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.

Hot Topics:

• L2 G3 upgrade info for the 6400 -
• Current problems with my system -
• My 6400 Take Apart manual -
• Alternate OS's on a G3 accelerated 6400-
• ATI Rage 128 compatibility?-

Newer drops prices on L2 G3 upgrades: Here is a list of their new pricing. They also combined the L2 G3 products for the 4400 family and 6400/6500 families like Sonnet did so the same upgrade works on both types. This makes it easier for them to manufacture and keep less inventory.

[MAXpowr G3 L2 300/1MB/200 $459 [reduced $40]
MAXpowr G3 L2 400/1MB/200 $779 [reduced $50]

The MAXpowr G3-L2A and MAXpowr G3-L2B G3 upgrades that install into the Level 2 cache slot have been combined into a single product named 'MAXpowr G3-L2'. The MAXpowr G3-L2 works in all of the computers covered by these original two products:
Power Mac 4400, 4400 DOS, 7220 (international), 5400, 5500, 6400, 6500; Performa 5400, 5410, 5420, 5430, 5440, 6360, 6400, 6410, 6420; UMAX C-500, C-600; Power Computing PowerBase (all); all Motorola StarMax 3000, 4000, 5000, 5500; APS M*Power series (all).]

Newer G3 driver update page: Here is a link to Newers page with all the latest drivers. I don't think they have updated their L2 G3 driver let but if you have one then go check it out just incase they did.

More Newer G3 info from Zach: I asked Zach about the heatsink being on the other side facing the PCi cards and if it would be a problem. Here is his reply. Thanks

[The top edge of the ATI Xclaim GA card would almost or just touch the fins of the heat sink. It would have fit, but it was too close for comfort. There would have been no electrical contact, but I wanted more air flow and it was eay to swap the cards.]

Question on using LibMoto with Newers L2 G3: David sent me a clipping from Newers FAQ on using LibMoto with their G3's.

[Tom,
I found this statement on the Newer tech support FAQ web site. Do you know if this is true, or does it just apply when using one of their G3-L2 cards?
Thanks!
David


"I have the library called "LibMotoSh" which was installed with the MAXpowr G3 software, what system do I need this with?
You should use LibMoto with any OS before 8.1. If you have LibMoto installed, and you're at 8.1 or higher, you should take it out of your Extensions Folder "]

That is interesting. Actually it is true and not true depending on what system you have.

I have heard that Apples prefessional line of Macs, namely the G3's and 604e's, use an updated version of Apples math library that is incorporated in OS 8.1 and up. It is better then what LibMoto does for FPU.

Now the 6400 has its math library in the ROM and for some reason (which only Apple knows) cannot use the latest version in OS 8.1 so LibMoto would be better for FPU.

Now it gets even stickier. Motorola has determined that LibMoto clashes with the Geomodem which just about every 6400 came with. I never had the problem but many other people have.

Sonnet used to make LibMoto part of their default install but many people disabled it to get better stability out of their G3 upgrade. Now you have to do a custom install to get it.

Basically some people worship it and others say its just voodoo and doesn't make any system math improvments other than in bench mark apps and then others say it is a mess and ruines stability.

I say just don't use it. If your G3 installer places it in your system folder then remove it. The G3 will give you plenty of speed with or without it. I used to use it all the time and frankly I never noticed a speed increase and I never had any stability issues so I removed it.

Another satisfied Vimage L2 G3 user: Mike wrote to tell me how much he enjoys his new found speed :) Thanks Mike.

[Hi Tom
Many thanks for a most excellent site. I have been following it for some months now as I have been considering upgrading my 6500/250.

The upshot of this is that I bought a Vimage G3/325 from Small Dog Electronics notwithstanding that I reside in the UK.

The card runs at full speed, I guess thanks to my 50Mhz bus, and has not crashed once. (fingers crossed).

A point worth passing on is that if anyone has Speed Doubler 8.1.2 and is installing this card then it is a good idea to insert a space before the Vpower extension immediately after installing the software and before inserting the card. This will prevent the need for rebooting minus the extensions to do this.

I find the double boot of no consequence and if this is the only price to pay for stability and compatibility with the modem then so be it.

I am running OS 8.1, (48Mb RAM) Free PPP and Soft Windows. (Boy does it make a difference to Soft Windows)

CPU Temp runs at between 28 and 36 degrees C.

MacBench 5 scores against Power Macintosh G3/33 at 1000.

