8500 ROM SIMM required? available?

[LCARS]

With the arrival of a SCSI2SD, my 8500 is ready to be put back together except for one thing...I seem to have misplaced the ROM SIMM. I did take it apart three years ago and stalled out on the project, but I am kicking myself for misplacing it. As these cases are a bear to fiddle with, I haven't tested it without the SIMM. I have read that various PCI PowerMacs won't boot without it (makes sense).

Does it indeed work, sans SIMM?

If not, does anyone have a spare lying around that they would be willing to part with?

 

[trag]

Unless it was some bizarre early model, it does not need a ROM DIMM.   The ROMs are soldered down, and the socket is there for later potential upgrades/updates/revisions.

On the 8500 the ROM chips are on the back of the board.   They are four .5" X 1.1" 44 pin chips with 22 pins down each long side.  Should be labeled 341S0168 through 341S0171, IIRC.  Could be 0169 through 0172.  Might be 343 instead of 341.  Memory is rusty.

Most likely what you removed was an L2 cache DIMM, although, as I mentioned above, it's possible yours had a ROM DIMM.  I don't think I've ever heard of an 8500 without soldered down ROMs though.

 

[LCARS]

Thank you, trag. With the board out, it will be easy to check for the soldered chips. Much appreciated! I don't think it is an unusual early model. It was a clean eBay find when platinum Macs didn't command an inflated sum.

I have a Sonnet G3 for it. Should the cache DIMM also be missing, I assume that it won't be needed with said upgrade?