Corrections from last update: I made a mistake in my last update and also did not make another posting clear enough. My mistake was in the 6400 SCSI topic. I had mentioned that the 7500 was the first to have dual SCSI buses when in fact it was the 8100 that had it first. Thank to Alec for pointing that one out.

And I need to make my posting about the quad port USB cards a bit more clear. I had mentioned that you should not get a quad port USB card if you ever intend on using it in the 6400/6500. I really meant to say a USB card with multiple buses because some quad port cards also have 4 independent USB bus controllers as well. These are the cards that are having trouble with the 6400/6500. A plain quad port USB card that only has one USB bus controller for all 4 ports should work just fine. Thanks to JJ for showing me that one.

Evergreen is having a sale!: Bill just let me know that Evergreen is having a sale on their Firewire/USB combo cards. Thanks Bill. I noticed that a lot of their products are on sale at the moment but the card Bill mentioned is being discontinued. It appears to make way for the newer Firewire/USB 2 combo card. Click here for more info on their combo card.

[Tom:
I just stumbled across this- Evergreen is clearing out their USB/FW Combo cards for $29.99. I assume this is the same card reported on your site to be compatible with the 6400. (I hope so- I just ordered one!) Bill

http://www.evergreennow.com/category.cfm?Category=49]

Overclocked 5500 from 225Mhz to 300Mhz!: Patrick sends word that he was able to clock his 5500 from a stock 225Mhz to a whopping 300Mhz! That's the largest MHz jump I have heard of for the 603e CPU. Thanks for the info Patrick!

[Hi Thomas,
I just thought you might want to add this to your clocking info page. A few weeks ago I decided to give overclocking my 5500/225 a shot, as I'd already gotten over the huge speed boost I got from the replacement of my 5400/120 motherboard to the 5500. Anyway I had a good look at the chart on your site, but couldn't make any sense of it; the resistors were nowhere near the clock multiplier on the board! So I went to the clock chipping home page, where there was a more easy to follow chart. I was thinking 250MHz, but that would really be too mild. So I went for a full 300- and it WORKED. I had it running for 30 mins with a USB card covering the CPU fan, and it went and locked up. After removing the unused card, and getting out my old 5400's heatsink, and inserting the 5500 heatsink inside this one, with the fan on top(a REALLY big improvement on the piddly thing that came standard), and after roughly a month, I'm still enjoying a full 75MHz speed increase without ONE problem. In fact, not even the system has frozen since I clocked it!
No, I wouldn't recommend you or anyone else try this- I must have one tough 603ev- but it's worth knowing that it can be done. Thanks for making such a great website!
-Patrick]

I wonder if the 6500 will have as much overhead as his 5500 has? I know the 6400 starts locking up at only 40Mhz over the stock CPU speed for many clockers. Also, I added a new chart, on my clocking page, for 5500/6500 owners that shows which resistors need to be changed to clock these systems. The original chart was for 5400/6360/6400 Macs only.

Issues with USB in OS 9.2.2?: I have heard from several people that are having issues with USB once they update their 6400 to OS 9.2.2 using OS9 Helper. I asked each to make sure they had the USB drivers installed and which version is installed. I haven't heard back yet but I did run across this very topic on MacInTouch today. Funny how the same topics seem to start on all the Mac help sites at close to the same time :) Anyway, it looks like there is an issue with USB PCI card support in the USB drivers from OS 9.2.2? Here is some info I found on MacInTouch's web site.

[Several of the faculty/staff Macs that I maintain at our university have had the same problems with USB PCI Adapter cards and upgrades to 9.2.2. I have developed a work around that I thought might help John and others. Below is the documentation I wrote for our techs here (modified slightly for Macintouch readers).

Install MacOS 9.2.2.

Go into your Extensions folder and move out the following extensions: USB Authoring Support, USB Device Extension, USB Software Locator and USBAppleMonitorModule. Put them on the desktop, you will need them later.

Install the Apple USB Adapter Card Support 1.4.1 software.

Move to the Trash the following extensions: USB Authoring Support, USB Device Extension, USB Software Locator, and USBAppleMonitor. (You won't be able to delete them because they are "in use.")

Drag the extensions you removed in step 2 back to the extensions folder.

Restart the computer & empty the trash.

This procedure seems to put back the missing pieces/old versions that allowed the MacOS to use a PCI USB card. While I can't confirm that it will enable every USB device, I can state that it has worked with many USB devices I've encountered including: floppy drives, zip drives, mice, keyboards, wireless optical devices, and USB cameras.
Steve]

[....saw your recent update that gave an Apple link for how to fix this. I think I can provide more details.

