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?-
• Voodoo3 compatibility?-
• Gaming on the 6400-

You may not have noticed but I enlarged the standard viewing area of my site from 520 to 580 pixles wide. It should show fine on 14" and larger monitors. I was getting constrained by the size I was using before. I assume most of you have at least a 14" monitor :)

Sonnet clocker update: I have gotten several replies from Sonnet users on how well this utility works. It seems that the Sonnet 240Mhz users are not getting it to work but the 300Mhz users are? I emailed the author and hopefully he can find the problem? Here are a few letters I got. Thanks all.

[Tom,
Thanks for posting the patch from your "mystery" contributor. Yes, it works fine on my (ex) 300/512 Sonnet upgrade. No crashes so far and an imperceptible change in processor temperature. I didn't realize it would improve the cache bus speed now up to 160MHz. Bench marks are all about 8% faster as expected from a boost from 300 to 320Mhz
Well done mystery (wo)man and thank you! Mark]

[Hi, Tom
First let me get this out of the way. Please don't publish my name! Playing with this clocker may void the warranty on my Sonnet card. Now let me tell you, the clocker works great. No start up freeze, no crashes no nothing just more speed. And it's free. I'm attaching two mac bench 5 test files but if you can't open those I also will attach three screen shots you can open with simple text.

MY SYSTEM WITHOUT SONNET CLOCKER EXT.
6400/200 With a Sonnet L2 G3/300/1M@200MHz using G3 Cache Control 1.5.3, 136M of memory, both PCI slots are filled a SCSI card and a graphics card. the tested hard drive is a Quantum Fireball Plus KA

MY SYSTEM WITH SONNET CLOCKER EXT. The same as above but without the G3 Cache Control 1.5.3, I could not get it to load so I just trashed it and it's preference file.

You should also know that I do not have all the start up freeze and system instability that so many other people seem to have. My card (Mac) has always been very stable]

[Tom:
Just a little note to advise you of my "plunge" of upgrading our Performa 6400/180 with the Sonnet Banker L2G3 300/150 upgrade card. Bought it from OWC after their price discounting ($280) and am very pleased.


Your page has been extremely helpful by allowing me to try various configurations. I even "bumped" it up to 320hz but had to reduce it for stability. Read the notes about extension loading order and have found that if Crescendo is first, and running Virtual Memory instead of Ram Doubler 8, I experience no freezes. My main concern is the processor temp of 63° C. I've ordered a slot cooling fan in hopes of reducing the temp. Your thoughts on this?
Thanks again for the great page.
Al


Ref.: Performa 6400/300; MacOS 8.6; 88MB; Apple Video Card; upgraded to Maxtor 10.2GB HD@ 7200rpm; Stylus Color 600; external Zip Drive; external 700MB Quantum Hard Drive; Nikon Coolscan 10E slide scanner and AGFA Snapscan]

[Hi Tom,
I tried the Sonnet clocker on my Performa 200 with the Sonnet Crescendo 240 card and tried setting the speed to 260 (the lowest speed offered above 240). While the clocker acted that it did something, restarting had no effect at all on my speed as reported by utilities as Metronome. Do you know whether it matters that I put the extension in my Contol Pnels folder to make it load last? As the author of the software hides in anomity I can't email him directly.
Anton]

[Tom
I am trying get the overclock app to work on my 6400/180 and have been unsuccessful. I have the Sonnet G3 240 card. I follow the instructions and the metronome still indicates a "G3 240 " Is it possible that the metronome isn't indicating the correct speed?
Randall]

Note as of this posting all 300Mhz cards seem to work and 240Mhz cards don't? Also the backside cache on the G3 will speed up as it is a direct ratio of the G3 CPU's speed so its probably a good idea to turn off any G3 cache utilities that might speed it up even more! I know the author of this utility is keeping himself secret AS he is the one that broke the code so to speak. There is no way Sonnet can track any user of this utility and all you have to do is replace the modified Crescendo extension with an original version and the mod is gone. No way to tell it was ever used.

Please keep the info coming in, specially the 240Mhz card owners. we need to find out why they aren't working?

