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

OS 8.6 info page updated: I added some info on on my Mouse freeze issue with OS 8.6 and font issues with apps that require passwords.

PCI expansion chassi setups getting cheaper!: I found this on Accelerate Your Mac's web site. It seems the price of these things are falling. Mine was just under $800 for a refurb!

[CDW sent a note on new PCI Expansion Chassis units that are nearly 1/2 the price of last year's models:

" Out of PCI slots?
CDW now has access to the the entire line of SBS-Bit3 PCI expansion units
CDW part #174428
With SBS's Model 2134 PCI Slot Expansion Unit adding four more slots to your PCI computer is easy. Installation is quick. Configuration is a breeze. Model 2134 is a complete system including a PCI host card, a micro ATX mini-tower enclosure housing a 4-slot backplane with integrated controller and power supply, and 2-foot interconnecting cable. $579!!!!
Bruce Modell
Senior Account Manager
CDW, Inc.
800-400-4239 ext 8219 "
Last year PCI expansion chassis from Magma and others started at appx. $1000. www.cdw.com]

More Sonnet user letters: Here are 2 more letters from satisfied users with one being a 400Mhz card! Thanks guys

[Tom,
Thanks for the PowerLogix fix you posted. I installed it on Tuesday and no crashes since. My card (300/512), like yours, does crash if I try to run the cache at 200MHz - Shame!
Mark]

[Tom,
I haven't seen anyone post results yet with the 400 MHz upgrade cards. I just picked up the Sonnet Crescendo G3/400 directly from Sonnet, who delivered it on the second day after I placed my order. The cost was $699.

CONFIGURATION

- 6500/300 / OS 8.5.1
- 128 MB of Physcial RAM, VM turned ON to 196 MB
- Adaptec 2930U Ultra SCSI card used on internal SCSI boot drive
- Apple 10bT Ethernet card in Comm II slot running Appletalk to my HP 850C printer
- External Diamond SupraExpress 56K modem
- Apple Video System
- Apple TV/FM Radio Card
- Agfa ePhoto 300 digital camera using the printer port
- HP ScanJet 4c Scanner
- Maxtor IDE internal drive
- 8x Apple internal CDROM (my machine used to be a 6400/180)
- Microsoft ADB Sidewinder joystick

MACBENCH 4.0 / PEFORMANCE

Before the upgrade, with ALL extensions ON, my MacBench 4.0 processor score was 361 (I've gotten it up to 412 by turning everything off). After the upgrade, my MacBench 4.0 processor score is 1322, again with ALL extensions ON. Not bad!

Everything is very snappy, but VPC Windows 98 is still sluggish. I was hoping windows would just snap open, but that is still not the case. It is definitely 200% better than before, but I don't have the latest VPC version (1.1.3) installed yet, so maybe that will help.

TEMPERATURE

The Metronone utility reports that the Sonnet card is running at 31 degrees C when I'm not doing much, but after I did some heavy emulation tasks by running VPC and a few MacMAME games (which are now TONS smoother) the temperature went up to 36 degrees C. NOT BAD! I also have two 64 MB DIMMs, and the heatsink does NOT touch them. It almost does, but there is a little more than a millimeter to spare.

STABILITY

I just performed the default install of the Sonnet drivers included (v1.3.6) and I haven't had a single crash. I even tried making the machine crash by doing lots of things at once, and if anything it seems more stable. The Adaptec folks were not happy when I told them I was getting a Sonnet upgrade in my machine along with their card... they told me to expect lots of flukes and that Newer had the timing issues worked out better with their G3 upgrades. However, so far my system is just as stable or even more stable than it was before.

Some of the add-on extensions I am running are Default Folder, ColorSwitch Pro, the OMS Music System (i.e. Midi extensions), and Input Sprockets for my Microsoft Sidewinder joystick. Obviously no problems with any of them so far.

Overall... I'm happy with my purchase!
Tom]

I also added all my previous fixes for Sonnets Stability issues to my Hack Crescendo page.

Do you have a virus? You never know! Sang told me about his troubles with the SevenDust virus he had. We don;t know how it got there but he did check his 8.5 install CD and no signs of it there :)

[Tom, thanks for your dedication and effort for your terrific website. posting this so might help others who has the same situation. got a 6400/180, 80 M and 512 L2 cache after 10 years with SE/30. not a speed maniac so was very satisfied with it. upgraded to OS 8.5 and all hell broke loose. crashes, type 2 & 3 errors, messed up menu bars and apps quitting. tried everything with no luck. did work arounds you wouldn't believe for the apps needed. guessed that bad memory was to blame. catch 22, need the chip to run. was on version tracker and saw a virus program that haven't seen before. downloaded Agax-V1.2 and ran it to scan the drive. the log showed a long list of files infected with the SevenDust virus. noticed that the list were files that gives problems. set Agax to repair the infected files and it did so. restarted and everything worked just like it's supposed to! no more crashes, errors, messed up menu bars and quitting apps! don't know why my other virus programs didn't pick up the SevenDust virus. don't know how it got on my machine. running now with OS 8.6 with no problems at all.]

