"Mike,
This may not be as hot of a topic as it was a few weeks back, but I thought I would give you an update on my experience.

My system is as follows: PowerMac 6500, 300Mhz 603e, 128 MB RAM, Mac OS 8.6, NewerTech L2/G3/300/200/1MB accelerator, Matrox Mystique 220 video card, GameWizard 8MB Voodoo2 card, Farallon Ethernet 10/100 comm slot II card, latest drivers for everything. I recently added a ADSL modem to the mix too.

I reported before that there appears to be a problem/conflict with the onboard ATI Rage II video on the 6500 system. This is definitely the case.

When I removed ALL ATI extensions from my system and installed the Matrox video card, to replace the ATI video, ALL of my problems went away. In fact, my system is more stable now than it has ever been. I have been running this system for about a month now and it is as solid as a rock. (I have the 2D drivers for the Matrox card installed, so I still get 2D hardware acceleration too.)

(For those wondering: UMAX installed the Matrox Mystique 220 card into some of their C600 Mac clones. SmallDog is selling a lot of UMAX surplus stuff from their clone making days, including these Matrox video cards. So, I picked one up for dirt cheap, and it turned out to work beautifully.)

Suggestion for other 6500 (and like systems) owners: disable the onboard ATI video, by disabling ALL ATI extensions, and see if your problems go away.
Jeff "

Jeff later wrote he bought the card when it was at their 'garage sale' for $19 and then added a 6MB Vram upgrade from Matrox (see their memory upgrades page) which lists for $19.99 as of today. [Prices/availability may change over time. Info posted was as of Jan 11th, 2000.]

For ATI Rage128 owners there was an update to the 4.01 drivers some months ago specifically to address 'hang during boot' issues with many 603e based systems at their Mac drivers page. (The current ATI 4.2 universal installer may have that fix included however since the patch has been moved to their archives page.)

Until today I had never heard of a Mystique card for the Mac as Matrox only sold Millennium and Millennium II Mac models at retail. Apparently Matrox made an OEM deal with Umax for a 2MB Mystique 220 card version, which Small Dog lists for $49 currently. With only 2MB of VRAM, it would not be very useful for 3D (assuming it even supports at least RAVE). Also consider the fact there may be no software updates in the future. The Small Dog URL to Umax drivers has an error in it when I checked today, the correct link is http://www01.umax.com/supermac/download/#17. The driver page notes support for OS 8 (8.x I assume, but may or may not work with OS 9).

Many (mostly Newer Tech) L2G3 upgrade owners reported having no problems with any PCI video card as mentioned on my L2G3 Feedback page back in December. Mixed reports over the last year however, especially from owners of other brands of L2 cache slot G3 upgrades. G3 control software updates may fix some of these issues so check the website of your cpu card brand for them. Search my Rate Your CPU Upgrade database for other owner reports for your mac model. (Check there often for updates since as a one man run site I can't read all of the mail I get every day, so I may have missed owner reports sent via email.)

AIWA USB Tape Drive/PCI USB Card Report: This reader found a compatibility problem between the USB tape drive and a MacAlly USB PCI card:

"Mike,
Thanks for the response. My solution (which worked) was to return the MacAlly USB card and replace it with a Keyspan card, which is - according to the AIWA people- the only one which was known to work with the drive.

The issue is apparently the driver - the one which comes with the Keyspan is not the Apple driver, but an OEM version from Keyspan (they are not willing to post it on their site).

So much for the "U" is USB - I never thought that the card would be so specific in its preference for certain peripherals!
Thanks again.
-Warren Nagourney"

Warren's original mail noted he had many errors using Retrospec with the USB tape drive with Apple's 1.2 USB card support drivers. I suggested trying the later 1.3.5 drivers but that may not have solved the problem. I've added this report to the USB section of my FAQ for future reference.

Rainbow Six Mod: The Game News page has an update on a mod for Mac Rainbow Six and a link to an official Activision Mac Quake3 Arena support area.

AGP Rage128 Pro Cards Available: A reader sent a note that the Rage128 Pro AGP cards are available now for order at the Apple store. These cards promise up to 50% faster 3D and have a digital LCD port. For game performance reports search my Mac Game/Video Card Framerates database.

"I just saw this in the G4 forum. The Rage 128 Pro Kit is now available. I have one on order right now. (Apple Store->Accessories->PowerMac)

I figure for a $100 the card ends up being $50, because OS 9 is included (and required apparently). Glad I didn't get OS 9 yet!
Chris Wohlsen"

Getting mine on order now. These cards require an AGP slot so only the Sawtooth G4 systems are compatible. The Rage128 Pro ships will all new G4s (has since the early Dec. 1999 model changes).

