Just Updated 5/13/2000 Sonnet Clocker updated!: The author of the original Sonnet Clocker has upgraded it with Nubus mother board settings plus the ability to clock the G3 on a 6500 up to 500Mhz! Now this feature will only work with the Sonnet 400Mhz L2 G3 as it has a 10x G3 CPU to get to 400Mhz on a 6400 but is only set to 8x when on the 6500 to stay at 400Mhz. But Since it has head room, you can try to max it at 500Mhz if used on a 6500 (or 6400 with clocked mother board crystal). The app will time out in a month since he does not have a serialized version of RealBasic so if the person that recompiled the others could do this one, I would greatly appreciate it :) Please email me your results with this clocker. Thanks. Update on Part number for VRAM upgrade of ATI VR Rage Pro cards: In my past update I wrote that the part number for this seemed to be for an iMac only but Christopher, who bought one, confirms it is the right part for upgrading a store bough ATI Rage VR card. I looked at the description again and as he told me it looks like they left a "/" out between the ATI and iMac parts so it looks like its only for ATI on a iMac. Thanks for clearing this up Christopher :) "http://www.clubmac.com M101 2070 - 4MB SGRAM VIDEO POWERMAC G3/ATI VR "RAGE" / IMAC 333" Belkin has USB PCI card issue: I found this on MacInTouch. [Kelvin Silburn forwarded a note from Belkin noting a problem with early versions of the company's PCI USB card; the company advises returning this card to the place of purchase for replacement. (Problem symptoms: "At power-up connected devices function correctly, however after a while they 'disappear', and cease to function. The presence of a USB card is detected by Apple System Profiler, but the connected devices are not.")] OrangeMicro fixes problem with Firewire/USB combo card on a 6500: Yee sent me info that OrangeMicro has released a fix for using their combo card on a 6500, 5500, and 20th Anniversary Mac. It changes your PRAM so it can use PCI bridges on a PCI card. Thanks Yee. [Support for the Power Macintosh 6500, 5500 and Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh!! We now have the PCI Bridge Patch for the Power Macintosh 6500, 5500 and Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh. This will allow the OrangeLink FireWire USB board to work on these systems. Simply run this patch program and it will update you system's PRAM. If you wish to remove the patch for any reason just reset your PRAM by starting your Macintosh while holding down the Control-Option P-R keys. ] The above affect Mac owners may wish to download this patch even if you don't plan on getting this combo card as it sounds like it will patch your Mac to use any PCI card with a bridge chip on it. This may be usefull in the future! New Digital Video help page: I just started a new Digital Video help page to store any info I get on using the 6400 for, well, digital video work :) I just posted info from Vu Tien on using his 6400 for this type of work. It is very interesting reading and may help you in this area. Note the issues he had with such items as a Firewire card, L2 G3, QT4, and Avid Cinema. Connecting 5400's internal monitor to a PCI video card?: I have had a request for info on whether this was possible or not and I just received another letter asking the same thing. I don't know if it is possible or not but if you have any info on this could you please email the 2 people asking for help. Thanks. I read Apples 5400 Take Apart manual and if it is possible it looks like it may be very hard? Reader Request page change: While looking over the posts I have on this page it seems that either some peoples questions are not getting answered or they are not telling me that it has been answered. So I am going to implement a new policy. If your I do not hear if your request was answered in 6 months from the time I posted it, I will remove the posting without notice. I figure 6 months should be long enough to see if anyone has an answer. If you wish me to keep it up longer just let me know and I will hold it for another 6 months, and so on, No problem :) If you visit my page now you will see posts from over a year ago and I have no idea if they have been answered? For those of you with posts that are aged and you wish to keep it up, please let me know. Colour StyleWriter 2500 paper size hack: Mark was unable to change the default paper size of his StyleWriter 2500 but found a way to hack it with ResEdit. Thanks for the info Mark. [Tom As promised details of the Colour StyleWriter 2500 paper size hack. First copy the Colour SW 2500 extension from the Extensions folder of the System Folder on to the desktop. Rename the copied extension as something different say "Photo CSW 2500" this will enable you to chose the new hacked extension in the Chooser when you have finished. Open the renamed extension with ResEdit Open the PREC resource (the one with the paper icon) by double clicking; Open the third