PowerMacintosh 7200 - Looking for Stability Suggestions

[Phipli]

Hey folks.

I'm wondering what the best things to do are to make a 7200 run as stable as possible are.

The usual sort of tricks back in the day would be things like...

What OS versions work best?
Disable Energy Saving
Disabling Virtual Memory Avoiding certain extensions / control panels
OpenTransport versions

But I never owned a 7200 BITD

Please avoid just telling me how the 7200 isn't the best machine. I have better PCI Macs, I just want to see what can be done with this underdog.

Poor thing is only a 75MHz 601 with 16MB RAM ATM.

 

[joshc]

Going to guess OS 8.1 or 8.6 is best for stability on these

Are you currently having stability issues with it?

 

[Phipli]

Going to guess OS 8.1 or 8.6 is best for stability on these

Are you currently having stability issues with it?

8.1 has been a little trouble, but not sure if it is just coincidence as it's all I have installed and it is just what happened to be on the disk from another computer. Just in case I've pulled and cleaned the RAM. I had to add a bit more to install 8.6 anyway. Woooooow, 32MB now

I'm now booted from 8.5.0 as of 5 minutes ago, and watching 8.6 install, but don't know if it is more stable yet.

Other than a little memory hungry, 8.6 is probably a good OS for it. I can always swap in more (must be FPM!) Memory.

 

[Phipli]

For clarification, it freezes (cursor still moves, but progress stops and I can't switch to other windows) during large copies. Then it is 100% stable if I boot without extensions.

 

[jessenator]

FWIW I've had the best luck running 7.6.1 on pre-G3 Power Macs.

From System7Today's list of "ultimate updates" I pick and choose https://system7today.com/sys76-on-powerpc

Definites:
OT 1.3
AppleShare 3.8.3
2020 patch (OFC)

Optionals:
LibMoto
Text Encoding Converter 1.5
SpeedDoubler (but it has made a difference on 603ev machines with 68k code)

Hit or Miss:
QT 5 (some macs I've tried this on hate it)

The Apple Legacy Recovery CD has a nice, vanilla 7.6 install with the 7.6.1 updater. Hope that's helpful.


edit: 16MB DRAM is doable, but I'd still recommend 32. Virtual Memory I sort of play by ear, depending mostly on my storage medium.
If 7.6.1 is still a RAM hog, 7.5.3 might sip it a little less. https://system7today.com/sys75-on-powerpc Still, my preference has been 7.6.1

 

[Phipli]

FWIW I've had the best luck running 7.6.1 on pre-G3 Power Macs.

I agree that 7.6.1 is the most stable OS on a PPC, but the 7200 is a bit of a special case. They're probably the least stable PPC, except perhaps the G3s.

I'm really thinking from a machine perspective rather than OS as in, what works well with the 7200, rather than 7.6.1 is reliable.

Have you spent much time running it on a 7200?

 

[Phipli]

Definites:
OT 1.3
AppleShare 3.8.3
2020 patch (OFC)

Optionals:
LibMoto
Text Encoding Converter 1.5
SpeedDoubler (but it has made a difference on 603ev machines with 68k code)

Hit or Miss:
QT 5 (some macs I've tried this on hate it)

The Apple Legacy Recovery CD has a nice, vanilla 7.6 install with the 7.6.1 updater. Hope that's helpful.

Cheers for this. Many I remember from BITD, but some of those are not things I know to keep an eye on.

 

[joshc]

They're probably the least stable PPC, except perhaps the G3s.

I dunno, I think the 6100/7100/8100 would like a word.

 

[Phipli]

I dunno, I think the 6100/7100/8100 would like a word.

Had way less trouble with them. Use them quite a lot. They were fine after 7.6.

 

[jessenator]

I'm really thinking from a machine perspective rather than OS as in, what works well with the 7200, rather than 7.6.1 is reliable.

Have you spent much time running it on a 7200?

I tested a locally gotten 7200 for a few weeks before passing it on to CoryW. Seemed fine—no issues in day to day operation I noticed.

I did use it extensively on a Power Computing PowerTower, which is Catalyst architecture derived (even down to its particular memory type requirements), for what that's worth. No issues with that vanilla setup either.

 

[Phipli]

I tested a locally gotten 7200 for a few weeks before passing it on to CoryW. Seemed fine—no issues in day to day operation I noticed.

I did use it extensively on a Power Computing PowerTower, which is Catalyst architecture derived (even down to its particular memory type requirements), for what that's worth. No issues with that vanilla setup either.

Interesting. Perhaps I need to go backwards rather than forward.

My plan is to use it fairly extensively for the next few weeks before our meetup. If it behaves, I'll bring it, if not I'll bring something else. A 9600 or a G3.

 

[Phipli]

I haven't had a chance to try 7.6.1 yet, but 8.6 has been way more stable. It's just about to finish a 2.4GB copy without any issue, with extensions enabled.

I swapped out the Radius PrecisionColor 1600 I had in it because it is slower than stock video and installed a Formac ProFormance 80, which is about eight times faster at 8bit.

 

[volvo242gt]

That typically seems to be the case with earlier PowerMacs. The newer the OS, the more stable they get. Even my 7100/80 seemed a lot more stable on 8.6 than it was, running either 7.5.5 or 8.1.