MAXpower G3 L2 in a TAM

[techknight]

Something is definitely not right here. 

Downgraded to Mac OS 8.1, Installed 2.0.3 as the original sellers specifications as he mentioned he was running it, and nope. Same Deal. Hard freeze at the progress bar. 

GRRRRRRRRRRRR...... 

Its almost as if the G3-L2 couldnt have ever worked in its lifetime?? 

guess ill return it. 

 

[techknight]

Well, I did a barbones install of OS9 (burned another CD). 

Installed 2.0.5, Hard freeze. 

So, I empted the entire system folder leaving ONLY the system resources, finder, and system in place. Rebooted so it would recreate the nested folders. 

Reinstalled 2.0.3 this time, Again, Hard Freeze.... 

So.. Not sure what to think unless the drivers that are on the internet have gotten tainted somehow. I downloaded them from the newer technologies/owc site, and then I tried the copies at the mac driver museum. They both do the same thing. 

I saw a maxpowr system update 1.0, not entirely sure what that is as I cannot find any documentation on it. I did however, throw it in the extensions folder and it didnt change anything. 

 

[techknight]

I tried 7.6.1, and you guessed it. no change. 

So, Unless there is a pre-requisite that was in the documentation that I dont have, I have exhausted everything I could think of. 

 

[HAL2001]

I downloaded the drivers via archive.org from the newertech site.

 

[techknight]

Well I downloaded from 3 different sites which had different binhex signatures. 

But once decompressed, all 3 installers were identical. 

 

[unity]

Good/bad PRAM battery? Maybe answered already, sorry if you did.

Try a reflow of the board?

How are the caps in the TAM?

Was it the 6400 or 6500 board that is the same, do you have one of those to try it in?

 

[HAL2001]

The 6500 is the same.

 

[techknight]

Yup, I have 3 different motherboards including the TAM. Tried em all. All do the same. 

I dont have PRAM batteries in any of them. 

Since I was on the accelerator subject, I grabbed my 6100 and I had another MAXPowr sitting here for the 6100/66 model. 

of course it wont work with my DOS card, as its a different connector, I decided to try it with the same exact driver disk. It worked, but its a completely different card and its a nubus mac.

So this is clearly a PCI mac issue. 

 

[HAL2001]

I'm confused. Do you "pci mac issue" in a sense that a TAM is a pci Mac. Or in the sense that the MaxPowr upgrade is a pci card? It's a L2 cache card isn't it?

 

[techknight]

its an L2 card. But only the PCI based macs have that particular L2 slot. 

I have a 5200 and a 5260 board which are nubus based PPC units, but the L2 slot is completely different. 

and what I mean is, the driver is hard freezing on any PCI mac I have tried so far. with or without the L2 G3 card. The driver should NEVER EVER freeze a machine when the card is NOT present!!! thats the part thats throwing me down the tubes. 

I am really starting to wonder if this MAXPowr G3L2 didnt ship with a very specific driver diskette. 

 

[unity]

When it crashes, do you try another boot after of just pull the extension.

I found this snippet, but its for Sonnet. I know you have a different card, etc. Just want to try to cover anything we can. At this point its seems odd that these are causing a crash like this under so many systems with so many versions. Makes no sense.

It seems that Sonnet is aware of a problem were the card may crash during boot and might be connected to having serial devices? I will admit that I had some boot crashes during the 1st boot after the install of each but none after that, and I boot my 6400 a few times each day. Although I don't keep my Epson printer turned on until I need it, I do have a GV modem on all the time. On a side note, I did try loading the Cresendo extension 1st and this caused all sorts of crashes during boot? I don't think their theory of compatibilty with the Geo is correct as mine worked flawlessly once I removed RamDoubler (which is known to cause problems with the Geo modem)

 

 

[techknight]

Yup tried rebooting a few times. Then i trash the extension.

 

[Compgeke]

It's been a few days but I actually have a 300 MHz upgrade in my 6400. I've made a video of it working and loading here: 

I'm using a version that identifies as 1.3.7 on OS 8.6. Here's a link to that: http://archive.compgeke.com/Drivers/Mac/Maxpowr_G3_L2.zip

 

[HAL2001]

Pretty quick! Nice.

 

[Compgeke]

Actually not that fast, it's got a lot of stuff on that HDD, only 130 megs free on the 2 gig drive so I just cut out about 3 minutes of loading time.

I have a feeling that extension dump is bad though, I can't make my sheepshaver OS recognize it as a valid extension so I'm going to just dump directly from the system rather than 10.5 and a USB to IDE adapter.

 

[Compgeke]

I can't edit the old posts to add a link but I managed to dump the files from the 6400 and confirmed they are valid, unlike previous link. Both a disk copy image and a Stuffit file here, both containing the same stuff. http://archive.compgeke.com/Drivers/Mac/MaxpowrG3_L2/

 

[techknight]

i have not tried 1.3.7, But I did try 1.3.9 awhile back when I was dicking around with it, and it would boot. However it would never see the card. Not even gauge pro. 

2.0+ locks up with or without the card. 

 

[techknight]

I can't edit the old posts to add a link but I managed to dump the files from the 6400 and confirmed they are valid, unlike previous link. Both a disk copy image and a Stuffit file here, both containing the same stuff. http://archive.compgeke.com/Drivers/Mac/MaxpowrG3_L2/

I tried it today, and it made a little more progress. It actually tried to load the driver, but again.. it hardlocked. So no go.

Thats when I noticed the extension is for an L2B. This card is the L2. Which is a re-release, almost like an L2C. but not.... 

It appears I need that very special driver for this particular card.