Here is what needs to be done in order to retain USB functionality in laptops such as the WallStreet (USB only via the CardBus). The following has worked on my machine twice...and literally just last week after I had a processor card replacement upgrade from the wonderful repair folks at pbparts.com...who keep my WallStreet in working order.

First...download USB Adaptor Card Support 1.4.1 and install by double-clicking on the .smi icon.

Then, from within the Extensions Manager... disable HID Library 1.5.9 (an extension) disable USB Device Extension 1.5.9 (another extension) disable USB Software Locator 1.5.9 (the third extension)

Restart...and you're off-and-running.

The folks who sold me my PCMCIA-USB card (MacAlly) are the source of this fix, which enables functionality of the card within system 9.2.
StLSports]

Both fixes require the download and install of Apples USB Adaptor Card Support drivers version 1.4.1 available here. What's interesting is that the page says that these drivers are not for Macs with built in USB ports as those computers already include support for the built-in ports as well as USB PCI cards. I don't know why the OS 9.2.2 drivers wouldn't work with USB PCI cards if it supports both built-in and PCI cards, but that seems to be the case? Maybe not all of the needed drivers get installed if there are no built-in ports to begin with? Below are the drivers I have in my OS 9.2.2 install on my Dual 800 QuickSilver. Notice I only have version 1.5.6 of the main USB drivers but version 1.5.9 is listed in the letters above? Either that's a typo or somewhere people are getting newer drivers then what comes with OS 9.2.2?

HID Library 1.5.6

USB Authoring Support 1.1.2

USB Device Extension 1.5.6

USB Printer Sharing Extension 1.0.2

USB Software Locator 1.5.6

USBAppleMonitorModule 2.1

USBHIDUniversalModule 1.0.5

If anyone has USB PCI cards working in OS 9.2.2, please email me your USB driver version numbers. Thanks!

Master/Slave IDE drives on a 6400, Possible?: We all know for the longest time that its not possible for the 6400/6500 family of Macs to run master/slave drive setups on our stock IDE bus. But Terry writes that he is able to run master/slave HD's on his UMAX C600 under OSX! These systems are very similar to the 6400 but actually have a processor upgrade slot which lets them install G3 upgrades the proper way and not through the L2 cache slot. At one time I remember reading that OSX supplies its own IDE bus drivers and may not use the bus controller but rather does it in software? I don't know if that is true or possible but if so then maybe there is a way to get our 6400's to run master/slave drives? Anyone care to speculate on this :)

[I have two bits of news on older PowerMacs. The first concerns Beige G3s and the second is about a clone (Umax C600) of the PowerMac 6400.

After much frustrating experimentation I postulate that Beige G3s can boot off of their slave ATA drives (if they have rev. B ROM or later) in pre- OS X but not in OS X. My experience with two Beige G3s - non-Rev. A - is consistent with this hypothesis. How un-Mac-ish ! Gone are the days when an address is just an address.

On a lark I tried installing an additional (slave) in my Umax C600. This machine has been running OS X.2.3 for quite some time thanks to Ryan Rempel's XPostfacto. This clone is fortunate to have a ZIFF slot in which I have put a Mactell 280Mhz. G3 with 1 MB L2 cache and hence can run Jaguar with pre-3.0 Xpostfacto. Anyway, much like a Beige G3 Rev. A, when you boot off X on a master drive you can work with your slave drive.

I will end this note with an open query. I wonder whether it is possible to increase the utility of slave drives on these machines via open firmware. Perhaps someone more technically adept than me can will answer this.

- Terry]

More information on the video out ports that some 6500's come with: There is a nice topic going on in my forums about the NTSC Video out capability of some 6500's. The question that sparked this was how to get the video out ports to work? I pointed the person to this page on my site that has some info on the video out card. I asked him to try setting his resolution to 640x480 @60Hz as was mentioned on that page. I haven't heard back from him yet if this worked but another user, Christopher, found a number of links with lots of info on this subject. Thanks Christopher! Here are some of his postings.

[With the release of the 5400, 5500, 6400 and 6500, Apple released a series of External Video connectors. (M4099LL versions A - D) As near as I can tell (no manuals are extent anywhere that I can find on-line) Versions A - C were for 5400 and 5500 style systems. Version D was (I think) designed for 6400 and 6500. (At least version D is advertised on the available option on the original 6400/6500 advertising info sheets.) All of these External ports were 15 pin D style connectors that were designed to work together with the Apple Presentation System, a second (mirrored) computer video monitor or a LCD display.

