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:
Just Updated 12/17/1999
Airport setup help for non-Airport ready Macs: The MacResource has a page on setting up an Airport base station on a non-Airport ready Mac. Since the installer won't run on non-Airport Macs you need to use Tome Viewer which allows you to look inside the installer tome and extract the needed software. Then the rest goes as Apple planned. Its still pretty tricky and worth reading if your going to try it. Let me know how it goes if you try?
Village Tronics MP850 works after all with G3's: Last week I posted that the MP850 video card might be unable to work with L2 G3's. Here is a letter from an anonymous user who has it working. Thanks.
[Hi,
I was just reading about the many video card problems here on
your site. Well, I have a MP850 and a Vimage G3/240 in my 6400.
They work great together.
greetings,]
Sonnet Clocker and Sonnet Clocker II!: The author of the Sonnet Clocker utility has updated it again to fix the issue of 240Mhz users not being able to clock their G3's. It turns out he correctly modified the 240 registers but the problem is that Sonnet was not using those? They were using the 250 registers for both 240/250 speeds. With this update it should work fine. Please let me know how it goes.
Also another person took the source code and made the same changes but also added bus settings for Nubus G3 upgrades! This one is named Sonnet Clocker II. The whole 33-36.7 Mhz range was not in the original version but now it is. He did leave out the 66 and 100Mhz settings for the beige and B&W G3 upgrades but its not certain if it would work on those anyway? This second Author says it won't work on any PCI G3 upgrade, only the Nubus and L2 upgrades. So now you have a choice of either one (both do the exact same thing but each has different bus choices and both have the 6400/6500 settings) which should cover the entire spectrum of Sonnets G3 upgrade offerings :)
Sonnet beta Crescendo 1.4.1b1 driver: Bill was the first to let me know that Sonnet has posted a beta version of the Crescendo driver for greater OS 9 compatibility with Nubus systems and fixes for the startup crashes the L2 G3 systems have! Thanks Bill. Click here to download it and please let me know if they disabled Speculative Addressing?
Several people have written to let me know that it seems to have fixed the startup crash but one person was still getting bad stability in sound apps. Sigh :( Its too soon to tell if the startup crash is really fixed but so far so good. Here is a sample of the emails I got. Thanks.
[Well... since I got the extension the following happened:
4 crashes in SNES9X (just like before!)
2 crashes in the SoundJam MP Demo (once with a visual plug-in
the other seemingly for no reason at all--MP3's courtesy of MP3.com!)
1 crash while Internet Explorer 4.5 was loading
At least it doesn't crash at startup (yet).
DH]
Also I hear the Sonnet Clocker still works so Sonnet hasn't made to drastic of a change.
Another tip on fixing sound issues with Sonnets G3: Gary found a few extensions that seem to make his system more stable if removed. Thanks Gary.
[Hi Tom,
I was going through my extension folder and came across three
extensions that had been there seance 1997, I think they were
for an early version of real player, I don't know so I disabled
them to see what happens...... I don't use real player any more
to unstable on my Mac. Well guess what, the sound issues I've
had with QuickTime are gone....So I turn them back on in the extension
manger, restart and QuickTime sound problem is back (the sound
skips and stutters). Turn them off, problem is gone. Maybe this
will help some of your other readers with Sonnet cards that have
sound issues. If they have them turn them off if they need them,
turn them back on....They are
MSL C.PPC.DLL
MSL Runtime PPC++.DLL
MSL Runtime PPC.DLL
Gary]
Just so you know. I have these on both my PB G3 and my Vimage 6400 and neither have sound issues. They were installed by my AGFA camera software. Let me know if you have these and removing them helped.
What is SOMobjects? Here is the answer!: Last week I mentioned that a Vimage user removed SOMobjects from his extension folder and it solved a stability issue he was having with OS 9. I had asked what SOMobjects was and here is the answer I got from several people. Thanks.
[From InformInit 8.1:
SOMobjectsª for MacOS (v2.0.8): a MacOS implementation of IBM's
Standard Object Model (SOM). SOM allows components and component
software written in different languages to exchange data and instructions.
It allows "objects" to break free from ties to a specific programming
language. A quote from IBM explains further: "SOM's language-neutral
character not only allows robust software objects to be easily
used and reused wherever they're needed, it also enables a greater
degree of openness than ever before in the development and use
of object-oriented programming (OOP) facilities across multiple
operating platforms. What's more, SOMobjects incorporates Distributed
SOM technology, which provides a base for OOP development and
use over entire networks." According to Apple, some users have
experienced a Type 11 error when launching OpenDoc v1.0. There
is an incompatibility between some systems and version 2.0.7 of
the SOMobjects file, which is installed by OpenDoc 1.0. The next
release of OpenDoc will address this bug. If you are experiencing
these problems you should install the SOMobjects for MacOS 2.0.8
extension, available from Apple, until the next release of OpenDoc
is available. NOTE: this file is also installed by Mac OS 8, and
must be installed in order for new Contextual Menu Plug-Ins to
function properly.
