The 6400 Zone is created to help you gain access to useful software updates and great shareware programs that add functionality to your system. It is also a one stop road map to other informative sites for answering your questions. Most of the info here is geared towards the 6400, but it is useful for all PCI Performa models and even the 6500 and all-in-one Macs based on the same. It's even useful to other MAC systems. I will be referring to my 6400/200 clocked to 220Mhz as just 6400/220, OK.

I will keep it updated as often as I can but I don't have much free time to work on it, so I suggest you check back at least once a week. That should be sufficient. If you don't see something you would like to see here or have your own software / web site that would benefit the MAC community, please write to me at TMK12v@aol.com and I will check it out.

Crescendo 1.4.2 installer: Thanks to many of my readers I now have the Crescendo 1.4.2 installer for their L2 G3's. Tiong wrote to Sonnet on what was changed with the 1.4.2 driver and here is their reply.

[1.4.2 is not posted because there is no change in the extension's code, just in the way the installer works.
Christy
Sonnet Technical Support]

It seems all they changed was the installer? I guess they felt this was not worthy of posting? I don't know exactly what they changed but they did it for a reason so I'm posting it for all of you :)

Audio cable for a Pioneer 32x SCSI CDRom: Bill just purchased a Pioneer SCSI CDRom to replace the stock 6400 CDRom but the 6400's audio adaptor will not work? I remember someone sending me info on how to modify the audio cable to allow it to fit non-standard Apple CDRom's but I cannot find this info anymore? If you have info on how to do this could you please email me. Thanks.

[Tom:
First off- Thanks for a great site with a wealth of info on the 6400.
I recently bought a Pioneer 32x SCSI CDRom that I'd like to put in my 6400, replacing the standard 8x Apple unit. The problem, as I'm sure you know, is the hookup for the audio. The funky Apple connector will not work with the Pioneer drive. Do you know of a cable or adapter for the audio connection that I can use? BTW, the drive is bootable, using the hacked AppleCD extension under OS8.1, but only if you select it as the startup drive or use the four finger salute when booting. Holding down "C" doesn't work.
Bill]

More DVD info: Cyril wrote with some info on the previous DVD info I had posted in mny Just Updated 3/18/2000. Cyril has the Wired 4DVD card and here is the previous info I have on it. Thanks Cyril.

[Hello..
I looked at the link your reader posted (DVD + card combo for mac). The card seems to be the Wired 4DVD card (it looks the same..) with a DVD drive... So your reader can buy the card and another dirve if he wants to...

I read that one of your readers did not manage to make the Wired card work properly on his 6400...

As I said before it works very well on mine ( 6400/Vimage G3 240/ 104 M RAM/IBM 10 Gb HD/ IBM 1Gb SCSI internal/TV card/ix3d MacRocket video card/ Mac OS 8.6 french). I had a little problem two or three times ( a sluggish movie...) but I manage to make it work: you only have to quit the Wired software, eject the disc, insert the disc again, open the player and play the movie... If it does not work (it happened only once), start your mac again, insert the disc and open the player...that's all...
Generally speaking the G3 6400 is able to read DVD full screen on a 17" with this card. And the quality of the movie is very good...
Cyril]

Speaking about DVD/CD Rom drives, I have been getting more requests for info on replacment SCSI CDRom's for the stock 6400 CD drive. I have a page posted with very minimal info as I haven't recieved much info on this topic. If anyone wishes to send me info on their upgrade experiences with internal CDRoms I would appreciate it :)

PCI timing extension may fix L2 G3 audio issues?: I found this on Accelerate Your Mac's web site.

[PCI Timing Update Fixes 6500 Audio Issues? One of the weekend's updates to the Rate Your CPU Upgrade database contained an interesting entry from a 6500 owner with L2G3 upgrade noting the PCI Timing update worked wonders:

" Mike,

model: 6500/225

96mb ram

Newertech G3/300/200 1mb

Audiomedia III PCI card

External zoom modem

Matsushita 24x scsi cd int.

