Powermac 9500 usb not working

[RadRacer203]

Wondering if anyone might be able to help me with this issue. Been having it with several Macs and clones but most recently this Powermac 9500. Haven't been able to put my finger on what's actually wrong yet. I'm running OS 9.1, I have a g3 accelerator installed, and that's about all that's worth mentioning. I've tried 4 or 5 different known good usb cards, usb extensions from several computers that do have working usb, and os 9.2.2 usb extensions. Nothing has worked, it freezes when it starts copying anything to or from the usb stick. It recognizes the cards, it recognizes the usb sticks, I can go in and see what's on the usb drives, but as soon as I try to pull files off, or put files on, it freezes.

I did get it working exactly once. When I copied the relevant extensions off my Powermac 6500 that's set up with usb, I was able to copy one file off the usb stick onto the hard drive. After I installed the program, I had to restart, and I couldn't copy anything else. I'm getting pretty frustrated, just wondering what else I can actually try. Maybe there's some different extensions or something?

 

[superseth]

I wish I had an answer but have been struggling myself. I have a PCI USB card that I know works fine in my PowerCenterPro 210 that I recently moved to a 5500 and while the card shows up in Apple System Profiler I get nothing when attaching USB devices. Anyone know of a troubleshooting guide for these older PCI macs?

 

[Phipli]

Wondering if anyone might be able to help me with this issue. Been having it with several Macs and clones but most recently this Powermac 9500. Haven't been able to put my finger on what's actually wrong yet. I'm running OS 9.1, I have a g3 accelerator installed, and that's about all that's worth mentioning. I've tried 4 or 5 different known good usb cards, usb extensions from several computers that do have working usb, and os 9.2.2 usb extensions. Nothing has worked, it freezes when it starts copying anything to or from the usb stick. It recognizes the cards, it recognizes the usb sticks, I can go in and see what's on the usb drives, but as soon as I try to pull files off, or put files on, it freezes.

I did get it working exactly once. When I copied the relevant extensions off my Powermac 6500 that's set up with usb, I was able to copy one file off the usb stick onto the hard drive. After I installed the program, I had to restart, and I couldn't copy anything else. I'm getting pretty frustrated, just wondering what else I can actually try. Maybe there's some different extensions or something?

As far as I'm aware, this is the norm for classic mac OS and most USB cards.

1) I've heard that cards with the chipset used on later macs that had integrated USB work better.

2) My dad claims to have one USB to SATA adapter that doesn't crash even in long transfers.

Ultimately I tend to use ethernet or CD-Rs rather than pen drives for anything other than tiny files. If there is a work around to this issue I haven't been motivated to find it.

 

[RadRacer203]

As far as I'm aware, this is the norm for classic mac OS and most USB cards.

1) I've heard that cards with the chipset used on later macs that had integrated USB work better.

2) My dad claims to have one USB to SATA adapter that doesn't crash even in long transfers.

Ultimately I tend to use ethernet or CD-Rs rather than pen drives for anything other than tiny files. If there is a work around to this issue I haven't been motivated to find it.

The thing that gets me though is it should work. I have a Powermac 6500, which people always say is incredibly hard to work with, and basically impossible to get usb working with, and I threw a card in that and it's been working flawlessly. The 9500 is newer and higher end so it should in theory be better

 

[Phipli]

The thing that gets me though is it should work. I have a Powermac 6500, which people always say is incredibly hard to work with, and basically impossible to get usb working with, and I threw a card in that and it's been working flawlessly. The 9500 is newer and higher end so it should in theory be better

Hum, the 9500 is older than the 6500. 6500 was one of the last pre-G3 macs.

I'm not sure there is a difference in difficulty? The issue with the 6500 is just that it struggles with combo cards? I hadn't heard anything different.

Have you tried the same pci card and flash drive in the 6500 and 9500?

Like I said before, if possible you're better off using ethernet. I've always found USB storage to be inconsistent in classic mac os on beige machines.

 

[Phipli]

Here you go :

Old PCI USB cards that work good in old Mac's

I find the Opti 2 port ones work well. you can get them all over ebay used.. doesn't matter if it says MAC COMPATIBLE or not. like this: 6+ bucks, Free shipping etc...

68kmla.org

 

[ArmorAlley]

I don't have too much experience with PCI USB on old Macs. I had a USB card in my PM 6400 back in the mid-late 90s and it worked well but I only used it for a two-button mouse. In the meantime, my only other experience has been with a PM7500 with Sonnet Accelerator and it worked well. Again though, I only used a keyboard & mouse in it.
This leads to my question: do you only have problems when storage devices or also with peripherals like keyboards, mice or scanners?

One final thought: have you tried using all of the USB-related INITs from a OS 9.2.2 system folder in your OS 9.1 system folder? Maybe stick in CarbonLib 1.6 as well for good measure.

