PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 27, 2003 9:31 PM |
ltking |
Hello all from Guam! I apologize for bringing another PM8500 up on this forum (not to mention a Sonnet Tech Tempo Trio card) but I want to post this to see if anyone else might have something to offer. I have read back through the forum to September of last year and the strings posted by larrymc and egonzales21 seem to have the most in common with my situation. First: The machine PM8500 with all new 512Mb interlaced RAM (tested as well as could be tested by a certified Apple intaller), Sonnet Tech Crescendo 800MHx G4, 2Gb stock Apple supplied SCSI HD formatted HFS and running OS 9.1, Apple internal CD-ROM long ago upgraded from the original to something (Apple) faster than the original (?2X?) so Riven would run better, Tempo Trio in the top most slot (with the machine standing normally upright), Adaptec 2930U SCSI card in second slot, ATI Radeon 7000 card in third slot. I have a Maxtor 133 ATA drive connected to the Trio formatted 7.9Gb/7.9Gb/'the rest" Gb. The monitor is a stock VGA, the keyboard is an Apple extended with a stock Apple mouse. Second: The state of affairs thus far I have attempted two installs of OS 10.2 thus far with the target both times being the first 7.9Gb partition on the Maxtor drive. The first was using XPostFacto 2.2.5 (with the machine in a very slightly different configuration that it is now; i.e., the monitor was connected to the Radeon 7000) and the second was using Sonnet Tech's install program but with the monitor connected to the onboard video. In BOTH attempts the installer programs seemed to run well with the machine apparently rebooting or attempting to reboot from the OS X Install CD #1. The behavior of the monitor from that point on has been disconcerting - I've seen nothing on the monitor, and judging from the LED's on the front, it was as if the computer were undergoing a prolonged check of the installed memory. In some ways it was reminiscent of the attempted boot I made after installing the Adaptec 2930 card and forgot to set the jumper correctly - the machine chimed and attempted to start but the screen stayed black. In that attempt, after remembering that I had failed to set the jumper, I did so and booted into 9.1 normally. Both of these attempts are similar in many ways to those described by larrymc and egonzales21. In both cases I have been able to "get the machine back" by restarting and zapping the parameter RAM. In both cases I have found portions of what I presume to be OS X installed on the target partition so I must presume that while the screen was dark some sort of install process was in fact going on. Third: My questions at this point #1 How long should I wait on a dark screen before giving up on the install? #2 At every install using XPostFacto, does one need to specify an input and output device? If so, why and what should I specify? #3 I have an unexplainable feeling that the Adaptec 2930U SCSI card might be involved, perhaps because of the issues discussed in egonzales21's posts and his discussions with Sonnet Tech on the "Tempo and Trio cards" being in the same "old world Mac." I wonder if the lack of onboard drivers for OS X might be a factor. #4 Should the Radeon card be removed from the machine until OS X is installed and then be re-installed? |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
February, 16, 2003 10:32 PM |
ltking |
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Hi All: A final update on at least this PM8500, sound, OS X and other installation curiosities: To finally get OS X to install on the ATA card/drive set up I was initially using I had to revert to an original 4x Apple CD-ROM, to remove the Adaptec 2930U SCSI card I had installed, to initally install using the onboard video output port, to move the Radeon 7000 from slot 3 to slot 1 and then, lo and behold --------- OS X was up and running. HOWEVER, COMMA -- WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE SOUND! OS X is supposed to be the end all be all of audio-visual capability! At the suggestion of a forum member who contacted me by e-mail, I took a 9Gb SCSI drive I had on another system, cleaned it off, reformatted it to HFS+ and installed OS X on it while it was attached to the external SCSI port on my test PM8500. The software installed (using Sonnet's installer) without a hitch. AND, THE SOUND WAS AND HAS CONTINUED TO REMAIN NORMAL when I run from the OS X installed on the SCSI drive. When running from the OS X installed on the Maxtor IDE drive attached to the Tempo Trio card it is choppy -> gone as usual. As a side benefit of this test, I then removed the Trio card and Maxtor drive (an 80Gb unit) and was able to install my Adaptec 2930U card. OS X will recognize this card and attached drives but will not boot from a drive attached to it. I now have a Tempo Trio card and an 80Gb Maxtor (133) drive for sale if anyone is interested. This system is actually showing some promise now! Cheers, Lonnie |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