CPU 990
Floating Point 852
Disc 748

Regards
Mike]

He mentions renaming the Vpower extension with a space because SpeedDoubler will boot before the Vpower extension if you do not do this and sometimes it may conflict. I had this issue once or twice but reinstalling SpeedDoubler fixed it. Its just a luck of the draw if you'll have this problem or not?

Professional Audio recording on the 6400: For those of you in the field of Audio Recording and are having trouble you can write to Egan who sent me some wonderfull info on Audio recording on a G3 accelerated 6400. Please try to limit your questions to Audio issues only as like most of us he is a pretty busy guy. Thanks Egan.

More info on the Sound issue with Sonnets G3: Jeff was having stuttering issues and other problems with his Sonnet G3 accelerated 6400 and finally found the problem on his system.

[Tom,
Good news here,
I read the messages you had posted from Egan, and began wondering why I was still having these audio problems while he was not. I made some minor adjustments along the lines of some of the items he had discussed and things were seeming to get even worse. Then I noticed that every audio blip, crackle, or pause seemed to coincide with a small flash of light at my Global Village External Modem. As it turns out, the Global Village, Global Fax 2.6.8 software queries the modem frequently to sense any incoming fax messages. So, once I disabled the Global Fax software, then no more audio problems. HooRay. Incoming fax messages are something I can live without. Now if I can just solve the problem with the occasional random freezes when I access some of the pull down menus, then I'll be one happy camper and Sonnet will have one satisfied customer. These freezes seem like they might just be related to the speculative addressing issue you've discussed. I may want to try your hack.
Thanks again,
Jeff]

Although I doubt this is the cause on most other peoples 6400's, it is something to consider. Jeff later wrote to let me know that the Apple Platinum Sounds in the Appearance Conrol Panel was causing the random crashes for him. I have this info posted on my OS 8.5 info page and interestingly it was sent to me by another Jeff :)

[Tom,
I couldn't find anywhere to simply turn off the GV software other than just disabling it in Extensions Manager. It is no big issue with me, I almost never use the fax functions anyway. My random freeze issues seem to have disappeared now that I have turned off Platinum Sounds. I read on your web site that this has solved that problem for others. As of now everything seems to be stable and I've seen no freezes since making those changes. I haven't tried the Hack. I'm just as happy to live without the Platinum Sounds. I've also returned to the regular 150 mhz speed for my 1 MB of cache. Everything else in my system is performing perfectly. This 6400 G3 300 seems to be faster than ever now. I'm hesitant to upgrade to 8.6. Although it sounds as though it has been great for most people.

Thanks again for the great web site. You've help me fix the problems that had been dogging my 6400.
Jeff.]

Another G3 accelerated 6400 that refuses to stay G3 accelerated after a bad crash!: Steve was a happy camper until he had a serious crash and now his Sonnet G3 refuses to work. Did it fry? Please email any suggestions you may have. Thanks. I have had only one other person write to me with similar issues but his is with both Vimages and Sonnets G3's!

[I recieved my sonnet card on monday and was talking it up all week to my friends. I have probibly talked three other people into buying upgrades for thier machines. Unfortunately at about noon saturday I think I may have fried the card. I was using a digital camcorder to document how fast different programs like adobe illustrater and photoshop open. I have no firewire port, and do have an XclaimVR ragepro4M so used the svideo out on the camera to the svideo in on the Xclaim card. I have done this quite a few times but hadn't tried it since uprgading the proccesser. To do the test I made a duplicate of the extention set I had been using all week for my online needs and disabled the crescendo extention. I first did the tests with the upgrade, then without, finally doing a few more with the upgrade. So I started the computer using my original extention set, then the dupe w/out the crescendo ext., then the original again. After I stopped filming the tests I opened up Xclaim video player to turn the DV I had taken into movie files. My computer locked up hard. cmnd-opt-esc did nothing. cmnd-ctrl-pwr to reboot. Computer started to function normally, loading the ATI drivers but again locked up hard right at the point the crescendo ext loads. Did a cmnd-ctrl-pwr to try and restart w/no extentions. The computer acted like it was rebooting but did not chime. After that the moniter switched from standby to ready and then back to standby where the computer locks up really hard. I am forced to turn my power strip off and on again to get the computer to boot again. I think the card is fried. I have tried every possible combination of fixes to no avail. I have tried removing the video card, reseating the upgrade card and resetting the cuda switch, disconnecting my SCSI stuff, reinstalling the software, rebuilding the desktop, starting with only minimal extentions plus the crescendo extention.