If I remember, I'll pull out my PM 7500 tonight and give it a test.

 

[Phipli]

I don't have too much experience with PCI USB on old Macs. I had a USB card in my PM 6400 back in the mid-late 90s and it worked well but I only used it for a two-button mouse. In the meantime, my only other experience has been with a PM7500 with Sonnet Accelerator and it worked well. Again though, I only used a keyboard & mouse in it.
This leads to my question: do you only have problems when storage devices or also with peripherals like keyboards, mice or scanners?

One final thought: have you tried using all of the USB-related INITs from a OS 9.2.2 system folder in your OS 9.1 system folder? Maybe stick in CarbonLib 1.6 as well for good measure.

If I remember, I'll pull out my PM 7500 tonight and give it a test.

I only have seen issues with larger file copies personally. Mouse and keyboard mostly work. Modern Logitec pointing devices have a habit of rushing to the right of the screen and staying there , but USB Overdrive fixes that

 

[RadRacer203]

Hum, the 9500 is older than the 6500. 6500 was one of the last pre-G3 macs.

I'm not sure there is a difference in difficulty? The issue with the 6500 is just that it struggles with combo cards? I hadn't heard anything different.

Have you tried the same pci card and flash drive in the 6500 and 9500?

Like I said before, if possible you're better off using ethernet. I've always found USB storage to be inconsistent in classic mac os on beige machines.

Ah, ok. I didn't realize the 6500 was newer, maybe some revised roms has something to do with it? I do plan on using ethernet but I'd really like to have usb also for convenience.

I haven't done any testing with other peripherals but I definitely will, and I'm fairly sure I tried copying the usb extensions from a 9.2.2 machine also, but I'll try again later. Gotta get my g4 cube fired up again cause I sold the only other machine I had that could run 9.2.2...

Also, I've tried several cards, a couple with that Opti chipset, and same thing happens. Even tried the one that I had in my 6500 and was working perfectly

 

[RadRacer203]

Looks like I have the Tsunami board in my machine, and it does have a rom in the slot, I wonder if taking that rom out or swapping the board would change anything?

 

[Phipli]

Looks like I have the Tsunami board in my machine, and it does have a rom in the slot, I wonder if taking that rom out or swapping the board would change anything?

I'm not sure what you'd change it to, there isn't anything else you'd put in there.

I'd try a few different pen drives and see if you can find one with better USB 1.1 support That might be part of the issue.

Otherwise, the truth is that USB mass storage support isn't great on 27 year old computers.

 

[RadRacer203]

I'm not sure what you'd change it to, there isn't anything else you'd put in there.

I'd try a few different pen drives and see if you can find one with better USB 1.1 support That might be part of the issue.

Otherwise, the truth is that USB mass storage support isn't great on 27 year old computers.

Yeah, I knew usb support wouldn't be great, but I managed to get it working on every other machine I've had, including a bunch of clones. Gotta be a way to make it work. There is another board actually, the later Kansas one, that might have some differences

 

[Phipli]

Yeah, I knew usb support wouldn't be great, but I managed to get it working on every other machine I've had, including a bunch of clones. Gotta be a way to make it work. There is another board actually, the later Kansas one, that might have some differences

The Kansas board was only fitted to the 9600 so has a different power connection on the logic board. The 9600s had more pins : 24 instead of 22.

Interesting that you've got bulk file transfers working on every other machine, I've never managed to transfer more than a few hundred megs over USB on any machine, but I tried on 8600/9600/beige G3s.

 

[RadRacer203]

On my 6500 I've managed to do several gigabytes over usb 1.0. It was pretty painful to wait for it, but worked just fine. I think I copied a full install of Fallout and Quake 3 and it took like 3 hours but it didn't give me any issues. Copied it onto a Samsung ssd with a usb 3.0 adapter no less!

 

[Phipli]

On my 6500 I've managed to do several gigabytes over usb 1.0. It was pretty painful to wait for it, but worked just fine. I think I copied a full install of Fallout and Quake 3 and it took like 3 hours but it didn't give me any issues. Copied it onto a Samsung ssd with a usb 3.0 adapter no less!

Are you using an identical card and the same USB device?

 

[RadRacer203]

Yeah, I mean I've tried several cards and drives, but I've pulled the card out of my 6500 and tried the same combination in this machine

 

[RadRacer203]

Well, looks like something I did ended up working, and it now works just fine with usb. Copied over some files, planning on copying Fallout as a stress test to make sure it's good. But now the 6500 is acting up and crashing lol.

What I ended up doing is copying the usb extensions off the 9.2.2 install disk, and I'm using the Sonnet Tango usb/firewire card. One thing I also changed, which I will be testing to see how it affects it, is I'm using a different video card right now. Swapped it so I could use a different monitor