Update on ROAM and the Sonnet G3: Ken writes that this is the first fix I posted that actually fixed his startup crashes! Cool, Glad it worked :) Thanks for the info Ken. Click here for more details.

[I am using a Sonnet G3/L2 300/512 on a Performa 6360 with Crescendo 1.3.7 extension. I have tried all the fixes previously suggested on your site and from others (libmoto, changing extension loading order, ROM Fixer, and others).

None of these improved my intermittent startup freezes. ROAM has solved it for me! Not one freeze since I installed it about 3 weeks ago (knock on wood). I am having it load first and then the Crescendo extension and then all my others thereafter.

My only complaint is that it uses 8MB of RAM, but it's worth it.
Ken]

Using the sharware control strip G3 Throttle to fix issues caused by a L2 G3 upgrade: Kees writes that using G3 Throttle, a control strip utility that lets you slow your G3 down by creating wait states for the CPU, actually made his Geo modem work again. Thanks for the info Kees.

[Hi Tom,
just wanted to let you know that I was greatly helped by your advise to use G3 throttle in order to get my geo modem to work after upgrading my 6400 with Sonnets's G3 card. The modem refused to work after upgrading, but installing the throttle did the trick for me. (Soon after, I was lucky enough to get a cable modem, but that's another story).

System: performa 6400/200, 104 mb ram, sonnet G3/300 1mb, ati rage 128, macos 8.5.1 (dutch version).

Thanks for an absolutely great site, by the way. You helped me every step in upgrading my mac! I recently even took to dismantling my machine in order to clean that irritating fan, and it seems to have worked: no more annoying rattling noises, and sonnet's metronome tells me average temperature went from 47C to 43C.

Keep up the good work,
Kees]

Vimage L2 G3 not dead in Japan: Well Vimage may not be selling L2 G3 upgardes anymore but their parent company Interware is. Interware is the Japanese company that actually makes the G3 card and Vimage was the US distributor. I found a link to a final release of the 1.1.0 driver for both the 240/320Mhz G3's. The link is below.

http://www.interware.co.jp/update/Booster6454_Final.html

Also Jordan sent me a link to a page on their site for a 400Mhz L2 G3 for all configurations of 6400/6500! Thanks Jordan. It is all in Japanese but you can make out most of the links as they are in english as displayed at the bottom of most browsers. Below is the link.

http://www.interware.co.jp/products/Booster64_54_400.html

If anyon can read Japanese and get me a mailing address or an email address I would really appreciate it. Maybe we can buy direct from Japan? It will probably be more expensive but worth a shot!

Power Logix stops production on L2 G3 cards?: I heard from several users that PL will not be making their L2 G3 cards now so I emailed them and here is the reply I got.

[Yes, I was told yesterday that we have cancelled further development on this card. Unfortunately, I was given no further information.

Sincerely,
Robin


I just got anemail from a 6400 user that got an email from Power Logix that says you are stopping the L2 G3 production? is this true?
Tom]

I asked if he ever got an answer to let me know. I guess we're back to Sonnet and Newer only again :( OUt of these my choice is Newer as it is much more stable and hasn't had as many complaints but it does have a more serious Geo modem issue as many people get a port busy or some other port error.

Update ATI VR 128 and the Vimage G3: Well I tried my VR card last week as I mentioned before and well it just doesn't work. Below is a letter I wrote to ATI asking if they can find a fix. I know its not their problem but they might just help?

[Thought I would add my 2 cents in this. I just got my VR card today after waiting about a year but sad to say it does not run on my 6400 with a Vimage G3. BUT it does run without the G3 just fine. First the specs.

