Happy Mother's Day to all those special ladies that
helped us all grow up. Well, I'm not there yet ;-)
I finally bought a UPS yesterday (with all the storms here lately, even Kay thought it was a good idea), a 780VA model for $275 at CompuUSA. The Mac Store
had several people looking at systems and there was a salesman talking to customers.
The 2400 had taken a beating though, and was missing a key off the keyboard.
Speaking of the 2400 - it would be nice if some dealers offered them with Newer Technologies
G3 upgrade already installed (and more ram). A G3 in that small package would be
attractive. And since the 2400/180 is now selling for $1649 at some outlets, it's very
affordable. I think a G3 subnotebook with 64MB of RAM for under $3000 would be very attractive
to many people (including me).
TechTool Pro 2 will soon have a defragmenting/disk optimize feature according to this mail
form Dan Kuraisa: "
Tech Support wrote:
Dan
We hope to have a free update available off our website for version 2
owners to download the defragmentation feature in the next couple of
months. We have been given no exact ETA on that release.
":
I think that feature should be a part of the standard OS utilities.
PowerForce 220/110 Feedback: I have gotten more mails than I can count on the PowerForce 220 card. I save all mail related to user experiences and the PowerForce folder is bulging with amazing stories
of the budget barn burner. Here are a few of the most recent ones:
"
Hi Mike,
I know you've received a ton of e-mails touting the great value of
the Powerlogix 220 card, but wanted to share an exceptional service story
thanks to MacGurus, one of your excellent sponsors.
After reading your reviews and concluding that the PL220 was probably the
best bang for the buck, I ordered one of those instead of going for the
250/125/1 and saved $500. I used that "savings" to order another PL220 for
a good buddy of mine, another Mac-aholic who would really appreciate the
extra speed kick. I asked MacGurus if they'd give me a discount for buying
TWO boards at once and mentioned XLR8YourMac, and they promptly knocked $20
off the order. Unfortunately, MacGurus ran out of the cards after
confirming my order. Well, they promptly told me that they'd provide free
shipping cuz of the delay. Wow, what service!
The cards arrived just the other day, and I literally ran 284.7 mHz with
113.9 backside cache (2.5:1 ratio) right out of the box (thanks to info
posted on your site) for a MacBench 3.0 score of 728. That's almost 3x
faster than my stock PowerWave 132 for under $500. I'm a VERY happy camper.
Thanks Mike, for working sooo hard on your site. *I* really appreciate all
your efforts; your info and comparisons make upgrading my Macs so much
easier. Thanks also to one of your excellent sponsors, MacGurus, for not only an excellent product at an excellent price, but also for going that
extra mile for the customer.
Mahalo,
Randy Mita."
"
Mike,
I thought you might like to hear my experience with this beast. I received
my card from Bottom Line early yesterday and had no problem at all firing
it up in my PowerTower Pro. I set the bus speed to 45MHz and tried varying
the Processor speed with BS Cache at 2:1. At 270MHz all seemed well but at
292MHz it crashed several times. I then throttled back the cache to 2.5:1
and was then able to move to 315MHz. I tried 337MHz but there it froze (not
surprising!). Anyway, I have been running continuously at 315/126/45 ever
since with absolutely no problem. Almost 2X speed over my 200MHz PTPPro.
The biggest difference I notice is with VirtualPC. I am running a Windows95
circuit analysis program (PSpice) and the difference in calculation speed
is nothing short of spectacular - at a guess it is at least 5:1, although I
have not done an actual measurement. In my Mac graphics work the difference
is not nearly as great - probably <2:1 - but still well worthwhile. The
only regret I have is that PowerLogix limit the bus speed to 45MHz max so
that I cannot reach the original 50MHz that the PTPPro supports - not sure
how much difference that makes with using a BS Cache, though!
Best regards,
Gerald Lunn"
"Hi Mike,
after reading your report regarding the PowerForce G3 220/110, I
immediately ordered it from BottomLine.
Now my PowerMac 7600 is really flying and the card runs @ 315/45/126 MHz
(switch A=8 B=F) without crash from 24h. I removed the standard 256k
motherboard L3 (ex-L2) as the installation guide said.