line of the resulting window it should be 3 90 by double clicking it; Chose a size of paper you do not use much, I used US Legal, but I am in the UK. Note what button number (BTN) it is. Change the button name to the name of the custom paper size paper size you wish to use. Alter the relevant BTN height and width to you custom paper size in pixels, which is the size in mm*4.7. Save your work. Put the renamed extension back in the extension folder. Restart your Mac and the new printer driver should appear in the Chooser. Hope it works as well for you as it did for me. Good luck Mark] Naming the hacked extension with the name of the size you selected or even the dimentions themselves is a great way to have a visual clue as to what each is (ie, 4x6 CSW2500, 8.5x11 CSW2500 and so on) Hack to run Unreal Tournament without the need for the CD: I just posted on my 6400 Gaming page, some info I found on Accelerate Your Mac's 3dfx forums on how to hack UT to get rid of the need for the CD. It will require a full install of the game to work. Please only use this if you actually own the game. i don't want to promote Piracy :) New SCSI DVD drivers: Yee sends info that Intech has updated their CD/DVD drivers to allow SCSI DVD drives to work now on a Mac! This is great news for us as before you had to use an IDE DVD drive to get full use of the drive. Thanks Yee. [Hello I hope you remember me, I am the one who had managed to hack the pioneer 303s DVD drive into the 6500 and i just want to inform you that this morning, intech just updated their CD rom speedtools to version 5 and have included support for SCSI DVD drives. With the drivers, I can now use the hacked Apple DVD software player to playback ALL DVD movies that i have as opposed to a few limited titles before. Yee-Wei My system: 6500 with Sonnet 400L2 G3 128 MB RAM ATI VR 128 Pioneer 303s with hacked region free version 110 firmware using CD/DVD speedtools version 5 orangelink firewire/usb combo card] Update on Mac OS 9.0.4 and memory leak: Michael sends word that he had a memory leak very similar to Stephen's that I posted in my last Just Update. Thanks for the info Michael. [Hey Tom. Here's a link to a post I made at the Apple BB regarding the same user's memory leak. He never even replied to it so I don't know if he knew it was there. http://discuss.info.apple.com/boards/performa.nsf/424f8fb007a848d1862564c60 074f8f1/f80ae93f7a628707862568d2000e35ad?OpenDocument I know that Mac OS 9 and 9.0.4's Finder code is very similar to 8.6 (and they all three are generally stable but notorious for throwing a hissy fit when some of the slightest things are messed with) so that's why his memory leak sounds so much like the one I had under 8.6. The problem I had was with PPPMenu, a really handy modem-related control panel that bundles with FreePPP. I don't know for sure if that's his problem but he did mention in his post that he is running FreePPP, if he dropped PPPMenu in his system folder the same time he installed FreePPP that could be it.(PPPMenu doesn't install itself, it just comes in an extra folder with the installation and a readme.) From his post there I also think it just -could- be due to all the software he's running, conflicting among each other which then turns around on his Mac OS 9.0.4.(He mentioned normal operation, "without" the memory leak using 42MB!) My Mac OS 9.0.4 took 18.1MB on its first startup this morning and in the two weeks I've had it installed, it's never gone over 21MB all told, with OpenTransport on the net and applications running using either virtual memory or RAM Doubler 9. From reading so many info sites warning about not even thinking about installing Mac OS 9 on anything less than 64MB, and even WITH only 64 to be seriously worried about speed in these older Macs, I was expecting the worst, yet Mac OS 9 and 9.0.4 run faster for me with the G3 off than 8.6 did, at least as fast as 8.5.1 and maybe even faster than that OS, and they really don't bloat at all. So if it's not PPPMenu that is causing his problem, I wonder how much time he spent reconfiguring extensions. Anyway, hope this helps, see ya. ~Michael] Here is another letter I got from Per on this issue. Thanks Per [Hi! You're not the only one with this problem, i had the same problem on my 8.5.1 system. My computer is also running 24 hours a day. After a reboot the system usues about 22Mb of RAM. I go asleep, and when a wake up about 8-10 hours later the system is using about 55-60Mb of RAM, but the strange is: i didn't have this problem while i was running 9.0.4!, but i reinstalled my system because i thought 9.0.4 was running to slow on my 7300/166... I have only experienced this problem in 8.5.1... Excuse my bad english... im swedish :) Per] In the past I have read that netscape can cause this problem. Also you system memory usage will grow with use because extra libraries will be used as you use more apps. Sometimes the memory is not freed when you close the app