Power Macintosh 8600/300

[Strimkind]

Today I picked up a Power Macintosh 8600/300 with a Applevision 1710 monitor.

I have been told it all worked when it was last used but i haven't been able to power it up just yet.

The 8600 has the CDROM, floppy and zip drive but no HD. There are 5 slots full of RAM but only 2 of the VRAM slots are full.

I can't wait to power it up later on!

 

[Temetka]

A lot of people love the 8600.

I am not one of them. I like the tower case design and stuff, but it seems every 8600 I have ever touched was either super finicky or just plain flaky.

The 8500 on the other hand has been nothing but rock stable for me. I have owned about 5 of them in the past all from various sources. Some shady, some legit, but every machine ran like a champ.

 

[Strimkind]

I used to have an 8500 back in 2000 that I bought used for $200. It worked great. I eventually had 144MB of RAM in it, a 4MB ATI card, and a 180mhz CPU card in it before I bought a new PC. The 8500 by that point had started to get worn out and slow. I eventually sold it without most of the upgrades for $40 and since then I have wanted another one. I shall settle for a 8600 though!

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Interesting, I've got an 8500 and a 7600, I REALLY hate the 7600 case and I LOVE the way the 8500 case supports my coffee table along with my 840av.

Will the 7600 MoBo fit the 8500 case? :?: }

 

[Strimkind]

Its possible. They have the all same ports but the big questions is are they in the same spot on the motherboard? They are based on different architectures (7600 is TNT and 8500 is Nitro) so it may be setup differently.

 

[Unknown_K]

The 8600 case is the same as the 9600 just a different motherboard. Very easy to get into compared to the 8500/9500 towers. There is a special bracket over the power supply for a HD that is getting harder to find, you can also install a HD in the 5.25" bays I think with the standard trays. VRAM is like the other PCI Powermacs you use either 2 or 4MB (1MB VRAM SIMMs , 4 total slots).

I like my 8600/250 and it is rock solid (has my Videovision Telecast setup installed in it).

 

[Strimkind]

The 8600 case is the same as the 9600 just a different motherboard. Very easy to get into compared to the 8500/9500 towers. There is a special bracket over the power supply for a HD that is getting harder to find, you can also install a HD in the 5.25" bays I think with the standard trays.

I just went to install a 2GB Seagate Barracuda and installed it on the bottom of the case. After further inspection I found that bracket on top of the power supply you mentioned. It brings the total HDs I can installed to 3 in addition to the Zip and CD-ROM already installed.

I am going to power it up in the next little bit and possibly install something on the HD.

 

[Strimkind]

We've had successful booting!

The 2GB drive ended up being a dud (froze the computer and made clicking noises), so I installed a 4.3GB Quantum Atlas II drive instead.

It has 120MB of RAM and 3 free RAM slots plus a USB card. I plan to install a PCI Video card that I have lying around and possibly another Hard Drive in the upper tray.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

The 8600 case is the same as the 9600 just a different motherboard. Very easy to get into compared to the 8500/9500 towers.

Not quite: IIRC,the 8500 morphed into 8600 and the 9500 morphed into 9600 . . .

. . . three slot 8x00 MiniTowers/Mobos as opposed to the six slot 9x00 Full Tower Variety . . .

. . . the 7500 and 7600 were desktop versions of the mid-towers, ergo three slots, hence, the 8500 + 7600 = 8600 conversion question.

I've got a complete 8500, a complete 7600 and the inner shell of what was once a complete 9500 that was the longtime home of my PEx Mobo before that was converted to its current "PEx in a Drawer" configuration.

I'm leaning against mucking around with my 8500 after all. I've got a couple of low, wide ATX cases ready for Mac re-casings and Radius 81/110 faceplate conversions. This is all part of a next rev of MacFurniture development. This time it's more of a display than a workstation project. }

Have fun with your 8500 Mid-Tower, strimkind! What have you got ploanned for the third PCI Slot?

 

[Strimkind]

Possibly a firewire card. I also have this AVID card thing that I was given some time ago but I think it was meant for another computer. It has the attached component ports on their own board and the cable connecting the two is too short to attach the PCI to the DAV port on the 8600 montherboard.

I am trying to figure out if the PCI card would even work with it.

 

[Unknown_K]

Do you have pictures of those cards?

 

[beachycove]

I have two of these, and they are fine machines, able to take up to 6 drives, plus floppy, and they are excellent performers overall for their age. The PS is massive and very robust — better than the PS that was in the 604e version of the 8600, BTW. The case is identical to the 9600's, with PCI covers and all, and a 9600 logic board can absolutely go right in. However, as the 8600 has on-board video, it already has three PCI slots, and this is enough for almost all users.