February, 01, 2003 1:19 AM |
ltking |
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Hi All: As of 17:17 on 02/01/03 (Guam Time) I have OS X.2 installed and booting! The ONLY change I made was to install my friend's Apple CD600i 4x CD-ROM (the original equipment in a PM8500). I installed using Sonnet Tech's installer (because I simply decided to try it first). Thanks all for the input. I'm going to party and then to work on using the OS. Cheers, Lonnie [ ltking ] |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 30, 2003 3:16 PM |
ltking |
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Hi marcush: Ran out of time last night so haven't done anything yet but (and MANY THANKS for the continued input though!) something in your next to last post caught my eye with regards to this "slow" vs "fast" SCSI buss business. You said "I resolved this quickly by switching my SCSI cable from the FAST SCSI bus to the slower external bus." Is the external buss part of the "slow" side of the house then? I wonder if my connecting my LaCie CD/CD-RW burner/drive to the external SCSI port might work? I have no idea what the exact mechanism is in that drive (I know I could find out from LaCie's site I think, I just never have since it's always worked) but that too seems worth a shot. I've also been thinking about using one of the several old external SCSI drives I have after reformatting them in HFS+ and partitioning them to try to make them appear as the install CD's Thanks again for the posts! Cheers, Lonnie [ ltking ] |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 30, 2003 2:00 PM |
marcush |
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I haven't seen the inside of an 8500 for a long time and can't remember how the connectors are oriented, but I'd follow egonzales21's reccommendation. The connectors are lined up side-by-side on the Power Tower Pro like they are in a 9600. Give it a try. As egonzales21 said there's nothing to lose. |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 30, 2003 4:43 AM |
ltking |
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Hi egonzales21: Weirder and weirder; BUT, I'll certainly give it a shot! I thought I'd try it with the 4x CD installed in the "usual" way first with throttle to max and see what happens. Then I'll switch the motherboard connections. I've been experimenting with Disk Copy and may just put a true and complete copy of the Mac OS X install CD's on another drive partition and try it that way too! Cheers, and thanks for the continued support!! Lonnie [ ltking ] |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 29, 2003 10:55 PM |
egonzales21 |
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Itking In the 9600 motherboard the two ports are actually side by side. The one closest to the edge is suppose to be the fast internal SCSI port and the other the slow. In the 7500/8500 motherboard, the fast internal SCSI port is the one that is on its side and closest to the edge as well. In a 8500 machine it would be facing up at you, parallel to the board, when you disconnect the cable. The slower port would be the one facing up, vertical to the board. Give the slower port a try. Nothing to lose. Patience and persistence always pays off. I now can say I have gotten 4 different machines using OS 10 thanks to Ryan and Xpostfacto. Good Luck |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 29, 2003 10:24 PM |
ltking |
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Hi egonzales21: I am dying to know: Did you switch the internal SCSI from the port in which the pins were parallel to the fact of the motherboard (I suspect it was the one that the SCSI cable from the CD-ROM was originally connected to) to the internal connector that is immediatly next to it? The reason I ask is that I was directed to this site by Sonnet Tech [ http://www.bigfat.com/mac8500-l/8500memory.html ] and back in the later images this site indicates that that second SCSI socket is the faster socket for work group servers or some such!! Glad in any case that you got the 9600 up and working. Cheers, Lonnie [ ltking ] |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 29, 2003 9:26 PM |
egonzales21 |