Lucent 11Mbps Wireless PCMCIA Card Report: Howard Butler writes the new 11Mbps version of the Lucent wireless networking card works better in his PowerBook than the previous 8Mbps model:

"Mike,
Just wanted you to know that I just got the new Lucent 11 Mbs Wavelan card for my PB and it works great. With their prior card, the 8 Mbs "Turbo" I occasionally had difficulty having the card recognized in the PC card slot with the Powerbook, but no problem on a Windows machine. With their new card, I have never had a problem.

Distance coverage is no different and it appears speed is at least good and maybe better. Right now I believe it is the only 11 Mbs card available for the Powerbook as the Skyline by Farallon is only 2 Mbs. However, Farallon's software is nicer and gives you indicator of strength while Lucent's does not. Farallon claims they will be moving to 11 Mbs when the "silicon" becomes available.
Howie "

For more info on Lucent's wireless networking products see www.wavelan.com and visit their WaveLAN IEEE Turbo 11Mb PC Card product page. The device is made by ScalarScopes (http://www.scalarscopes.com/) and

Mac USB Microscope Info: Several readers wrote to ask for more information on the Mac USB microscope shown in our first page of MWSF 2000 photos. The Scalar Scopes web site is http://www.scalarscopes.com/. Their http://www.scalarscopes.com/vl7ex/vl7exmain.htm page looks similar to the USB Microscope but has a different interface. I'd contact them for more info on the Mac USB version. I've updated the Tuesday news archive page to include this info.

For those that wanted more info on the e.light check http://www.elight-usa.com/ (Thanks to Matthew Culmore for the links)

HiVal (Toshiba) 6x DVD Drive Report (CVGS Compatible?) I'm amazed that CVGS works according to this reader as well as DVDs, etc. What is really odd is the comment of it being a slave drive with apparently no master IDE drive (I've asked for verification on this). Maybe the Beige G3 rev 1's don't care since they only support one drive per channel (cable).

"Hi Mike,
Just thought I'd like to pass along this info on getting a dvd player to work with ati xclaim vr 128 in a beige G3. I have a 233 Beige G3 MT. A few weeks ago I got a ati xclaim vr 128 and then I read about the hacked apple 2.0 dvd software to work on any mac. I thought this sounded to good to be true. So today I went out and bought a HI VAL 6xdvd/32xcdrom drive. It is ide and my beige g3 is rev A, so I can not add anymore ide drives.

So I just replaced the apple 24x cdrom with the HI VAL one. I had to set the drive to slave to get it to boot up and also had to use the apple dvd/cd extension from os 8.6 as the os9.0 one would not boot past a few extensions loading without a freeze. So far the dvd drive can read all my cds I have tried, dvd cds, psx game cds for virtual game station(vgs still works great btw), and all my audio cds (I can still even make mp3 from cds with soundjam).

My only complaint is that the dvd software is not very good for fullscreen video, the movie the X FILES plays great even in full screen with sound with the actors voice, but the movie American Pie plays horrible even in a normal window, It lags as if it was scratched, but its not, its a brand new dvd and the voices do not align the actors after a few minutes of full screen play. Hope this helps someone out.

OH and btw under apple sys profiler it says my HI VAL is really a Toshiba, go figure;)
Sandy"

Hi-Val doesn't make any drives, they OEM them from sources like Pioneer, Toshiba, etc. Many of their DVD drive kits (10x) seem to be based on Pioneer drives which had really mixed reports here in the past. I've added this to the other DVD drive reports in my FAQ's DVD section which also has other DVD info/links. Two weekend's ago I posted a note on the Memorex retail box 6x DVD drive kits that contained a Toshiba 6x (SM1212) drive that were sold out at the local Office Depot (and Best Buy).

MBDF Virus Report: A reader notes his copy of MacSnake was infected with the virus. As reported yesterday, XLR8 had reported several upgrade owner's problems were actually related to MBDF infections. (Note: In late December there was a release of a virus-free MacSnake at Versiontracker.)

"just thought I'd let you know that I had an MBDF virus a week or so ago, and I attribute it to MacSnake. It was the only infected stuffit file that I had. It wreaked havoc on my system, but everything's running fine now. TTYL.
-Rob Avina"

I'm not sure where Rob obtained his copy of MacSnake or what version it was but he said he had just downloaded it a week or so ago.

