After a final visual check to verify all connections are proper, boot the Mac. It will usually take slightly longer to boot this time, as the system has to find the new PCI scsi card and boot from it. If nothing happens after a minute or so, power off and recheck the following:

• SCSI cable connections at drives and controller fully seated?
• Is PCI card fully seated?
• Are drive power connections tight?

If all these checks appear ok, try starting and Zapping the Pram (hold down the Apple + Option + P + R keys at powerup, and keep them held down until you hear the startup "bong" 3 times). If you do Zap the Pram, remember to reset your Date and Time, Memory, and other control panel settings that were reset to default values.

After you've verified that the new card is working fine, reinstall the case/cover.

I recommend running it from the control panels folder as that makes it easier to find and use.

I created a "2940UW" folder and copied the bios image, readme and the "DiskBasics" program on the 2nd Adaptec floppy into this folder for future use.

From time to time check the Adaptec Mac Software page for updates to the 2940UW PowerDomain Control and/or Bios files. My card came with the latest versions of the software and bios (2.5) at the date of shipment (December 1997) on floppy disk. (Note: Version 3.0 was released in the spring of 1998. For tests on how the two bios versions compared, see the PCI SCSI cards compared articles linked on the SCSI Topics page. [The 2.5 vs 3.0 firmware tests are a shown in the 4 UW PCI SCSI card tests articles, not the Ultra2 SCSI Card review.])

[Note that in March 1999, v4 firmware was released. However I caution non-Blue and White Apple G3 owners on upgrading as some features of v3 and earlier have been removed from Powerdomain control (set target options). See the SCSI features page for a test of v3 vs v4.-3/31/99]

PowerDomain Control Main Screen

The PowerDomain main control screen shows all PCI SCSI controllers installed in the Mac (currently one - as shown above). Each controller can be adjusted independantly in cases were there are multiple 2940UW's installed. Termination was set to "enabled" ("automatic" would have worked as well), and parity is left at the default setting of "on". You don't need to concern yourself with most of these settings.

Since the initial installation was using the older SCSI drives (non-Ultra, narrow SCSI) the Adaptec PowerDomain software did not require adjustments from the default values. In the next installment I will show the settings needed for Ultra/Wide SCSI disks, which is the primary reason for this upgrade - to use the much faster Ultra/Wide SCSI disks.

PowerDomain Device Configuration Screen

That's it folks - it's much harder to describe than do. It took me 10 times as long to complete this tutorial as it did to install the card.

The PCI SCSI card allows adding Ultra-Wide SCSI drives to really take advantage of its capabilities and is the primary reason for doing the upgrade. For extensive tests results with Ultra-Wide SCSI drives, Raid, comparisons of the 2940UW to other Mac PCI SCSI cards and more - see my SCSI Topics Page. for a full report!