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 -
• Apple Service Manuals-
• My 6400 Take Apart manual -
• Alternate OS's on a G3 accelerated 6400-
• ATI Rage 128 compatibility?-
• Voodoo3 compatibility?-
• Gaming on the 6400-
• OS 9 info-
• Clocking Sonnets L2 G3!-
• Current problems with my system -

The 6400 Zone is voted site of the month!: My Mac Magazines just voted my site as one of their site's of the month. Can you believe it! I am very excited and I owe much of it to all of you, my readers, for your great info and suggestions. Thanks

[PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release


To the entire 6400 Zone staff:


CONGRATULATIONS!
December 6, 1999 - Your site, "The 6400 Zone," has been picked as one of My Mac Magazine's Sites of the Month for December 1999! It's applicability to the everyday Mac user is invaluable. As such, it fits in nicely with My Mac Magazine's charter of providing pertinent, useful information to both new and experienced Macintosh users.


You will find us at http://www.mymac.com. Our Site of the Month section is located at http://www.mymac.com/exclusives/sotm/index.shtml.


Congratulations on a job well done!


Don't forget -- Check out My Mac today! With its influential Mac user interviews, professional cartoonist, and some of the finest columnists in the Mac community, it's the hottest Mac ezine being published today. As one print Mac columnist recently put it, My Mac is "the only real good Mac ezine left."


Barbara L. Bell
PR Director, My Mac Magazine
http://www.mymac.com
"Now in our FIFTH year of serving the Macintosh community!"]

Update on OS 9 and the Geo modem: Bill found a TIL article on how to access some older control panels not yet updated to OS 9 compatibility. Thanks Bill. Please email me if it works or not?

[you posted an email about using the "Express Modem" control panel in os 9. i sold my modem but there is a TIL article on Apple's site about using some older control panels in os 9. if they have a "CNTL" resource in them you can try holding down the "control" and "Apple"(command) keys when double clicking on or opening the control panel. it gets some older(unupdated) cp's to work.
good luck,
Bill]

MacInTouch's Router info page: I found this link to MacInTouch's info regarding internet routing solutions for the Mac. Very informative if you wish to get several Macs (or PC's) running over one internet connection.

Update on USWest's DSL service: The user I know that has the USWest DSL service here in AZ I mentioned in my last Just Update also reminded me of another problem she was having. The way USWest implements its service (without the need for a DNS server address in the TCP/IP control panel) also disables the Time & Date internet synchronization and the QT4 streaming features. This is not very good as who knows what else will break with their service. She is in contact with them right now and hopefully they can fix it.

DHCP / Manual IP setting: I also wanted to remind DHCP users that even though your IP address is not guaranteed as "static" it just might be static enough to allow for the fixes I posted earlier. Cox says they might never change my address unless they need to switch me to another node as load builds. This means you can manually set your IP address and in the event you notice your connections not working, just switch back to DHCP long enough to get the new IP address that will appear in the TCP/IP control panel. Then switch back to manual and type in the new IP address.

Cooling a 20th Anniversary Mac: Here is a link to a site that has instructions on how to move the internal cooling fan to the outer case of the FAT back for the TAM. This helped this TAM user cool his system down that he loaded up with cards. Go check it out. http://home.earthlink.net/~rvsarch/cooltam.html.

Orange Micros OrangeLink FireWire/USB PCI and the 6400: I have received several requests for info on this card. It is a combo FireWire and USB card which would help save PCI slots in your 6400/6500 if you wanted both. If anyone has tried the card please email me any info you have on it. Thanks.

Vimage driver update from Interware: Pete just found a link to Interwares site which has a Booster update listed at 1.2.1! It was just posted in November also. I have no idea what it fixes but it is running on my system fine. Yes the double boot is till there :( Click here to go get it. By the way anyone read Japanese to find out what they changed?

If you have Speed Doubler I suggest you add a "V" to the beggining of the Booster Extension. AS the Vpower Extension loaded just after Speed Doubler and I have found that if it loads before that you may crash.

Bus Mastering cards and L2 G3's on the 6400: Accelerate Your Mac posted a few days ago some issues that L2 G3 users were having. He mentioned that one Newer G3 user was told that their G3 is a Bus Mastering card and that it would conflict with other Bus Mastering cards. The Asante was also mentioned to be a Bus Mastering card and not work with a Vimage users G3. I don't know what truth there is to this but I do have one Vimage/Asante user reporting his combo works.

