Farallon Fast EtherTX for TAM

[Charadis]

Hi all, I ran into a Farallon EtherTX 10/100 CS ii card yesterday and won the auction this morning. I was surprised to see another bidder put up quite a battle near the end for it...I was half expecting to get it for pretty cheap... so I was wondering if anyone here has experience using this card in their TAM? Or other Mac.. What kind of performance difference, if any, do you notice? 

Some auction pics, of course, as I don’t yet have the card: 





I’ve read some posts of members searching for this one, but not so much on how much it helps for web surfing/Classilla. There appears to be a driver disk, but as this is a Japanese version, I’m not so sure it’s very useful for me. Does this work out of the box like the Apple CS ii Card?  

I’m almost complete with the TAM upgrades, so the higher bidding was justified in my stance (Or I’d like to think so!)

 

[Charadis]

Well, this is frustrating. Got the card earlier last week, and while it works, it doesn’t work well.

Looks to be the correct part number, has an Intel chip rather than Digital like I’ve seen in pics of most others. 





But it installs fine in CS II, no problem. Not exactly plug n play like the Apple brand works when connected - doesn’t work unless software is installed. 



Turns out, the software on the included floppy disk installs fine on my TAM, and it lights up after the software is installed. 





Issue is, it works intermittently, and I can’t figure it out. It may load the home page, and a Google page, or just the home page, but then it’s like the connection cuts out. Wait a while, and it may return. Or it may return briefly to load a page, but not load beyond that for a while.

Sometimes, it may be a whole hour before I use my TAM while I’m working on my MacBook, and it works fine like that. But never seems to get very far if working immediately after TAM boots up. 

May try to find updates software elsewhere, but this does not seem feasible. Especially since I use my TAM as a bridge Mac for my other Macs. Truly disappointing experience. 

 

[EvilCapitalist]

I ran into a similar issue a while back when I finally found that card for my TAM.  You got further than I did as my TAM usually refused to boot (bomb on startup) or if it did boot was massively unstable.  Out of curiosity I tried several different approaches:


Crescendo G3/500MHz installed



Sonnet Tango FW/USB installed



Farallon 10/100 CSII installed



Did it work?



Yes



Yes



Yes



No, wouldn’t boot or was very unstable if it did boot



No



No



Yes



Worked fine



Yes



No



Yes



Worked fine



No



Yes



Yes



Worked fine




Given that the card worked if I took one of my three upgrades out of the equation my guess was that it was power issues, since the Crescendo and FW/USB card likely draw more than the system is expecting all on their own and the 10/100 card just pushes everything over the top.  This includes the fact that I replaced the old HD with a solid state HD soon after I got the machine.  However much power that saved I guess wasn't enough.  The system works just fine with the regular Apple 10Base-T card so I just gave up and said "This is the best I'm going to get" and haven't tried again since.

 

[Charadis]

I ran into a similar issue a while back when I finally found that card for my TAM.  You got further than I did as my TAM usually refused to boot (bomb on startup) or if it did boot was massively unstable.  Out of curiosity I tried several different approaches:


Crescendo G3/500MHz installed



Sonnet Tango FW/USB installed



Farallon 10/100 CSII installed



Did it work?



Yes



Yes



Yes



No, wouldn’t boot or was very unstable if it did boot



No



No



Yes



Worked fine



Yes



No



Yes



Worked fine



No



Yes



Yes



Worked fine




Given that the card worked if I took one of my three upgrades out of the equation my guess was that it was power issues, since the Crescendo and FW/USB card likely draw more than the system is expecting all on their own and the 10/100 card just pushes everything over the top.  This includes the fact that I replaced the old HD with a solid state HD soon after I got the machine.  However much power that saved I guess wasn't enough.  The system works just fine with the regular Apple 10Base-T card so I just gave up and said "This is the best I'm going to get" and haven't tried again since.

Wow, thanks a lot for your input! Makes a lot of sense on the power draw, and I have all of those upgrades...except the 500 MHz Sonnet, Nice!   (Wondering if the 300MHz Sonnet I have in is drawing less power, so allowing the TAM to boot?)

