G3 tower, OrangePC only works on loaded system when on bottom.

[ArbysTPossum]

A curious problem. The cards in question are a Radeon 7000, a Sonnet combo USB/Firewire card and an OrangePC 660.
the OrangePC card has a K6-2 in it, so it has a much larger heatsink than the stock one, which is quite small. The card best fits in the top-most slot of a G3 tower, it can fit in the middle but it blocks the bottom port, and it can't fit on the bottom correctly because the heatsink it so tall it touches the bottom of the case.

So here's the problem, if I put the video card in the top, the USB/Firewire in the middle and put the OragePC card in the bottom, the system will boot and everything works fine. Any other combination of the cards causes the machine to not boot. I do not get a death chime, it simply remains silent.

I have since replaced the Firewire/USB combo with a dual-USB card, and the system will boot, but the inclusion of the combo card causes an issue, unless the cards are arranged in a specific order.

I suspect there is nothing that can be done, but does anyone have any insight as to why this happens?

 

[jovianartifact]

Is the card with heatsink so heavy that it’s pulling on the PCI slot? That would be my first guess. Is the Sonnet card a Tempo by chance? I hear G3 rev C ROM doesn’t like those.

Though if you get sick of fiddling with the OrangePC I’d be more than willing to buy it from you and save you the trouble

 

[ArbysTPossum]

I never figured out why it does this. Yes, the Sonnet card was a Tempo. I eventually settled on a dual USB card, just to get USB support.

I can't give up this card, I recently found the appropriate software for it, so the Mac joystick passthrough works so I can play Mechwarrior 3 with my Gravis Mouse 2, and I can't give that up. :]

 

[jovianartifact]

Haha understandable, I probably wouldn’t want to give mine up either if I found one I finally got a Wings card so I’m stoked enough about that