Yamaha CDR external

The Audiomedia III PCI digital audio interface PCI card, has not compatible with Newer's L2 upgrade (with audiomedia/iii drivers etc. OFF) . Playback of internal audio files of any kind had popping if G3 was enabled, and would quickly lock up machine. Also serial problems and scsi issues if G3 enabled. Got an external zoom 56k, took out internal geoport. I am an Apple certified tech did everything I knew of, and Newer' support just suggested usual:

Clean installs 8.5.1-8.6 even low level format, remove, reset periphials, G3 card, ATI updates, zap Pram, etc. None worked

Well, here's what fixed it: PCI TIMING UPDATE 1.0!, from Apple's site, Apple said it will not work on any other machine, but the powercomputing/7200 based boards. But it has stabilized my machine since installing it .I have been Newer's beta 2.0.2 with cache contol software. (For me diff, cache speeds, and disabling/backside did not help?). BUT, the PCI timing extention, it did. I have tried and tried to crash it, doing all the things that caused it to lock up before, when the G3/ L2 was enabled. I decided another clean install (5th time,same set-up as before), base extentions, software, except G3 upgrade, and still crashed at least once a day as mentioned above for a month, I was gonaa send the upgrade back.Then I threw in this PCI timing update 1.0 out of curiosity, and have no trouble since.
Jonathan T. Clark Macintosh Certified Technician/Audio Engineer "

Interesting. That update was noted on the PowerCenter Pro review and in the FAQ as far as Audio patches for Catalyst motherboards (not sure exactly what the 64/6500 MB is). ATI also includes a similar patch called Sound Catalyst with their video cards.]

2 readers 6400 upgrade experiences: Both Vu Tien and John sent me their upgrade experiences with their 6400's. They both did what most typical 6400 users want to do so I thought I would post them :) Thanks guys.

[Hello Tom,
Just for your info, here is the report of my upgrade to a Sonnet L2G3 300/150-512 K, plus the addition of a PCI Orange Micro card with USB/FireWire.
-------
In short, it was EXCELLENT. I have a 6400/200 VEE, MacOS F1-8.1 (French version), 104 MB RAM, 6 GB IDE, 4 GB SCSI internal, Geoport software modem, no special other h/w (excepted the generically equipped Avid Cinema card).

I got my Sonnet Crescendo L2-G3 from Small Dogs. I ordered a NewerTech but after 2 months wait, I was told that it is now discontinued. I switched to the Sonnet L2-G3; I couldn't wait for the 300/1MB and so got the 300/512KB instead.

Very clear instructions.
The installer diskette is now 1.4.2 while the latest version on the Sonnet Web site is still 1.4.1 (!!!). The instruction sheet stated clearly that the card is NOT compatible with the Apple Geoport modem, so I made a special extension configuration where I disabled all the corresponding extensions. I installed first the Sonnet software, rebooted and switched to the configuration with the Geoport extensions disabled. Then I powered off the Mac. and installed the card.

Very easy to install (5 mn). The Mac booted perfectly and repeatably ran without a crash for one week. IE4 and Outlook Express are still slow to load, but after that they display and refresh INSTANTLY. Flight Sim 98 on Virtual PC 2.1 is now bearable (incredible...). I may even consider now buying Microsoft Office :-).

Processor temperature is reported between 55°C and 70°C (we are in Winter and I don't heat much, let's see in Summer).
---------------
But wait!
Without the Geoport modem, I had to use an old external 14,4 kbps modem. After one week of painly slow surfing, I decided to give the Geoport modem a try.
GOOD NEWS.
It works perfectly (MacOS 8.1). And the spare processing power masked completely the fact that the Geoport modem was stealing CPU cycles.

Conclusion, I see no reason why I shouldn't give the Sonnet the maximum score. RECOMMANDED.

Caveat: The Geoport still hangs the Mac when it opens a MIDI file while surfing, but this is a known bug that has nothing to do with the Sonnet card.
-------------
After 3 weeks running the G3 without any crash, I tried to install the USB/FireWire extension from Orange Micro. For this, I had to upgrade to MacOS 8.6 since it is the first version that supports USB. I proceeded by steps, and upgraded from 8.1 to 8.5, ran the Mac for 3 days to see whether something may be wrong and then upgraded to 8.6. After upgrading, I cleaned carefully the spurious extensions left over since the original 7.5.3.