[I actually got the card for free from work - bonus! It worked just fine. When I upgraded to OS9, I had numerous booting crashes. After hours of turning extensions on and off, I discovered a three-way conflict between the Asante extension, VPower extension, and SOMobjectsª for Mac OS. Using the generic apple ethernet driver instead of the Asante extension worked fine. About a week later, Asante posted an updated extension and everything is working great, OS9 is very stable.

Sorry I haven't gotten back to you earlier.
Regards,
Doug]

Does anyone know what the extension SOMobjects is? I have received other info stating it conflicted with other G3's.

Email address not working: For the reader with this email address <sensate@mail.postparade.com I cannot reply back to you as I keep getting fatal errors stating your address does not exist? Sorry if your have been waiting long.

Sonnet Reply to a user getting frequent startup freezes: Al sent me a clip from a reply he got from Sonnet on how to help reduce the startup freezes caused by their L2 G3. Thanks Al.

[Even after I originally started getting the startup freezes everyone of the suggestions indicated by Sonnet did provide some sort of temporary relief (the list of their suggestions is provided below). I could tell by the list their engineers were at a loss to explain the cause of these random startup freezes.


1) Remove the L2 Cache, if installed.
2) Reseat the Sonnet card.
3) Disable LibMotoSh, ATM, Object SupportLib, AppleScriptLib from the Extensions Folder.
4) Remove Interleaving if the RAM is setup that way (have all the SIMMs/DIMMs in one bank - A1, A2 instead of A1, B1).
5) Turn off Time Synchronizer Extension.
6) Turn off Virtual Memory.
7) Place the Finder Preferences file in the Trash and reboot, empty Trash when the System reaches the Desktop.
8) Perform a "Clean" System Install, then install our card and Crescendo and then the rest of your Extensions.


I am a very experienced Mac user but that No. 4 suggestion seemed pretty odd. I was certainly NOT going to give up RAM to use their damn card. Something like robbing Peter to pay Paul.]

Does anyone get the hint they still don't know what's causing it! Or if they even know they replied to a L2 G3 user :) Do you think removing the L2 cache will help the L2 G3 run! Sorry for the sarcasm but Sonnet is just making me made with their support right now, or lack there of.

More Sonnet instability updates: Pete wrote in response to a reply from me on how he reduced the instability on his system. Thanks Pete

[<< So which did you remove? the contextual extension or the SOMobjects? And your running smoother now! Good. I will have to post this
Thanks, Tom

Actually I disabled both. I wasn't using the Contextual Menu feature anyway, and I can't find anything I needed the SOM objects for (yet).
I discovered using Conflict Catcher that there was a conflict with both the Contextual Menu Extension and the SOMobjectsª for Mac OS extension that seems to have been causing all sorts of trouble with the Crescendo Extension as well as AOL, etc. Before I found that, I did find that renaming the Crescendo extension to have it load later helped some, nut for now, it looks like that conflict may have solved alot
Pete]

Sonnets 1.4 update still hasn't fixed the instability!: DH sent me a letter of his experience with the just released 1.4 Crescendo update. Sigh! Thanks DH.

[Tom,
Grrr... still getting freezes with version 1.4 of Sonnet's extension... I've been using it for awhile now.

Most of my freezes occur during processor intensive tasks like playing MP3's or joining frag-matches online with the Unreal Tournament Demo... random freezes STILL occur, but much less than before.

I removed the Voodoo3 to see if heat was the problem... I still get freezes at the same frequency. I think it may be my 64 MB DIMM since it's practically kissing the upgrade card.

I'm still trying to figure out why UT Demo and Q3ArenaDemoTEST can't connect to LAN games hosted by Windows machines (and vice versa) but due to the crashes I'm not too keen on having my Mac join the fun. Warcraft 2 IPX games run fine. Quake also works (software mode only due to compatibility issues on Quake's part with the Voodoo3).
That's it for now,
DH]

Possible fix for Sonnet issues with Sound apps?: ken writes that Sonnet told him that older OS's are the cause of this problem? And for him, updating to at least OS 8.5.1 solved his problem. Thanks Ken. This is a pretty costly fix but may be worth it if you can't stand the freezes!

[Hi. I am updating you on my efforts to solve the problem with Quicktime and other sound applications that cause freezes with Sonnet's G3/L2 card. I sent an email to Sonnet tech support about this. They replied telling me that this is a known issue with MacOS 8.0/8.1 (I was using 8.1) and that the problem is not present with 8.5/8.6

So I went and got 8.5.1 and indeed, no more QT or sound app freezes! Nevertheless, I wish that they had documented this somewhere.

