1400 G3 upgrade questions

[Strimkind]

I am looking to install a 10GB HD in my 1400 with a 233 Vimage G3 upgrade installed. I have the driver on floppy but alas no floppy drive for the 1400. If I install the new drive and install OS 8 or 9 (have not decided yet), would the unit function until I am able to get the driver for the upgrade?

I do have the original 133mhz 603 CPU to reinstall if necessary but I would rather not have to do that.

 

[Gil]

Driver for the hard drive or the G3 upgrade?

I see absolutely no signs of a 6 GB hard drive limit. I'm using a 40 GB hard drive (Apple ROMed) in mine.

As for the G3 upgrade, I've used Sonnet upgrades without a driver. It ust doesn't recognize it as a G3.

 

[alk]

The driver is required to activate the L2 cache. Otherwise, the CPU module will work fine. A G3 without cache is virtually the same thing as a 603e. I have that same processor upgrade for my 1400cs. It's a nice little card. It's too bad some of those upgrade manufacturers went out of business. It would be nice to have the same selection that we had back in the heady G3 days...

Peace,

Drew

 

[Strimkind]

Sorry, should have stated the G3 upgrade.

Good to know though that it will work regardless while I hunt down online drivers. This shall be my next project.

 

[alk]

Try here: http://www.ppcmla.com/downloads/VPower_Vimage_PB.img.sea

I stuffed up my installer disk image. I haven't tested the .sea file, but if everything worked as it should (Dropstuff 9, binary FTP transfer), then the .sea file should work just fine.

Peace,

Drew

 

[LCGuy]

I see absolutely no signs of a 6 GB hard drive limit. I'm using a 40 GB hard drive (Apple ROMed) in mine.

There is a 4GB limit for SCSI Disk Mode...if you have a hard drive bigger than 4GB, and you use SCSI Disk Mode you run a very good chance of data corruption. I know this because I learnt it the hard way by using SCSI Disk Mode on my 1400, which has a 30GB Hitachi Travelstar. (which, other than that, is an absolutely perfect drive for the 1400, runs cool at 4200 rpm, and is whisper quiet)

 

[freudling]

I know this is a bit off topic, but the 233 Vimage G3 upgrade, IMHO, is not worth the effort.

It runs too hot and bleeds the battery.

All the best.

 

[Strimkind]

I know this is a bit off topic, but the 233 Vimage G3 upgrade, IMHO, is not worth the effort.
It runs too hot and bleeds the battery.

All the best.

The battery is dead so no worries there and I have not had it on long enough to feel the heat.

 

[alk]

Interesting.

Is there an objective, side-by-side analysis of 1400 upgrade cards that show performance, heat, and power impacts?

I've also got a 333 MHz Sonnet card that I bought from a recycler in China by way of eBay for a song, but I've been too lazy to bother installing it. Maybe when I've got some free time (yeah, right), I'll post MacBench scores for the original 166 MHz 603e, the Vimage card, and the Sonnet card. I could probably also run Battery Amnesia to test total time between full charge and sleep. Does the 603e report the core temperature? Otherwise, getting a temperature comparison will be difficult...

Peace,

Drew

 

[freudling]

These upgrade cards, their speeds, the differences between them, etc. is probably the most well documented of the powerbook upgrades out there.

Compares Sonnet's upgrade cards:

http://macspeedzone.com/archive/5.0/bymac/app/PBK14_166Oct00.html

User experiences on the Vimage - note the reports of increased heat and decreased battery life:

http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/action.lasso?-search

 

[Franklinstein]

I see absolutely no signs of a 6 GB hard drive limit. I'm using a 40 GB hard drive (Apple ROMed) in mine.

There is a 4GB limit for SCSI Disk Mode...if you have a hard drive bigger than 4GB, and you use SCSI Disk Mode you run a very good chance of data corruption. I know this because I learnt it the hard way by using SCSI Disk Mode on my 1400, which has a 30GB Hitachi Travelstar. (which, other than that, is an absolutely perfect drive for the 1400, runs cool at 4200 rpm, and is whisper quiet)

S'true. However, I've been able to circumvent this problem (in my 2400c) by partitioning the drive: the first partition on the 20GB drive I made slightly less than 4GB, and put the rest in a second partition. When I connect it to another machine in SCSI Disk Mode, only the 4GB partition shows up, and I can transfer data to and from it with no problems.

If you should try this, and both partitions happen to show up in SCSI Disk Mode, make sure to use ONLY the first partition; using the others will almost certainly corrupt them.

 

[alk]

When I connect it to another machine in SCSI Disk Mode, only the 4GB partition shows up, and I can transfer data to and from it with no problems.If you should try this, and both partitions happen to show up in SCSI Disk Mode, make sure to use ONLY the first partition; using the others will almost certainly corrupt them.

Don't try this on OS X. The first time it auto-mounts the 2nd partition, you'll be very upset. OS X automatically creates invisible (such as .DS_Store) files for the root of every volume it mounts.

Peace,

Drew

 

[Bunsen]

Tick the box that says don't automount this volume in properties?

 

[Strimkind]

I finally installed a new HD, 8.6, and attempted to hunt down Vimage drivers. No luck except for a .img that did not work. So I tried the xlr8 drivers and boom, unhappy mac with error 0000000f 0000000b. Irritating since I cannot convince the 1400 to boot from cd unless there is not another bootable system present and I do not have a floppy drive module for it.

Any ideas?

EDIT: NVM a PRAM reset fixed it.

 

[alk]

Did you try the link to the Vimage driver I posted above?

Peace,

Drew

 

[Strimkind]

Did you try the link to the Vimage driver

I get:

Error Message: The specified database was not found

Error Code: -609

 

[Strimkind]

I completely forgot how easy it was to network 2 macs using the printer ports. I pulled the driver I needed off of the floppy I had from a 190cs. The 1400 runs so much faster with the cache enabled.

Any one out there need a copy of this driver?

 

[Bunsen]

So the XLR8 driver worked for the Vimage G3?

 

[alk]

Any one out there need a copy of this driver?

Apparently, I do. :-/

Can you email it? If so, I'll PM you my email address...

Peace,

Drew