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.

• Current problems with my system

Sonnet stability issues: Here are a few letters from readers that have solved some of there stability issues. Also bad news with OS 8.6 beta!

[Tom,
I have more info about the Sonnet Crescendo G3/L2 card. You were definately right about the Apple menu options theory. After I trashed the preferences the card worked without a crash. As soon as I chagned the Apple menu setting to turn off all recent items I got a crash within a minute. I kept doing this over and over to see if it was really the problem. I eventually disabled it in the control panels and haven't had a crash since then. I'm not sure if this will work for everyone, but it worked for me.
Jordan]

If you're having this issue but don't want to disable The Apple Menu Options feature then try setting the recent items all to 1. This way the extension will still work but it won't keep track of everything you do. Just the last thing you did :) Actually I have mine turned ON but have the recent items turned off and don't have this crash right away as Jordan does. Another thing to try which I suggested in the last update is to move the Crescendo extension to the Control Panels folder so it loads after the AMO control panel. It will make startup longer but stability is what we're after right now.

[Tom.
Some feedback for you on my new card.
It's superb in my 5400/ex 160. Machine records are attached below (Speedometer and Norton's ) but it just feels much much more lively, SoftWin95 is now a realistic proposition on my machine.

I have not managed to get it to more than 40c which I think is pretty good.

Boy is it purple!!

On the Geoport TA front I have yet to have any problems (touch wood) however, I did resedit the Geo modem, Express Modem control Panel as detailed in http://www.mot.com/SPS/PowerPC/library/fact_sheet/libmoto_geofix.html . If others haven't done this I wonder if this causing the reported problems??

All in all a cracking piece of kit and MacCPU are a pretty good reseller US to UK in 48 hours, I'm impressed.

regards,
Mark]

I totally forgot about this issue! Motorola stated that their LibMoto extension and the Geo modem may try to occupy the same Ram space which causes crashes. Their fix is to increase the RAM allocation of the Express modem software to prevent it but I have a better suggestion. Disable LibMoto! Yes LibMoto drastically increases FPU scores in benchmarks but does it really make FPU faster? Many swear by it and just as many say its fluff to make benchmarks look good? Try disabling it if your having problems and see what happens.

[greetings,
first, kudos on a very helpful site.

i purchased the sonnet card mentioned in the subject about a month ago. the system specs are
6400/200
88M RAM
ATI Xclaim/3D
sonic type-II comm slot ethernet card
after installing the G3 upgrade, i was experiencing problems on my 6400 running 8.5.1

startup freezes---either right after the sonnet extension icon showed or right as the cursor appeared in the not-yet-menu'd finder.

the time & date control panel would not be able to contact an ntp server

a condition which i had noticed prior to installation was worse: shutdowns took a couple minutes and sometimes required manual intervention

i had noticed the sonnet installer had installed an ``ethernet (built-in)'' extension. well, the macos 8.5 cd won't boot on my machine unless the extensions are disabled---apparenty due to the ethernet card---so i was suspicious of an arbitrary ethernet extension for a cpu card. sonnet's tech support said the extension was required for the cpu upgrade but didn't say it couldn't be disabled. around the same time, i figured out that the an older version of the worldclock control strip was at least partly responsible for the shutdown problems i had experienced since upgrading to 8.5. since getting rid of the control strip module and the `ethernet (built-in)' extension, my system has been nothing but stable.

thanks again for a 6400-centric resource.
michael]

He later emailed to say that the Ethernet 2.0.4 extension that Sonnet installed was not the cause of his crashes but it was lowering his data rate with his Sonic ethernet card. If you don't have an Ethernet card or you have a third party card then trash it. You don't need it. Third party cards have their own software and if you don't have it then why install it. If you happen to have an Apple branded ethernet card then you may need it. I don't remember any Performa 6400's having one but maybe the PowerMac 6400 did? Also cloners may need the extension if they have a stock ethernet card that used the Apple drivers.

[Tom,

FYI
I just installed beta 9 of MacOS 8.6 (latest build) on a Peforma 6400/180 with the Crescendo L2/G3 300/1 MB. I have tried almost everything but the computer stalls right when it is about to load the Crescendo extension. I hope Sonnet fixes this problem before the final 8.6 comes out.
-Ben N.]