What do you think,
Steve]

Before I could get this page posted I got a reply from Steve saying he got a new card and all is well. Cool!

[Mac Zone is awesome! As I said in my last email, I was certain that the 300/512 card I had was fried. To add insult to injury, less than 24 hours after I had ordered my upgrade, Sonnet dropped the prices $100. Mac Zone was kind enough to give me a full refund (except the shipping to me, but they paid to pick it up) and was able to order the 300/1M for $6 more than I paid for the 300/512. Of course about the same time I ordered the new processor, Newer dropped thier prices in line with Sonnet's. So it goes. Got it yesterday with no real problems so far. I was experiencing some crashes on startup, but adding a '~' and putting it in the control panels folder seems to have eliminated the problem. I was able to input video using Xclaim video player (the app that fried the last processor) although I did experience the only crash so far using it. Actually it locked up while recording. However, this could have happened at any time with or without the upgrade. Overall, I'm very happy with it. That could change at any time.]

Egan sends a warning on using powered speakers connected to the HeadPhone jack: I had told Egan I was using a set of powered computer speakers on my HeadPhone jack to I get the full sound (bass and trebble) as the rear speaker out jack cuts out the bass and the internal speaker takes care of that. I never had any issues with this setup but I never turned the headphone volume up past 3. I think if you were to have the system volume at max and had the speakers volume turned up high then you might just fry them as he says. Thanks Egan.

[If you set it to 10- Film it- because the SMOKE and flames should make great QT movies!!! hehehe. Keep that Volume low- it has 2 Amps, and the speakers can only handle the Built in Amp it comes with...............the Extra Headphone Amp- is enough to SMOKE anything!]

How to flash a Voodoo3 to work on a Mac from Accelerate Your Mac: I got this info from Mike of Accelerate Your Mac and thought it would be of use to any of you trying to get a Voodoo3 to work on your 6400. The extensions he mentions for getting OpenGL to work on these cards can be found on his other site www.mac3dfx.com. Also not that it has been mentioned that the Rave driver that is installed with 3dfx's Voodoo2 drivers works with their Voodoo3 drivers. But remember Mikes NOTE that the other Voodoo2 drivers will not work with the Voodoo3. Thanks Mike.

[How to Flash a PC Voodoo3 2000 PCI Card:

1. Insert the Voodoo3 2000 PCI card in your Mac. Make sure you have some other video card installed since until the flash ROM is updated, you'll get no video from the Voodoo3 card.

2. Run the 3dfx Voodoo3 flasher utility which will automatically find the Voodoo3 card and update the ROM to the Mac version. It will offer you the option to save the existing PC ROM image file in case you want to ever run the card in a PC again. Make sure you save your PC Bios to disk! - you only get one chance to do this and that's on the first flash. After that the card no longer has the PC firmware of course.

3. After flashing the ROM, copy the 3dfx extensions (2d accelerator, resource manager, Glide 2 and Glide 3 extensions) into your system folder Extensions folder and restart.

4. Upon rebooting your Voodoo3 card should be working fine and providing video out. For Opengl games like Quake2 and Q3test, you'll need the Mesa extensions as are required for other 3dfx cards in OpenGL games. The latest Quake2 refGL lib (mirrored here) and MesaQuake2 update also provide multitexturing for Quake 2 with the Voodoo3 as well as the Voodoo2.

5. Note: The Glide2 and Glide3 extensions for the Voodoo3 are different than the Voodoo2 (at least revision/size wise) and you can't use the Voodoo2 extensions with the Voodoo3. ]

6500 owner issue with Voodoo3 card: Well now that I have mentioned that the card does work and also posted how to make it work I have to post some news that it may still have trouble! Craig writes that he cannot get it to work on his 6500. Please email him if you have any suggestions. Thanks.