So now, with MacOS 8.5.1 and with ROAM extension, my G3 card zooms along trouble free.
Ken]

Village Tronics MP850 not compatible with Sonnets G3? I read a report on Accelerate Your Mac that a Sonnet 300/1M G3 upgraded 6400 user was unabel to get the combo to work. Disabling the VT drivers or replacing the card with an older ATI Rage Pro fixed it. I guess all these new video cards are having trouble on our 6400's now :(

New Sonnet Clocker app a hit, Maybe?: I have received some initial reports stating the new clocker app is working for 240/250 card users! But I also got some users that still report no luck :( Here are some letters I got. Thanks for the info.

[BTW, it runs stable and crash-free at 300/150, temp 51-53C. Please thank your mystery man for the $50 he saved me!
David]

[Hi Tom,
Just want to let you know that the new (it is a new one version right?) Sonnet clocker works with Crescendo 1.4 and a 250Mhz Sonnet in a 6500. I am using it at 275MHz right now although I have run it at 300Mhz for more than 2 hours without any problems. However, that run was just using Word, so it may not stress it enough to show any problems (?).

I have also tried it at 325Mhz and it seemed to run fine at that speed for about 20 minutes while I surfed the net and checked/replied my e-mail. However, when I played Unreal with that clock speed, my system crashed during the Fly-by (was trying to get FPS benchmarks). It was a really bad crash. Rebooting didn't get me the smiling Mac face! I restarted using my Norton Utilities CD and repaired some damaged files (Unreal files). After NU made the repairs, I re-booted again with no success for a few times. Then I trashed the tweaked Crescendo extension, took out the motherboard to give my Sonnet a visual inspection (then again, if it was fried, I wouldn't know how to tell just by looking!), put everything back in, and my 6500 was alive again! Phew! I am suspecting that trashing the tweaked Crescendo extension might have helped my system to live again but I am not sure as when I was having problems, I couldn't even get the Mac smiling face.

BTW, do you know what kinds of things to look for to see if I have over clocked the Sonnet too much? The crash that happened when I played Unreal, that's a sign that I have over done it, right? Also, I have noticed that at 275Mhz, there is no temperature increase. At 300Mhz, there is a slight increase (by 4 degrees C) after quite a bit of use, but that temperature remains at that level. At 325Mhz, the 4 degree increase happens after only a few minutes of normal use and will climb another 4 degrees if I "work" the Sonnet hard (running Unreal Flyby). Is this also an indication that I shouldn't clock it that much, even if the final temperature indicated is still within what Sonnet say is safe? (275Mhz - 39 degrees, 300Mhz - 43 degrees, 325Mhz - 47 degrees) Wish I could use it at 325Mhz. Unreal plays so much smoother! Maybe I should do more tests to determine stability? Any advice?

Also, regarding the heat issue with V3, I have a Tennmax V3 cooler installed on my V3. Also, as you know, I have a PCI slot fan and a twin fan exhaust thing in my 5.25 bay. However, V3 will still crash on my system within a few minutes of use. So I think I can safely say that for my system, heat is not an issue with V3 but the L2 G3.

Finally, (sorry this e-mail is so long) please thank the person who wrote the Sonnet Clocker. I am really grateful that he/she has written such an easy to use "over-clocker" that works! Also, thank you for letting us know about this wonderful tweaker!
Regards,
Tiong]

[Have more info about my over-clocked Sonnet. I left my 6500 and the Sonnet clocked at 300Mhz (from 250) and ran the Unreal Flyby sequence early this morning when I went to bed. About a little after 6 hours later, I found my 6500 still running. I guess this means that I can run it quite safely at 300Mhz. Also, the temperature indicated on Metronome is an excellent 43 degrees C (my normal operating temp is 39)
Tiong]

I have sent the info from the users that didn't get it working to the author and he says it looked like it should have worked? Here are some tips which seem rather innocent but could have caused it not to work.

1. did you place the modified extension back into the extensions folder?
2. did you remove the old unmodified extension from the extensions folder?
3. did you reboot your computer after making sure the modified extension was in your extensions folder?
4. have you tried booting with only the base OS extensions and the modified Crescendo only in the extensions folder?

Please keep the info flowing in till we get this issue resolved. Thanks

Fixing a hot Sonnet G3 with a screw driver: Fred send word that his heatsink was not on all the way which doubled his CPU temp readings! Thanks for the info Fred.