Edward]
[To answer your question, the file SOMobjects gets put onto your
system as part of the Mac PGP installation. The uninstall feature
does not remove it. I found this out the other day when I was
trying to install PGP on my Performa. The archive I uploaded had
a bad checksum. I uploaded it twice and got the same problems.
I noticed the SOMobjects extension after I did an uninstall.
Ron]
It seems it can be used for many different apps. I would leave it installed unless your certain removing it doesn't affect anything else. It is on both my PB G3 and 6400.
Apple TIL on the 6400: Here is a link to TIL 24215 that Apple made as a FAQ for us 6400 users. Go check it out :)
More SCSI and OS 9 issues with 6400's: Here is a letter from another 6400 user that is also having SCSI issues but not with a scanner. Thanks for the info. I urge all of you that installed OS 9 and are having SCSI problems to please let Apple know. They seem unwilling to fix it unless they get more response! Click here for more info.
[Hey Tom,
I just read that some 6360/5400/6400 users are having problems
with SCSI and OS9. I want to add to that complaint. Since I've
installed OS9 I have been unable to access my 4gig Barracuda drive.
(I've tried internal and external configurations and a myriad
of jumper settings. Once my computer begins scanning the SCSI
bus it freezes when it reaches the Barracuda. Force quitting the
app or disconnecting the drive regains control of the system.
I'm running a 6500, 128M ram.]
Here is an OS 9 user that is happy with it: Gertjan is very happy with his 6400 upgraded with OS 9 and Vimage's G3. Thanks Gertjan.
[ Dear Sir,
First I would like ton congratulate you with your great Internet
site concerning the Performa 6400. I find it very useful.
Secondly I would like to inform you that I own a 6400/180 which
has been upgraded with a Vimage 240 Mhz G3 card and all works
fine for two weeks now. OS9 is very stable on the upgraded 6400.
Furthermore I solved a lot of OS 8.x problems by removing the
Geoport modem. I now use a Dynalink V1456VQE 56k6 modem. In fact
this is a modem for Windows computer but on their site there are
the applicable Apple drivers so that you can use this cheap modem
on your 6400 as well.
I hope this information is useful to you.
Best regards,
Gertjan]
I think removing the Geo modem should be one of the first things on anyone's "increase stability" list. It has been the root cause of many 6400 users problems!
Mac site in Japan: Here is a link to a web site of a reader of mine in Japan. Its named WheelerDealer. It is all in Japanese so I figured it would be nice for my Japanese friends to visit :) He has also posted a Japanese version of the Sonnet Clocker II. Thanks.
Gaming Info---------
Quake 3 Arena strategy guide: Here is a link to a strategy guide on Q3A. It is good reading and some of the more basic stuff is useful for all FPS games.
New Quake 3 Demo out: id software just released a newer Q3D for the Mac. I tried it and it is much better then the previous demo test. I think this will be the final demo until the full version is out. This fixed a problem I had where my game would have massive jitters as I walked around. I had to use vertex instead of lightmap which made the game look horrible but made the jitters less severe. Now it plays as good as the original Q3T!
Possible fix to get a Voodoo3 running on a Sonnet G3 accelerated 6400: Tiong sends word that he found a fix to get a Voodoo3 and an ATI Rage128 Orion to work on his 6500 just by having a PC-MAC monitor adapter left on the stock port! It seems that the 6500 wants to think it still is using the stock port even if you just want to use a video card. You will need 2 monitors to start but after following Tiongs instructions on how to move the Happy Mac and menu bar to your new graphics card you can remove the second monitor and place a monitor adapter on the stock port so it always thinks it has one there. Nice fix. Thanks Tiong.
[ Hi Tom,
One of xlr8yourmac.com's readers, mie (AKA miero in 3dfxgamers.com's
forum), has found a fix for the L2G3/V3 bug. Apparently, the on-board
ATI is the problem (just like you suspected quite sometime back).
Running a dual monitor setup is his suggestion and sure enough,
my Sonnet 6500 crashes no more with V3!
How to set it up: first you need another monitor. Any working
monitor should do fine. Hook up this monitor with the on-board
ATI and your main monitor with your V3 (if that's what you prefer).
