How is everyone doing? For those that have been following my carrier with GFS, I'm now a Supervisor of Quality Assurance! I love this job as I get to track how rebates are being keyed and how they are setup. I've also just rebuilt my iBook and my friends PB 12" G4.

My iBook lost its wireless connection when I moved the LCD back and forth so there was a break in the antenna wire. I tried to use it for a while with an ethernet cable attached but then the backlight died :( So I looked for cables on the net and found a place in CA. that would sell them to me. I replaced both and they worked fine but then I found the display cable was bad so I had to order that one as well. It cost roughly $200 for all three cables. A local Mac shop was going to charge me up to $450 just to replace the antenna and backlight cables. I saved a lot of money but I did mar up the case a bit :( The iBook is snap-fit together so its tough to open it without the tool Apple says to use, a back thin stick. But its working and that's what counts :)

The PowerBook 12" was my friends and she dropped it by accident and it dented the right side of the case a lot and the DVD drive stopped working. It would not read disks any more. The same local Mac shop was going to charge $800 to replace the DVD (Superdrive) alone. I called the place in CA and they had a Superdrive for $375 and a bottom case part for $200. I suggested replacing the bottom to make sure it would not hamper the access to the DVD drive, and looked better to! This computer was much easier to take apart then the iBook! Looks like Apple figured out what was hard to do in the iBook and refined it all. No snap-fit pieces at all!

Both required almost complete dismantling of the notebook! There is a whole lot of screws holding these together and they are very teeny tiny! I only came out with one piece of extra tape that is used to hold wires in place in side so I guess I'm not a very good tech. Usually the more spare pieces left over the better tech you are, right :)

More on the DFE 530TX+ ethernet card: There seems to be some discrepancies as to whether this card will work or not on our Macs? Some say it does and others say it doesn't. Jeff, who originally wrote in about this card, wrote back to say that he just tried the latest version from D-link and it works just great for him. Thanks Jeff! Click here to read past info on this card.

[Hi again,
I just wanted to follow up on the D-Link DFE-530TX+ information that I sent after reading about some people having problems with this card.

I recently picked up another 6400 and decided to test the latest D-Link cards to see if they are still compatible and easy to set up. To my surprise, they now have even better drivers on the install CD that comes with the card. I installed a brand new D-Link DFE-530TX+ in slot B1 in the 6400, powered up and ran the installer and everything came up and worked great with no tinkering.

I then decided to try and get my Umax c600 working with one of these cards. I had spent countless hours trying to get the Farallon comm slot card working with no success. Installing the D-Link card was a little hard because it would only work in the middle PCI slot, but once I figured that out it was smooth sailing.

Both machines are running OS 8.6 right now. I don't know why these cards aren't working for some people, but my experience has been very positive with these cards. I've installed them in PowerMac 9600, PowerComputing PowerCenter Pro, Performa 6400, Umax c600, and more. They are also very friendly with Mac OS X. I had one installed in my PowerComputing machine when I upgraded to OS X and I didn't even have to install any drivers.

Thanks again for the great site!
Jeff]

Here are two versions of the Mac drivers I found on Realteks web site.

• RTL8139xV300.sit
• RTL8139xV310.sit

Also I just purchased this card and although I have not tried it in my 6400, it works great in my B&W G3 running OSX 10.2.8. And It came with OS 8.x / OS 9.x drivers. Click here to download them.

Please let me know if either of these work for any of you? Thanks.

UMAX C500 web server running OSX, web site: Terry sent me a link to his web site (http://www.c500.sytes.net/) where he has a UMAX C500 running OSX 10.1.5 and hosting the actual site itself. He has info posted on how to install OSX and is working on adding more info on how to setup web sites on it. Thanks Terry!

Major FrankenMac!: Mark sent me a link to his web site where he has info on how he modified the appearance of his 6400. And it is truly modified! Thanks Mark.

[Inspiration: good question. Too much time at Applefritter.com and Modyourmac.com I guess.