[I have a PM 6500 running on OS 8.6 and I just purchased a new Voodoo3 2000 PCI video card. The problem is I can't get the computer to recognize it. I installed it last night and ran into a few strange occurrences. Below is my steps I took and the results:

1) Installed the Voodoo3 into PCI slot, reset board by pressing the curda (?) button, and restarted computer
2) Apple System Profiler identifies the board in the PCI slot as a PC compatible card.
5) Hop on the web and download the Beta drivers from 3dfx.
6) Zap ROM with downloaded software and install drivers to the extension folder.
7) Restart computer with monitor plugged into video card.
8) Computer boots up, no video.
9) Restart computer with monitor connected to old video port.
10) 3dfx extension does not load (x-ed out).
11) Now I have video (with old video port) but System Profiler doesn't recognize new video card or even the PCI slot it's in.
12) Zap PRAM, rebuild desktop - still nothing.
13) Hop on the web and search for help at 3dfx and various forums - find nothing.
14) Disconnect from web. - This is where it get strange. -
15) Apple System Profiler now recognizes Voodoo3 card as a Mac compatible card. (Maybe the card needed to warm but I think the Voodoo3 version did away with vacuum tubes right?)
16) Shut down, connect monitor to Voodoo card and boot up.
17) Extension boots, video works but I'm unable to change monitor resolution.
18) Shut down and restart 10 min later.
19) Back to not finding the Voodoo card and not loading extensions or not even identifying both PCI slots..

I've tried plugging it into the other PCI slot but still get nothing. I've booted with extensions disabled, 8.6 base extensions but I still can't get the computer to recognize the Voodoo card. One thing I plan to do tonight is to take the card out and see if the system will identify the both empty PCI slots. Does anyone have any other tips? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Craig.]

Loud power supply got you down?: Rodney has been having a serious issue with his power supply where the fan would spin up and down making an anoyingly loud sound. Trust me I have this smae problem and it sounds like a turbo jet taking off :) Anyway he found that by removing the power supply and using a can of compressed air to blow off the dust fixed it! I just tried myself last night and so far mine is quieter too but not as quiet as his sounds. I didn't have much dust at all so my supply may be just going bad? I will have instructions on doing this as soon as my pictures develop. Thanks Rodney. Click here to read previous info I had on this issue.

[Tom,
Good news. You will want to post this on your page. Tell EVERYONE to clean their power supply. :-) I finally took the case apart and removed the power supply. Actually, I could not get the power cables disconnected for some strange reason. Anyway, I removed it and took it out as far as the cables would allow. I then sprayed compressed air (2 full cans) into the case. I must've blown out 0.25 pounds of dust.I then took the cover off of the power supply and wiped the fan blades off, blew air on them, etc. All I can say is WOW!!! Let me say it again. WOW!!!!!!!!!! Super quiet machine again. It's been on since 2:30 this afternoon (it is now 9:40 p.m. Sunday here in America) and it hasn't revved up one octave higher. Same air conditioning settings are on in the house. Same computer location. Yet, the machine is deadly silent. I now have to put my ear to the case to hear the noise from the fan. From a distance of 6 feet away, and with a tv on, I can no longer hear the fan at all. The best thing though is the lack of the increasing pitch of the fan spinning up and down. It's just one consistent hum now. No oscillating at all. None!! I may have even saved my power supply from an early death. I have no doubt that it was overheating with all that caked up dust on it. It's the kind of dust that was loose but then it had another layer on it that was sticky (like some type of spindle oil from the fan had mixed with the dust particles or something. Even the air coming out the back of the 6400 is cooler now.

Anyway, I wanted to share that with you and your web page visitors. My next mission is to remove the 256K L2 cache and plug a 1MB L2 cache in there. No more thoughts of G3 upgrade cards for me.
Rodney]

Vimage no longer to sell retail or to distributors?: I have read this on a few web sites and just recieved word from Vimage themselves. It seems that they are no longer going to sell to the general public or to retailers and just do OEM equipment! I have no idea what this means for their line of L2 G3 upgrades as there is no Mac made these days tat requires a L2 G3 to be OEM'ed. I fear the worst and that they may no longer distribute their L2 G3 which leaves Sonnets, Newers, and Power Logix's G3's.

One of my contacts has left Vimage already and I emailed the other to find out what is going on. I hope to have more info soon. Vimage pioneered the L2 G3 industry by distributing Interwares products in the US. Interware was the first company to design a L2 G3 and to this day is the most stable L2 G3 out there as far as I'm concerned.

First user reports on Newers L2 G3: Zach just got Newers 300/200 L2 G3 for his 6400 and has sent me some info over the past few days on its performance. Sounds good so far. Thanks Zach

[I got one of the first batch of NewerTech MAXpowr G3-L2 300/200 cards (MacConnection $549). I installed it this morning into my 6400/200. The software driver is an extension called MAXpowr G3 L2B (version 1.0) which loads first on boot. The heat sink faces away from the RAM, which means toward the PCI cards, so I switched the order of my PCI cards to provide more clearance for the heat sink which otherwise would have just touched the edge of my ATI XClaim GA (not a typo, just an old ATI card). Everything seems fine and faster. I don't have a good feel for it yet. The fan may be a little louder than usual, or it could be my imagination. Feel free to e-mail me any additional questions.