6400/200 with Vimages 320/1M G3 running OS 8.6
136M ram with Ram Doubler 8.0.1 set to 204M and Speed Doubler 8.1.2
QT 4.0.3, QD3D 1.6, didn't try OpenGL but I have 1.1.1 from OS 9

PCI cards consist of
Voodoo2, ADS USB, Adaptec 2930u, and of course the ATI Rage128 VR card

The Voodoo2, USB, and 2930u cards are in a 7 slot PCI expansion chassi. The ATI card was in the 6400 with the second slot being used for the PCI-PCI bridge card to the chassi. The ATI card attaches to the Voodoo2 card and then to the montior

I have a 17" Sony monitor on the ATI/Voodoo2 cards and a 15" monitor on the 6400's stock video (non-accelerated on the 6400)

I installed ATI's 4.2 universal installer which came with the VR card. Nothing else. All extensions enabled fine and the TV tuner worked with no issues at all. I did toss out the Xclaim Video Player prefs like it says to to make sure everything would go smooth and it did. I even resized the video window (using the resize feature not dragging it) and it worked to. The Mic passthru port works great also. I'm glad they added that! But without my G3 running performance is no better then a Rage Pro as the stock CPU cannot feed it good enough to make it worth the money.

With the Vimage G3 enabled it would ge to the Vpower extension and then when it does its soft reboot the screen on the ATI card would freeze its image and then my 6400 would boot using the stock video as the main monitor and the ATI card is not seen at this point by my system yet the image is still frozen on the screen. Kind of weird to look at it like this :)

I think the problem is that the new VR card does not recalibrate itself during the softreboot by Vimage and it just locks up. ATIs older VR RageII card used to blink off and then back on during this reboot and then continue fine just like the stock video does.

I did want to get rid of that menu bar item ATI put there and I found that if you disable the ATI Extension that it is removed but then I did get the ATI Desktop video extension crossed out so I had to reenable it. Maybe other users are missing this file?

One other thing for PCI chassi users. The ATI card did not work when I put it in that. It will run without 2d or 3d but as soon as you try to run with the extensions enabled you get a very garbled screen. At first it was just the menu bar but after moving windows around a bit the entire screen got garbled and it locked up. If I disable the 2d then it will work again so I tried 3d (Nanosaur) and my monitor went to sleep :( So out of the chassi it went.

ATI did have a file in the extension folder that was to flash the BIOS and I was wondering if they could make a flasher to make the card recalibrate on a softreboot for us Vimage owners? I think it was called the ATI 128 driver or somthing like that? It had a generic icon.

Sorry this was so long, Tom]

Update ATI VR 128 and the Sonnet G3: Well this combo seems to work much better. At least it boots :) Looks like thVr card has some issue ATI has to deal with. They even had almost another year to iron out the bugs! Thanks for the info Henry.

[Thomas,
After an almost 6 month wait, I finally recieved my Xclaim VR 128 from buy.com. Here is some info I have on my experiences so far.
Here goes:

First, My System:
Performa 6400 w/Sonnet G3 240
136MB Ram
ATI Rage 128 Xclaim VR
Maxtor 8.4 gig 5400 RPM drive
OS 8.6(with opengl 1.1.1 extracted from OS 9)

I first installed the Xclaim VR card in the lower slot, but could never get it seated correctly(I guess). It is very tight with the Sonnet Card. I was getting vertical black lines all through the screen on startup, and then it would go blank when it hit the ATI extension. Once I changed slots, it came up fine.

Game Performance:

I too noticed some sound popping, and video stuttering when playing opengl and rave games.

Tombraider III demo - at 1024 x 768, video stuttering and audio pops. I reduced the rez to 800 x 600 and the problems went away, very smooth now. And it looks fantastic!

Tombraider II - Plays smoothly at 1024 x 768 with no pops or stutters in 32 bit mode.

Q3test - I didn't hook up to a server, just ran around by myself. It looks incredible. Again, though, I had to use 800 x 600. At 1024 x 768 , it stuttered and popped.

Unreal - Now here's where I was really disappointed. The card just couldn't cut it. Very noticeable stuttering when downsampling to 16 bit color. I got chewed to bits. At 800 x 600 in RAVE mode, too. My Voodoo I card still beats it hands down, here. Even if it is fuzzy, at least it is smooth. I'll fiddle with the settings more tonight to see if I can make it better.

TV In:

It came up right away and was easy to figure out. Unfortunately, if you change the resolution to "double" or "full screen" modes, it locks out the screen. The TV portion will keep playing but the mouse freezes. The only way I could bail out was the pull the power cord. I haven't tried doing a "custom" resolution on the TV function, yet. Maybe that would work.