[Hi Tom
First of all, thank you VERY much for your site which really helped me to upgrade my 5400/160 with a sonnet G3/300 512k cache card. Now, it1s up to me to give some tips that may help somebody.


+ High temperature
The first time I ran Metronome, the reported temperature was about 65 °C. Hot ! A close view to the card showed me that the (nice purple) heatsink was not tightened enough. There was a space between the heatsink and the G3 chip! I screwed the heatsink so as it touched the G3 chip. Now the average temperature is 39 °C. No fan needed, just a screwdriver !

+corrupted pref file
I had some random crashes, especially when using my stock geomodem (ok, I know Apple claims it is not compatible with G3). I trashed the 3Mac Os preferences2 file, and now everything1s fine.
BTW,this evening I applied the sonnet clocker patch. Everything seems to be ok. Mac bench reports a 5% gain. Quite normal when changing from 300 Mhz to 320 Mhz.
Thanks again for your very helpful site.
Fred]

Newer G3 with OS 9 user having nothing but fun!: Bryan writes that his 6400 is running smooth with a Newer G3 and OS 9. Thanks Bryan. Its nice to hear good news sometimes too :)

[Just thought you might find this interesting. I have a 6400/180 that I affectionately call FrankenMac. I have upgraded nearly everything in this box, and it keeps right on trucking. I have a Newer Technology L2 G3 300/200/1mb upgrade (fantastic card), 136mb ram, an 8gb hd, the original CD-ROM drive and a Yamaha 4416 CD-RW, ATI Rage Pro VR card, Asante 10/100 card, TV tuner, and video in. Currently I'm running OS 9 and I have to admit, it runs like a dream. No problems at all. Hooked to it are a Zip drive, Microtek scanner, Epson Stylus 850, US Robotics 56k modem, plaintalk microphone, stereo speakers, and two monitors, one for work, the other for TV. The lights dim when I hit the switches on my surge strips! (not really)

I originally bought this computer from Sears. It was the last one in stock, the demo model. It had no keyboard, but it did have a mouse and a majority of the software. I paid $400 for it. This March, I will have had it for two years. I have thoroughly enjoyed this computer.

I greatly appreciate your website and the information you provide. Keep up the good work!
Bryan]

Another L2 G3 company on the horizon: I found this web site while doing my daily cruise of the web. Phase5 is another G3 upgrade manufacturer that has already made a L2 G4 but only for the 4400. They have no L2 G3 for the 6400/6500 but maybe if enough people write to then they might make us one? or even a G4?!?!?!
http://www.phase5.de/mac/mace.html.

OS 8.6 and Mouse Freezes revisited: I know I labled this as OS 8.6 and Mouse freezes as thats what this letter from Ralph is mostly about but he has a lot a good basic troubleshooting tips I thought would be of benefit for all of you. Thanks Ralph. By the way I replied to Ralph to say that the most likly fix for him was increasing the RAM allocation to his apps.

[OS 8.6 Mouse freeze PM6500
Hi, I did a clean install of the OS 8.6 with HFS HD formatting when I first got the refurb machine in July. Pretty much OK but lately while using HR scanner images, aka 850K JPEGs, in AppleWorks 5 with 2 to 3 paint windows open and the latest GraphicsConverter open at the same time I was getting random mouse lockups, usually with no error messages. Once the mouse control panel reset itself to the default. Since the uncompressed files run in the 20M size I just figured I needed to give AW and GC more RAM and turn on virtual memory ( I have 96M physical and set the VM to 159M). I upped the two applications to 25M each, checked the keyboard and mouse din plugs for tightness but still got the freeze once on drag and drop editing between windows and once on a save as JPEG (AW uses even more memory to do this conversion but in the past I always got an out of memory error message with no lockup).
The next step was to check for extension conflicts. I went through both the control panels and extensions folders and turned off MacDrag+Drop 1.1 (since it not needed above system 8.0) and removed a USB Overdrive control panel (which was giving a "buy me" shareware notice on each startup). I also turned off all the energy saver timers, and checked to make sure no screen savers were set to turn on. I removed the Astra USB scanner timer from the startup folder (which is a timer to turn off the scanner bulb after 10 min) and I re-selected the check RAM on startup box in the memory control panel (hold down opt/apple when waking up the memory panel to access). I also upped the disk cache to 4M (suppose to be a min of 1M per 32M of physical RAM but MacWorld said to add another 1M above that). I checked the keyboard and mouse solder joints. The keyboard had two possible solder bridges and two possible cold solder joints at the DIN plug ribbon cable to circuit board locations that I redid last night. Just to be sure I upped the AW and GC memory to 35M each. As of last night I was not getting any freezes. Time will tell if I cured the problem. I will keep you posted.
I also ordered a USB Unimouse with scrolling button made by Contour Design. I wanted a 3 button mouse anyway and if the ADB mouse is truly defective (such lockups without errors can be caused by loose plugs, bad ADB devices and even a shorted or bad ethernet cable) I will need it. I'll let you know if I have any further problems.