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Itking I guess we are all gluttens for punishment. My 8500 had a 8x Apple CD Rom drive and had no problems. I just recently came across a 9600 and decided to do my thing. Transferred almost everything from my 8500 to the 9600 to include Sonnet G4800, 512 OWC RAM interleaved, Seagate 9.1GB on internal SCSI chain, Maxtor 18GB U160 drive connected to ATTO UL2D, Radeon 7000, FireConnect 4300 3 port card, Orange Micro USB 1.1/FW Combo, and Realtek 10/100 card. This 9600 came with a 24X CDROM drive. Everything seemed to work. The machine booted fine in 9.1 but when using Xpostfacto 2.2.5 the system would freeze all over the place when trying to boot 10.2.3. To make a long story short and after about 4-6 hours of troubleshooting, everything just about works. The main change: converting the internal SCSI chain to the internal slower SCSI port. This is the first time I have had to do this. It seems a common theme that the 24X drive causes problems--who knows why. My advise again would be to agree with some of the other posters in this thread, change your internal SCSI chain to the other internal connector. If not sure which one, check out this site: http://www.macgurus.com/products/motherboards/mboardsppcseries.php Time to go back to troubleshooting my real external SCSI chain. Good Luck |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 29, 2003 7:51 PM |
ltking |
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Hi marcush: It is sounding more and more like the PM9600 is a different enough machine as compared to the PM8500 that I wonder if lessons learned on a 9600 are easily applicable to the 8500. The issue of a fast SCSI buss vs a slower SCSI buss on the 8500 is a question that really raised the eyebrows of my local Apple tech. When my Mac Guru (also is my ISP and is the person I just borrowed a 4x Apple CD drive from) and I looked closely at his 8500 motherboard (which, he informed me, is also the motherboard used in the 7500) the SCSI socket shown on a third party site as the Fast SCSI port used on work-group servers is actually one and the same with the other internal SCSI socket and is connected to the external SCSI jack as well! He thinks the so called fast jack is oriented perpedicular to the so called slower jack so as to be able to access it easier in the 7500 machine! All this seems to be getting more arcane by the minute. I sometime wonder if I shouldn't put on the pointed wizards hat I bought in Europe some years ago. Thanks again for staying in touch though! Lonnie ltking |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 29, 2003 4:04 PM |
marcush |
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ltking, I answered your question in the other thread but I'll answer it here too. I used a SCSI Yamaha 8424S CD-R/RW for my initial install. Thanks for bringing that up because it jarred my memory. A problem I had with my initial install attempt was with the installer not being able to consistently detect the drive. I resolved this quickly by switching my SCSI cable from the FAST SCSI bus to the slower external bus. After that it was smooth as silk. I also used the Toshiba drive for a clean install shortly after 10.2 was released attached my Acard ATA/133 card. Now that I think of it, I'll have to try booting the installer with CD with the Pioneer burner and my Sonnet card to see if it still works. |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 29, 2003 2:52 PM |
ltking |
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Hi nssridhar No joy on the disabling of the ethernet and throttling to the slowest level! Thanks for the input though. Have located an "original" 4x CD-ROM in another PM8500 that the owner will lend me to see if it works. Here's hoping! Ho OsXGuru: Will your new XPF 3.0 address this issue of the CD-ROM drive? To All: (and I intend to start another string on this; AND if emphasizes the need for a search capability on this forum.) Can one make a disk image of the install CD's, so as to copy ALL of the files on the install CD - according to a Mac Guru friend of mine, and simply transfer them over to another recognized HD partition and install from there? I have been back in this forum so far that some of what I think I've read is a bit hazy. Sorry in advance if I've missed this before. |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 28, 2003 10:11 PM |
ltking |
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Hi tempest: Your description of how I should set up is precisely how I am set up. Many thanks for the feedback in any case! Hi nssridhar: The thought of max'ing the throttle had crossed my mine that night but I ran out of time. I think I'd seen your post about the ethernet connection as well but hadn't thought of that. When you say "removing the ethernet connection" simply disconnecting the cable from the port is the first thing that springs to mind; would you also insure that is deselected under the Appletalk control panel? Btw, I have had feedback from Sonnet and they feel it is the 24x CD-ROM as well. Oh well, I'll keep on pressing on. |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 28, 2003 6:14 PM |
nssridhar |
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This may seeem like it has nothing to do with this issue but I had a similar problem with my 8500. I moved the throttle all the way up and removed the Ethernet connection the first time. Not having the ethernet connected seemed to be the missing link. it booted in to OSX and I have had no problems from that time. I did take the message from the forum and connected the video to the internal video port until I got the system running. |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 28, 2003 5:55 PM |