Bootup and use the Monitor & Sounds control panel to drag the
menu and smiling Mac icon over to your V3 monitor. This will make
the V3 monitor the startup monitor. And if you do not like the
monitor hooked up with the on-board ATI and have no use for it
once this is done, you can detach this (when your Mac is off)
and just add a Mac-VGA monitor adapter to the on-board ATI. This
works on my system for most of the time except when you want to
zap the PRAM, when you'll have to hook up that second monitor
to your on-board again.
PRAM zapping: with the on-board monitor hooked up and turned on
(the thing I describe here doesn't work with the on-board monitor
off on my 6500), go through the normal PRAM zap routine. You'll
see the smiling Mac on your on-board monitor starting up. As the
extensions are just about to load, the Mac OS startup screen should
jump to your V3 monitor and you'll see the extensions loading
up. After startup is complete, you can shut down and detach the
on-board monitor, leaving just the Mac-VGA adapter.
Note: if I zap PRAM on my system without the second monitor attached
and turned on, the menu, etc., will not come back onto my V3 monitor.
Also, this work around works for my Rage Orion too, although now
that my V3 is running, I've got no use for it what so ever. I'm
willing to part it for $100 since it's hardly been used. Oh yeah,
the ATI Xclaim 3D Plus is going for $70.00 (this is one week younger
than my 3, almost 4 weeks old Rage Orion, although total time
spent in my 6500 amounts to like less than 16 hours!) Click here to email Tiong on these offers.
I think that since the V3 and the Rage Orion can run with this
setup now, I can only conclude that the on-board ATI is the culprit
for all my PCI graphics card woes! The only thing I don't understand
is why V2 is not affected. Maybe it's because it's a Voodoo? (!)
Regards,
Tiong]
Voodoo3 on a Newer G3 accelerated 6400 update: Bryan sends word that his 6400 with Newers G3 is running with a Voodoo3 ok. Later he sent a more info stating that he had to reflash the ROM because it may have gotten corrupted? Thanks for the info Bryan.
[ Well, I bit the bullet and bought the card this weekend. Setting
it up was very easy - even flashing the ROM was a snap. Once the
ROM was installed for Mac and the 3dfx extensions were dropped
in the system folder, I just rebooted and the monitor came up
fine... well, almost...
My primary monitor is the old Apple 16" color display, which has
long since passed into obsolescence. It's a fixed frequency 832x624.
And guess what ONE frequency the 3dfx Voodoo 2000 card doesn't
support... you guessed it - mine. So I moved my old NEC 14" display
over onto the card and rebooted. Came up like a champ.
I loaded and ran Unreal Tournament demo on the new card and, let
me just say, WOW! With images and details at highest quality,
it is still faster than my old Rage Pro 4mb card running at medium
detail and images quality. Glide was an excellent name for this
technology... my game just glides through the scenery.
The only problem I have encountered, except for my old monitor
of course, is that my 14" NEC, which is also old, has a difficult
time keeping it's sync. However, I think that's in the monitor.
Like I said, it's old. It seems heat related in the monitor.
So far, no complaints.
For the record, I'll include the specs on FrankenMac again.
Performa 6400/180
Newer Technology G3/L2 Chip 300/200/1mb
136mb ram
8gb IDE hd
Asante 10/100 ethernet
3dfx Voodoo 2000 card
Apple 8x CD-Rom drive
Yamaha 4416s CD-RW (internal)
Apple TV Tuner card
Apple Video In card
External Zip drive
Microtek scanner
Dual monitors (NEC 14", Apple 16")
Epson Stylus 850
US Robotics v.90 modem
Amplified speakers
Thanks for all your help and information. I'll keep you posted
on further developments.
Bryan]
Then he sent this.
[I am using the latest Voodoo3 drivers, as well as the latest
ROM file. Interesting thing last night. The card has been working
fine for several days now, but when I fired up my computer last
night, the Voodoo card would not run. Only the stock video would
fire up. No biggie, but it was odd. I reinstalled the ROM and
rebooted, and the Voodoo card came right up. This may have something
to do with Quake 3 Arena demo. I downloaded it and ran it once
the other night, and after playing a little while, it locked up.
Since then, I haven't been able to run it. I have tried several
times and when it goes to load the game file, it just hangs and
I have to force reboot. I'm thinking having to do that a few times
may have scrambled the ROM on the card. You never know...
Bryan]
VR 128 feedback page from Accelerate Your Mac: Here is a page Mike posted on his site with all the VR 128 user feedbacks he's been getting. Interesting reading!
