death of a Sonnet

[ClassicHasClass]

So I reached over to turn on the MDD this morning so I could do some more work on the (irresponsibly) delayed Classilla 9.2.2, and ... it blinked its power light on and quickly turned off and just sat there. Nothing could wake it up.

With the Sonnet card removed, the PS checked out. So it looks like its Sonnet dual 1.8 -- which I bought 366 days ago exactly (it has a one year warranty) -- has gone to the ball grid array in the sky.

This is the first Sonnet to go bad on me, but this is terribly inconvenient and that dual 1.8 was not cheap. On the bright side, I got out my spare for testing, so I just went and consolidated everything into a super MDD with two SuperDrives and a crapload of cards. Also, the dual 1.8 didn't compile that much faster in CodeWarrior (I imagine the lack of L3 is to blame), though it does take a hit in Virtual PC going back to 1.25GHz. I'm going to try begging Sonnet for an exchange if they have any in stock.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The folks at Sonnet have always been very helpful whenever I've called them, good luck!

Sorry about the bad luck, I've NEVER heard of a Sonnet Product going bad before this!

 

[Unknown_K]

The only Sonnet CPU I have that is non functional is a G3-500 for a PCI Mac, looks fine (was missing a capacitor that I replaced) , but is dead and I got it that way. Sonnet made a million of those 7500-9600 PCI Mac G3 cards.

Having a Dual G4-1.1Ghz blow up only after a year is very bad news, they were never that common. Maybe it can be fixed?

 

[ClassicHasClass]

I sure hope so. One thing that does concern me is that it has a separate CPU cooling fan (rather than the simple, if huge, heat sink of the MDD's base CPU card), so perhaps it was never all that workable a design.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Well, well, well. Good news and bad news.

First, Sonnet, bless them, said they would still honour the warranty even though it was technically out of it. They said, though, they were totally out of the 1.8GHz cards and would I take a 1.6? Yes, yes, yes! So I printed out the RMA form and intended to send it in tomorrow.

Tonight I sat down at my workstation to do some more Classilla work on the MDD with the 1.25GHz card which was of Sunday working. And ... it didn't power up again. I got really suspicious.

Some testing on the workbench indicated the power supply had utterly died (not uncommon in MDDs -- the first time, mind you, since I bought this box new in December 2002). I got out my spare from the lockup and pulled the power supply from it, installed it, and it fired up normally with the 1.25GHz card.

So I got really, really suspicious and got the Sonnet back out of the shipping box and put it back in. It works!

Bizarre that the first symptom of a bogus power supply would be, apparently, the accelerator card not working. I guess it was just enough to push it over the edge, yet still work okay (at least for a couple days) with the old card. I'm going to burn it in for a couple days and if it still seems to be working, I'll call off the RMA. I would like, however, to say a BIG thank you to Sonnet. Their customer service has always been flawless. Here is another example.

This does mean I'm out of trustworthy spare parts, though, so I'll be in the market very soon for a replacement dual 1.25GHz MDD FW400 as a standby if anyone's selling. I guarantee it will be going to a good home and to good use (keeping Classilla builds and other classic software projects rolling). I'll post a formal WTB when I've confirmed that the power supply was the actual issue, but people are free to PM me if they have one they're willing to sell. It should be intact and in reasonably good physical condition because it may be swapped out entirely while I work on the other unit.

 

[Bunsen]

Would it be worth your while to ATX convert the other machine?

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Probably not, because I'm not sure the logic board is trustworthy in it. I'd rather just have a known good unit on standby.

Seems like the new PS and the Sonnet card passed their burnin. A Lazarus moment.

 

[mac2geezer]

I've got a FS posted for a MDD power supply on this forum. Clean, in good shape, just tested good. $70 plus shipping if interested.

 

[trag]

Cameron, any particular reason you want a dual 1.25GHz MDD instead of a late model 2003 single 1.25GHz MDD as your parts machine? Persumably you'd be keeping it for its power supply and such and not its CPU card.

BTW, this might be interesting:

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-APPLE-G4-Xserve-1-33-GHz-Dual-CPU-661-2834-/350411091454?pt=CPUs&hash=item519620edfe

No heat sink though, as far as I can tell.

They're not as fast as a 1.8 GHz, but they should have the 2MB L3 cache...