In short:
- the Geoport software-emulated modem works well with the Sonnet accelerator on MacOS 8.1 and 8.5.
- on MacOS 8.6, it works well when I disable all the USB and Firewire extensions.
- when I enable these extensions, the Geoport keeps going on-hook/off-hook non-stop: unusable...
- also on MacOS 8.6, the Mac hangs at boot time if I enable the Microsoft Office 4.2 extensions (with and w/o USB support)

Solution: I made 3 sets of extensions and switch between them


1- to surf the Internet
2- to use the USB ports for printing
3- (Crescendo disabled) to use Office 4.2.

Otherwise, the Sonnet L2G3 accelerator co-exists well with the Orange Micro USB/FireWire PCI card. RECOMMANDED. My 6400 has a new life.

I'll use these extensions for some time. When I'm confident enough, I'll start adding more peripherals (CD-RW and mini-DV camcorder, and hopefully a Voodoo-3). Stay posted.

Attached is the Claris worksheet listing the basic set of extensions that works well with the L2G3 accelerator. The disabled extensions and control panels are my own old history and stay unused most of the time. I am too lazy to clean them, so they are here for the sake of the truth.
Regards,
Vu Tien
PS: My 2 cents guess: the Firewire/USB card pulls on the power supply, along with the L2-G3 card, and that makes the Geoport modem emulator unhappy. It keeps going on-hook/off-hook non-stop because there is an electric signal from the phone system that it doesn't detect. Can any phone specialist confirm?]

[Hi Tom:
Here's an upgrade experience for your readers. Feel free to post it if you like.
I have two 6400's that I recently put some $$$ into to stretch some more life out of them. Both were stock 6400's, one a 180 and one a 200. The 6400/200 I bought new, the 6400/180 was a re-furb. Both machines have been real workhorses. I've only had to replace one of the CD-ROMs on a machine. That's been the ONLY failure on them both!

Both machines served quite well for some time. I had them networked via LocalTalk for about a year or so, along with a couple of HP Deskwriter printers and an HP 6MP Laserwriter. The 6400/200 had received some more RAM and an ATI Xclaim VR video card. It also had a Umax 1200 scanner attached to it, and an Epson Photo 700. The 6400/180 also had a little more RAM and an Xclaim 3D card inside. Both had the internal stock modems and processors.

So they were becoming a bit antiquated, especially with the arrival of a 333Mhz iMac last Christmas. Games were running a bit slow, the LocalTalk network was having a hard time keeping up with network needs (games and file sharing). The stock hard drives were filled up pretty good and we were always deleting something to add a new application or game. So it was time to consider purchasing something new (more iMacs?) or do some serious upgrades to both machines. The wallet said, "UPGRADE!"

Processor: I chose the Crescendo L2 G3 300/512k upgrade for both machines. Hard Drive: I picked up a Quantum 8.0 GB HD for each machine. Network: With a recent home remodel/addition we did, I took the opportunity to run Cat 5 cable throughout the house (and LocalTalk cabling), so each machine received the Farallon Comm II Slot 10/100 card. Memory: A little boost to get each machine up to 104MB System: 9.0 loaded onto each machine.

The upgrade was taken in steps on each machine:
First: I installed the 10/100 enet card in each box to allow for backing up files from one machine to the other before installing the hard drive. The cards snapped right in in place of the stock modems in the Comm II slot. I loaded the drivers from the Farallon disk and rebooted. Once ethernet was selected in the AppleTalk control panel, the network connectivity was up!

Second: Hard drive was next. I first copied over what few files I needed to save from one machine to the other (very fast on the 100Mbs network connection!). Then I booted the machine off the OS9 CD. I erased the existing data on the stock drive and powered down the machine. Replacingthe drive was a snap following the instructions you provided on your website. Once the new drive was in, I booted the system from the OS9 CD again. When the startup was complete the system brought up an alert that it did not recognize the new drive and did I want to initialize it. Of course! ZIP! It was done.

Third: OS9 Now that the machine was booted from the CD with the new hard drive installed, I went ahead and installed the new OS9 system software. Once that was completed, I needed to re-install the enet drivers from the Farallon disk. But you can't remove the system disk, so I had to restartfrom the HD first.

Fourth: G3 Upgrade. After getting the Farallon extensions onto the hard drive, and before powering down, I next installed the Crescendo extensions necessary for the processor upgrade. I then powered down the machine. I pulled out the motherboard, pulled out the cache card, popped in the G3 card in the L2 cache slot, and closed it all up. I fired up the machine and the "Sonnet: Simply Fast" logo came right up as the extensions loaded. I ran the Apple System Profiler in OS9 and the Metronome extension from Sonnet and there was the G3 card humming along at a cool 41 degrees C.

