Mhz.
Thanks again for your very helpful site.
Fred]

12/17/1999 Sonnet beta Crescendo 1.4.1b1 driver: Bill was the first to let me know that Sonnet has posted a beta version of the Crescendo driver for greater OS 9 compatibility with Nubus systems and fixes for the startup crashes the L2 G3 systems have! Thanks Bill. Click here to download it and please let me know if they disabled Speculative Addressing?

Several people have written to let me know that it seems to have fixed the startup crash but one person was still getting bad stability in sound apps. Sigh :( Its too soon to tell if the startup crash is really fixed but so far so good. Here is a sample of the emails I got. Thanks.

[Well... since I got the extension the following happened:
4 crashes in SNES9X (just like before!)
2 crashes in the SoundJam MP Demo (once with a visual plug-in the other seemingly for no reason at all--MP3's courtesy of MP3.com!)
1 crash while Internet Explorer 4.5 was loading
At least it doesn't crash at startup (yet).
DH]

[Tom,
Yes I've tried Sonnets beta extension 1.4.1b1 and since I have installed it I haven't had any startup freezes. (keeping fingers crossed) I do have the extension starting first and am also running PowerLogix G3/G4 profiler ,to disable Speculative Access, and ROAM. This combo worked well before the update but I still had crashes on startup. (albeit far fewer than originally when I couldn't make it to the finder at all).
I'm going to ask sonnet if they plan to disable Speculative Access in this version of their extension so I can ditch G3/G4 Profiler.
Mano]

Also I hear the Sonnet Clocker still works so Sonnet hasn't made to drastic of a change.

1/8/2000 Sonnet revs 400Mhz card: Here is a letter I found on Accelerate Your Macs web site. It states that Sonnet has found a problem with their 400Mhz cards and is replacing them. If you have one I suggest you give Sonnet a call.

[Sonnet G3/400 Cards - New Revision? A reader reports there is a hardware design change in the latest Sonnet G3/400 cards.

"Mike- I'm writing in regard to one of the latest posts about a 6500 user with a Voodoo 3 card and a Sonnet 400MHz G3 upgrade...

I've been in contact with Sonnet tech support, and they've told me that they did find some issues with earlier 400's and were sending out replacement boards with some adjustments in the hardware, so perhaps the individual who sent you that report got one of the new boards.

I myself am about to purchase one of these new 400's from MacGurus (30 day money back guarantee) to test out in my 6500 with a Voodoo 3 card... I'll let you know how it goes..."]

I later found a comment from the same reader which says it did not fix the issue with his Voodoo3 card not working though :(

Sonnet released the final 1.4.1 Crescendo driver: Over the holiday Sonnet posted the final 1.4.1 version of their Crescendo G3 driver. As before, let me know how it runs.

Here is a letter from a Sonnet user that also says the Sonnet Clocker still works with it. Thanks. He also says that Speculative Addressing is still on? Oh well :(

[Hi Tom,
I was out of town for the holidays and did not have a chance to try the newest clocker for the Sonnet L2 card until yesterday. I tried it on the newest Crescendo extension (posted on Dec 27 and no longer a beta version). I am happy to report that the clocker now works for the 240/250 Mhz card. I put it up to 260 for the moment and want to see first how stable it is at that speed. Both Norton and Macbench give a corresponding increase in cpu/fpu performance. The new extension seems also better at preventing the boot crashes. I have not had any since I installed it, but only time will tell whether they are really gone.
The installer of the extension has now a "G3 install only" option, which I used. It still checks for the built-in ethernet extension on systems with OS 8.1. and below. Why I do not know. Also, contrary to their repeated claims, speculative addressing is still enabled.]

1/29/2000 Sonnet 400Mhz L2 G3 for the 6400!: I was surfing through Sonnets web site the other day and noticed a few discrepencies with their ads. Here is a letter I wrote to them and check out the great reply!