As the hardware is very very good, the guide I can say it's horrible!
There isn't any mention about PL 220; an addendum (not for PL 220) is a
photocopy with 2 tables with frequency chart and switch positions
almost unreadable. I think they could easily add a pdf file to the
floppy. The figure of G3 Cache control panel is different with the
control panel I found in the floppy. There isn't a "604 Compatibility
Mode" button (in the text I can read "603e Compatibility". Is it
important? [No, that was a compatibility feature in the earlier
software that was later removed as it was deemed not necessary.-Mike]
A question: when I must choose between 603 and 604 specific software,
which one now? [Not an issue. There is no 603/604 specific software that I know of,
only PowerPC native and 680x0 versions.-Mike]
They highly recommend installing Libmoto, but I have read your article
about it. Only for benchmarks? [All G3 Card manuals I've seen mention that.
It's partly because they want you to see the highest possible MacBench FPU scores.
In the real world it's another story. In a Bryce2 5 minute 44 second rendering
test on the G3 I saw a 4 second savings with Libmoto, far from the 60% boost
it gives MacBench FPU scores. For the reasons
mentioned on my Libmoto page, I only use it for benchmarks now. Since the rest of the world and the past reviews use it I continue to do so
in reviews to allow 1:1 comparisons of FPU scores.-Mike]
A last thing: thank BottomLine for the lowest price and for honesty of the declared value for customs without P&H. So I paid less import tax (a
good suggestion for European buyers). Thank you very much for your recommendation,"
Dr. Alessandro De Chiara, M.D. Ph.D.
I hope PowerLogix updates the manuals soon. They are a small company and demand for the 220 G3 models
has been understandably overwhelming. It's the performance bargain of the decade for most owners.
Bravado 1000/G3 Upgrade Problems: Another reader reports problems with the combo:
"
Well...I'm afraid that G3+Bravado = $700 lost money. I couldn't get my
Bravado to function with the G3 at any setting. The best I could do was
drop the card's speed down to sub 250mhz just to get a picture. Then,
the picture would flash in the premiere record window. I could see the
image fine on the NTSC monitor...but that was about it. The movie
wouldn't save either. Do you think we could petition Truevision to
update the driver?
Brian Pohl
VizFiz Design Group"
Since the card has been discontinued for some time, I doubt they'd update it. It can't hurt to ask, but I'd not get my hopes up.
Great Tool For Students: Endnote 3.0 is the latest version of the popular research and bibliography tool and is getting very good reviews. There is a free trial version for the Mac at http://www.niles.com/home/demo.htm.
Allan Landwer has updated his PowerForce 275 review to note a problem he's having with RAM disks (copies of the system to
a RAM disk are corrupted). I could not duplicate the problem here on a PowerTower Pro (same system) and PowerForce card.
Updated terms for QuickTime SDA: Apple has revised the terms of Quicktime licensing. For the full story
and all the details read the announcement.
Reminder: Last day for the weekend Bottom Line XLR8YOURMAC specials:
- 64MB 5V EDO Dimms, 2k refresh for $89.99 (mention the site for special price)
- $100 off on the 300/300 RailGun on orders before Monday, 5/11/98
And if you didn't catch yesterday's news, Bottom Line sent a new 1:1 ratio backside cache extension for those RailGun owners that want to try it. Note that they cannot give support on this unless your RailGun card is a 1:1 cache model. To download the file, click here.
Search Tip! For searches on product names with mixed capitalization, use keywords like PowerBoost Pro (not Powerboost Pro or powerboost pro) and MaxPowr (vs maxpowr or Maxpowr). It seems that capitalization within the word on the site pages is throwing off the engine. Keep that in mind when searching for some of the odd product names.
Need Help? Before you send email for tech support, please check the Troubleshooting page or try searching the site (use quotes for exact matches! i.e. "mach 5" vs mach 5 which will match machine, 5, etc.) and to check the FAQ, Performance Basics, Links, and Forums for solutions to your problems or answers to tech support questions. They have a lot of good info and are a great source of help.
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