Fifth: I then copied back over the files I had backed up before starting the whole process, loaded on the applications that used to be there, and was done.

Everything went off without a hitch! The second machine I did in the same order. The only glitch there was I didn't install the G3 card fully into the cache slot so it wasn't being recognized. I pulled it out and re-seated it and that did the trick.

Both machines are GREAT! They keep right up with the new iMac, at a fraction of the cost. Each machine took no more than 1 hour to do everything on. Plenty of horsepower, plenty of storage, great networking speed!

Next month I'm having a DSL modem and router installed. It will come with up to 5 IP addresses that will be dynamically issued to each Mac in the house through DHCP. It will go into the wiring closet and connect to the 10/100 hub so every system in the house will have an instant internet connection when they power up. There's also an AsanteTalk bridge and LocalTalk network to each room to get those LocalTalk printers on the network. What is also great is that the Epson Photo 700 hangs on the printer port of the 6400/200 and we can print to it locally. I don't even have to turn off AppleTalk to do it. I still have to get the Axis 1400 printer server I purchased working with the Epson printer via enet so everyone can share it.

Love my 6400s! Keep up the great work on your web site! I visit at least once a week to see what's new!
-jt]

Info on the naming of Apples mother boards and computers!: John sent me a link to a site that has posted an artical on the naming scheme (or lack there of?) for Apples line of computers. Its very interesting reading. Thanks John.

Dual video sources with just one monitor?: I found this info on Accelerate Your Mac's web site Voodoo3 forums. It seems you can use a VGA switch box to run 2 video cards to 1 monitor. Very interesting!

[I have this setup you refer to, and it works perfectly fine, without restarting to switch monitors. The A/B box provides a signal to both cards at all times.

G4/350 AGP w/ Rage 128 pro
Voodoo 3 2k
Belkin 2-way monitor switch (~$99)

I started off using the Ati card for my "main" screen and putting the voodoo screen in the upper right corner so I wouldn't "lose" my cursor by accident. When I wanted to play a
Voodoo-based game, I would press the monitor switch and move my cursor to the upper right screen. The voodoo game knew which monitor to go to.

However, it seems some games, including Myth & Myth II, base their cursor movements on the main screen (menubar screen), which in my case, was not the Voodoo screen.
Therefore, although I was seeing the game on my voodoo screen, the cursor's actual movement was offset to the main screen (in my case, when I would select a unit in the upper
right of the screen, I was actually trying to select a unit in the lower left)

Annoying problem, simple solution...make your voodoo monitor your main (menubar) monitor.

Now, I find myself hardly using my ati screen anymore, since I got a console DVD player. Quake 3 and Pod Racer are the only games I play in RAVE, and I could probably play
these two games reliably on the Voodoo card now anyway. I figure if I run out of PCI slots down the line, I'll replace the ati card with a AGP version of the voodoo card, that is if
they make the v4/5 versions in an AGP flavor.

One caveat, make sure the monitor extension cables you get to go with the switchbox are of high quality and the shortest length you can find. I had problems with ghosting and
loss of sharpness at high resolutions with cheaper video cables.

Good Luck

SoS ]

The switch box idea does work! I tried it on my B&W G3 with a Voodoo3 and ATI VR RagePRO cards but ghosting is a real problem :( I just got a cheapy $19 VGA switch box with 2 extender cables and then I placed a PC to Mac adaptor then a Mac to PC adaptor together to keep the second monitor active so both would be on all the time. The $19 switch box did not make both monitors active on its own as it supplies no signal to the "B" monitor if "A" is selected so the video card on the "B" switch will be off.