I don't remember what order the ideas came in but the whole thing is emulating other hacks and mods I've seen online. Windows, paint jobs, and CCFTs are pretty common in desktop systems for both Macs and PCs. The insert idea came from the various G4 Cube and clear iBook mods out there with paper inserts. Blue Smoke Squared comes to mind first. I don't like simple one idea projects (no challenge) so I combined a few ideas then when I finished set it up as a computer for my brother.]

BUS errors on bootup related to QuickTime Firewire drivers installed?: AJ wrote to let me know he was having much difficulty booting his 6400 after installing OS 8.6 with an OS 8.6 full install CD. He found that it would get type 11 bus errors right around the time the QT extensions where loading. He removed the QT Firewire extensions and now it boots just fine. He does not have a Firewire card installed which may be the problem? Thanks for the info AJ.

Sonnet Tempo HD!: I don't remember ever mentioning this but I just found this neat product on Sonnets web site called the Tempo HD. It is a Tempo IDE card with only one IDE port but it also has a built on notebook sized IDE drive! The capacity is up to 40GB which isn't bad and it says it works on our Macs.

The 40GB unit sells for $239.95 and just a plain card with no drive is $99.95. It should work with any 2.5" notebook drive.

If anyone has tried this please email me your results. Thanks.

6400 Avid Cinema software not working on a 6500: Alec sent me news that he got a 6500 mother board that also has the Avid card on it but could only locate a 6400 version of the software. Needless to say it did not work on the 6500 MB but worked fine on the 6400 MB. Thanks for the info Alec.

[Hi Thomas,
Just been looking at the Avid Cinema information on your site as I've been having a problem. I upgraded one of the 6400's to a 6500 and the board came with an Avid Cinema card in, but no software. I was able to get the Cinema CD for a 6400 which installs and runs but any video captured will not play back correctly, the image scrolling around in the window. It would appear from your info and the readme's on Apples site that the 6500 requires something extra to run Cinema. I'm guessing that this is due to the ATi graphics chip in these machines in some way, whatever it's most annoying. I've given up trying to locate the appropriate version of Cinema and put the card in the 6400 where it does work correctly.

Just noticed a difference between to two machines I have here. The 6400/200 has a sheet plastic lining to the pocket that contains the logic board. This even partially covers the air intake in the base of the machine, reducing the area by about half. The 6400/180 does not have this feature and neither did another chassis that I had. Do you know if this is connected with cooling problems of some sort. A trivial question I know but I'm curious as to which is the best one to house the 6500 logic board, or does it not matter.
Regards,
Alec]

Alec was nice enough to send me a copy of the 6400 Avid Cinema 1.1 restore CD as well. Please email me if you are interested in it. I'll only charge a few dollars for shipping.

Answer for "What is the 34-60pin cable for?": Alec also wrote to say that this cable is for connecting the Video in card to an MPEG card. Apple sold some of these Macs with just a simple MPEG card instead of the full Avid card and there was no need for the extra pins in this setup. Thanks Alec.

[Hi Tom,
Congratulations on your acquisition of a 6500, it's the machine the 6400 was always meant to be, I'm sure you'll be well satisfied with it. Even though I had to pay for the 6500 mobo I put in my 6400 I've no regrets especially as it had an Avid Cinema card in.

Regarding Christopher's comments on the 34 to 60 pin cable it can only be for using the MPEG Card with the Rev D Video In board as the extra pins that the Cinema card uses are not connected, see attached photo.
Regards,
Alec]

Apple PDF document showing how to install the External Video cable for a 5400: I found this PDF manual on Apples web site and it shows how to install this cable on an LC 580, 5200/5300 series Mac, and even a 5400 series Mac. The 5400 series instructions will be the same for a 6400/6500 as well except for the mother board removal. This card is for video mirroring to another monitor but was most likely used for connecting to a projector.

Click here and here for more info on this cable.