PS a one button USB mouse runs with the Apple 8.6 extensions and can run at the same time as the ADB one is plugged in.{ a 3 button USB mouse works in this situation just fine too - Tom}

Other History: I had checked for the ATM conflict and am running 4.0.2 and only 78 fonts are loaded. Also to speed up HP serial printers give the HP Print Monitor more memory (its in the extension folder).... Ralph {this also works for Epson inkjet printers - Tom}]

Gaming Info ---------

ATI 128 Orion not working on a 6500 with or without a G3!: Tiong sent me a lot of info this week and here is some more. His Rage 128 Orion is not working on his 6500 with his Sonnet G3 or with it removed! I guess ATI's new Rage128 cards are just as finiky as the Voodoo3.

[Hi Tom,
I've installed the ATI patch, which is the ATI Hardware Resource extension 1.3.1, instead of 1.3 (under the 4.0x installer) first because there is a note and a floppy in my box that indicates so. Anyway, I did try installing the drivers and the patch later but it still wouldn't work. And I think the patch has to be installed first or my 6500 will crash during boot up.

Sorry, but I forgot to mention that I tried the Orion without my Sonnet (Crescendo disabled and, later, physically removing it and installing the stock 256k l2 cache), with Crescendo 1.3.7 and 1.4, and even the "new" 4.2 installer, without any success. Seems like my system just don't like having the Rage Orion inside and running. I have returned one already (got the second one to eliminate the possibility of a bad card) and am still wondering what to do with the other. Have also tried the Xclaim3D Plus (Rage Pro) with success only on the first day before having the same problem as the Rage Orion. Makes me think that my 6500 doesn't like any 2D/3D accelerator other than my 3D only 3dfx Vodoo2!
Regards,
Tiong]

Video card Caution!: I feel I should state this now as so many users are having issues with these new video cards. At this time the Voodoo3, all ATI Rage128 cards, and possibly the Village Tronics MP850 are to be treated as USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! I don't feel there are enough good results from users of 6400/6500 Macs to warrant buying one of these cards. It seems to be a 50/50 chance if it will work or not G3 or not! And without a G3 they are useless since your stock CPU couldn't push enough data to feed them anyway.

I find the perfect combo to be an ATI Rage Pro (not ProPlus) and a Voodoo2 card. They compliment each other perfectly. The ATI has good 2D and some 3D for Rave games and the Voodoo2 does 3D glide and OpenGL superbly! And the Voodoo2 is right up with ATI's Rage 128's in 3D performance, if not faster! So unless you really need an all-in-one card I would get a Voodoo2 and pair it with some other 2D card. This will save you a lot of headaches in the future. I know the 6400/6500 has only 2 PCI slots but gamers will not need another slot except for maybe a USB card :) And the 6500 already has ATI RageII on the mother board which is good enough for 2D, but sucks at 3D :) So they only need a Voodoo2 card and have one slot left open.

6400 Gaming infopage updated: I added some info to my 6400 Gaming info page. A link to Apples New Gaming page, a link to Accelerate Your Macs L2 G3 reply page, and a tip that might get your ATI VR 128 card running?

FLASH: Sonnet Clocker app updated!: The author found a bug in the way REALbasic handles strings and tried to make a fix. Hopefull this will allow the 240/250 Sonnet users accelerate their G3's? Click here to download it. Thanks! Please let me know if it works or not and if not please send a copy of the modifed Crescendo extension so he can inspect it.

Well did you all enjoy Thanks Giving? I know I did. We had a good time with my family. They came out from California. A lot of 6400 info came out over the holiday as well, so read on and have fun ;)

DHCP issues with OS 8.6 and OS 9: Many cable modem and DSL modem users have had issues using DHCP to conect to their service provider. The most common issue is a lost connection after 10min or so or pauses every 10min or so. The main problem is with the OpenTransport that comes with these OS's. OpenTransport seems to try and renegotiate an IP address license very often which disrupts the connection. There are 2 remedies for this until Apple can fix it.

