Sonnet Crescendo G3/L2 in TAM Not Working

[Daniël]

Sorry to intrude on this thread, but what would you recommend as “good quality” thermal compound? I was just thinking about getting some for another project. 

Arctic Silver makes high quality compound, but there might be other good brands out there. Just avoid AliExpress/eBay cheapo compound, and you should be good.

 

[CC_333]

I use Arctic Silver MX-2, and it works pretty well on everything I've applied it to so far.

c

 

[Farhad]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post here, however I have used this excellent forum to gather information on vintage Macs and Newtons for quite some time now

A few months ago I acquired an Apple Twentieth Anniversary Mac (TAM) and have been having fun fiddling with it and upgrading it. I love the sound this thing produces and my intention is to use it as my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) with Opcode Vision and Galaxy connected to my Kurzweil K2600xs and Teenage Engineering OP-1. Since I received the computer I have installed a fresh PRAM battery, upgraded the RAM to 128MB (max), replaced the HDD with a 120GB SD card, replaced the noisy fan on the HDD bracket with a super silent one, replaced the 256kb of cache with a 1MB L2 Cache card (this accelerated the 603ev quite a bit) and installed MAC OS 9.2.2.

I recently acquired a Sonnet Crescendo G3/L2 350 Mhz/1MB card and wanted to upgrade the TAM with this card. I installed the software v.2.3.1 (which came on floppy with the card) and replaced the 1MB cache card with the Sonnet. I made sure the card was firmly pressed in the slot, however when I turn on the TAM it does not boot. I get the boot chime but the "Happy Mac" icon does not come up (screen does note even light up). I have tried removing the RAM and the IDE HDD to see if these were conflicting with the Sonnet card, but there is no change. I disconnected the PRAM battery so that the PRAM would be wiped clean (and even pressed the little black round button next to one of the RAM slots), but again this made no difference. When I reinstalled the 1MB L2 Cache card the TAM boots normally. I tried installing the Sonnet card several times, but I get the same result.

I don't know what else to do. Did I receive a bad Sonnet card? Physically the card looks pristine. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance.

Cheers,

Igor

Hi Igor,

Can you tell me what fan you used as a replacement? I'd like to do this as well.

Thanks a lot!

Farhad

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Glad to see this thread reappear! I've been playing with two 400/512K L2s in a 6500 and what I'm hoping is my 6400 board. I'm also hoping it's just a corrupted driver as both machines boot fine with either card installed, but the driver shows up as disabled.

I'll have to try thermal compound, but that wouldn't be an issue until cards warm up a bit would it?

Don't recall info on paste being the culprit at boot, IIRC it's associated with erratic behavior under use? That's what has me confused here, I'd think it would stay cool enough to pass POST and the boot process before wigging out? Does the accelerator shut itself down to avoid damage when it exceeds safe operating temperature? Wondering if I might have cooked both cards during testing?

From the box and spec, pretty sure I picked these particular cards up as NOS from Sonnet when they cleared out accelerators. Hoping to find the 6360 board with the original Crescendo ???/1MB L2 in working condition.

edit: Oopsie, forgot to mention I'm running with/without a dead PRAM bat. Gotta build a couple or three, Does it really matter so long as the machine stays plugged in, other architecture seem to retain PRAM setting in that state?

I'd feel sorry for the TAM gang because you don't have room for a battery holder, but if you've got the money to be messing around with a TAM, those batteries don't seem all that expensive. 

One more! Both my boards booted right up with chimes a time or two, then sound died entirely. Is that "normal" behavior for a board that needs a recap? I have cans on my 6500, did Apple use leak-free caps on the TAM boards or are you folks recapping? There's a can right next to (for?) the Cache slot. Could this be the culprit? Low voltage/instability of its slot would seem a more likely nasty at boot than paste to me. Cache cards use a piddling amount of power as compared to an accelerator and haven't got the intelligence to shut themselves down. Forgot to mention that my Cache DIMM appear to function fine where the Sonnets don't.

 

[ClassicMac]

Any updates ?

 

[Samana76]

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for my absence from this site. I have been busy with work and have not had a chance to work on my TAM for a very long time. In fact I have decided to put it up for sale in the hopes that it will go to a good home.

If you are interested you can find the auction of eBay by searching "Apple Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh TAM in excellent condition + many extras" (hopefully me announcing this here is not breaking the rules of this site).

Cheers,

Igor

 

[ArmorAlley]

If you are interested you can find the auction of eBay by searching "Apple Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh TAM in excellent condition + many extras" (hopefully me announcing this here is not breaking the rules of this site).

The same auction that you cancelled halfway through to sell to a local buyer for an undisclosed sum?

I'm sure that that will back lots of happy memories to the members here who had been bidding on it hoping to get what seemed like a fine TAM at a not obscene price.