On the upside, it has, I think, eight RAM slots, and the 604ev processor is not only fast, but runs much, much cooler than the 604e; one of the nice things about the 8600/300, therefore, is that for many uses, you do not need the noisy side fan, which can actually be disconnected. Mine has run like this daily for years, and for much of that time 24/7. On the downside, the PCI architecture seems to me to be somewhat limited. I have a Voodoo 5500 in one, but performance is not especially gob-smacking.

Mine both had troubles starting up after having been shelved for a couple of years before they came to me. The PRAM seemed to be the problem, and it was a struggle to get them going. Persistence paid off, however, as once I got them going, they have each been pretty much trouble-free.

One still runs 7 days a week as an ASIP server on my home LAN, where it is a nice, flexible, easily serviced, and quiet bridge between the old and the new. I have it set up with a 500GB PATA drive and controller, and a couple of 9GB scsis and controller. I have the drives set to spin down when not required; it is almost silent with only the PS fan turning. The other was used for about five years by one of my kids, and though these days it is much neglected, for a long while it got a lot of classic gaming use.

Back a few years ago, I tried OSX (X.1, I think it was) briefly on a stock 8600/300 604ev via Xpostfacto, but the trial was let down by the relatively weak on-board video I was using. In those days, I did not have a decent video card to try in the thing under OSX, but it occurs to me that one day I ought to try it again with a Rage 128 PCI card and just see what happens.... Multi-threading in a 604ev should be better than in a G3.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Cool, just looked it up, you're right, my bad. :I

They dropped the Mini-Tower case from the lineup at the x600 speed bump.

I learn something new here every day, thanks! :approve:

Now I can look for an empty 9600 OR 8600 Case for the PEx MoBo . . . if it ever boots.

If it doesn't, the 7600, 8500 or 9500 mobo will be getting its speed bump . . .

Sonnet PCI G-4 800 MHz Accelerator

32k inst/32k data L1 cache

256k @ 800MHz L2 cache

1MB @ 200MHz L3 cache

. . . zooooomie! [] ]'>

 

[Strimkind]

Do you have pictures of those cards?

Found this link for Apple Part Number 630-1922

and

this add-on, part number 820-0745-a.

From this I now learned the PCI card I have is designed for a Performa 5500 and not of much use in my 8600.

 

[CelGen]

The 8600 was my first PowerPC mac and I loved it. I eventually upgraded however to a 9600.

One thing I always hated was that the floppy drive bezel was CONSTANTLY breaking the plastic tabs and falling off.

Edit: I too always wondered what the DAV connector went to. Google never really told me anything.

 

[Bunsen]

Found this link for Apple Part Number 630-1922 / From this I now learned the PCI card I have is designed for a Performa 5500 and not of much use in my 8600.

I wouldn't take that seller's description as gospel without a second reference.

this add-on, part number 820-0745-a.

That is the Apple TV/AV card, which has video in and out. It goes into the dedicated proprietary AV slot on the motherboard of the 54/55/64/6500s. It is not an add-on to any PCI card. The only related card that goes with that is the TV tuner, which connects to the black connector at the rear.

I too always wondered what the DAV connector went to.

It was meant to go to a whole bunch of stuff, but no-one ever did much with it. Maybe Avid. The older (and probably not compatible) DAV in the 840AV was used to connect to at least one Nubus video capture accelerator card that I know of.

 

[Unknown_K]

The DAV slot just connects a card to the factory A/V in and out ports of the host machine (bypassing the original capture hardware).

I have one of those AVID PCI cards in a 6500 but can't use it untill I trade out the A/V card for one with the correct DAV connector on it (mine is too small).

The DAV on the 840av is a special slot inline with one of the NUBUS slots, the Supermac SPigot AV and AV Pro are the only cards I recall that will use it (I have the Pro AV in my 840av).

 

[mac2geezer]

Count me as someone who also really likes the 8600 (and the 9600). My 8600/300 with the stock 604ev card has been rock solid running 9.1. It has the standard floppy, CD, and Zip 100 drives, along with 3 HD's. There's an Adaptec 2940U2B SCSI card driving 36GB 15K RPM and 9GB 10K RPM HD's, along with an 18GB drive in the slot above the PSU. Also, a 10/100 ethernet card and an ATI Radeon 7000 video card, along with the 4MB of onboard video.

Great machines and dead simple to work on. Removing and replacing the logic board is an almost trivial exercise.