that requested it. Also the system itself will use up ram when it activates items like the Geo modem or OpenTransport and Apple Talk. Virtual Memory is somewhat of a fix as it changes the OS's file mapping system from a 68k coded one to a PPC native one that allows PPC apps to use less memory. This also seems to fix the problem where the system may not give up its hold on memory from libraries no longer needing it. I know it will not cure all the memory leak issues but its worth a try. Other sources of info on this topic are MacFixIt and Accelerate Your Mac. You will have to search for this info but I know they covered it at one time. Just Updated 5/6/2000 Apple updates Game Sprockets: Click here to get version 1.7.4 of Apples Game Sprockets. Quake 3 Arena MacPoint Release 1.17 part 2: Q3A MacPointRelease 1.17 was released 2 days ago and probably every Mac user had trouble with it. First the installer was timed out and you had to set your date back a month or so to get it to install but only to find out that your game lost speed! Well they fixed it and below is a link to get the newest version. http://www.mac3d.com/cgi-bin/news3/news.cgi?y=2000&m=05&d=05&p=b&t=g iMovie info page: I just created an iMovie info page to store all the info I have collected on using it. Go check out all the info I just posted. It should help you get started right away making cool movies even if you don't have a DV camcorder, and who doesn't :) Newer brings back their L2 G3!: Well this ought to be great news :) Newer has announced that they will be making the L2 G3 again. Alright! Newer's has been probably the leaset problematic and most compatible of all the L2 G3's since Vimage stopped selling them. But Newers is more compatible as it runs todays video cards where Vimage could not. Here is a link to a MacWeek article on this. The article says to expect them this month. See my side bar for more info on Newers L2 G3. Sonnet drops prices on L2 G3 upgrades: I really don't remember seeing this posted on the other help sites when they announced the price drops on Sonnets G3 upgrades so here it is for all of us 6400/6500 owners :) Crescendo G3/L2 400/1M $399.95 (was $499.95) Crescendo G3/L2 500/1M $599.95 (was $699.95) That 400Mhz card is looking mighty nice now :) I also noticed that I had listed a 300Mhz 1M card which Sonnet no longer has posted? I guess the 320/350 1M card replaced it? OS 9.0.x CD drivers issue update: Well I still have not figured out what is going on with the OS 9 install placing CD drivers that don't work with the 6400 anymore? I would like it if anyone that is having this problem or even the worse problem of not being able to boot to the OS 9 CD because the drivers on the CD's System folder are bad, to please check the CD/DVD extension version in the System folder of the install CD to verify that it is 1.3.5 and not some weird version in the 4 or 5 range. Thanks. DAV cable for AVID info for John: I posted a letter from John who was asking if there is any way to get a cable for an older revA or B TV/Video system to connect to his AVID card? David pointed me towards www.sunrem.com which I usually tell people to try and I did find one cable but not sure if it will work. John please let me know if this will work? Thanks David for the tip. They listed the part as none in stock and they don't know where to find it either? From looking at all these parts I think one of the changes from revA to D is that the connector went from a 34pin to a 60pin connector on the video I/O card. Possibly to pass more info? The cable I linked to above is a 34pin to 60pin cable for connecting the older revA card to a MPEG card but might work with the Avid card? but there are none to be found :( Update on the differences between the revisions of Apple video I/O cards: David also sent some info on what he thinks is the difference between the older rev A, B, C and then D of Apple video card. His opinion seems to fit nicely with the info I found in that the revD card has a 60pin connector to work with Avids card as it has a 60pin connector also. If this is all thats really different then the older cards should work fine if you don't care about using Avids card. Thanks David [Tom - From what I've been able to gather, the Rev. D of the Apple Video System card is required if you plan on using it in conjunction with the Avid Cinema card...supposedly, the DAV connector on the Rev. D card is the only one that will interface correctly with the DAV connector on the Avid card. I had a Rev. C TV/Video System installed in my 6400/300 (Newer G3/L2) that ran just fine under every OS up to 8.6 (I never did install OS 9 on it). There are a couple of caveats, though, especially if you run multiple monitors like I did: First, the video will only run smoothly if you have Apple Video Player running on the monitor attached to the onboard video. It will still run on another monitor, but video playback will be extremely jerky. Second, the monitor attached