B&W G4/500 upgrade issues

[John8520]

Hey all,

About a year ago I ordered one of these G4/500/1M chips from ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/233367347233

Tonight I decided to finally get around to popping it in my B&W. Unfortunately, I've run into some issues. I set the jumper block to 500MHz w/ a 100MHz bus, which I assume should work fine.. but it doesn't. I just get 5 beeps, no chime, nothing else. I've reset the CUDA, popped the PRAM battery, all that good stuff - 5 beeps.

Any ideas? As far as I can tell this is just a Sonnet EG4-500-1M which should literally be a drop in part in any PowerMac G3. I'm skimming Sonnet's site but not seeing anything (yet) on special firmware upgrades or whatever.

Thanks!

 

[Byrd]

You do need a firmware update, perhaps go through an older archived version of the Sonnet website to find the patch.

Check also it's not one of those G4 upgrades that needs to be set to a 66Mhz bus (in turn altering your multiplier settings).

JB

 

[jessenator]

Sonnet's upgrades are usually fairly PnP and shouldn't require a jumper adjustment at any rate. From what I've gathered all of that is handled automatically by the on-board hardware. BUT like Byrd mentioned:

This thread from ArsTechnica seems to show the same symptoms you're describing. While most Sonnet upgrades don't need much, apparently there was a firmware update to actually lock out G4 upgrades. Long story short, they did work, then Apple made a firmware update, which on top of some improvements also included the lockout.

Might be worth a shot to install the G3 back, apply the patch mentioned and see if that resolves your issue. I guess it was just for the B&W, because my beige G3 was straight PnP with no issues.

 

[Franklinstein]

^^ what he said. The B&W G3 was released while the Yikes! G4 was in development, so Apple put a block in the firmware to prevent the usage of a G4 processor module in the B&W G3. To get yours to work, you need to reinstall the G3 card, run the Sonnet firmware patch under OS 9.2, and then you can swap to the G4 card. 

The beige G3s do not require (nor do they really have provisions for) any firmware patching to use the normal 7400/7410 G4-based cards, fyi, just set jumpers (if necessary) and drop in. Sonnet cards normally ignore the processor multiplier so typically you don't have to change anything at all in a beige G3 except possibly the VRM.

Sonnet's 745x-based cards (the long ones, usually >500MHz) are the ones that need the B&W G3's bus clocked down to 66MHz. This is probably because those cards use PLDs/FPGAs to interface the processor to the older bus, and they apparently can't operate at 100MHz. Because of this I personally leave the Yikes! G4 alone at 500MHz and install fast G3 750fx/gx-based upgrades in B&W G3s to keep the 100MHz bus. Any of the faster Sonnet Encore ZIF/G4s I use in beige G3s since they're mostly stuck at 66MHz anyway.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Hey all,

About a year ago I ordered one of these G4/500/1M chips from ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/233367347233

Tonight I decided to finally get around to popping it in my B&W. Unfortunately, I've run into some issues. I set the jumper block to 500MHz w/ a 100MHz bus, which I assume should work fine.. but it doesn't. I just get 5 beeps, no chime, nothing else. I've reset the CUDA, popped the PRAM battery, all that good stuff - 5 beeps.

Any ideas? As far as I can tell this is just a Sonnet EG4-500-1M which should literally be a drop in part in any PowerMac G3. I'm skimming Sonnet's site but not seeing anything (yet) on special firmware upgrades or whatever.

Thanks!

If I remember tonight (It's now 07h), I'll upload the patch installer to the Macintosh Garden.

 

[John8520]

Doh, you're all exactly right! I found the patch on Mac Garden and was able to install it and now I have a fully working G4/500 in my B&W!

For anyone else that has this same problem, here's a link straight to the installer I used for 9.2.2. There is a newer one for Panther/Tiger/Leopard

http://mirror.macintosharchive.org/macintoshgarden.org/files/apps/ce_install_v231.hqx

Thanks all!