XPostFacto with Sonnet 800 MHz upgrade... |
October, 23, 2002 7:26 PM |
ian |
I am running 10.2 on a 300 MHz G3 ZIF on an XLR8 ZifCarrier upgrade in my 9500 right now, and am most definitely looking to get a faster processor in there. It works, but it is really slow. I have some questions about the upgrade, though. For those of you who have the 800 MHz G4 Sonnet upgrade, do you HAVE to use the Sonnet software to run OS X with the card? Is it possible to just have the card in the processor slot and use XPF to run X? I'd like to just pull the G3 card and put the 800 MHz bad boy in there, without having to do anything else. Poo poo on paying $30 if I don't have to. I also have a SIIG ATA/133 card on order along with a SIIG USB card and an OWC FireWire card already in the machine. I've also got a RealTek-based 10/100Mbit network card and a Matrox something-or-other video card. Should these cards interfere with the Sonnet 800 MHz upgrade? I may also get a Radeon 7000 to replace the Matrox, but it isn't a primary concern. Lastly, I have seen that the Sonnet 800 MHz upgrade may eliminate the need for de-interleaved RAM. I'd like to eventually pump the machine up to its maximum capacity (1536 MB or whatever) with OWC RAM. Is this reasonable? Has there been a lot of success with it? Any advice regarding these questions would be great. I'd like to hear both successes and failures to gauge how much of a gamble I'll take with this machine. Thanks in advance! |
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RE: XPostFacto with Sonnet 800 MHz upgrade... |
October, 25, 2002 2:17 AM |
drc |
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Marcush: Those 64 MB DIMMS are ancient, I have no idea what their specs are. There's nothing written on them either. My guess would be that they are slower. (I do seem to recall reading somewhere that when you mix DIMMs of different speeds they all run at the slower rate.) At one point I pulled them & just left the new, OWC RAM in & I still was crashing. When I try to run Gauge Pro in OS 9, the machine hangs. I haven't gotten around to compiling MemTest yet probably because I am really tired of pulling apart my 9500. Since all this started I've broken three of those plastic PCI card restraints as I installed and uninstalled components. Currently the prefs problem is (almost) more irritating. I have pulled the prefs folder, but haven't created a new account (yet). Thanks for your suggestions. |
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RE: XPostFacto with Sonnet 800 MHz upgrade... |
October, 24, 2002 1:54 PM |
ian |
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I just got my SIIG a couple hours ago, and it is working great. (OWC rocks!!!) I cut the SCSI cable as I forgot that I needed the terminator on there, but my great local parts guy hooked me up. I think a lot of the speed problems with 10.2 were due at least in part to the slow as heck old hard disks on a slow SCSI bus. Now that I have the ATA/133 card and a 40 GB Maxtor I pulled from a FW enclosure, it should be substantially quicker. Is that reasonable? I also have a 120 GB Samsung hard disk on its way as a backup and other storage medium, so that will probably be nice. If it seems that freezing is a problem when I eventually get the 800 MHz card, I'll probably pull the RAM that came with the machine and put all OWC cards in there. No reason not to, I guess. It looks like best reliability comes with uniformity. |
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RE: XPostFacto with Sonnet 800 MHz upgrade... |
October, 24, 2002 12:31 PM |
marcush |
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Sorry to hear about your problems, drc. Freezes like this have, for the most part, been traced to suspect memory. Do you know if those 64MB DIMMs are 70ns or 60ns. Mixed speed RAM could be causing your intermittent freezes with the G4 800. All of my RAM is 60ns and I am not having system freezes. I don't know what to say about the preference problem other than to try deleting the prefs for troublesome apps, etc. and rebooting to see if the problem is corrected. You might also create a new account to see if it has this problem also. |
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RE: XPostFacto with Sonnet 800 MHz upgrade... |
October, 23, 2002 8:48 PM |
drc |
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I have mixed feelings about running an 800 MHz Sonnet card in my 9500. It's definitely perkier which I like, it's also freezing intermittently, which I don't. (And the freezes are completely unpredictable. I've run for 18–20 hours and thought I had the problem beat and then hung, and I've had multiple hangs on reboot followed by hours of problem free operation.) At the same time I upgraded I maxed out on 128 MB OWC DIMMs, except for a couple of 64 MB DIMMs in the A1 & B1 slots. While I was able to swap CPUs and reboot the problems started almost immediately. I lost use of a dual monitor system (TT/3dFX) which had worked perfectly for a long time. Subsequently I grabbed a Radeon 7000 to replace the 3dFX and that problem is (mostly) fixed—I still get a wonky cursor in OS 9. In addition my preferences don't always seem to stick. My dock insists in being visible all the time no matter how many times I choose the hide setting. I only use XPostFacto to manage this installation as I couldn't get the Sonnet installer to work. My two bits with amounts to: if you're doing mission-critical work on your machine, wait. I have faith that the crew here will sort out these problems eventually. Decide which you prefer: snappier performance or random freezes and restarts. |
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RE: XPostFacto with Sonnet 800 MHz upgrade... |
October, 23, 2002 8:26 PM |
marcush |
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I forgot to mention the ATTO UL2D Ultra2 SCSI card. |
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RE: XPostFacto with Sonnet 800 MHz upgrade... |
October, 23, 2002 8:24 PM |
marcush |
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Everything will continue to work in the present configuration you have. Part of the slowness you see is due to the Matrox card. I'm assuming that it is what's driving your monitor. There are no drivers for the Matrox cards in OSX. Only ATI and Nvidia are supported. You'll definitely want to get a Radeon card if you can. Though there is a thread here that discusses problems associated with OWC RAM ("10.2 freezing for anyone else?"), I have no problems personally with the OWC RAM I have installed. I have a Gig of OWC RAM installed in my PowerTower Pro as well as the Sonnet G4 800. My machine is based on the 9500 so it is a good comparison. In addition, I have an ACARD ATA/133 card (the SIIG card uses ACARD 6880M chip I believe), Ratoc Firewire/USB2.0 combo card, Macsense 10/100 (Realtek 8139 chip) card, Radeon Mac Edition 32MB PCI card, 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 card. Your machine will definitely benefit from the processor and a video upgrade. Good luck! |