1. instead of using DHCP you can set your IP manually. This has worked for a lot of people including me. As long as you have a static IP address you can manually set yout TCP/IP control panel and then you'll never have your Mac try to negotiate a new IP address which cuts the pauses and lost connections conpletely. At least the DHCP related one :)

2. If you don't have a static IP address or if manual is not working for some reason (I had one 6400 user not able to connect to Arizonas US West DSL with a manual setting in OS 8.6) you can revert to an older version of OpenTransport. I would only do this if DHCP and manual settings don't seem to work. You can do a custom install of OT from an OS 8.5.x CD. 1st choose Customize then deselect every option then choose custom install from the Mac OS 8.5 line. Now open up the Networking and Connectivity folder. In here you will find OT. Also if you wish to use AppleSharing then I suggest you also install that to make sure they are all compatible versions.

I know #2 will work if you have OS 8.6 installed and you revert to OS 8.5's OpenTransport but other variations might not? If you want to try it I suggest making a backup first. I think the reason Manual did not work for this user was because US West's service does not require a DNS server name. Without a name server address your computer cannot locate anything online. Somehow with DHCP this is not a problem for US West?

Sonnet releases Crescendo v1.4: Sonnet has updated their G3 driver again for G4's and OS 9 compatibility with nubus G3's. Click here to download it. I welcome any feedback on whether this fixes other issues?

Sonnet drops prices on G3's: Here are the latest prices from Sonnet for their L2 G3's

Crescendo G3/L2 250/512 $199.95 (was $249.95)
Crescendo G3/L2 300/512 $249.95 (was $299.95)
Crescendo G3/L2 300/1M $299.95 (was $349.95)

Sonnet Just announced G4 upgrades for the Nubus Power Macs!: I just got a press release from Sonnet that says they have begun shipping G4 upgrades for the 6100, 7100, 8100 series Macs. Who would have ever thought that the oldest of Power Macs would run the newest CPU's? I wonder if they are going to make a L2 G4 upgrade? It started like this when the G3's came out. Vimage, we need you again :)

Newer drops prices on G3's: Here are the latest prices from Newer for their L2 G3's. $50 more then Sonnets.

MAXpowr G3-L2 300/512K/150 $299
MAXpowr G3-L2 300/1MB/200 $359

Sonnet Clocker with Crescendo 1.4: Gary has succesfully used the Sonnet Clocker app with Sonnets Crescendo 1.4. Note some issues had had to get it to modify. Maybe this might help the 240/250Mhz users?

[Hi Tom,
Yes, your probably right about TT having a bug. I've checked it with Metronome, SpeedMeter 1.3, and Newer's Clockometer 2.0.1 and they all say 320MHz. but it is interesting to ponder.

BTW the sonnet clocker works great with the new Crescendo 1.4 Extension, but you do have to move it out of your active system folder, run the clocker, put it back in the extensions folder, and restart to have 320 MHz. Very fast very stable. I love it. I know it's only 20MHz more, but you would not believe how much snapper, faster overall my hole system feels with it than without it.......

I also want to take this opportunity to extend my thanks to you for the 6400 zone. I was pretty much clue less until I found your site, also I want to offer my appreciation of your wife for allowing you to spend what I'm sure is far to much time taking care of it.......Thanks again to both of you....
Gary]

I need some info from any 240/250Mhz Crescendo users to help fix the clocker app. If you can send me a copy of the Crescendo extension you modified that is not working I can send it to the author in hopes of finding a fix? Thanks.

6500 user with Sonnets 500Mhz L2 G3!: Toshiaki is the first to tell me of his experience with Sonnets fastest L2 G3 on the planet! It is based on the 10x bus ratio G3 and makes his 6500 scream at 500Mhz. Thanks for the info Toshiaki. It will probably run at 400Mhz in the 6400 so if you want the fastest 6400 and want to pay the price go try it.

[Hi,Tom.
This is Toshiaki,long time no see !
Finally I bought Sonnet Crescend L2 G3 500/250 Card !($739 with shipping 2 Japan) New G3 with TurboMAX(IBM DJNA370910) is well working on my 6500 so far. Sometimes it crashes during startup,but stability is not bad at all. Remarkable thing is that the driver's version is 1.3.7a. And driver's version 1.3.7 couldn't recognize the card.

G3 chip is IBM PPC750LF BGA500(Cupper *10) and two L2 chips are SEC KOREA RM736V799T-50 TV B013DA. I'll send my system info(DiskCache:4096K). G3's internal thermometer registered 48 degrees centigrade now. Good night.