Video in:

Hooked up my Sony Hi-8 cam and captured some stills at 640 x 480 and video at 320 x 240(30 fps). Overall, I am pretty pleased. I wish it would allow capture of video at 640 x 480, even if it was at 15 fps. I didn't notice any dropped frames, even going to my 5400 rpm drive, so that was a plus.

Tonight I will try out your Sonnet Clocker to see if it helps with the frame rate stutter at 1024 x 768, but I fear it is more to do with the 33Mhz bus(66Mhz/2). I'll let you know. If you know of a safe speed to clock the G3 240, let me know, otherwise it will be trial and error( or error, error, error)
Thats all for now.
Hope this is useful,
Henry]

Update from Henry on getting 640x480 video capture to work.

[ You were right. I did a custom frame size on the TV Tuner at exactly 640 x 480 and it works like a charm. This is strange since it is the same size as the "double" setting, which will crash my machine.]

Update Voodoo3 and the Sonnet G3: Here is a letter from one 6400 user that has the Voodoo3 running and with a Sonnet G3. Also note fix he has for the boot hangs. Interesting! These video cards sure don't play nice. I can't tel lwhat systems they will or will not work on?

[Tom -
Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I have to admit, I couldn't wait so I bought the Voodoo3 at CompUSA last night. I was pleasantly surprised at the $99 price tag, since I thought it was $30-40 more, and figured there was minimal risk since products are usually returnable at CompUSA. I downloaded the beta drivers from 2 days ago, flashed the ROM, looked for ATI drivers to remove but there were none installed with my Mac OS 9. I then shutdown the system, found an adapter in my Mac parts that probably came with one of my Mac monitors, so I used it to attach the AppleVision 1705 to the V3. I then followed your excellent take apart instructions looking to remove the stock video board, and determined as you confirmed today that I wasn't going to be successful. I then put everything back together, crossed my fingers and said my prayers, and couldn't believe it when it came up. The 2D capabilities seem very good to me as a neophyte, but I really started all this because I wanted more than the sock 256 colors. The refreshes under Virtual PC 3.0 are much quicker, and of course I have the higher color definitions under Windows95 now as well. I've not tried any 3D activity, so I'll have to shop around for a game to try out (I'm not really a gamer, but I do have F18 Hornet, Myst, and Raven).

One thought I do have for your readers on the Sonnet Crescendo L2 300/1M. I was starting to get a lot of boot hangs, and have suspected it was related to tightening the two screws that hold the motherboard in. I think the fit is such that it torques the Crescendo if one does a normal tightening of these screws. I've pushed my board in without any additional force, and have tightened the screws just to the point that they start to grab the plastic. You could turn them with the force of a finger to take them out now, but I now am back to solid on the boots. And this is with the addition of the Voodoo3. For now this is my theory on the Sonnet board, and I'll let you know if it starts hanging again.
Regards,
- Frank]

TechTool Update for OS 9: TechTool 1.1.9 is out for OS 9 compatibility. Click here to go get it.

Simple Launcher: This utility lets you assign the Function keys on your keyboar to launch apps and do some other thinkgs. Good for OS 9 users that can't use SpeedDoubler for this anymore. Click here to go get it.

Reader Request page updated: Click here to read the new update and past updates to see if you can help anyone. Thanks

FLASH: The ATI Rage128 VR card does not look like its comaptible with Vimages G3? I as well as other users get a frozen image on the screen when the Vpower extension does its double boot. I will post more details on my tests with this card on my next update. BUMMER! and after waiting 1/2 a year!

Search engine for my web site!: I am trying out a new free service that lets me put a search feature on my web site. I have it located at the top of this page if you haven't noticed it yet :) It is from PinPoint and I think its great. Give it a try and tell me what you think.

Readers Requests page updated: I just added some new emails from readers needing some assistance. Please respond to any you might have an answer to. Thanks. The latest are labled new.

Virtual PC 2.1.3 and OS 9 compatibility?: I just tried using my VPC 2.1.3 win95 and it seems to have worked ok till Itried to shut down windows. It got 1/2 way thru and locked up my PowerBook G3 hard! It did not affect the windows environment because Win95 did not complain of an improper shutdown at the next boot but then locked up again at shutdown. I checked Connectix's web site and they only list version 3.0 as being compatible so I wrote them a letter. I'll post more as I find out.