This issue is bad. I do hope Sonnet can fix this by the time 8.6 is released. I haven't heard from Vimage on this yet.

More Sonnet user letters: Here a 2 more letters from satisifed Sonnet users. Thanks.

[Hi!
Thanks for all of the information you've made available in your 6400 Zone! It's been extremely helpful, and I can credit it with helping me hold onto my Performa 6400 for a bit longer!

I was getting ready to purchase a new G3 Mac, one of the B&W models. In the course of my investigation, I discovered: no SCSI ports (goodbye scanner, goodbye Zip drive, goodbye extra Seagate ST15230N internal drive); no traditional serial ports (goodbye digital camera, 3Com 56K voice modem, 3Com ISDN modem, and the LocalTalk LaserWriter II [10 years old] and DeskWriter 660C [five years old]). To be honest, I could have kept a couple of these in the B&W with my MegaWolf Remus/2 serial card.

Certainly I could have bought all the adapters, cards, and whatnot to make the B&W work with my 6400, but that added a couple of hundred bucks to the price. So, using your web-site, I eventually decided on the Sonnet 300/1MB L2 upgrade, and I couldn't be happier. At 1/3 the price of a new B&W G3, I have no complaints.

I also purchased CVGS out of curiosity, and rented a couple of games - aside from having to trick CVGS into thinking I had an ATI card, the application worked pretty well with the Sonnet and my 4 meg Video Wizard card. I imagine I could replace the video card for even better performance.

Finally, VirtualPC runs faster than my Acer laptop at 133MHz. Okay, I didn't do any benchmarking, but the feeling is definitely there.

Well, thanks again for maintaining your archive of information!

Sincerely,
Jim]

[Hi, it's 3 weeks ago I received my G3 300/ card from sonnet, and I am fully satisfied with this. Installation is very simple and the acceleration is impressive: 971 with Mac Bench 5. I didn't want to throw away my old 6400 to have one of these new G3 with all there incompatibilities and all the adaptators. So here I am: VPC 2 is rushing, I can now play in Performer 6 midi, audio (up to 4 tracks) and my software synth (Retro AS1) at the same time. Games are also great and fluids. I solve the startup freeze with the renaming of extension in z-crescendo and my OS 8.5.1 is stable. I didn't test the Goemodem issue because I throw it away and buy an Olitec Speedcom modem, which is going well.

My system: 6400/200 with 104 mb, OS 8.5.1 (French version), Speed Doubler, Startup doubler and Lib-moto, Formac Vision 3D Pro (8 Mb of Ram)= in Us it's MacTell cards) Stock drive 2.5 Gb I just plan to buy another drive, maybe internal SCSI to make music, or Maxtor 10 Gb, and a farallon 10/100 internel card.

The price is good, because with direct buy in US, with transport and VAT taxes, it was 20 % less than in France.

Warmest regards and thanks for your site.
Regis]

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]

Reply from Newer on Geo modem compatibility: Mark wrote Newer awhile back asking if they tested their L2 G3 upgrades with a UK spec 5400's Geo modem and they replied that they did not yet. Thanks for the info Mark.

Mac stuff for sale updated: Check out my for sale page as a lot of items have been added.

MacPicasso 850 and Vimages G3 work: Kristof writes that his Vimage G3 works with the MacPicasso 850, which is a Voodoo Banshee card. Thanks Kristof.

[Hi there,

Just wanted to say that I recieved a MacPicasso 850 (Voodoo Banshee) a few days ago, and it works just fine with the Vimage card. Processor temp is up to 83°C with the MP850, but everything seems stable for the last few days. Not one single crash.

Keep up the good work
Kind regards,
Kristof]

G3 Throttle control strip: Here is a $5 shareware I found that may help stability issues for Sonnets L2 G3 cards and maybe some Vimage issues with Avid cards? It allows you to slow the G3 down by adding CPU wait states. The CPU actually doesn't slow down but it makes the CPU wait a period of time before working on new instructions. Anyways its supposed to help with timing issues caused by to fast a CPU. I'm thinking it may help with Geo modem issues by making the CPU wait for other subsystems to catch up. Its hard for me to test it as I don't have any issues with my geo modem but if any of you try it please let me know if it works.