Toshiaki]

More USB issues with L2 G3's: Tupring sent word that his USB card and Vimage G3 would not allow the computer to boot until he updated the USB drivers. So it seems that Apples pre1.2 USB drivers are just buggy. Thanks

[lately i've had a lot of startup freezes with my vimage card. just as the vimage extension loads, my 6500 completely locks up, even the power button on the back of the tower. i found it to be a problem with the old usb card drivers (pre-1.2). since updating when apple released them almost every startup crash is gone. so i don't think it's a problem with just the sonnet cards]

G3 info from Joey: Joey makes G3 cards in Europe and had a few comments on the high speed L2 G3's I thought was important to point out. Thanks Joey.

[I found out another interesting thing, from a ratio of 1:8 on (320Mhz with 40Mhz bus 6400s) you will get little speed improvement by higher clock speeds. In fact i've run a 400Mhz card and it's not much faster than a 300Mhz card. The scale between Bus Clock and CPU clock is much to high. Even in PCs only max. Ratios of 1:6 are common. And they're true by using only such moderate ratios. The higher the ratio, the longer the cpu has to wait on all other components on the machine. So i can advice anyone only to use max. 320Mhz cards in the Alchemy (40Mhz) or max. 400Mhz cards in their Gazelle (50Mhz) machine. Every Mhz more is wasting of money. You get the good feeling of much Mhz but only a slight performance benefit. That isn't worth it]

Update on OS 9 and the Geo modem: Eugene writes that even his 6500's Geo modem will not allow access to the control panel :( Has anyone tried faxing or Megaphone yet to see if they will work still?

[ I have used the Geo Modem on my Power Mac 6500 with MacOS 9. It seems to work as a device to connect to an ISP just fine. I haven't had any problems with that, but I can't open the Express Modem control panel. I guess this means no use for the voice and fax capabilities.
Eugene]

Latest info on new DOS card drivers: Paul sent me the latest info on a company making DOS card drivers that are 32bit enabled. Thanks Paul. It sounds like they have a beta version ready for download. Please let me know if you try them.

[Hi,
here is the latest info on the DOS card S/W:


Apple Macintosh DOS Compatibility Card Driver Status Reports
November 18, 1999
A site redesign is in progress.
Check back December 1 to download the beta software. The VxD is now very stable (finally!).  Our test machines are booting properly with the new drivers.  We found problems with the floppy drivers. The Port Driver is working, but once again we have had to rewrite some key Apple code that has bugs in it (the floppy drivers).  The installation manual has been written (it has not gone through internal review, so please don't consider it complete). The installers are complete. We will post a copy of the manual (in PDF format) here sometime next week. The Beta period for the software will start December 1 and end January 31. We have made arrangements to sell the software at Internet Secure http://internetsecure.com for a price of about $40.  They accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express in either Canadian or American dollars. The installation will require a unique license code that we will generate from sales data give to us by Internet Secure.]

Free OS 9 info PDF: I found this site that is posting a free download of an OS 9 tech article that has a lot of info on the inner workings of Mac OS 9.

USB cards and OS 9: Nigel writes that his 6400 is running nice and smooth with a USB card and OS 9 installed. It's nice to hear god news :) Thanks Nigel.

[ Just thought I would let you know. I have a 6400/200 w/ Vimage 240 G3 upgrade, 88MB RAM, WD 10GB drive, iXTV card and now just recently installed USB card from SIIG (OHCI standard). I am now running OS 9 from a clean install, and have just bought my Epson Stylus Scan 2000 USB. Happy to report everything is running well, and this seems to be my most stable system build ever. Finally, I can use my PalmPilot and synch through my printer port, without having to switch cables, as the new printer is now on a seperate USB port. Incidentally, I have trashed Apple Fax software in favor of FaxStf, which seems more reliable and less buggy. I have also trashed MegaPhone (never really needed it). All this plus the removal of my Visioneer PaperPort (initially a good product, but increasingly a headache over the past year, lousy Mac support), has resulted in a solid, seemingly indestructable system build. Love it. Just thought you should know someone having great success with both OS 9 and USB PCI cards on the amazingly long lived 6400! Even with a new G4 on the way, this machine continues to be my work horse, and has been a faithful servant that continues to amaze me with its versatility and tenacity!
Cheers!]