Clocking Sonnets G3 cards!: Here is the news I bet your all waiting for, well at least the Sonnet G3 owners :) I just recieved a Realbasic app that a reader of my site sent that can modify your Crescendo extension to fool it into running the G3 faster! This is not the hack or app that Bill had mentioned in a previous posting I had about clocking the PDS versions. This should work on ANY Sonnet G3 upgrade that uses the Crescendo extension! Basically you enter your current mother board bus speed and then pick the CPU speed you want. NOTE, this can cause crashes and has only been tested on a 6360 with Sonnets L2 G3 300 to clock it to 320Mhz. Any faster and it froze but the current 8X G3's cannot go faster then 320Mhz on a 40Mhz bus anyway so it may have confused it and this locked it up. 6500 owners may get faster results if the CPU can handle it? You must pick your true mother board speed and not another one as the program was writen to use this data to configure the Crescendo extension. There are other bus speeds listed that the 6400 and 6500 do not run at because the author is hoping that this will work for all Sonnet G3 upgrades using the Crescendo extension.

Try this at your own risk as The 6400 Zone will not take any responsibility for any damages caused by it. Click here to download a .sit file which also has instructions on how to use it.

The author also added the Realbasic data used to make the app because he only had a trial version which means this app may timeout in 30days? If anyone who has a registered copy of Realbasic wishes to recompile it for me I would certianly appreciate it! Please let me know how it works if you try it.

Update on sound issues with Sonnets G3: A Sonnet G3 user wrote to let me know he found that VM being on or the sound quality in the Monitors & Sound control panel set at 44Khz caused his garbled sound. Thanks. Click here to read more on this topic.

[The CD audio is fine, but the breakup on MP3 audio could be partly due to the hard drive. Of course, it was fine before the upgrade - go figure. And it only happens when online. Sonnet thanked me for tracking down why it happened (VM or 44 kHz) but didn't offer any solutions and it's a small price to pay for the massive improvement in usability.]

Apples 6400 Take Apart Manual found!: Paul found a link to where Apple is hiding these manuals for me. Thanks! Remember to scan down till you find the largest file for the particular Mac you have and this will be the one with the full manual in it. most are very large like 5M or more. The littler ones are only part of the bigger manuals and they usually don't have the Take Apart section in them :( Here is the link for the 6400/6500 manual. Just delete "powermac.perf_6400.6500.pdf" to see the entire list.

ftp://ftphqx.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Misc/Service/servicemanuals/powermac.perf_6400.6500.pdf

Update on Voodoo3 cards and L2 G3 upgrades?: I have been getting info mostly stating that they are not compatible but I have had a few letters of success? The ones that are able to get it to work are the 6400 owners. All the 6500 owners have told me its not fully compatible? I wonder if its due to the onboard ATI or some other small difference thats causing the trouble? 6500 owners might try removing the ATI extensions to see if that helps? I'm not saying it works 100% on the 6400 but 6400 users are having more luck with it.

Speaking of which, here is a letter from Cryil who received info from another 6400 user that got them working. Thanks.

[Hello again....
I received an answer about the Vimage card and the V3 2000. Here is what I was told:
"Yeah, It really works!! I've had no problems at all. I have memory to the max, and run both Mac OS 8.6 and 9.0 without a hitch. I am using the Voodoo 3, 2000. Beta 4 or 5 drivers and extensions, and teh RAVE extension from Voodoo 2 Beta drivers. Also am using the Mesa engine for Open Gl. All works like a charm. Big speed boost. Norton shows overall video speed equivilent to G3 450.
Good luck.
John"

Maybe I won't buy a G4 before it becomes multiprocessor after all.....
Cyril]

Sorry but no mention on whether it was a 6400 or 6500 :( I have moved my Voodoo3 info to my 6400 Gaming info page so you can read more about it there.

Edward sends word that his Voodoo3 is not working on his Newer L2 G3 upgraded PowerBase180 which is 6400 mother board based. Sigh!