Another reply from ATI on the VR 128 and Vimage G3 issue: Jesse received a reply the other day from ATI and at lease they are somewhat willing to look further into the issue now. Thanks Jesse.
[Dear Jesse,
Thank you for your email. We apologize if you found our previous
answers ambiguous. This issue is very new to us and we are still
investigating.
Regarding the conflict you are experiencing between Xclaim VR
128 and Vimage G3:
We have escalated the details of your report for closer investigation.
We are aware that Vimage is no longer in business, which makes
this investigation even more difficult.
We hope to hope to find a workaround or (preferably) a solution
to this issue, but we have none at this time.
If you feel that a solution is too long forthcoming, then you
might consider returning the Xclaim VR 128 to your vendor for
an exchange or refund, or to continue operating your Performa
with the Vimage card removed.
Regarding a firmware upgrade for Xclaim VR 128:
ATI Technical Support has no information regarding the pending
release dates of ATI hardware or software products. For more information
contact sales@atitech.ca.
Regards,
Robert Gregory
ATI Technical Support
support@atitech.ca
http://support.atitech.ca]
Here is a letter from Allen who made sure that ATI knows what the problem is. Thanks Allen!
[Well,
I spent two hours today with a tech from ATI Canada. My setup
is a 6400/180/72MB/ with a Vimage 240 G3 upgrade card. I have
had the freeze of the screen at the softboot of the Vimage extention.
I did everything he said, so he could find out for himself what
the problem was.
He concluded that it indeed was the ATI card not being able to
redraw after the softboot. We allowed the the full restart with
the screen frozen. So.....with the screen frozen and given adequate
time for the completed bootup....we hit the power button and hit
return.and of course the 6400 responded as it should when fully
booted, and that is to shut down, which it did. So the 6400 does
indeed continue to boot , it is just the image on the screen that
is frozen.
He said he could not garentee that there will be a fix..and suggeted
that I return the card. He did say that he would report the finding
to the proper people and they would have to decide. A bios flash.or
even a new card being produced.
Thank you
Allan]
My suggestion to all of you is email ATI and let them know you would like it fixed. Maybe with enough feedback they will try and fix it.
SuperMac c500 with the Rage Orion: I know this is not a 6400/6500 but it is based on the smae mother board so I thought I would post it. Thanks for the ingo Alvin.
[ Hiya, just thought you'd might like this info I have regarding
the Rage Orion I just installed in my Supermac.
I've got a Supermac c500 with a Vimage G3/240 installed and 64
megs of ram running Mac OS 8.6.. that should be it!
For the most part, the card is awesome!! 2D is vastly improved.
Snappy screen redrawing, and insane scrolling speeds... I can
run at high resolutions, high refresh rates with 32 bit color!
QT playback for the most part is awesome, the acceleration helps
a lot when viewing mpegs. Full screen playback is possible with
no loss in quality!
3D for the most part works great too.. Unreal is well, unreal!
I can run it at higher resolutions (800 X 600 and up) than with
my old voodoo1 board. I get an avg. of 20fps, usually the framerate
is higher than that. Quake II plays awesome, as well as the Tomb
Raider II 4 lvl version that comes with the board.
Now here's the bad news: I get frequent problems with sound where
it stutters like crazy. For example: playing an mp3 using the
QT player the sound tends to mess up whenever "ATI Graphics Acceleration"
is checked on the menu.. Turning it off seems to end the sound
distortion. I've also noticed sound problems in some games as
well.
I've tried fixing this by reinstalling OpenGL 1.1.2 and using
the ATI Universal installer 4.2 as well as older versions of both
of these.. I can't seem to make the problem go away...
Seeing as how I bought the card for $115 and plan on getting the
$30 rebate I suppose this is not a MAJOR nuisance, but ATI really
needs to fix their drivers (I wish!), apparently I'm not the only
one having problems with their cards... *sigh*
Anyway, I hope this helped with your site in any way... :)
Alvin]
Just Updated 12/10/1999
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.
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]
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]
Gaming Info ---------
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.
Just Updated 12/3/1999
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]
My Vimage Info page on Vimage's G3 upgrade for the 6400
My Sonnet Tech Info page on Sonnet's G3 upgrade for the 6400
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
CD containing the 6400 Zone plus past history for sale 9/3/1999
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 :)
amazon.com, books and more 7/2/98
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.
Link to my site that gets rid of AOL's ads! 9/16/98
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 :)
Current Problems with my System
None :)
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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.
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Since 1/22/1998
If any of the links do not work properly, please send an email
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This page last updated 12/17/1999
