Need help getting a Sonnet Crescendo G4/1000MHz PCI to work

[s_pupp]

I’m having trouble getting a Sonnet Crescendo PCI 1GHz up and running in my Power Mac 8600 (Kansas) or 9600 (Tsunami). An 800MHz version of that card in the same Macs works fine.

Symptoms:
- The Mac freezes while loading the Sonnet extension(2.3 or 3.1).
- With the Sonnet extension disabled, there is a “divide by zero” error while loading the Open Transport extension.
- With both Sonnet and Open Transport disabled, booting is normal, but of course no L2 cache, no L3 cache, and no Altivec.

Background:
This is a card that underwent a poor quality recap with MLCC many years ago, when I was first learning how to solder SMD devices. These symptoms began immediately after. I stopped using the card. Lesson learned: Do not practice on unobtainium.

Years later, I saw that R5 and C11 had each been pushed off a pad during the recap.

I recently recapped the card with aluminum polymer caps, and put R5 and C11 back where they belong. I had to put a bodge wire from R5 to a via because of a lifted pad. When that had no effect, I used a bit of electrically conductive silver bearing paint from R5 to the trace that leads to the via. The repairs made no difference.

It seems to me that the issue might be bad cache on the 1GHz card. What are your thoughts? If the cache is bad, my question then becomes: Where is the cache on the card, and can it be replaced?

 

[joevt]

Do you have the installation manual?

One of the instructions for the 8600 is:

- Remove Level 2 Cache Card from 8600 Models
If your Power Macintosh 8600 contains a Level 2 cache card, remove it. If you are uncertain about whether you have a cache card, or where it might be located, consult your computer’s documentation or see Chapter 12, “Removing a Level 2 Cache Card.” For the Power Macintosh 96XX, the L2 cache is sol- dered onto the logic board and cannot be removed.

- Power Macintosh 8600
For the Power Macintosh 8600, the Level 2 cache card is located towards the outer edge of the logic board populated with DRAM (memory) DIMMs (Figure 3). If there is a Level 2 cache card installed in your computer, it will be located in the L2 Cache Slot (the shorter slot located in the middle of the DRAM DIMMs).

I'm not sure if that applies to Kansas.

I wonder if the additional options of the PowerLogix CPU Director would be helpful? I don't think you should have both extensions installed though.

 

[s_pupp]

Do you have the installation manual?

One of the instructions for the 8600 is:


I'm not sure if that applies to Kansas.

I wonder if the additional options of the PowerLogix CPU Director would be helpful? I don't think you should have both extensions installed though.

Thanks for the advice. It was well worth a try but, although the extension loads, I get an error when launching the control panel. Neither it nor XLR8 Mach Speed Control enables the cache or Altivec.

Oddly enough, when I tried an old hard drive from when I bought the Sonnet CPU, with the Sonnet extension disabled Altivec was enabled (c: 3400 score with Altivec Fractal Carbon). It froze with the Sonnet extension enabled. Comparing Norton System Info benchmarks predating the recap with results from today (accelerator extensions disabled but for some strange reason Altivec enabled), there is a massive decrease in CPU performance.

I installed the XLR8 software; not only did results remained dismal, but now Altivec was disabled (c. 600 score with Altivec Fractal Carbon).


Summary: Two almost identical Sonnet Crescendo cards, one 800MHz and one 1GHz - no problems with the 800MHz card, but 1GHz card freezes when Sonnet extension is installed, and XLR8 and Powerlogix extensions do not enable the card.