He later wrote me that he had low level formatted his HD then installed 8.5 he couldn't figure out how it got there? I reminded him that Apples Drive Setup does not low level format an IDE drive. Apple stated this in a TIL file awhile ago. it will onle write zeros and the latest version doesn't even let you pick low level if your trying to format an IDE drive. In this case the virus could have been in the boot sector of his drive or on some other disk he inserted after the 8.5 install?

Info on compatibility between Vimage G3 and ATI's Rage128 or ix3D's Game Rocket: A reader has requested this info. I know ATI's card is not available yet but I think ixmicro started shipping their Game Rocket so if any one has it running with Vimages G3 I would like to know if it works? Thanks.

More Sonnet user letters: Here are a few more letters I thought you might like to read. Thanks everyone, for the info

[no problems with the double restart since I disabled the apple guide ext. Sonnet loads 5th. Zips right along.
Marie ;-{}]

[Hi Tom, I'm always glad from my Sonnet G3/300 L2 card. I updated Os 8.6 and the new 1.3.6 extension and all works fine with the extension renamed z-crescendo. For those who find the boot process too slow, I deeply recommend the shareware from Mark Moini: Startup Doubler, which is very stable in version 2 . You'll find it at: www.marcmoini.com
Thanks for your site . Bye.
Regis]

And here is a letter Mark wrote to Mike at Sonnet on his problems. Seems Sonnet knows of our problems and is still working on it. Sigh!

[Mike,
"Fine-ish" is how I would categorise my machine now, as I said it still crashes about 1 in 20 times on start-up, see my mail of earlier today below. My bloody awful PC at work, while very, very slow in comparison to my "new G3" 5400, never crashes when I turn it on.

There obviously is still a (slight) problem with the Crescendo extension.
Any chances of an upgrade in the near future to improve on this?
Thanks in advance and for the swift reply, I don't envy your job!
Mark

> -----Original Message-----
> Reply to: RE: Bug Report-Smith
> Mark Smith,
> I am glad to hear that your System is running fine now. Again, I
> apologize for the long delay and the inconvenience. To answer your
> question, yes. If we come across any problems, it is addressed (if
> technically
> feasible) in the next release. If you have any further questions and/or we
> could assist you with future products, please let us know. Thank you again
> for choosing our product.
>
> Mike J. Wong
> Hardware/Software QA Analyst
> Sonnet Technologies, Inc.]

USB mouse freezes on the 6400 update: It may be the Apple USB drivers causing the problem? I just installed the latest USB 1.2 developers kit and the freezes are not as drastic as they used to be but the freeze is still there. Maybe with more tweeking they will vanish?

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.

Sound garbled after installing Vimages G3 update: I don't know if Steve found a fix but now my 6400 seems better. At the time I tested running Marathon Infinity with Sonnets G3 and had horribly garbled sound during the launch of it. I think the music tempo was sped up so much that it played the entire introduction in a few seconds! Now that I have Vimages 320/1M G3 in here the sound problem has gone. Steve is also using a Vimage card though and I wonder if the OS 8.6 updated version fixed it for me? Its still possible that some older apps will have sound issues no matter what and this may never get fixed :(

Linux on the 6400, update: in my last update I mentionned I was able to get Linux to run on my 6400 with a G3 card and I want to clarify a few things. First I was only using Linux 4.0 Live which is a stripped down version like a demo and required no HD partitioning or formatting to AU/X (a UNIX format). The G3 was Vimages 320/1M card. OS was 8.6 and I launched Linux using the BootX app, not the extension. I tried Sonnets G3 over and over and everytime is crashes somwhere during the boot of Linux. Disabling the Crescendo extension allowed it to work but as you can guess, with no G3. So it seems that only Vimages G3 works for now but still not sure about the L2 cache? I tried a newer version of the BootX app which can send the L2 cache info to Linux but the GrabG3setting app could not find a BootX pref file to store the info in. Most likely do to the demo version I'm running. I'm going to try a different approach now. I read an article on MacPC from a worker at Connectix that got RedHat Linux 5.0 to install on Vpc 2.1. I think I'm going to try installing it on RealPC as this will make it easier for me to install a real version without having to partition and format my HD.

Issues with BlackFires SCSI-IDE card: Dirk Paul sent me some more info on his new 10G IDE drive connected using BlackFires SCSI-IDE interface card. It was in response to a reply of mine asking why the 2 drives benchmarked similar when large IDE drives are usually faster then the stock HD.