It Single boots. It works fine with the ATI XClaim GA. Vimage still says theirs does not.

I ran MacBench 5.0 and scored 1002 on the processor compared with 1000 for a Power Macintosh G3/300. That seems reasonable. I've got the same amount of L2 cache (1 MB) but running at 200 MHz instead of 150, but my system bus speed is 40 MHz instead of 66 MHz.

Of course now I wish my disk, graphics, etc. were faster. That'll have to wait for the G4 machines I suppose. I have OS 8.1

It's been running continuously for 72 hours and no problems yet. Keeping my fingers crossed...]

I'm not sure if the heat sink facing the PCI cards will be a problem or not. I have emailed Newer for more info and a test unit to try. Zach later wrote that its been a week and no issues at all. GOOD!

3DFX releases Voodoo 3 drivers!: While ATI may be having issues 3DFX is taking advantage of it. it didn't take long for them to get the Voodoo3 drivers out. only a few weeks ago did they release the Voodoo2 drivers for the Mac. Click here to get them.

I found this info on Accelerate Your Mac:

[NOTE: A 6500 owner commented the PC Voodoo3 w/Dev. Drivers are not working properly. This may be the same issue as seen with the Orion cards so I caution owners of 44/54/64/6500 macs (and starmax owners) to wait until the Mactell cards are released.]

and then later saw this:

[Tip for Onboard Video/One Monitor Users: Nathan Aschbacher sent a tip for 6500 and other onboard video Macs (beige G3s included) that are using a mac-to-vga adapter. Remember to remove any Mac/VGA adapter from the onboard video port when you switch over to the Voodoo3, otherwise the mac thinks the old port still has a monitor connected to it. Thanks for sending the tip Nathan! [The 6500 owner that reported problems before said this tip solved it]

and yet another update:

["Hi Mike,
This is a further update as to how the Voodoo 3 is coming along in my 6500. After removing the VGA connector, I couldn't run my Mac for more than 15 minutes. Usually, after 5 to 10 minutes, it'll just freeze. My fix for this was to zap the PRAM, rebuild the desktop, and put the ATI drivers into the extensions disabled folder. There seems to be no more freezes even after 2 hours of normal use. I also managed to play UNREAL for just over 2 hours without a problem. Really seems to be working out super now. Thanks for all your input and help! :) Regards,
Tiong Chen "]

This means the Voodoo3 cards from 3DFX work on the 6500 so they probably work on the 6400 as well. Looks like it fits in the case too which could mean my Voodoo2 card will also fit. I had mentioned before that I wasn't sure if it would and installed it in my PCI chassi. The one thing to remember as noted above that the Voodoo3 is a full blown 2D/3D card so it requires its own monitor because it has no pass thru port like the previous Voodoo cards. Since the 6400 has no on board video acceleration and the 6500 only has the old Rage II, I don't think it will hurt many people to move their monitor to the Voodoo3 card for lightning performance. The only problem is for those of you that still use Apples TV/video system which relies on a monitor being plugged into the stock port. You will need 2 monitors in this case or have to swap the cable and reboot to get the best of each world.

On a side note, once ATI gets their act together and get their Rage128 cards out and compatible with the 6400 then their VR cards are a good substitiute for both the onboard TV/video and a Voodoo2 card. Yes the Voodoo3 is faster but I find the Voodoo2 very nice at this time and the Rage128 is on on par or slightly faster then a Voodoo2. Depends on what games your playing :) I may be getting a Voodoo3 to try out for myself though.

Links to Accelerate Your Macs info on 3DFX info: Mike asked me to post some links to his site which has probably the best info on 3DFX and the Mac.

http://www.mac3dfx.com

The Voodoo3 seems to be slightly faster then the Rage 128 Orion from ATI and it does work on the 6500 and possibly 6400. Since its so cheap this may be a good substitute for those waiting on ATI. To get Rave to work you'l lneed to download the Voodoo2 drivers from 3DFX and only place the Rave extension in your extensions folder. Also here is a link to a petition he has started to make Apple more aware of how many people would like 3DFX products on their Macs. Specially iMacs!

http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/petition/3dfxpetition.lasso

His main site is xlr8yourmac.com which tracks, as if you can't tell, anything that has to do with speeding up that old Mac, or a new Mac :)

Speeding up the Geo modem?: Henrik sent me this info on changing your init string to get the Geo modem to transfer data faster. I'll ave to try it and see what happens. Thanks Henrik.

