First a repeat of the post from Friday for those that missed it.

" Hi Mike,
I first noticed the issue with slow down back with release 1.4.5 (Authoring Support Update). When I realised that Apple hadn't fixed it for OS 9.2.1, I thought that the issue may be a third party conflict. I was also intrigued as to why only some machines were exhibiting the slow-down.

I deliberately but my computer into one of these slow-downs, and then ran the System Profiler and checked what Devices it could see. When scanning for devices, the scanning progress went like this: 1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,3,4,5 - instead of the usual 1,2,3,4,5 It seemed that device "2" was messing up the system - which was my zip drive. (Apple OEM ZIP-100) I inserted a disk in the drive, and the system mounted this, and immediately returned to full operating speed.

To confirm that the Zip drive was playing up I rebooted with the Iomega driver removed - and no slow down after sleep. Equally with the drive physically disconnected there was no slow-down.

It appears also that the ZIP-250 drives in newer G4's do not suffer.
It appears that the newer CD drivers are not waking up the Zip drive properly, so it is staying in sleep mode. This in turn slows down the IDE bus dramatically - hence resulting in a slow down of the system.

To summarise:

The newer Apple CD/DVD drivers introduce a conflict with Iomega ZIP-100 drives, causing them to stay in sleep mode when the rest of the system has woken up, hence causing the IDE bus slow down. To resolve, simply insert a Zip disk after waking up.
Roland B. "

Reader comments on the tip of inserting a ZIP disk in the drive to improve performance (of the CD drive)
(latest reports first)

" I'm running a late model Beige G3 300 MT with a factory Zip drive and experienced terrible slowdowns after putting the system to sleep. After reading this post I inserted a Zip disk into the drive and found that it immediately cleared up the problem.
Thanks, although I downgraded to 9.0.4 after this experience.
M Black "

" Mike,
I managed to slow my mac down again (it requires being asleep for more than a few minutes) and tried inserting a Zip disk and it does speed it up again. In my previous email I mentioned that I installed the new Iomega driver 6.0.9, it doesn't do anything to solve this problem and I don't use my Zip drive often enough to tell if it serves any purpose.
NickK. "

Personally I never use any Iomega software other than what ships with the MacOS. I've avoided installing any of the software from Iomega's site.

" I can confirm that inserting a zip disk fixes the post sleep slowdown I was experiencing on my B&W G3 450. Thanks for the tip. Here's a new one. After updating to 9.2.1 I can no longer mount a disk image. I get an error saying I don't have appropriate privileges (-54). (I don't use Multiple Users) Any readers have this problem?
David "

Haven't heard of anything like that from anyone else so far.

" this tip worked for me.
pb. "

" Mike,
My system (DP500, 1gb ram) was slow upon waking last night. My zip is external scsi, but it took quite a bit of time to do things. I even inserted a zip disk and still noticed the slow down. I do have an adaptec 2906 in slot b1. My beige never exhibited this problem. Is there an older apple cd driver extension to get that will eliminate this problem?
--
Scott Hayes
Hayes Video Productions "

I don't know, I've not used a SCSI ZIP for years. The tip really seems to be related to when the ZIP is on the same interface (IDE) as the CDROM drive.

" I have a G4 867. I have the new Iomega extensions installed with a 250 meg ZIP. It seems that every time the CDROM (superdrive) is accessed the computer slows down. Scrolling go slow, etc. If you put a ZIP disk in the drive the computer comes back to normal. I havenĂt tried removing the ZIP extension yet. That is next.
Brad
[he late wrote]
If you remove the ZIP extension the problem does not happen. Course you have no ZIP drive either. The problem happens when the computer accesses the CDROM when there is no disk in the ZIP. If you put a disk in the ZIP drive the problem goes away. If you have a disk in the ZIP before accessing the CD the problem never happens. If you don't access the CD at all with no ZIP in the drive the problem doesn't happen. So... Bottom line: if you access you CD you had better put a ZIP disk in the drive. If you never access the CD you don't need a ZIP in the drive. "

" Mike,
Gotta buy Roland a beer for this. B/W rev. 1, DVD, ZIP. [ OS 9.2.1 with CD/DVD Driver 1.4.7] Slowdown easy to produce; I just use the 'sleep' command. Didn't quite see the same behavior with System Profiler that Roland did. But in a 'slowdown' state, ASP cycled through my devices/volumes 3 times. Under normal circumstances, one is enough. Put in ZIP, problem goes away. Previously my fix has been a downgrade of CD/DVD Driver to v1.4 or 1.4.3.

I'll have to check later with older Iomega drivers to see if I can eliminate it that way.
(he later wrote)

Mike,
More on that CD/DVD Driver 1.4.7 and Iomega Zip 100 drive Tip. I tried downgrading the Iomega drivers. OS 9.2.1 installs v6.0.8.

I noted the following behavior when waking after using the 'sleep' command -- that induces the slowdown/sluggishness with CD/DVD Driver v1.4.7 and v1.4.5 on my B/W rev. 1, ZIP 100, DVD-ROM. (But note the last two entries.)

v6.0.7 (OS 9.1 CD) -- slowdown at wake, inserting a ZIP disk solves

v6.0.4 (OS 9.0.4 CD) -- slowdown at wake, inserting a ZIP disk solves

v6.0.2 (OS 8.6 update) -- on waking, HDs do not mount or show on desktop, mouse moves; insert a Zip disk and they mount; no slowdown noted afterwords.

v6.0.1 (OS 8.5.1 CD -- G3 system CD) -- on waking, HDs do not mount or show on desktop, mouse moves; insert a Zip disk and they mount; no slowdown noted afterwords.

With the last two, one trades off the slowdown for missing HDs. A none-to-subtle reminder to put a Zip Disk in? Just more confirmation that there's some conflict with the Apple CD/DVD Driver and Zip 100 drives (and drivers?)
(he later wrote)
One last one on this issue. I just downloaded the lastest Iomegaware, which installs Iomega driver v6.0.9. No help on that front. Slowdown after wake from sleep, which goes away when a Zip disk is inserted.
-E. "

An iBook owner (no ZIP drive of course) commented on the wake from sleep slowdown:

" Hello
i have a Firewire iBook 366 running OSX 10.0.4
I don't own a zip drive, and i don't use any device (not even a printer nor mouse) on it.
When i have a CD inserted and i put the computer to sleep i have the same slow down problems. In fact i noticed the cd goes down very fast in OS X but, it is still ok. After the sleep it reads 2-3sec then goes down, then goes up. It prevents me from listening to a audio cd after waking up. I need to eject/reinsert the cd in order for it to work ok.
May be it is related ? (may be not)
kangoo "