New 6400 icon in my Navigation Map: Maybe you noticed the new icon for my 6400 Info page link. It was given to my from D.Semaya who found it and made a few tweaks to improve it. Thanks. The old icon I was using was actually a Quadra 850 I think? Click here if you wish to download and paste it to your 6400's HD icon.

Sorry for the delay in updates: I was visiting relatives last week and when I got back I came down with a 24 flew! I almost 100% again but still have some stomach queasiness. There is a lot of reading below which should make up for the delay.

L2/G3 comparison page: I posted a page with general info on all the L2/G3 cards shipping or announced to ship. I feel that the advertising of these cards makes its difficult to determine just what speed you'll get on your system. I hope this helps in your buying decision?

I kept a Sonnet card!: Well, I couldn't help myself. I actually kept the 300/512k Sonnet card and returned the other 2. I was getting tired of the double boots the Vimage card does on my 6400 with the 2 monitors (it takes so long for the monitor on the ATI card to re-sync) so I decided to keep one of Sonnets. I figured the 300/512k was a good choice due to it being cheaper then the top of the line but faster then the 240 card I had. I am expecting to get a new G3, or perhaps a G4, before the years end so I didn't want to spend a lot of money on my 6400 right now. The 6400 its in does not have a Geo modem so I will still need you to keep me informed of compatibility issues. Thanks.

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 now 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?

Vimage's 320/325 L2/G3 almost out: I just heard that Vimage will be receiving its shipments of these cards this week and will be shipping very shortly. A few of the Mac magazines already have test units and mine should arrive this week! It seems that the rumor of the double boot being changed was just that, a rumor. This card still does the double boot and Vimage has tested it with the ATI Xclaim 3D Plus and it is not compatible with it as Jordan found out in his letter below. They will be testing it with the Rage 128 cards as soon as they get some from ATI. I will also be testing with the VR 128 when I get mine. For those interested in this card I hear from reliable sources that the price has dropped even further to $499! Wow, That's low for a 320/325 1M cache copper G3. This will make for great competition with Sonnet and Newer.

400Mhz cards on a 6400: I thought I would just repost this info as a lot of companies are starting to post wrong info. The 6400 cannot run a G3 at 400Mhz due to the limit of the bus multiplier. The current line of G3's can go as high as 8x which for a 40Mhz bus means 320Mhz. The 400Mhz cards will only run 400Mhz on a 50Mhz bus system like the 6500. I suppose those of you that have changed your MB crystal to get 48 or even 50Mhz bus speeds may get lucky and the card will run at 400Mz (or close to it).

Another Vimage compatibility issue: Jordan send s word that the new ATI Xclaim 3D (Rage Pro plus not 128) is not compatible with the Vimage 240 G3. He as well as I hope this does not mean it won't work with the newest Rage128 cards? Thanks Jordan. I have added this to my Vimage Compatibility page.

[Hey Tom,
Just wanted to give you some more information about the Vimage Vpower PF 240. There is good news and there is bad news. Good news first. The Sonic CSII ethernet card works fine with the card. So does the Orange Micro Grappler 906F PCI SCSI card. Now the real bummer. The ATI Xclaim 3D Plus is not compatible with the Vimage card. All the card is, is a Xclaim 3D with Rage Pro that supports Flat Panel Displays and video-out. I feel this is bad news for users wanting to upgrade the Rage 128 cards. I have a bad feeling that they will not be compatible. See, I couldn't wait until June(?) for the Rage 128 cards, so I bought the Xclaim3D plus. I needed video-out capabilities and OpenGL acceleration described in the specifications. So I figured the Vimage is compatible with the ATI Xclaim VR and 3D, so the 3D Plus should work too, right? Wrong. I think the problem is because of the double-boot the card goes through. My computer works fine with the card installed, just not with a monitor hooked up. When I do plug a monitor in the card, it begins to boot, then when it starts to do the second boot, the screen freezes but I can still hear the computer continue to boot. It is similar to the guy with the MacPicasso 540. Personally I am fed up with my Vimage card. When I first bought the card, I had a Microconversions 4mb PCI graphics card and that was incompatible too. I really wish Vimage would get rid of the double-boot. Sonnet's card doesn't do it, so what gives? I'm about to give Vimage a piece of my mind and tell them I'm switching to Sonnet. I'm willing to bet the Sonnet card is compatible with the Xclaim3D Plus and the Rage 128 cards. Well until next time, keep up the good work.