[It's about hacking a modem script for your internal geport modem. I tried it and it works. When loading pages I get speeds up to 6.5k/s. Download speed is the same.

http://www.versiontracker.com/reports/modem/special.shtml

Best regards
Henrik]

Farallon admits their 2.0 driver for the Comm II slot 10/100 ethernet card is incompatible with OS 8.6: I just got this from Carl who recieved an email from Farallon stating that they are aware of the issue and working on a fix. Thanks Carl. Click here to read what the problem is.

[Tom:
I switched back to 1.1 of the Farallon driver and all is well. :-) I received this reply from Farallon regarding the 2.0 driver:

<<Dear user,
Thank you for writing into Farallon Tech Support. Thank you for all the infor that you supplied. We are working on a fix, When we have it ready it will be placed on our web site and also let our customers & user now.

Sincerely,
Farallon Tech Support>>]

Another satisfied 6400/6500 mother board swapper: Howard just swapped his 6400/180 mother board for a 6500/225 mother board from AllMac. He is very pleased with the results. Thanks Howard. Click here to read Tom Legare's review for swapping a 6400 mother board with a 6500.

[Attached are 4 MacBench Version 5 Results files. The actual files contain more details about my configuration, so they are more valuable than words, however, I can send you a snapshot if preferred.

Basically, I had a 6400/180/104MB RAM/512K L2 and went to a 6500/225/128/512 Both cases include a 4-5 MB RAM Disk, LibMoto and all my extensions. I have compared results with and without Virtual Memory. I can see and feel the performance improvement, and the video/graphics are also much nicer.

ASP still does not recognize the 512K cache, however Cache-22 does. All processor speed software recognize the 225 processor and the 50Mhz bus speed (ASP, Metronome, SpeedMeter, Gauges and TatleTech which also misreads the L2 Cache size).

I believe the board is refurbished. However, it includes a 1 year AllMac Warranty which is as good as the new parts warranty. I had good vibes working with AllMac. They were knowledgable of the hardware.

Sure, I could have gone for the 250Mhz or faster board, but the price to performance was not worth my while ($50 more for the 250 and the 275 and 300's were significantly more than that since most people repair instead of replace those boards). I am going to enjoy this modest but nicely noticable improvement for the next few months and than consider my next option, whether it be a new machine or a 400Mhz or possibly 500Mhz G3 card (10x clock multiplier) Powerlogix is now entering the L2-G3 game - competition is good for the consumer ;)

BTW my total cost for the swap was $300 including a 32 FPM to 64 EDO DIMM swap and oneway FedEx 2-Day shipping. I am going to send the 6400/180 back via USPS Mail, which should be about $5.

Problems:
Initially, my Apple Video Card was not recognized. Zapping PRAM solved this Also, the DragLib extension gave me much grief and forced restarts until I removed it from the Extensions folder. Pain in the neck to diagnose because the extension seemed correct (replaced from backup). I could not determine what software required it either. It was old (1995) so I removed it and crossed my fingers.

Thousands of colors is very nice. The screen is much sharper. I tested the board by playing the Star Wars QT version 3 25 MB 480-pixel movie preview. It did not skip frames at all (and the thousands of colors looked great without having to drop my resolution down at all). Also, I can now watch TV fromt eh TV/Video system at 1024x768 and thousands of colors (vs 832x624 max resolution and 256 colors or 800x600 and thousands).

BTW. I am going to send info about your web site to AllMac as well.

-Howard]

Brain sends more info on Linux with a G3 accelerated 6400: last time I noted some issues I noted some issues I had with running Linux on my 6400's Brain wrote to help with some and correct others. One was that I said you had to boot all the way to the Mac before switching. This is not true and you can use the BootX extension but in order for your G3 to be recognized you have to make the G3 extension load before the BootX extension. Since BootX was designed to load very early then you need to do my Hack to get Sonnets Crescendo extension to load even earlier. For Vimages just add a space at the front of the name. Thanks for the info Brian.

[--That's great that it works with the Sonnet! The crashiness may just be Linux though. Did you use the X-based installer. Enlightenment in Gnome is very tempermental. I have switched to Window Maker. It is much more stable.

