Forums

Im pretty sure both PowerComputing and Umax developed all their stuff in-house and never used any of the common clone boards like the Tanzania. They used most of the same chips and ROMs, of course, but never outside boards. PowerComputing even had their crazy Stargate combo NuBus/PCI riser cards for the PowerWave, while Umax built custom processor sockets for their C/J series machines. Umax also had their custom multi-processor arrangement while PowerComputing was the only one to ever have a non-G3 system with a 60MHz bus (in one of the PowerTowers). 

Even when the computer sort of worked before the recap, I did not get a chime. One of the reasons that I recapped it was to try to fix the sound, but I am not sure if it is even working at all now. What are the voltages supposed to be on the power supply connector?

I'm hoping to do this some day. I bought a 33MHz 68040FE chip once when Techknight recommended them and I hope to to be able to transplant it onto my 540c daughterboard. If I remember correctly, Bolle commented once that it could be done with a hot-air station.

The brittle plastics in my PM 8100 have irritated me enough to contemplate building my own case. The machine will have a 400Mhz G3 Sonnet Crescendo, 2 NuBus cards, the HPD card and 2x U320 300GB drives. It's replacing the MDD whose PSU recently died on me. As a second hobby I have been learning woodwork these past few years and I am leaning towards a nice hardwood case. Or Lego (I have a lot of it).   Two considerations come to mind:  1. RF-Shielding (at least I think that it is RF-shielding) — the sheets of metal inside the plastic case. Would aluminium do? I was thinking about using the thick sheets of oven liner. The sheets of metal inside the case are thicker and are surely made of iron. The compact macs have only a thin layer of metal sprayed on the cases but they also have an even lower power requirement than the PM 8100.    2. Heatflow — I want the insides to stay cool and fans are an easy solution. If I use fans, then there will have to be holes in the metal shielding. It doesn't seem to be a problem for newer computers and they have a much higher energy requirement than the 8100/80. Fans would also be a necessity if I use a case material than burns or warps.    3. Is there anything else that I should be thinking about?   Does anybody have any advice or good links they can point me towards? Thanks

The firmware patch is only needed for the 7447 upgrades. (1.6GHz and faster) 745x CPUs will work without the patch. The machine wouldn’t even chime if it doesn’t know the CPU type.