[Thomas Koons wrote:
Hello. I was interested in the L2/G3 for the 6400 and found some discrepincies
in your ads. For part number BG3-400-1M you have it listed as only for
5500/6500 under the product info heading but in the product pricing area it
says it will work on the 6400 as well?

Will it run at 400Mhz on the 6400?

Thanks, Tom

Reply to: RE: Sonnet 400Mhz card on a 6400
Tom,
It will now. We have started using the IBM PPC755 chip which can handle a 10X bus multiplier so that you get the full 400Mhz out of your 6400. Previously you were limited to the 8X multiplier and a max speed of 320Mhz. We should have more of these in stock next week. Any BG3-400s you find on the market are probably the old ones so I'd wait until next week and order directly from us until we can re-supply our resellers with the new revision of card.

Neal McAuley
End User Account Executive
Sonnet Technologies
(800) 786-6260 Ext. 46]

Is this great news or what! Finally a 400Mhz card for the 6400. Newer had announced one but cancelled production but now Sonnet has it. One thing I do wonder is that the 500Mhz card for the 6500 and the 400Mhz card for the 6400 should have the same CPU with 10X bus ratio so would a 400Mhz card run 500Mhz in a 6500? Would save some money :) Maybe the Sonnet Clocker app could make it work? If anyone tries please let me know.

Newer Guage Pro issue with Sonnet L2 G3's and info on Newers G3: Ric sent me some info concerning Newers new Guage Pro utility when used to see info on Sonnets L2 G3. He got a very interesting reply. Thanks Ric.

[> I tried GaugePro on my G3 upgraded Performa 6400, but was disappointed as
> it doesn't report the correct processor and cache info (see the
> screenshot showing Gauge Pro, Sonnet's Metronome and PowerLogix Cache
> profiler).
>
> I have a Sonnet Crescendo L2 G3 (300MHz/1Mo backside 150 MHz, software
> overclocked to 320/213MHz).
>
> I hope a future release will correct that, as you sell a similar L2 G3
> card (does that one report correctly ?) and I find GaugePro neat, as all
> your software -- smaller (!!!) and more informative than others.
> VRic
>----------
Thank you for your e-mail.
I noticed this problem after v1.0 was released. The problem does not happen with our cards, and will only happen on upgrades that switch processors at extension time, when the driver software doesn't update all areas of the OS. Some of the Sonnet cards are examples of this.


I have already made a minor change in the Gauge PRO code to fix this, by using a second method of checking the CPU type. This change will be in the next released version.


Thanks again for your e-mail, and too bad you didn't choose the Newer card. ;-)
Ben Mickaelian
Software Engineer
Newer Technology, Inc.]

If you notice the highlighted area I made you will see that Newer mentions that some L2 G3's switch CPU's (from stock to G3) when a driver is loaded in the extension folder. From this I get that Newers does not switch CPU's and must boot directly to the G3 from the beginning? I reported some time ago that another company named www.joecard.com was working on a L2 G3 that did just this but they stopped work on it. Well it seems Newer has done it and this must be why their L2 G3 is most compatible with video cards and sound apps. Vimage attempted this by doing the soft reboot once the extension was reached to try and get all the extensions to see a G3 CPU but video some video cards did not like this softboot.

Here is another letter I found on MacFixIt's site that further confirms that Sonnets L2 G3 does not update all parts of the 6400 when it boots to let it know it has a G3 instead of a 603e CPU. I also noticed this when I tried Linux on my 6400. The CPU info in Linux reported a 603e CPU with a 300Mhz speed.