-I suppose you are running with no video driver then? Isn't it really slow? Screen redraw is awful without using the frame buffer driver. If you decide to try it, there is a list of all the res and depth settings at the LinuxPPC site. the mclk value becomes important when you use the frame buffer. If you don't supply it , the screen will have millions of artifacts.

--You can use the bootx extension with the vimage card actually. I just find it annoying to have to kill it every time I want into MacOS fast.

--I had to reinstall quite a few times myself. Sounds, like your up running though. -brian]

[Wow, lots of problems eh? Linux is no Mac OS... Anyway you can change the swap partition using chmod.Try the <http://www.geocrawler.com/lists/3/Linux/> list. do a search for swap in Linux PPC users. You shouldn't have to reinstall. This might also help though it is particularly for Jaz installs. <http://www.vmug.com/linuxppc/>

The fb kernel is for ATI cards, are you using something else? IX cards should also work, but the arg is ttyfb.

In 8.6, you will have video problems if you use the extension see
<http://www.linuxppc.com/updates/macos-8.6-bootx.shtml>
Even though it runs fine using no video driver. I don't know why KDE won't run. Try creating a new user account in KDE and booting into that. -Brian]

[Ok, well the kernel that works flawlessly with your builtin video (ATI Rage II 1mb correct?) is called vmlinux_fb and can be found at
<http://www.linuxppc.org/userguide/vmlinux_fb.sit>
Once you get and unstuff the file, place it in your linux kernels folder in the Mac system folder. In boot X select the vmlinux_fb in the kernel menu. Then, before you boot enter the proper arguments for your color depth and resolution. These setting should match your MacOS settings. The detail of these arguments are in this file
<http://www.linuxppc.org/userguide/linuxppc-guide-990714.pdf>
For your setup it should be video=atyfb etc. Select the number for 800x600 and 16 bit. also place the clock speed with the mclk value of 72(for rage II) Setting this will remove all screen artifacts. This is NOT the refresh rate which is specified with vmode! This is the clock speed of the rage chip. Good Luck
-brian]

Sonnet cuts prices on G3 upgrades: Here is a list from Other World of their new Sonnet L2 G3 prices. They're getting cheap! Thanks David.

[Today's deal-Mac (www.deal-mac.com) reports that Other World Computing cut its prices on the Sonnet L2-cache variety G3 upgrade cards. Prices are now as follows:

G3 250/125 512K - $245
G3 300/150 512K - $295
G3 300/150 1 MB - $385
G3 400/200 1 MB - $585

Things are looking up. :-) Other World's address is www.owcomputing.com, by the way.]

More info on the Sound issue with Sonnets G3: Egan who is a professional sound recorder sent along some interesting info. Most of it is beyond me as I'm not into digital recording but I hope it helps those of you that are. Thanks Egan. Click here to read a text version of his letters. They are pretty long but pack a lot of info. Click here to read previously noted issues.

I emailed about the Sound quality issue he noted about lowering the system volume actually decreases the quality and not just lowering the volume and here is his reply (also added to the text info)

[> I had no idea that lowering the system volume actually lowers audio quality?
> How weird? I'll definitly post that. Is that with all Macs?

Yes ALL Mac's! Even-say you have an alert, a sexy female vioce.....it will sound Aweful & Cracking if you simply lower the main volume on it. (I Know- Most people go Wierd, must be corrupt or something) All Mac's...... a Warning would be nice huh? ;-)]

So anyone wanting the best sound out better turn up the volume and then lower it in all other apps and games or get a set of external speakers and plug them into the front headphone port and use thhe volume knob on the speakers. don't use the back port as it cuts out all low end bass which is passed only to the internal speaker. the headphone jack on the 6400 passes the full range of audio. for a system that was advertised as an audio/video system with certian setups, it sure is a pesty little Mac :)

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

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

Mac Equipment for sale updated: I have made some more additions to my list. click here to go check it out.

Another BlackFire IDE-SCSI adaptor user: Bill sends word that he got one of BlackFires IDE to SCSI adaptor and it is working fine for him in an external SCSI case. Thanks Bill. Click here to read more on IDE to SCSI adaptors.

[Tom:
I bought one of the IDSC20 cards from Blackfire. It arrived in about a week via AirMail and cost about US$70, including shipping. I notice Blackfire is now listing bulk prices- pretty cheap, too for large quantities. Interestingly enough, there is a US distributor of these cards, but he won't sell other than to manufacturers for OEM applications.

