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XLR8's Power Control Utility
A Swiss Army Knife of System Utilities
Published: 11/01/99

Daystar's original Npower Control Lives on in a G3 CPU Compatible Version

Included on the XLR8 CPU upgrade software CD (supplied with MAChCarrier, CarrierZIF and MAChSpeed CPU upgrades) is a new version of one of my favorite system diagnostic and reporting utilities - Power Control. Originally developed by Daystar for their Genesis Multi-Processor systems, this utility has many features to report and test your system's CPU, RAM, PCI and SCSI device configuration.
This page only scratches the surface of what Power Control can do but hopefully it will give you an idea of the basic features of this often neglected bonus on the XLR8 CD.

PowerControl Main Screen:

As shown above the main screen displays CPU speed (in this case the max speed tested with the MAChCarrier G3/500 in the Genesis) and has several buttons for other screens/tests as I'll show below. The mac's menu bar also has other selections, but for this page I'll just cover the main panels.

.

Processors Screen
Cache Control

As you can see, details on the CPU and Cache are provided on the Processors page, as well as current application load on the CPU.

Memory Screen

The Memory page shows a realistic snapshot (almost literally) of the detected installed RAM dimms, their sizes and interleaving status. In cases where the positions of dimms are preventing interleaving of memory, the far right column will suggest where to move dimms to enable interleaving. Not all Macs support interleaving (PowerCenter/Pros don't for instance). [Note: one owner of a Umax S900 that has the odd 16MB of RAM soldered on the motherboard reported the memory display was not correct on that machine.] See my past article on Interleaved RAM for test results showing the benefits. Applications like Photoshop and 3D games that move a lot of data over the bus show measurable gains from interleaved RAM.

Tests Page
Advanced settings page

Here you can find options to test your CPU, SCSI devices and RAM. Note that if you have a CD inserted it will report read and write errors in my experience (of course you can't write to a CD in a standard CDROM drive). The sub-panels below show the pop-up SCSI and RAM test windows when selecting various test buttons on the tests page:

(If a CD is inserted, errors will be reported as it tries to write to the CD apparently - I've reported this to XLR8.)

(RAM test complexity and duration are selectable)

PCI Cards Page

The Fuse Video Capture Card installed in Slot E2 didn't have the drivers enabled during tests, but not sure that would have affected the reported card ID. The ATTO Express PCI SCSI cards (2) and Formac Proformance 3 were identified however.
SCSI Devices Page (PCI SCSI card selected)

Note: In the screen above ID 7 is the controller, which for the PCI Card (the selected SCSI Bus), it should have shown an ATTO SCSI Card ID since the ATTO PCI SCSI card is ID 7 (as are most all SCSI controllers, even the onboard SCSI). I suspect this minor nit will be addressed in the next revision.

By selecting a SCSI device (Seagate Cheetah drive in the above screen) the bottom status line shows the block size (HFS+), total blocks and total capacity of the selected drive.

I did see some some oddities in the current Power Control revision (as of 10/99) other than the previously noted ID 7 controller ID misnaming. My SCSI ZIP drive would not show up in the list and disks inserted while Power Control was running did not mount. A restart would mount the disk. I've reported this to XLR8 for further investigation. Perhaps it's something with my specific hardware configuration but I wanted to mention it in case others see the same thing.

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Copyright ©, 1999.
All Rights Reserved.
All brand or product names mentioned here are properties of their respective companies.

Users of the web site must read and are bound by the terms and conditions of use.

The Source for Mac Performance News and Reviews
XLR8's Power Control Utility A Swiss Army Knife of System Utilities Published: 11/01/99
Daystar's original Npower Control Lives on in a G3 CPU Compatible Version
Included on the XLR8 CPU upgrade software CD (supplied with MAChCarrier, CarrierZIF and MAChSpeed CPU upgrades) is a new version of one of my favorite system diagnostic and reporting utilities - Power Control. Originally developed by Daystar for their Genesis Multi-Processor systems, this utility has many features to report and test your system's CPU, RAM, PCI and SCSI device configuration. This page only scratches the surface of what Power Control can do but hopefully it will give you an idea of the basic features of this often neglected bonus on the XLR8 CD. PowerControl Main Screen: As shown above the main screen displays CPU speed (in this case the max speed tested with the MAChCarrier G3/500 in the Genesis) and has several buttons for other screens/tests as I'll show below. The mac's menu bar also has other selections, but for this page I'll just cover the main panels. . Processors Screen As you can see, details on the CPU and Cache are provided on the Processors page, as well as current application load on the CPU. Memory Screen The Memory page shows a realistic snapshot (almost literally) of the detected installed RAM dimms, their sizes and interleaving status. In cases where the positions of dimms are preventing interleaving of memory, the far right column will suggest where to move dimms to enable interleaving. Not all Macs support interleaving (PowerCenter/Pros don't for instance). [Note: one owner of a Umax S900 that has the odd 16MB of RAM soldered on the motherboard reported the memory display was not correct on that machine.] See my past article on Interleaved RAM for test results showing the benefits. Applications like Photoshop and 3D games that move a lot of data over the bus show measurable gains from interleaved RAM. Tests Page Here you can find options to test your CPU, SCSI devices and RAM. Note that if you have a CD inserted it will report read and write errors in my experience (of course you can't write to a CD in a standard CDROM drive). The sub-panels below show the pop-up SCSI and RAM test windows when selecting various test buttons on the tests page: (If a CD is inserted, errors will be reported as it tries to write to the CD apparently - I've reported this to XLR8.) (RAM test complexity and duration are selectable) PCI Cards Page The Fuse Video Capture Card installed in Slot E2 didn't have the drivers enabled during tests, but not sure that would have affected the reported card ID. The ATTO Express PCI SCSI cards (2) and Formac Proformance 3 were identified however. SCSI Devices Page (PCI SCSI card selected) Note: In the screen above ID 7 is the controller, which for the PCI Card (the selected SCSI Bus), it should have shown an ATTO SCSI Card ID since the ATTO PCI SCSI card is ID 7 (as are most all SCSI controllers, even the onboard SCSI). I suspect this minor nit will be addressed in the next revision. By selecting a SCSI device (Seagate Cheetah drive in the above screen) the bottom status line shows the block size (HFS+), total blocks and total capacity of the selected drive. I did see some some oddities in the current Power Control revision (as of 10/99) other than the previously noted ID 7 controller ID misnaming. My SCSI ZIP drive would not show up in the list and disks inserted while Power Control was running did not mount. A restart would mount the disk. I've reported this to XLR8 for further investigation. Perhaps it's something with my specific hardware configuration but I wanted to mention it in case others see the same thing.


Back to WWW.XLR8YOURMAC.COM
Copyright ©, 1999. All Rights Reserved. All brand or product names mentioned here are properties of their respective companies. Users of the web site must read and are bound by the terms and conditions of use.