[My PowerBase 180 ("6400 motherboard"), upgraded with Newer Maxpowr G3/L2 300/512 kb and V3 2000 PCI, does the same crash looking freeze in 3D mode. But this is NOT a crash - wait for from about a minute to half an hour, and suddenly everything continues as nothing had happened. Until it pauses again. And starts to work again... I have done this for hours without a restart. No problems at all when using the original 180 MHz 603ev by deselecting the G3/L2 extension. And even Yann has seen this "freeze" at least once...]

Unreal Tournament Demo on a G3/Voodoo3 accelerated 6400: I received word from a 6400 user that the new Unreal Demo plays beautifully on his speedy setup. Thanks.

[Tom,
I'm very happy with the Unreal Tournament Demo just released. It runs fantastic with the 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 and the Sonnet L2 300! I'm running at resolutions of 1024x768 and 1280x1024--a big difference compared to my old Power3D card. I've yet to stress-test (cross-platform) deathmatches... I definitely will not be getting work done!

Besides the random, sporadic and dang annoying freezes due to the Sonnet--at startup, during Net sessions, etc.--I'm glad I still have this Performa 6400.

Whenever HP gets around to updating the DeskWriter driver for OS 9 compatibility I'll be using Mac OS 8.6.]

I asked about his G3 Voodoo3 setup and here is his reply.

[All my extensions are in their default boot order sans the Crescendo driver which is the last *extension* to load in the Extensions folder. I really should leave that thing in the Control Panels folder if I know what's good for me. My heart-pounds here as I ponder whether another freeze will occur...

Hope that helps!

I'm going to test out the ROAM solution to see if that'll stop the startup freezes. Let's hope Sonnet can do *something* to increase the G3 upgrade's stability!]

I tried it on my 6400 with a Voodoo2 and although I wouldn't play on the net at 800x600 (I think it would bog down too much) it looks just awsome! Playing at 640x480 is perfect for the Voodoo2 to make it scream right along with my Vimage 320 G3. Unfortunatly they didn't put Rave on it yet so only 3dfx and software modes work for now :(

Update on using ROAM to alleviate Sonnets boot crashing: Bill writes that he has been using ROAM for awhile and it did cure his boot crashes. Thanks Bill. Click here to read more on ROAM.

[Just to confirm some info I saw on your site. I have used ROAM since it started and am a beta tester. It does solve the boot hang with sonnet g3 cards from what i can see. It doesn't always work when the sonnet ext. load first. It works best if the ROAM init loads before the sonnet init.

Also I preordered the final odf OS 9 from OutPost.com so i recvd it on saturday the 23(the release date). My sonnet l2 g3 card works great. As someone commented on your site my computer is running tha fastest it ever has. Running smoothly too. Almost never crashes.
Bill]

Update on ATI's Orion Rage 128 cards and the 6500: Jeff writes that he is getting crashes even with his G3 upgarde disabled which means that ATI may still have an issue with their current drivers? Thanks for the info Jeff. My VR card has shipped and is waiting at the post office for me to go pick up! I wasn't home for them to deliver it today :( It has a newer set of drivers which may work better? I'll let you all know soon.

[Hi Tom,

Yes, the basics. I should have started there, but having had trouble with an Xclaim card and the Vimage, I just assumed that I was in the midst of a compatibility problem. I'm running a 6500 with 128 MB and two PCI cards: Dayna Port ethernet card and the infamous Orion. The Vimage G3/240 upgrade is, of course in the L2 cache slot and has been working as advertised for months.

Following your suggestion, I tired a complete reinstall of the ATI drivers, beginning with the ATI 4.0.1. patch and then the ATI Universal Installer 4.0.1 The machine still crashed when I booted Nanosaur (though it runs for up to a minute before freezing).

I then turned off the Vimage card and... the machine crashed in Nanosaur. I'm now thinking that there could be a problem with the ATI card itself, and before I waste any more of your time, I need to trouble-shoot that. Considering that I've experienced crashes both with 3D application and Quicktime scaling, it would be fair to assume that the Orion is not too happy, so it could be a driver problem or a hardware problem with the card itself. I'll start working on those assumptions and see where I get. I suppose it could also be a compatibility problem with the ethernet card, too, though I'm not sure how to check that.
Cheers,
Jeff]

Vimages G3 and OS 9 followup: Donato had written me before saying that his cache was disabled after the update to OS 9 and he reinstalled Vimages drivers and that fixed the problem. He had locked both the control panel and the extension to prevent it from happening again but guess what? It did, but OS 9 may not be the problem.