The problem is that I could only find 6 foot cables and my screen is now majorly ghosted. It is horrible! I will try to find either better cables or perhaps the box is causing the problem? Since SoS also mentioned he had ghosting even with a $100 box I will hope just better cables will fix it? I don't see why this couldn't work for those of you that have the 6400's built in video in/out cards and want to add another PCI video card. If you can get this setup to work without ghosting then you can have both your stock video in/out for TV or video recording and also have a better video card for 3D games and such. Let me know if anyone gets this to work and look nice :)

OSX DP3 on a 6400 update: I was able to get my hands on OSX DP3 to try loading it on my 6400. I wanted to try installing it on a SCSI HD from my PB which is OSX compatible, then move the HD to my 6400 and see what happens. Well I haven't been able to get my PB to install OSX onto a SCSI HD but it is running on my PB G3 :) Click here to read what I had to go through to get it installed! By the way I still think the 6400's Open Firmware will be an issue as it was designed to look for a normal Mac OS System folder to boot from. My PB experiences tell me that the firmware must be altered to run the new UNIX style System folder whether its on an HFS+ or UFS formated HD? I'll keep trying :)

More info on using the Beige G3 56k internal modem on a 6400!: Well the verdict is in and the modem does work! It seems several people are using the Begie G3's modem part number #661-1510 in their 6400's with really no trouble at all. Data and fax both seem to work but voice transmitions don't. That means no MegaPhone or Apple Phone but this is a minor issue for most. Kiwi used to sell them but I think they are out right now? Also I was told that SmallDog Electronics had them? Also it seems you don't even need the software if you only go online. One user told me that they just picked the Apple 56k internal modem from the list of modems for AOL and it connected with no problem? This is probably because AOL allows you to pickthe which port the modem is connected to so it may not rely on the modem software for this at all? I do know the software for it is called Telecom (serial) and is located on the OS 8 or OS 8.1 install CD in the CD Extras folder. Thanks for all the info everyone!

Getting the Geo modem control panel to work under OS 9: Thomas wrote to tell me of a little trick to get the Geo modem control panel to open if you have OS 9 installed. Thanks Thomas.

[On your web page you mention that the apple telecom control panel can not be opened with OS 9 installed. I have had that problem with a few other control panels and holding down command and control while opening them worked fine. I did try it with the Express modem control panel and it did open. I havn't done more than change the ring volume with it, but it did work on a PM 6500/225 and a Performa 6400/180.]

I had this info posted on my OS 9 info page but didn't know if it worked or not? Well I guess it does :)

New Sonnet user NOT having trouble with Avid Cinema: Bob just purchased a Sonnet G3 upgrade for his 6400 and says Avid is running fine with the G3. Thanks Bob. Also note that he says the Crescendo driver has been reved to 1.4.2. Its not available on their web site yet though :(

[ I know this is a little late, but I just purchased the Sonnet 300 MHz with 150 MHz/1 MB backside cache and I'm not having any trouble with Avid Cinema..

The card came with Crescendo 1.4.2, and I didn't hack or change the extension, nor install in any way.

I have the Avid Cinema Extension U3 loaded on my Performa 6400/200 with 7200 rpm Maxtor harddrive running OS 8.6 with 72MB RAM.

I haven't found any problems, yet (knock on wood), but I'm not big into gaming. If you have a minute I was wondering if you knew if a Comm Slot II Ethernet card would conflict with the Sonnet card. I've read that the PCI Ethernet card is fine, but can't find anything on Comm Slot II. I hate to eat up my only PCI slot if I don't have to. Thanks!
Bob]

Oh, and COMM II ethernet cards have worked with Sonnets L2 G3 so this should not be a problem.

Strange info from Newer on their 300Mhz L2 G3 upgrades?: I was sent this letter from a person that wrote Newer on the status of their 300Mhz L2 G3 upgrade. They got a very interesting reply! Thanks.

[ Latest Word From Newer!

QUOE! 03/08/00
Sorry for the confusion surrounding this product.

Production has stopped on this product. IBM and Motorola stopped making the 300MHz chip in November, we ran out of stock in January, were promised more chips in February and now are being told that the chips are unavailable.

We are investigating a faster version of this product but have nothing to announce today.

I am very sorry for the delay and any inconvenience that this may have caused!
Tim]

I don't understand why Newer says the 300Mhz CPU's are unavailable? I thought all the other G3 upgrade Vendors were still selling 300Mhz cards? Very strange!

Update on Newer Maxpower 2.0.2fc3 driver and Speed Doubler: Brent wrote me last week that he had trouble getting the new MaxPower beta driver to run if SD was installed. He also wrote MacFixIt who email Newer on this subject and got yet another strange reply! What's with Newer these days?

