IIci Ram ‘upgrade’ Boot performance ‘?’

[a777fan]

Hello!

First time post. I’ve got what I feel like is a total newb question, but I haven’t yet found a great answer in all my googling.

I picked up a IIci, which I have re-capped and installed a ZuluSCSI in, running 7.5.5. It’s been working great. It originally came with 8mb of RAM, which I decided I wanted to ‘max’ out to 128. I picked up some 60ns sticks off amazon. When they arrived I plunked em in and hit the power button. Got the ‘happy mac’ chime, the monitor kicked on, but it was a black screen. And that was it. About 1:45-2min later i got the gray ‘happy mac’ /‘welcome to macintosh’ screen and normal boot sequence. Computer was just fine. Registered the full 128 MB under ‘About this Macintosh’ etc. For reference, when 8mb was loaded on the machine the visual boot sequence followed the ‘happy mac’ chime almost instantaneously. Note than when I restart the machine, there is no delay or visual interruption. The machine restarts and is almost instantaneously available again. IE- i dont have to wait ~ 2min for the video to come back.

As an experiment, i took out half the memory and booted it with 64mb. It took ~1min to get the visuals on screen. So my hypothesis is that the system is doing some sort of RAM check prior loading the OS, and the more RAM you have the longer it takes. I wanted to see if anyone could confirm this or explain it in more detail however.

Thanks in advance!

 

[bigmessowires]

You're correct. RAM test can take a very long time.

 

[joshc]

That's right, a RAM check is part of the boot process and has to complete before you will get video output. 68k processors are slow at checking RAM - even early PPC machines can take a while with large amounts of RAM. It is one good reason to run with 32MB or 64MB in a system like that, as you are unlikely to ever need 128MB with a 68030.

 

[bigmessowires]

For the IIci, you could use a replacement ROM SIMM that disables the RAM test and speeds up booting. I sell one in the BMOW store, and there are other options too.

 

[Phipli]

Also the DayStar Turbo 601 processor upgrade has an option to turn off the RAM check in its control panel.

Later machines (PCI ones) have a hidden option in the memory control panel. If you hold... The option key while launching the memory control panel, it lets you turn off the memory test. No use for your IIci, but great if you have a 9600 with 1.5GB of RAM for some reason.

 

[a777fan]

Thanks all! I really appreciate the insight. This forum is quickly turning into one I visit daily.

 

[Phipli]

You have to remember that the IIci sold with 1 or 4MB new. Between 8 and 32MB is where they usually where they ended their working life...

128MB is like fitting a TB of RAM to a modern PC

I'd grab one of BMOW's ROMs if I was you. As well as skipping the RAM test, they have a built in bootable disk that's great for troubleshooting.

Sadly I've misplaced mine and the programmer for it a couple of housemoves ago

 

[joshc]

I'd grab one of BMOW's ROMs if I was you.

They are handy if you want to use a lot of RAM in a IIci. @a777fan I have one for sale here, I'm in the UK but shipping to the US isn't much as the package will be very small.

https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/fs-bmow-mac-rom-inator-ii-atom-simm.44958/

 

[a777fan]

You have to remember that the IIci sold with 1 or 4MB new. Between 8 and 32MB is where they usually where they ended their working life...

128MB is like fitting a TB of RAM to a modern PC

I'd grab one of BMOW's ROMs if I was you. As well as skipping the RAM test, they have a built in bootable disk that's great for troubleshooting.

Sadly I've misplaced mine and the programmer for it a couple of housemoves ago

Haha! Indeed. Adding this much ram is really more of a novelty at this point. We had a IIci around the house as a kid. Its fun to see how ‘affordable’ they are today to own and ‘max’ out. Like tricking out that early 90's sports car you admired as a kid. lol.

 

[volvo242gt]

From last year. I've subsequently dropped down to 68MB, but also have added one of Steve's ROMinator IIs, so the memory check has been disabled.