to the onboard video must be set to a "supported" resolution...preferably 640x480, since you'll get the "thousands of colors" required for a nice, clear picture. (An antenna also helps with the nice, clear picture thing. ;-) Third, I could never get AVP to display full-screen video (without the window border) unless the monitor attached to the onboard video was set to be the main monitor, which really wasn't ideal. My workaround was to use the shareware BTV instead of AVP, which played full-screen TV and video just fine. (You'll still need to have the Video Player extension loaded, though.) Fourth, be careful of what buttons you press on the remote control. I assumed that the "Power" button would only quit AVP. No, it shuts down the computer! I picked mine up from MacWorks back when they had a ton of them going for $50, but it looks like they've long since run out. MacWorks claimed they had a Rev. A running fine in a 6500. I suspect you can still find them on eBay for a decent price...I sold mine there a few months ago for $51. ;-) I don't have my 6400 anymore (found a deal on a new B&W 350 DVD at CompUSA for under $800!), but I still visit your site regularly. Keep up the good work. David] OS 9.0.4 System Ram requirment growing?: Stephen writes that his Ram allocation for his System keeps growing till it eats up all his ram? he is using OS 9.0.4. Has anyone else had this problem or knows of a fix? Thanks [Tom.... I had to let you know this! I have been leaving my computer on 24 hours and when I go to use it, The screen redraws are literally to a snails crawl, whereas after a restart the system is fine until the OS's memory requirements moves up higher and higher. The most it has eaten is 101.4 Megs!!! It basically lets you know what was going on. P.S. It doesn't have to be on 24 hours for this to happen. This has started since my software update software upgraded a module from Apple. I am going to revert back to 9.0.4's upgrade and accept NO MORE Updates from Apple by disabling my Software upgrade module. let me know if anyone else is having this problem... Stephen] Update on OS 9.0.4 and the 6400's Subwoofer issue: In my last update I noted that a few people noticed their 6400's subwoofer will not work after upgrading to OS 9.0.4. Chris writes that his still works but is much quieter then it used to be? Thanks Chris. [Another matter; I saw the comments about the sub-woofer not working with OS9. I tried it last night and found that twisting the knob on the back of the processor did boost the base, but not as much as I remember, you used to be able to get a lot of distortion by turning the bass up. I checked the Sound control panel and everything was set correctly. I have a 15" Apple monitor with the built in speakers and the bass only seems to be from them. The start-up sound is still pretty bassy though, so I wonder what they could have done in OS9? Best regards and thanks again for such a great site. Chris] Part number for VRAM upgrade of ATI VR Rage Pro cards: Christopher just sent me the info he has on where to get the 4M SGRAM upgrade at a great discount. Thanks Christopher. [Hello Tom, ClubMac's web site is http://www.clubmac.com. There is no direct link to the product listing that I can find. Go to the site and search on "ATI" The SKU number is M101 2070. This SGRAM module upgrades the ATI RagePro VR from 4 MB to 8 MB of VRAM, and the Beige G3 to 6 MB (I think). You won't find any product details there though. I got my information by sending an email to the customer service department at sales@clubmac.com Christopher] I just checked their web site and this SKU is for a 4M SGRAM upgrade but listed for 333Mhz iMacs? Still I think it should work as the 333 iMac did have a Rage Pro chip. Just Updated 4/29/2000 Request for info on Apples TV/Video system in a 6400: Ross would like to know what versions of this system will work in a 6400 well. If you have this info then please email me. Thanks. [Hi! I'm looking for information about what revisions of the Apple TV/Video System can be used in the 6400. I heard that only D was supported, but I've also read stuff about the C actually working. Can you clarify any of this? Particularly what problems arise if the older model doesn't work. Thanks, Ross] Request for cable for older Avid card in a 5400: John writes that he got an older Apple TV/Video system that is for a 5200 (maybe rev A or B TV/Video system) and it will not fit in his 5400. He was wondering if anyhad a special cable from an Avid kit that might work? Please email him if this is true and you know where to get one. Thanks. [I have a 5400 with a "wrong" version of the Apple TV/Video System; it the one made for the 5200. The DAV slot that you would connect the Avid card to is different, but I recently read that there's a cable, possibly included in the Avid package, that will work with the older slot. Have you heard anything about this?]

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