[> The built-in IDE drive is a 2.4 Gb; the new IDE disk on the SCSI port
> through the interface card is a 10 Gb disk formatted to 8 Gb. If you want
> specifics, I'd have to look that up (which will probably have to wait,
> because I will be away for 3 weeks).
>
> I do have some additional comments now btw. For one, I've been trying to
> install LinuxPPC on this new HD; didn't work. The installation process went
> OK, but it won't boot. It gives me all the Linux command-line bullshit, but
> a few seconds after it asks me for my login, it switches to a black screen;
> nothing to wake it from that. Don't know if it's related to the card
> (thought that maybe you can't install LinuxPPC through that card), but it's
> only a guess.
>
> Second comment is that sometimes after a system crash, this new HD won't be
> mounted on my desktop. Most of the times, a restart (and switching the SCSI
> terminator on my ZIP drive, which is on the same SCSI chain on and off when
> the Mac is turned off) will bring it back, but it's always an uneasy
> experience. In this case, not sure either whether it's related to the card;
> but I thought you wanted to know anyway.
>
> DP]

Basically the BlackFire card can only transfer data as fast as the SCSI bus its on. The internal SCSI for the 6400 is only 5MBps which is pretty slow. I asked him to try swaping the two drives and see if performance improves.

Reader Request: Howard is having some difficulty getting his cable modem to access the web at a good speed. His seems to be worse then a 28.8k modem! Click here to read his email and please reply if you have an answer. Thanks.

Joe is having trouble printing to a Color Style Writer 4100 after the install of Sonnets 300/512k G3 card. Click here to read his email and reply if you have an answer. Thanks.

Also here is a quick question from another reader asking about modem scripts. Please email him if you have what he is asking for. Thanks

[Does anyone have modem inits or CCL scripts for the Beige G3/6500 internal modem that allow higher than 26400 connection speeds?]

Short review from some Sonnet users: Fernando and Buddy sent me their info just to let you all know how things are going for them. Thanks guys.

[Hi Tom. Thanks for the great site and advice concerning G3 upgrades.I ultimately chose the Sonnet 240MHz because 1) I was somewhat concerned about the long-term effects of the high temperature of the Vimage 240MHz, and 2) from the reviews on your site and the xlr8yourmac site, it seems as if the 300Mhz Sonnet is more problematic than its lower speed sibling. I've had my upgrade now for almost 3 weeks and so far (knock on wood), it has been fantastic! Installation was a snap. It's very stable: out of at least 20-30 startups/reboots, there has been only one startup crash and I've had no other troubles whatsoever. Needless to say, I'm very happy with the speed of the upgrade. VirtualPC is much more responsive and now I can really tell just how zippy my cable modem is. I know that the 300MHz upgrade would be even faster but I'm not sure if the speed gained is worth the risk of the problems others have had with it. Here are my specs, in case someone out there is looking to get a G3 upgrade and has a similar setup to mine:

OS 8.1, 104 MB RAM, XClaim VR (Rage Pro), Farallon 10BaseT Ethernet card, GV Platinum 28.8 modem (original), Epson Stylus Color 500 printer
Sincerely,
Fernando]

[Hello,
Sonnet G3 240/ 512 "Banker" L2 card in my 6400 works great-nice speed boost. Temps running at 39-43C. Cresendo extension v. 1.3.6 installed. Had the same double start problem as Brian, when ever I had a freeze. I added a "z" to the beginning of the Cresendo extension and have been trouble free for last day and half. By the way I'm running OS 8.6 with plenty of non-vanilla extensions. Hope this is of some use/Wes recommmended in previous post. Great page.Keep the posts coming!
Buddy]

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!

FIX 5/27/1999 Gary sent me a fix which seems to work. One thing though is that the power supply fan will always spin. Even PC's do this to keep the mother board cool. I guess the CPU does not sleep but all the peripherals do? By the way I was able to reset up different sleep times for displays and System and it still worked for me. Maybe my pref files was just corrupted? Thanks Gary.

[Hi,
I have a Sonnet 300/1MB L2 G3 installed on my 6400 running OS 8.5.1 and I too could not get the sleep function to work after the installation, so I started playing around with it and came up with this fix witch is working for me......

First drag the energy saver control panel preference to the trash and restart your computer. After the restart you will see a dialog box prompting you to set your energy saver preferences, open the panel..... NOW THIS IS IMPORTANT! Do not set separate times for hard disk or monitors. Now click on preferences then click on notification, a dialog box will open. Now uncheck all three check boxes, (you can no longer use these notification features). then click OK. Close the energy saver panel and go directly to the control panel folder by way of the apple menu. (DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200 DOLLARS DO NOT GO ANY WHERE BUT TO THE CONTROL PANEL FOLDER). Find the energy saver Icon click on it once to highlight it, then click on file in the finder, now click on get info to open the get info box and in the lower left conner check the check box marked locked. Close every thing up, empty the trash and your done.

Repeat above steps for all other disks, volumes, or removable media (zip jazz etc.) that have their on OS.

Why this works? I haven't a clue... And its not a perfect fix but you can put it to sleep any time you want and it will stay asleep until you wake it up, or wait 30 minutes and it'll go into sleep mode on its on.

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
Sincerely, Gary Brooks]

I use a Performa 6400/180 OS 8.6, Performa 6400/200 OS 8.6, PowerBook G3/233 OS 8.6, 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.