[Dear Tom,
few news on the issue of the disabled cache using the Vpower G3 upgrade card.
Well, a couple of days ago, the problem reappeared (now I hav OS 9 on the main disk too...). As I told you last time, the CP and the extension are locked, and so they have been since then.The "problem" appeared after running speed disk and norton for a regular checkup.

After some juggling, I found that in the Vpower control panel, the cache option fast-more compatible-none was set on none. And even if I tried to switch on "fast", it reverted on none next time I opened the CP.

I tried to install the G3 cache utility from power logix (changing the extension to INIT, so it will load after the Vpower extension) but no way: this one crashes! Well, after some few try, and reinstalling the Vpower CP (even if it was locked and not modified), everything went back: the cache was again on. I can't tell you what has happened, but definitely there is something that links together the Vpower software and the optimization of the disk using speed disk from the norton utilities suite (Version 5). I wonder if the suggestion that people at Vimage gave you (and that you reported in your web page) means that there is something behind...

Nobody else is reporting such a problem, now that OS 9 is out?
Bye
Donato]

I use Nortin Speed disk version 4.0.3 and this has never happened to me yet. But I don't have OS 9 installed on my 6400 yet either so maybe its a combination of things? Thanks Donato.

OS 9 Multi User setup info: Her e is a letter I sent to Mike of Accelerate Your Mac who posted info from an OS 9 user having problems with apps not running when Panal User is selected for some users with the new Multi User feature.

[I just read the comment on how some apps might not work when multi user is on in OS 9 and the user has the panel setup. If you look in the new folder created at the root level of your HD you'll see a new one called USER. this stores the info on each user that is created. It also has a preferance folder inside which mimicks the one in the System folder. If you notice hardly any of your pref files are copied to it and its just mainly the OS pref files in there. The problem is that when a panel user is activated the OS looks for all the preferances in this folder instead of the normal System folder. It does this so each user can have their own set of prefs for every app. The problem is almost none of the apps out today are setup to look in this new folder so they cannot find a proper pref file and if they need a registration number to launch they won't find it.

I haven't tried it yet but perhaps just copying the pref file for each of your apps to each users pref folder may work until all this gets worked out?]

If any of you try this and it works, please let me know. I still haven't tried it yet :)

Request: Yann, who owns a 6400 with Sonnets G3 and has a Voodoo3 card, could you please email me. Thanks

The 6400 Zone's new Home Address: Well I haven't actually moved my web site but I did make a new home address thanks to all the replys I recieved on how to make a redirect page. My new home address is:

Its not much different from the previous home address but it is much nicer on older Macs with slower connections. AOL has been placing ads at the top of my home page for some time now and I have always hated it! One of my readers found away around it so the ads would not appear but typing the long address (or even remembering it) was a tough job. Now thanks to you out their who helped me, I have made a page with a similar and easy to remember address that when called on just redirects you to my real home page but with out the AOL ads :) This only takes but a few seconds longer on the first link but now visiting all of my other pages will be much more enjoyable without having to wait for those ads to appear. And as a benefit, I can have my sites name in the address :)

Don't worry though if you forget this address, the old address works just fine but with the ads showing :(

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 Newer Compatibility page

My Newer User Letters page

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

L2/G3 comparison page

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in purchasing a CD with my entire up-to-date site as well as my 6400 Take Apart manual plus many of the past Just Updates included? I think this would be a great idea for anyone who hasn't been able to keep up or never saw my site until recently. Also for those of you with Sherlock the CD is even better cause you can tell Sherlock to index the CD and then you can do a search on any topic and if I ever talked about it, you'll find it! I have info as far back as mid 1997. I'm asking $15 which includes shipping for US residents (not sure what the price for international shipments would be yet?) and I will even include a few surprises! To make this offer even juicier I can add some download that you've been trying to get but just couldn't for some reason. Lets put my cable modem to work :)

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