[ "I have a 6500/250 upgraded with a Sonnet G3 L2 300MHz/ 512 L2 cache and when I ran the new Gauge PRO it displayed my cpu as the original 603ev in the 6500 and not the PowerPC 750 on the upgrade card, although it gave my cpu speed as 300MHz not the original 250MHz of the 603ev. It also gave 'unknown' under the L2 cache area." [Phil Macomber]]

2/18/2000 Confirmation that tightening the heatsink on the Sonnet G3 makes it cooler: I had been told by a previous reader that Sonnets heatsink on their G3's are not as snug as they could be which causes the temps to be hotter then they should be. Well, Greg just wrote to let me know that he found the same thing. Thanks Greg. Lets all go snug up our heatsinks :)

[Hi
The machine is running fine. I have had a couple of freeze ups but that was due to memory problems in the games, not with the sonnet card. With only 72 megs of ram I do have to run Virtual memory to run those big games.
But I have had no problems running quake 1,2,3 , unreal, star wars racer(with 3dfx patch), tomb raider etc.
The voodoo 2 card really does a good job, now that it has a G3 behind it. I also checked the sonnet card today just to take a look. I think I got the idea from another reader. I tightened up the screws just a little on the heat sink. I then ran the machine to check the temperature and it had dropped quit a bit.
My usual temp was around 47C-55C running games, lowest was 41 C. After doing this temp reading was 29 C on start and ran at 37C-43C, reaching a high of 51 C only after hours of computer work and play. Temp would go down to 41C-43C. Tightening up those screw just a little seems to make better contact on the heat sink. Don't over tighten, just snug them up. If anyone out there has a heat problem check the heat sink and just give a little turn, it might help.
Greg]

Sonnet L2 G3 CPU temps: I received this email yesturday from a reader who asked Sonnet what is the range of temps we should expect from their G3 upgrades. Thanks

[From sonnet tech support: The processors have been tested at temperatures up to 105 degrees C. They usually run between 30 - 65 degrees and occasionally at temperatures of 75-85 degrees with no problems at all.]

I believe the 30 - 65 degree range is for the copper G3's and the 75 - 85 degrees is for the non-copper G3's. These corrospond to what everyone has been reporting.

3/11/2000 Sonnet L2 G3 400Mhz card user letter: Steve sent me this letter just to say that is is well with his new upgrade :) Thanks Steve. To answer his question on getting max performance I would say that no CPU upgrade on any computer (Mac or PC) can get the full benefit unless it also has the newer sub systems structure from the systems they were designed to run on originally. That said you still get a great bang for the buck with a CPU upgrade :)

[ Hi Tom,
Just wanted to thank you again for the great 6400 zone site! I've been a reader for a while now and decided to jump in and buy sonnet's g3/400 card for my 6400/180. It works great! No flaws so far! I also installed 3dfx's voodoo3-2000 card and it works just fine with the card. I do wonder if I am getting max performance from the card or if this is a bit of overkill. Anyway, just thought I 'd let you know.
take care,
steve]

The G3 400 and the Voodoo3 would feel much faster on a 100Mhz mother board such as the B&W G3 but these on a 6400 gives you the fastest 6400 on the block!

4/8/2000 New Sonnet L2 G3 temps?: I have had several people write asking me about the temps of their Sonnet L2 G3's. They are reporting higher temps then I posted in my reviews. Two things can be going on here. I heard the new heatsink is smaller so it no longer touches the nearest RAM chips. This will increase heat. Also Sonnet told me awhile back that they might use non-copper G3 CPU's if their heatsink could handle it. This to would explain higher temps. But to set you all at ease, I wouldn't worry unless the temp readings were over 100C degrees as they were built to withstand very high temps. Even higher then 100C but I don't know of any running this hot except for maybe in a PowerBook?

4/14/2000 Sonnet releases Crescendo 1.4.3: I just noticed on Sonnets web site that they now have the Crescendo 1.4.3 installer posted! If you install it please let me know how it goes. Thanks.

9/22/2000 Sonnet 1.4.5 Crescendo updater: I don't know if any of you are aware but Sonnet has updated their G3 driver to 1.4.5. The description of what was changed is below. Mostly sounds like added features for the new 7200 G3 but maybe some other mods where made? Please let me know if it has changed anything for you. Thanks