[Brent Davis has a Performa 6400 running OS 8.6 with a MAXpowr G3 L2 300/200 card. All was going well until he installed the MAXpowr 2.0.2fc3 Update. At this point, Speed Doubler 8.1.2 started crashing on startup and TechTool 1.19 reported a damaged System file. There may also have been an unspecified conflict with Conflict Catcher 8.

We contacted Newer Technology about these matters and they replied:

First off: "The fc designation on the software driver means that Newer is confident that there are no major issues with the software and that only minor changes if any may be necessary, but features will not be added at this point."

As to the report of System file damage: "The latest version of the MAXpowr INIT does add a bit of code to the System file to call our Extension early in the boot process. This code looks for the file "MAXpowr Extension" and calls the 'INIT' in it, like the regular Extension loading process does. If the MAXpowr Extension is disabled, renamed, or the Shift key is pressed at startup, it skips this process. This is all the additional code does." Some utilities, including TechTool and perhaps Conflict Catcher will erroneously report this as "damage" to the System file. [Note: This is a common problem with these utilities, as they often interpret any unrecognized modification to the file as damage.] Newer is working with these other vendors to get their software to recognize the MAXpowr modification.

As for Speed Doubler: "Newer Technology does not feel the use of applications for performance enhancement are necessary when using a G3 processor upgrade. Whether or not these software apps may have worked with an older driver does not change this recommendation."]

Brent was able to get SD working again on a tip from me by renaming the SD extension by adding some spaces in front of it to make it load before the MaxPower extension. I had this same problem with Vimages drivers and making SD load first worked then also. Saying that certain utilities aren't needed anymore is just a cop out in my mind! If it worked before then obviously they caused a problem with their update. They could at least say they are sorry it doesn't work or maybe even try and fix it but to just belittle the product is ubsurd! Thats just my 2 cents :)

Info on why the Sonnet Clocker won't work on a 4400: J.R. writes that the 4400 version of the Sonnet G3 is designed in a way inwhich the Crescendo extension is not needed to activate the G3. Its only needed to turn on the L2 cache. I knew that there were different designs for the 6400 and 4400 but did not know this was what was different? Thanks J.R. Also note that this is how Newer says their L2 G3 for the 6400/6500 works.

[Hi it´s me again from germany,
here are the reasons why the overclocker could not run. unlike the 6400/6500 Mainboard, the 4400 needs no extra programming for the bus. That means a L2 G3 Card for the 4400 does not need the custom chipset that is needed for compatiblity with the 6400/6500. The bus ratio for the 4400 is hard wired and not changeable. The Sonnet clocker works fine with 6400/6500s because it can patch the custom chipset (the cards firmware) by software. You can double check this by starting a 4400 with L2 G3 Card with ext. off. This results in starting with the G3! (only the cache is disabled). Starting the 6400/6500 with L2 G3 and extension off results in starting with the base 603e cpu.
Yours
J.R.]

Fixing sound issues with L2 G3's installed: I read a posting on Accelerate Your Mac's web site that suggested turning off VM or reducing the sound rate from 44Khz to 22Khz might solve the problem? If this works for you then please let me know.

Info from a Sonnet 500Mhz L2 G3 owner: Tiong just recieved a 500Mhz G3 for his 6500 and wrote with some nice things to say about it. Thanks Tiong.

[Hi Tom,
Just got my Sonnet 500 L2G3 this morning. Some things I have noticed so far:

Crescendo 1.4.2 was shipped with my upgrade, but it's not released by Sonnet on its site yet.

Physically, the 500 is the same "newer" design as my 300, so fit is good; no more hot RAM as heatsink doesn't touch RAM.

Runs warmer than my 300 but less than when my 300 is at 375. Normal operating temperature is 39 degrees C but I have gone as high as 47 degrees C when playing games (I have taken all the extra fans, except the V3's Stealth cooler, out for this test). With fans installed (but down to one fan blowing at Sonnet's heatsink instead of two), normal operating temperature is 31 degrees C and can get as hot as 39 degrees C. All tests conducted with room temperature of 72-75 degrees F.

Newer's Gauge Pro indicates that this is a Copper chip with stepping of 3.0 (IBM's site indicates that only 3.x chips support 10x multiplier) versus my 300's 2.2 stepping. Also, with the 300, there's no "copper" word, so I am assuming that those are aluminum chips (but it runs cooler? Must be because its slower?)

