Quicksilver Sonnet Encore Help

[LCARS]

I'm in the midst of upgrading my 3,5 Quicksilver dual 1Ghz. At this point I have 10.5 running on a SATA/PCI SSD and I'm getting ready to install a Sonnet 1.6 Ghz processor but I'm confused by Sonnet's install guide vs drivers on their support site.

The manual predates Tiger and wants 9.2 installed and running to patch/update the firmware to 4.2.8. The present Boot ROM on my machine is 4.3.3f2. I'm assuming that this ROM supersedes the former? If so, do I need to bother with 9.2 at all? Could I just run the 10.5 updater from Sonnet and then swap processors?

I've had this card for quite some time. It came with a CD for OS 9 and I'm guessing that at that time it needed to update the firmware to be aware of newer G4s?

 

[herd]

You are correct, no need for 9.2 so just run the patcher and then install the CPU. It's not so much being "aware" of newer G4s, it more like defeating the anti-upgrade stuff built into the firmware. Good luck with the upgrade.

 

[LCARS]

Thank you @herd. Oh yes, I had forgotten about the anti-upgrade efforts. This makes the process much simpler. Here we go...

 

[LCARS]

Hmm, the first firmware update attempted was not successful and the updater instructions aren't the clearest.

I opened the updater, it gave the usual instructions that an administrator password would be needed, then went on about being in programmer's mode but didn't elaborate on when. Before starting the process I rebooted and held down the programmer's key, which did nothing.

I assumed that I should just start the update and would be prompted to press it at some stage but its been almost 25 minutes now of, "Your firmware is being updated" with a striped progress bar.

Does that sound normal?

 

[LCARS]

Progress, maybe? Finally got to the open firmware screen but the keyboard isn't registering any keystrokes. USB not working now? I'll try another reboot...

 

[LCARS]

Finally! Ok next step, swap processors.

 

[LCARS]

Huzzah! The original heat sink extracted its drop of blood as I tried to removed the final clip and the speed is 1.27 not the 1.6 I thought it was but its in and working!

The Sonnet sticker was removed by the previous owner a good 8 years ago now and I thought it registered at 1.6Ghz in my AGP on 9.2 but I must have been wrong? Unless its being misread here. At first the machine didn't boot even after resetting CUDA. Oddly the power button didn't do much of anything. The were on but holding power in did not shut anything off. Zombie Mode.

I unplugged it for a minute and BONG... And yes, that SSD isn't in a permanent home. This model makes SATA cable routing easy. The MDD is kind of a pain with the relocation of the PCI slots.

 

[herd]

Nice! Thanks for reporting your results. That is indeed a rare upgrade and it should have 2MB of L3 cache as I believe it uses dual 7455 chips.

It's strange that the firmware update took that long.

 

[LCARS]

Thanks, @herd. The length of the update process was partly my fault but overall the machine has been acting oddly:

Beach ball program crashes (iTunes won't finish processing gapless playback and volume level for a 190GB library, Final Cut Pro 4 won't get past "Loading Audio Filters", keyboard is often forgotten despite having a good PRAM battery). And now System Profiler doesn't indicate any L3 cache.

Installing Leopard took hours on a SATA card/SSD with the correct Silicon Image chip, which was plug and play in both my AGP and MDD. I'm not sure if the processor upgrade is bad or if its a SATA issue.

 

[LCARS]

I also can't get the keyboard PRAM reset to work. Possibly the USB to ADB converter?

 

[herd]

It sounds like it was acting up before the CPU went in.... could maybe pull out some cards or RAM modules to narrow down the culprit?

 

[LCARS]

I could put the original hard drive back in and see if it will operate normally in that configuration, maybe even install the FCP and see if it has problems as well.

The physical problem it had was a RAM slot with bent prongs. I moved them back (its not perfect) and now that bank registers. Could it still be causing an issue?

LiveType crashed as well. One thing I noticed is that despite going through Sonnet firmware updater, the Boot ROM version didn't change in System Profiler. Was it suppose to? Or were the changes more behind the scenes?

 

[CircuitBored]

The physical problem it had was a RAM slot with bent prongs.

I've had this issue before too. It's also worth inspecting the underside of the RAM, PCI and AGP slots for cracked solder joints. For whatever reason, Quicksilvers were built with the absolute bare minimum amount of solder. I've had two boards with bad RAM slots, one of which also had a bad AGP slot.

You should also inspect your CPU sockets (card and LB side) for bent pins. It's not a common problem but I have had one Quicksilver come my way which turned out to have a few bent pins. It took my very pointiest tweezers to get the bent pins back into position.

@LCARS Do both of your USB ports work? One dead port (normally USB-1) is a very common issue on Quicksilvers. I recommend that you clean the ports with contact cleaner as well as reflowing the solder on those ports as a preventative measure if you have no issues at present.

It's also worth noting that these machines are pretty much over the hill with capacitors. I found my first leaky Quicksilver cap just a few weeks ago (C193, right by the CPU socket) so now I am planning to recap all three of my examples of this model.

Quicksilvers are really great machines and, IMO, Apple's most beautiful tower. Good luck with yours. I am thoroughly jealous of your new CPU!

 

[LCARS]

@CircuitBored Thank you for that information! Interesting, I did not know these quirks of the Quicksilver model. So far both USB ports work. I admit to not really knowing what reflowing is beyond a hunch. I'll take a look under the board first to see if there's any cracking.

C193, is that hidden when the processor card is in?

Oh no! Don't be jealous : ) I think this project is going to be involved to get working properly and I'm going to have to find the resolve to do it. I actually bought this Quicksilver specifically for this processor. I tried to run it years ago in my G4 AGP and despite the right firmware and all that, OS X never worked properly. In the end its a stellar OS 9 machine and seems much happier that way. Plus it drives my beloved SGI 1600SW monitor, which only runs under 9 so its a win-win.

I am still curious about the Sonnet firmware. Despite the success window, the Boot ROM version didn't change from its stock config. Should it have displayed a different version for the Sonnet firmware?