Old SCSI issue returns with OS 9: John as well as others write that they are having some SCSI problems that are remenicent of an old problem that needed a patch from Apple. This patch fixed SCSI issues on the 6360/54xx/64xx and was rolled into the OS starting with OS 7.6. Unfortunately it seems Apple may have left this patch out of OS 9 and even the old extension patch doesn't seem to work? Apple is aware of this and hopefully it will be fixed. Probably not until OS 9.0.1? Thanks John

[ When the 6400 series first came out there was a SCSI timing problem with that prevented the 6400 from using SCSI printers or scanners. This was fixed with a patch which was eventually built into system 7.6. See:

http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n20593

Unfortunately, the problem appears to have resurfaced with OS9 and SCSI printers and scanners will no longer work with OS9 installed on 6360/5400/6400 computers. The former patch will not correct this.

I posted this on the Apple Tech Support Forum and asked Apple Tech Support to draw this to Apple's attention so that another patch can be implemented, or the problem solved in the rumoured OS9.0.1.

See the following links for more details:

http://www.macfixit.com/ultimate/Forum14/HTML/000189.html

and

http://www.macfixit.com/ultimate/Forum14/HTML/001094.html]

Donato is having this problem with an AGFA scanner (model number unknown?). Thanks for the info Donato. Also Umax scanners may have this problem also as they are pretty finicky SCSI devices anyways!

6400 and Plextor CD rom drives?: Tom would like to know if the Plextor CD Rom drives would fit in the stock CD location of the 6400? Please email me any info you might have. Thanks.

[Sorry if this is not the correct site to email you from. I have an 8x CD in my 6400 now. I want to upgrade to a 24x or higher. Plextor makes a 32x or 40x UltraPlex internal compatible with Mac. Will this CD work with a 6400? Will I need third party software and will it be bootable?
Thank you and I enjoy your website.
Tom]

Update on Memory issues with OS 8.6: Jerry writes that he has seen a lot of memory related issues at Apples Forums and has a tip on what might help? Thanks Jerry. Click here to read more on memory issues with OS 8.6.

[This is the same Memory Leak problem I've read about at the Apple Community Squawk Area. They Are in no hurry to do anything about it. they did however suggest removal of the Appearance App in the control panels area as it apparently is the source of the biggest leak. including changes in Background and screen sound changes. (think some sort of software fix to reclaim unused or unrequired memory needs would help here)]

Gaming Info ---------

Unreal Tournament Rave patch: They released a small patch to allow Rave hardware rendering in UT. Before there was only glide and software. The patch works great for me:)

Update on Voodoo3 with L2 G3 issues: Here is a letter from Mike who just cannot get the Voodoo3 to run at all on his system.He has a Sonnet G3 300Mhz? Thanks for the info Mike.

[Tom,
Here's what I tried:
Two brand new V3 2000 PCI cards b5 and b7 drivers from 3dfx With and without the G3/L2 300/1MB card With and without extensions enabled (although I never got to extension loading phase) Tried zapping PRAM, pressing reset button on the motherboard.

I tried everything many, many times and am convinced that the 6400 motherboard conflicts with the V3 2000 PCI card. I have never seen the splash screen, saying starting up, with the V3 installed.
Mike]

Newer G3 and Voodoo3 working: As I have mentioned before it seems the Voodoo3 and Newer G3 are the most stable combination of Voodoo3 and L2 G3 card. Craig writes that he has had this setup for a few months with only minor issues. Some system freezes that he can't really blame on the setup. We all have some freezes from time to time though, right :( Here is a clip of his letter. Thanks Craig.

[- PM 6500 with NewerTech G3-L2 300/150/512 card.
- 128 MB RAM.
- OS 8.6.
- 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 PCI card flashed to Mac ROM and using beta 9 drivers.
- Belkin 2 port USB PCI card.
- Supra 56k external modem.
- SCSI ZIP
- SCSI CD-RW

I've had the Voodoo card installed for about 3 months now. I had some initial problems in getting it installed but after you posted my request, I received much help and got it working within a day or two (still don't know the problem or what I did to fix it, it probably wasn't seated right or something). Other than the known issues of unsupported QuickTime and RAVE acceleration, I don't have much to complain about. I chose the unsupported $60 card and drivers over the (now defunct) $150 Mactell cards.]

Voodoo3 may crash do to heat?: It might be that some of these issues may be heat related with the Voodoo3? It does run very hot and with a G3 added and lots of RAM it may be too much for the system to handle? For all you having trouble with the Voodoo3 and you have the time to tinker around, you might try adding a fan or removing some other internal cards to see what happens? The systems that boot but crash after several minutes are a good candidate for this. If your computer simply won't boot then I doubt heat is the problem.

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 :)

Here's an even better link http://members.aol.com/zone6400 I like this one better :)

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.