I used the card to install my original 2.4 Gig drive from my 6400 into an old Apple 20SC box. Since this box has plenty of room, there was no rpoblem with clearance, although I did have to get a bit creative with mounting the drive to the sled (I offset it so it is off center). I reinitialized the drive, formatted it, and everything works fine.

I wonder if anybody has used one of these to convert a Zip 250 Internal ATAPI drive or one of the inexpensive ATAPI tape backup units to SCSI. Would drivers be a problem in such case (probably not for the Zip, but who knows for the Tape drives)? Blackfire says the IDSC 20 has been used to convert tape drives to SCSI, but not on a Mac.

I enjoy your website- lots of good info about the much maligned 6400.Keep up the good work.
Bill]

8/1/1999 ATI response to Rage128 and 6400 issue: I found this on Accelerate Your Mac. It seems that ATI had it working at one time but did not check again when some last minute changes were made. The good news is that it can work and they just need to update the drivers.

[ATI Responds to Rage128 Compatibility Issues: As promised earlier today - here is ATI's reply to my question on the issues noted here recently:
"Mike
It looks like the common denominator is a 603e processor. At headquarters, they are working on a fix. I should know more sometime next week.
QA _did_ test some of these models successfully, but apparently they didn't retest after some of the latest changes. So the good news is that there doesn't appear to be any hardware incompatibility. Ray Swartz

ATI Research, "]

I got this from MacInTouch. I hope its to make the drivers work with ALL systems.

[Another reader notes that he was told by an ATI sales representative that delivery of the XclaimVR 128 card has now slipped to September, and wonders if there are any similar cards from alternative vendors that are shipping now. ]

7/30/1999 ATI Rage 128 Orion not compatible with 6400!: I just heard that ATI's new Orion card is not compatible with the 6400/6500 or StarMax systems. This probably means its also not compatible with any Mac designed with the same mother boards. The ATI extension that activates the 3D hardware crashes during boot. With out it, it seems to run ok but with no Acceleration for games. Not sure if the 2D is still accelerated or not. ATI is aware of the issue and working on it.

I sure hope so as it took them a year just to release the cards and their reason was to make sure they were compatible. WHAT HAPPENED?

My Vimage Info page on Vimage's G3 upgrade for the 6400

My Vimage Compatibility page

My Vimage User Letters page

My Vimage install reviews

My Sonnet Tech Info page on Sonnet's G3 upgrade for the 6400

Hack to make Sonnets G3's more stable

My Sonnet Compatibility page

My Sonnet User Letters page

My Sonnet install review

My Newer Tech Info page on Newer's G3 upgrade for the 6400

My PowerLogix Info page on PowerLogix's G3 upgrade for the 6400

L2/G3 comparison page

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 have been having a pause in all apps and the mouse when using Logitecs USB Wheel mouse on an ADS USB card. I haven't traced it down but one other person had a similar issue but with an ADB trackball which means it may not be a USB issue? Click here for more info.

When I first installed the cable modem I got some crashes when I shut down. I traced it to Farallons COMM II ethernet extension version 2.0. With version 1.1 the 6400 shuts down fine. I emailed Farallon and am waiting for a reply.

UPDATE on Farallons 2.0 extension for their 10/100 COMM II ethernet card not compatible with OS 8.6: Paul emailed saying he had the same problem but it may not have been the Farallon extension causing the problem. All I know is that when I reinstall the older 1.1 version the problem goes away. Thanks Paul.

[I had this same problem when I first installed 8.6. I e-mailed Farallon and got a response that said they had not seen this problem before. I managed to resolve the freezes and it was not due to the Farallon 2.0 extension. I think it was BeHierarchic (3.1.1) that was the offending control panel but I honestly can not remember what I had to do to fix it. I have been racking my brain all day trying to remember the fix. If I do remember I'll post ASAP
Paul]

This is somewhat off the topic but I was wondering if there is anyone using Quicken to do online billing with their bank? I use Bank of America and the branches out here are not as up-to-date as the California system is so they have no Mac versions of their software used to do online billing. They just switched to Quicken99 from Managing Your Money and they only have PC versions available. I was wondering if Quicken98 for the Mac would work? I expecct that when Quicken 2000 comes out for the Mac then they should distribute both PC and Mac copies for online banking. Anyways if anyone has an answer then please email me. Thanks.

update: It won't work. I just called Bank of America and it seems at the time they were deciding on which software to choose Q98 was not Y2K so out it went. It is Y2K now if you update to revision5 but its too late for BofA. Maybe Q2000 will be chosen?

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.