Noticed the Apple card had no problems, either, and I was thinking of putting it back in the TAM after this problem. Good thing I haven’t sold it, yet. 

I’m wondering if there is anything else we can skim back and decrease power draw further. Maybe there are updated drivers that manage the Farallon Card more efficiently in the TAM?

I may just end up going your route and throwing in the old card once again as I honestly did not notice any significant difference in speed surfing on Classilla. 

Thanks again for the helpful information, might be of use for other TAM owners here! 

 

[Charadis]

Maybe a rare moment, but I got the Farallon card to work again with the other upgrades attached.  Posted a video below. But this only seems to happen if I don't touch the TAM after it boots, this time it was around 30 mins. Ish. Can't guarantee I can replicate it every time though, but I haven't tried it many times to confirm. Maybe, capacitors on the card are being charged up? Or need replacing? Could be totally random whenever the TAM is rebooted? I'm using Version 2.0 of the Farallon extension. 

 

[Charadis]

Success! Got the Farallon EtherTX card to working consistently without compromising any upgrade! I'm still testing, but after 5 or 6 boots/reboots over two days, the TAM has consistently kept a connection to the internet, and works immediately. I bought a PNY998 (US version) set from @ScutBoy recently, and the software on the CD seemed to fix my issue. I didn't have to replace the card; still have the Japanese version installed, JPN998, so it is compatible with the US software. I don't think my TAM liked the drivers that came on the floppy disk...the software version is 2.0 on that while I'm not sure what it is on the CD (there is no Read Me on the CD that I could find). 

Here, a download in progress. Profiler shows Sonnet Tango 1.0 and Farallon EtherTX installed



Sonnet Crescendo 300MHz/1M installed, too



US version CD with software that fixed the intermittent connection problem with the Farallon card. Floppy disk bad. CD good. 



From time to time, when I try downloading something large, or loading a large website, the software or TAM will freeze, or Classilla would crash with a Type 1, Type 2, or Type 3 error. However, I think it might just be a stability issue with the Sonnet Crescendo/software since I've experienced this previously before installing the Farallon EtherTX. When having iTunes up and Classilla, the TAM may freeze unexpectedly, as well. 



JPN998 vs YPN998



So, was it worth it? I'd like to think so. I guess it all comes down to what you use the internet on your TAM for. Are you downloading software often? Or just browsing the interwebs like it is 1999? 

 

[tanaquil]

Grats! "Was it worth it" is always relative to the pleasure derived from the victory.

 

[ScutBoy]

Too bad - I could have sent you the software a lot cheaper!

 

[Charadis]

Grats! "Was it worth it" is always relative to the pleasure derived from the victory.

I agree wholeheartedly! It took some time to figure out, but I hope this will help someone else with the same issue in the future. It’s not  a perfect solution, but it works! 

Too bad - I could have sent you the software a lot cheaper!

Well, if that’s the case, sounds like an invitation to sell it back to you!  Haha

(Compared to the Japanese Card, after DHL import costs, proxy commissions, foreign transaction fees, etc, wish I had waited a little longer for yours!) 

 

[EvilCapitalist]

Hmmm, this may be the kick in the pants I need to try getting mine working.  Have you uploaded that driver anywhere like the Garden?

 

[Charadis]

Hmmm, this may be the kick in the pants I need to try getting mine working.  Have you uploaded that driver anywhere like the Garden?

Never hurts to try! Yessir, just uploaded. And there is a pretty good chance this was all done on a TAM..





Please let me know if there are any problems with the upload! Hopefully, this would resolve your issues 

http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/farallon-fastenplus-extension-installer-and-tools

 

[Charadis]

Grrr...everything was working just fine until yesterday. Just out of the blue, internet stopped working when I booted, but other devices connected to the router were fine.

I fixed this by reloading the software from the Japanese set, which apparently is an older extension. Then I had to reload the newer software because the card returned to its intermittent behavior after the first boot. Now it is working fine, but I'm afraid I might have to go through this after a while if it does this again. :/  



While I was trying to figure out what was wrong, I had the back off to play around with the card. Always nice to relish in the beauty of a fully upgraded TAM. It's a sight for sore eyes.......especially when I've been playing around all evening trying to figure out what was wrong with it