Maxtor Drive Free Photoshop LE Offer: If you buy a Maxtor hard drive at Staples be sure to ask for the free Photoshop LE coupon (they have them here). The offer is valid for kits starting with ST01, ST04, K01 and K04. Kits starting with K01 or K04 must be 20GB or above. The coupon is available at www.maxtor.com as well. (Thanks to Steve Weisel for the reminder.)

I'm created a iDisk Tips/Issues page to accumulate reader feedback, issues and tips for future reference. The iDisk tips and comments from yesterday's news are listed there now. The page is linked in the sidebar here under 'Storage Related' and on the SCSI/IDE/HD topics page.

Speaking of the Rate Your CPU Upgrade database, last night I added more entries from the weekend. Some were missing data (fields left blank, etc.) so I've had to mail the authors for this info prior to posting, but there are now 2,973 total entries on literally every upgradeable Mac model and upgrade brand.

For a blast from the past see what was on the front page news here one year ago.

Monday's News Summary

• Mac ATA/66 IDE Controller Card Status (Acard, Prodirect, Blackfire)
• Maxbug Disables DVD
• Virus Notes: MBDF virus reports on rise
• Hard Drive Upgrade Guides (Biege G3/B&W G3, iMac)
• My Q∓A/DVD info added to my Mac 3dfx VSA-100 card page
• OS 9 Performance Tip
• More Maxtor HD Sales (18GB for $140)
• iDisk Tips
• OS 8.1 Hack and iDisk
• Another VR128 Video Extensions Loading Tip
• iCar - Drive Different!
• MW Expo Summary Comments
• External IDE Drives
• L2G3 Upgrade Video Card Tips at www.mac3dfx.com
• Game News page updated for Q3 vs UT review, more.
• What's a Microbook?
• Sonnet PB1400 G3 Upgrades Pre-Orders at OWC
• Rate Your CPU Upgrade, Mac Game Reviews, and Mac Game/Video Card Performance searchable databases updated
• Forum Topics in G4 Forum and 3Dfx Forums.
• Other Net News

Weekend's News Summary

• Phase 5 Lowers CPU Prices and announces G4 upgrades for Starmax/4400,etc.
• Rate Your CPU Upgrade, Mac Game Reviews, and Mac Game/Video Card Performance searchable databases updated
• FAQ's 3dfx video card topic area has link to Glide screensavers
• 3Dfx Mac VSA-100 Card Q&A - DVD Player to be in the box! (First Mac silicon due Monday)
• iDisk Problem Report
• Our 3rd page of MWSF 2000 Pictures incl. pix of Steve Jobs
• Forum Topics in G4 Forum and 3Dfx Forums.

Friday's News Summary

• Another page of MWSF 2000 Pictures incl. pix of the iSub, VST Tri-Media drive and comedian Sinbad.
• Mac Technician Jobs available
• Aurora Video Systems announces uncompressed video option for Igniter
• Supra 56e USB Modem - No Caller ID/Distinctive Ring
• Thinner Ckt Card on CPU Upgrade Cards Note
• More on Onstream Mac Drive Pricing:
• Pros/Cons on MacOS Apps under OS X
• Pioneer SCSI DVD Drive & Hacked CD/DVD Extension
• Mac Game Artists Wanted
• Possible iDisk Storage Demands
• Casady & Greene has released an 8.1 update to Spell Catcher 8.
• Forum Topics in G4 Forum and 3Dfx Forums.
• Other Net News

Thursday's News Summary

• Interesting OS X GUI comments in forums
• OS X and MacOS Apps - faster than OS 9?
• OS X Mac Model Support
• Comments on Creative Labs MW Booth
• More Toshiba DVD Drive Reports
• MWSF 2000 Picture Gallery incl. pix of VST 100GB FireRAID.
• PF Dual G4 page has photo and details on the card
• 3dfx press release on Mac retail VSA-100 cards
• Mac Onstream 30GB SCSI Drive
• CarrierZIF Wins MW Eddy
• OS X GUI Discussion
• Toshiba 6X DVD Drive Report
• Patched DVD Player/Pioneer DVD SCSI Drive Report
• Midiman Audio Card Report
• Rate Your CPU Upgrade, Mac Game Reviews, and Mac Game/Video Card Performance searchable databases updated with new entries.
• Forum Topics in G4 Forum and 3Dfx Forums.

For links to older news pages see the Archives page.

The recent features page has a lists reviews/articles you may have missed.

For a guide to finding answers to questions - see my Site Guide page.

Considering a CPU Upgrade? Check the CPU Upgrade Owner's Survey results and search for owner reports by Mac model and/or card brand. Readers post new entries daily and the database is updated several times a week. The current database has more than 2,800 reports and growing.

-Freq Asked Questions