Jordan Paraso]

Update on LaserWriter issues with Sonnets G3: This maybe related but Michael sends word of a similar problem to Toms in that the printer printed the entire document in the top part of one page. Read below for the fix. Thanks Michael.

[Not sure if this is a similar problem that Tom is experiencing. I had this problem with my 6400 and Laserwriter 300 and this solution fixed the problem(no Sonnet card though). I got this from MAC FIX-IT which is a valuable resource to have just as your site is. Hopefully this might help.

Small print and LaserWriter 300- Two readers, Dick Heller and Dick Fowler, report getting microscopic small print when printing email or Netscape 4.5 pages to a LaserWriter Select 300. We had previously noted a similar problem with Epson printers. The solution there was: "Choose 'Page Setup' in Navigator, and disable 'Fit to page if possible' in the ensuing Epson dialog box." Perhaps there is a similar solution here.

Michael]

Great deal on a GV 56k external modem: Brent found an ad from Small Dog Electronics on older GV 56k modems. they can be flash upgraded to v.90 which makes it all the more better. Thanks Brent.

[Tom,

I've been reading your excellent column for some time now and I am amazed at the number of people still using those junky Geoport "modems." I trashed mine some time ago in favor of a Global Village 56K modem. The only thing I'm "missing" is the ability to use voice applications (like Megaphone, which is fairly useless to me, especially now that you must purchase the upgrade for OS 8).

I just wanted to tell you and your readers of a deal I saw on "Deal-Mac." Small Dog Electronics has the Global Village Teleport 56K X2 modem for $59.00! And it is upgradable to V.90 for free from (Boca) Global Village's website. Here is the actual article:

"A deal-mac exclusive! Small Dog Electronics offers the Global Village Teleport x2 56k fax/modem for $59 for deal-mac readers. It's the lowest price we've seen ... in fact, it's the least expensive 56k modem we've seen. Mention "deal-mac" and the offer in the comments field of the online order form, or call 802.496.7171 to order. A free v.90 flash upgrade is available. Boca Research now owns the Global Village name. (7:00)"

Take care,
Brent Davis]

I agree with Brent that the Geo modem is not worth keeping with all the problems it has but a lot of people (my self included) think that you should get what you paid for and the Geo was not! BUT, with the v.90 standard becoming standard, there is not much reason to keep the Geo modem or any 33.6k or slower modem anymore. The only reason would be for the telephone functions and even here Bing has updated Megaphone to run on some third party modems so again the Geo becomes obsolete.

PPC Checker on G3 upgraded 6400's: Some of you may have seen this little app that can tell you if you have a copper or aluminum G3 in your Mac. Unfortunately the way the L2/G3 runs it won't recognize it. The author states that he reads info that is created at boot on the CPU but the 6400 still boots from the 603e CPU until the G3 extension is reached. So the 603e info is stored and not the G3's info. I tried it and sure enough it reported a 603ev on my 6400.

Apple TIL on IDE drives in Macs: I thought I'd post this info for anyone interested. It has a lot of tech info on what types of IDE drives will work. Basically any newer IDE drive such as most Ultra ATA or EIDE drives should work but its still best to check as I have had one or two people write me with trouble getting some larger IDE drives to work with certain SCSI devices attached.

Mac Equipment for sale: Alec has sold his 8M ram chip and would like to thank all that inquired. Click here to see what else is for sale.

OS 8.5.1's Platinum sounds cause problems: Jeff wrote to let me know that he was having random crashes on his 6400 when accessing the menu bar or running certain apps. On my recommendation he tried turning off the Platinum sounds in the Appearance Manager control panel and the crashes have gone. Thanks for the info Jeff.

[I have a Performa 6400/180 at home running OS 8.5 (just recently reinstalled from CD) with 32 MB RAM. Right around the time I installed MS IE 4, Outlook Express 4, and OS 8.5 in one fell swoop, I started getting random freezes when using scroll bars in IE, OE, and even in the Finder. I just upgraded to IE 4.5 and OE 4.5 but still experience the problem.