But,
There are two sly references: one on an education price sheet, for a M4099LL/C that you can buy ($29), but it requires you to "Remove the NTSC Video Out connector on AV enabled systems."

The second is a review from Macworld in 1997 on the newly introduced 6500. That mentions the new system comes with a NTSC Video Out and two free PCI slots.

All of this is no news to you, since you have the machine in front of you, but it is tremendous news to me, since I didn't even know the NTSC Video Out external connector existed.

But I could find no manuals or written information anywhere about this AV video out connector. All the Manuals (apple.com>support>Manuals) that refer to the External video connector for the 6500 and 5400 ALL say to use this with video you must connect it to an Apple Presentation System. (But this seems silly)

So by all means I'd love to know - does it work to TV if you drop the resolution down?]

So lets see if I can work this all out to make it easy to picture. First let me say that none of these will work without a monitor being attached to the stock monitor port. If the stock monitor port is not being used then the Mac disables all these cards functions!

NTSC Video Out card has an S-Video and a Composite out port. It connects to the little slot just behind the PRAM battery and has a ribbon cable that goes to the actual card that sits just below the sound output jack. The resolution must be set to 640x480 @60Hz to work. Here is a link to Apples web site with more info on this card. Click here to see a picture of this card.

Video Out card for mirrored video on another monitor. It has a Mac DB15 monitor port on it. It connects to the little slot just behind the PRAM battery and has a ribbon cable that goes to the actual card that sits just below the sound output jack. It will display exactly what is displayed from the stock port. The resolution can be anything that the internal video controller can handle and both monitors will display the same thing. To display this video on a TV or projector you need the Apple Presentation System to convert the Mac DB15 port to an S-Video or composite out cable. Or any other device that does the same thing. Click here to see a picture of this card. Sorry its just an artists rendition :(

Apple Presentation System. I have no info on this other then its needed to view S-Video or Composite video from the Video Out card. I suppose this would also work on the standard monitor out port as well? Both the standard monitor out and the Video Out card use the same Mac DB15 monitor port.

Video In card for watching video on your Mac. It has an S-Video and Composite in port as well as left and right audio in ports. This card sits just to the right of the serial ports and ADB port. It plugs into the slot at the top of the mother board next to the RAM slots. This is used for video capture to your Mac. It came in 4 version, Rev A-D. Most say you need Rev C or D to work on the 6400/6500 and A and B were for earlier Performas. This card works in conjunction with the TV tuner card or the Avid card. The reason Rev C and D are needed for the 6400/6500 is because some of these Macs shipped with the Avid card as well and the two cards join by a ribbon cable. The Rev C and D cards have the larger ribbon slot needed for the Avid card that shipped with these while the Rev A and B cards have a smaller slot so the ribbon cable won't fit. This works with NTSC, PAL, and SECAM. It can be changed via software to either format.

Avid card is for video out using hardware MPEG1 decoding. It connects to the Video In card to do MPEG1 hardware encoding for video capture as well. I think there are Rev A-D versions of this card to pair up with the same Rev of the Video In card?

TV Tuner card sits in the upper compartment in the back of the case. It has one connector for a COAX cable antenna connection and is for viewing TV on your Mac. It works in conjunction with the Video In card. You need both to watch TV. This comes in NTSC only.

TV/FM card sits in the upper compartment in the back of the case. It has one connector for a COAX cable antenna connection and is for viewing TV on your Mac. It also has a built in FM receiver to listen to FM radio. It works in conjunction with the Video In card. You need both to watch TV. This comes in NTSC only. Here is a link to Apples web site with tech specs on this card.

TV / FM driver version 1.5 posted for download. Scott was nice enough to send me the drivers for the TV / FM system in case anyone needs them. Thanks Scott!

Here is a link to Apples web site with more info on some of these cards. Even though Apples site doesn't list 6400/6500 compatibility with many of these cards, they do work as people have tried them already.

Well that about does it. If anyone has more info for me to add or any corrections, please feel free to let me know!

My 6400 Take Apart Manual has been updated: With this new info posted above and some pictures from Alec, I was able to make a small posting on the install/removal of the Video Out cards. Thanks Alec. I also update the home page of the manual with some pictures to help illustrate the location of some of these items better.