Also with Newer's Gauge Pro, memory performance seems to have hit a wall! With my 300, memory performance (mp) is at 31.5MB/s. At 350MHz, mp is 32.5MB/s. At 375, mp is 33MB/s. Now at 500, mp is still at 33MB/s.

Installation woes: unstable system with first two startups. Will crash without warning (with L2G3 bug-like symptoms). Read Sonnet's manual and it says it may have extension conflicts if installed in a system with RD already installed. Uninstalled RD9, uninstalled Sonnet software, re-installed Sonnet software, reboot, re-installed RD9, and everything works again!

Game performance: Unreal 224b7, everything on and at high setting (Vsync off), 1024*768 gets 33-34fps. 1280*1024 gets 28-29 fps.

So far, I am very pleased with the Sonnet 500. If anyone e-mails you with instability after installing a Sonnet L2G3, ask them to read the manual regarding potential software conflicts. An uninstall/re-install may be all they need to bring back stability. : )

Let me know if you need more info.
Regards,
Tiong]

I was wondering if anyone could send me the 1.4.2 driver so I can post it for others to use? Thanks.

Reader Request for DVD info: Brent would like to know if anyone has info on DVD's with the 6400/6500? I have little info posted on this topic mostly because not many 6400/6500 owners tried DVD drives but if you could shed some light on this topic I would appreciate it :) Also please copy me any info you send Brent. Thanks.

[The CD-ROM in my 6500 is a gonner. As I looked around for what might be a better replacement than a stock Apple CD drive, I began to wonder about a DVD drive, as they also read CD, RW, etc. I'm not too sure what kind of PCI card I would need to make DVD's run on my 6500, but I was intregued by the simpleness of ESQuest's ad. It lists the DVD drive and a PCI card that "doesn't tax the processor...?"

http://www.ezq.com/dvd0020.html - {I did not see info on a DVD drive but just the PCI card on this site? Tom}

Anyway, I could not find anything on your site about this setup. Not that your are not spending an exorbatent amount of time providing your services to us--YOU ARE! :-) --but it doesn't appear that your DVD upgrade info is current? DVD RAM, of course is pretty big too. I have found ads for Mac-compatible, SCSI DVD-RAM and DVD-ROM's, internal and external. But I am having a heck of a time sifting through them, making sense or each's total capabilities, and what additional hardware is needed. I only started off by mentioning the EZQuest DVD-ROM Plus drive, because they have the "simplest" writie-up for us tech-deficient guys. Bottom-Line sells it for 259.00

http://www2.blol.com/bld_desc.t?method=&edp=23378&sid=4e01b9&level=l&af=&ecm=

If you could shed some light on more recent hardware developments in DVD and how they would apply to the 6400 and 6500 (I do have both), or post this question to your readers on your site, I would be greatful.

As always, thanks for all your work on your great site,
Brent]

Reader Request on a printing problem: Alexandra is having a problem printing with a Personal LaserWriter NTR. She keeps getting a not enough memory error? Please email her if you can help. Thanks.

[Hi Tom:
I need your help in the following problem. I own a Personal LaserWriter NTR that I use with a Quadra 605 with no problems at all. Yesterday I purchased a Performa 6400/200, (used due to my budget limitations) and I installed all the software that came with my NTR, went to the chooser and selected the NTR. I use Office 98 for school and now every time I want to print a Word document even as small as two lines, a message comes to the screen stating that no memory is available to print the word document (The green light flashes in the NTR). I increased the memory on all the applications such as DesktopPrinter Monitor. Word. etc. etc., and no luck.
I suspect is something with the AppleShare and LocalTalk configurations. Can anybody tell me how do I set up step by step the
printer?

Thanks a million!
Alexandra.

PS. The NTR uses the LocalTalk cables. My System is a Performa 6400/200 nothing extra other than the original set up.
OS: 8.6]

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I use a Performa 6400/180 OS 8.6, Performa 6400/200 OS 8.6, B&W G3/350 OS 8.6, PowerBook G3/233 OS 9, PM 6100 G3/240 OS 9, and a PowerBook DUO 270c OS 7.5.5. All of the software updates posted here are currently running on one or the other with minimal problems. If I do encounter a problem, I will post it for all to read and respond to. If you are having any problems and would like help just email me and if I can answer it I will, or I will post it here for others to read and respond to.