Well, after a couple of weeks of moderate usage (with a week of vacation just now ending) it looks like the Finder sounds were the culprit. Thanks for the slap to the side of the head to try the obvious.
Jeff]

Using your built in video capture if your using a third party graphics card: Andrew sent me an Apple TIL article that states your internal video capture will not work if your not using your stock video port. I have info on my My Reviews page on how to make it work again but the quality will suffer. Thanks Andrew

[This article may be of interest to you:
Apple tech info library, ID 20691.

Basicly, it says that if you use a 3rd party PCI card to run your monitor, you cannot use the built-in AV input port to capture video.

I found that out after I bought the card : ( Anyway, thanks for the Performa 6400 site. Lots of useful info.
Andrew]

AOL HomeTown? maybe not!: I have been pondering on whether I should stay with AOL's HomeTown service or cancel it? When I signed up I had the impression that I would be given an extra 10MB of space for my web site which was the deal they had going. I never got it! I have been emailing then back and forth many times and it seems I may never get it. I have received the most generic email responses from them that I can ever think of. Each person that emailed me practically told me the same thing and we kept going in circles! The funny thing is that I copied the text from all te previous messages to each new message as THEY wanted me to but I could tell they never read it. Oh well this service is slowing the display of my web pages with all their junky ads anyways and if I don't get thsi resolved soon I'm going to dump them.

What does this mean for you? please start visiting my site with this address http://members.aol.com/tmk12v This is what my address used to be and AOL's home town just reroutes all requests for this address to their site so if and when I cancel, you'll still be able to get to my site with this original address.

I found a great way to earn some money while getting great deals to you on Macintosh books and software plus they have all kinds of other books, music, and more. Please click on the amazon.com link on the top of this page whenever you feel like purchasing something to help sponsor this site. If you're unsure of what you want and wish to get a list of Mac related items, just type Macintosh in the search field on their home page and you will be presented with many choices to select.

Jeff did some digging in to the new code that displays the frames on my site with AOL ads and found a link that can be used which will not show those annoying ads. Here is the address. http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/TMK12v/home.html
Thanks Jeff, for sending this info. PS don't let AOL find out :)

I don't know if Sonnets L2/G3 cards are causing this problem but neither of my 6400's will sleep now. The monitors will sleep but the HD just spins down and then right back up and the fan never slows at all. I'm using OS 8.5.1 and have a 300/512k and 300/1M G3 card installed. I know the sleep function used to work but I haven't tried it in awhile. If any of you have this problem or if your system will sleep with Sonnets cards then please email me the details. Thanks.

Update 3/2/1999 Its not Sonnets G3 cards causing the problem. I just removed the G3 and left the L2 slot empty and the 6400/180 will still not sleep? Hmmmmmmm!

I just tried to print a gif file from AOL 3.0 and AOL crashes with a type 10. I have the Epson stylus 600, background printing turned on, OS 8.0, and I was not logged on at the time. If any of you have had this problem and fixed it, please email me the details.

Update 10/31/97: I have been in contact with another person having a similar problem but he was not running OS 8.0. This tells me the problem is more likely AOL's and not Apples.

Update 6/9/98: Thought I forgot about this did ya? Well I just tried it again and even with Epsons newest printer drivers I still got a type 10 error. This definitely leads me to believe that AOL 3.0.x is the problem as my entire system has pretty much been changed since my last update. I have not had a problem printing when online.

Update 1/1/1999: Since I have the newer Epson 700 printer and no longer use the 600 I may never know if ths problem was fixed? I will attempt to test the 700 for this problem and will note it here.

Final Answer!: I finally found what sounds to be an answer to this problem. I found this on MacFixIt

[Explorer and Epson 600 conflict? We have received several reports of system crashes/freezes when printing from Internet Explorer 4.5 to an Epson Stylus Color 600 printer, especially so if you use any options beyond the Print button. (Thanks, Andrew Sorensen, Mike Beshara and others.)]

Since AOL has started using IE for its browser, I think this issue holds true for me as well. Now who knows when it will get fixed?

I use a Performa 6400/180 OS 8.5.1, Performa 6400/200 OS 8.5.1, PowerBook G3/233 OS 8.5.1, 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.