tempest |
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If you did not tell XPostFacto to use the specific monitor port on your Radeon 7000, then your Mac will default to internal video until your display driver loads. My advice is use your internal video to do the install, or tell XPostFacto to set your NVRAM to use ATY..._A port for its display. I have received these waiting for boot device messages in the past and they were termination or card problems. If you have more drives in your system, only leave your CD-ROM and hard disk installed and go from there. If they're both SCSI, place your hard disk at the very last connector of the cable and enable SE and active termination. In essence, you need to pare your system down to the minimum number of components to avoid any unexpected interaction and start adding components. It would also help if you upgrade your drivers on your hard disk. Preferrably, use the Apple utility from 9.1/9.2 if you can. |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 28, 2003 3:40 PM |
ltking |
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Many thanks for the note! I have heard elsewhere (I think) of this "slower" SCSI port" and find myself wondering how one goes about making such a thing. On tidbit I failed to add in my last note was that on the second attempt using the XPF software I did set the throttle to 16. While I had the machine open to remove the 2930U card I looked around a bit and noted that I had an Apple brand 24x CD-ROM but more importantly, that just "below" the SCSI port into which the CD's cable was plugged that there was another such port only oriented perpendicularly to the surface of the motherboard instead of parallel to that surface. I presume here that that second port is indeed the "slower" SCSI port. I certainly wish Ryan would add something to this thread at this point. Thanks again for your help! |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 28, 2003 9:14 AM |
egonzales21 |
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Waiting for root device usually does mean the installation is waiting for the CD ROM drive. I would think that if you have an Apple branded CD drive this is not the problem. Though I have not ever had to do this, others have had luck switching the internal SCSI drives to the slower SCSI external port that is right next to the faster internal port. Also try changing the throttle speed up from the default 8 to maybe 16 or even max. |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 28, 2003 5:29 AM |
ltking |
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egonzales21 Many thanks for the follow-up! I did exactly that. Here is the note I've also just sent to Sonnet Tech Support: OK, here's the latest. I followed a bit of advice from the XPF forum and did remove the Adaptec 2930U card. Then, I did update the firmware on my Trio to 3.2.5. Curiously, when I try the install using XPF the Trio shows up with a 100 in the description vs the 133 that I have been lead to believe should be there. Any ideas why that might have happened. Then I tried two attempts to install OS X.2 on the drive connected to the Trio using XPF and then two using the Sonnet Tech installer. By following the progress in the verbose mode I end up at a message STILL WAITING FOR ROOT DEVICE. I have been told that this is an indication that OS X is waiting on the onboard CD-ROM. The drive currently installed is an Apple brand 24x CD-ROM that I installed about 4 years or so ago to allow Riven (the game) to run well. It has always been able to boot the machine when required. It would appear that I have run up against an issue that the author of the Sonnet installation program is going to have to solve. I do not have the original CD-ROM and know of no where I can get an original device. Any further thoughts and advice is greaty appreciated. Where do I go from here?????? |
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RE: PM8500 w/upgrades |
January, 27, 2003 9:43 PM |
egonzales21 |
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Sounds familiar. I would recommend the following: Take out the Adaptec SCSI card for the time being leaving only the Trio and Radeon 7000. Connect your OS 9 main drive to the internal SCSI chain to start the process. Once booted in OS 9 erase the Maxtor partition the install of 10.2 will be going into and then launch the latest version of XPostfacto 2.2.5. I am assuming that the Maxtor drive has been formatted by Drive Setup in OS 9 as well. In XPostfacto select the 10.2 CD disc has the place to boot from and of course the Maxtor partition to install into. In the open firmware menu, select the Radeon 7000 as the output device and select verbose mode as well. Hopefully from here everything OK. Another possiblity would be to use the built in video and leave out the 7000 but I have not had to do this. Good Luck |