Promax Responds On TurboMax Pricing/ACard ATA66 Cards: I also received this comment from Promax, sent via a reader who obtained permission from Promax to publicly post this here:

"Mike, some info from Charles McConathy (President of ProMax) in reply to a post I sent to the Digital Video mailing list (DV-L) about the ACard ATA-66 PCI IDE controllers for Macs.
Regards, Pete.

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From: Charles F.McConathy
To: Peter
Subject: Re: ATA-66 PCI IDE controller cards for Macs
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 2:54

Charles, with your permission I would like to post your reply to xlr8yourmac.com.
Regards, Pete.

It is ok to post as you see fit. Also let be known that Acard has not been able to write a ROM Flasher that runs on the Mac thus any field upgrades will have to done using a PC not a Mac which further makes my point is that they are not experienced Macintosh developers will take some time to learn the issues, etc.

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Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 10:57:22 -0800
From: Charles F. McConathy
To:
Subject: Re: ATA-66 PCI IDE controller cards for Macs

peter@xxxxx wrote:
With the recent price hike again of ProMax's TurboMax (ATA-33) card good to see that there looks like several cheaper options supporting the faster ATA-66 IDE protocol for Mac on the horizon (see column from xlr8yourmac.com below). ACard apparently were the OEM supplier for ProMax's TurboMax ATA-33 cards. It is also rumoured that Promise (well known for PCI IDE controller cards in the PC arena) are preparing Mac drivers for their cards.
Cheers, Pete.

[Promax's Charles McConathy replies]

My two and half cents on ACARD's ATA-66 PCI card.

Acard indeed built the TurboMAX-33 base card (modified from what they normally shipped for PC for Macintosh) but they did not furnish the Macintosh firmware which is paramount to being compatible on various versions of PCI Macs under different versions of MacOS. We install the ROM here in our shop after burning it with our code.

We evaluated the new 66 card and found a long list of issues. We have stuck with the proven ATA-33 card since it stable, works fine with ATA-66 drives, and offers great performance more than enough for demanding audio video applications, and has fewer cable issues...cables for faster I/O must be right same as what happens with SCSI. The ATA-66 bursts faster but is not all that much faster in long sustained transfers since it the head to media (or internal) rate of the drive that is the limiting factor.

Free advice...wait until the firmware is proven on the 66. Historically PC based companies are not close to Macintosh and usually take two or three rounds to get drivers and other firmware issues right especially those companies not here in the USA. I base this on many years of experience...take it for what its worth. We could have been selling the 66 card already being a very large customer of Acard but told them until you fix the list we would wait. So far I have not heard back so I take it they are shipping anyway. I/O host adatpers be they SCSI or ATA are not easy especially in the new PCI bus of the G4's. OSX (System 10) will break a lot of drivers. Will Acard be ready for OSX...who knows? I know we will. And remember that not all ATA drives are created equal...some drives behave very well land others do not. A combination of a disk drive with marginal firmware and a card with unproven firmware (brains) could spell disaster to data. That is the reason we did not approve the card.

As to our price increase. We invested a lot of money to get the firmware working on the Macintosh. It was not easy and will become even more difficult as OSX arrives later this year. Acard raised our price using all kinds of excuses. Our tech support calls were much heavier than expected...seems as though Mac types don't understand jumpers (master/slave) and cables. Our support bill and returns were much higher than expected...and we are selling through resellers now, thus the increase.

End of my 2.5 cents worth...
Charles F. McConathy, President
ProMax Systems, Inc. - Irvine, California "

For more info on the Turbomax ATA/33 controller, read my full review. I have high hopes for the Acard ATA/66 controller, but until I can get time to test it fully, buyers might want to wait, unless they can specificially get compatibility confirmed with their system/drives and disk driver software before buying. Since Apple drive setup would not install drivers on the card I have with a new Maxtor 27GB attached, I'll have to try Softraid 2.2.1 drivers for a test. (I'm not sure what firmware version the card has, since Apple system profiler doesn't report it). BTW: The Acard ATA/66 ships with a 80-conductor cable, required for use with ATA/66 drives when used with a ATA/66 controller for improved shielding/noise reduction.

My review of the PowerLogix PowerForce G4/350 will be posted on Monday. As noted in Thursday's news, I solved the problems I had with Opengl games, Virtual PC 3.0 and Soundjam MP 1.6. This required adding new test results and rewriting the review, which was a lot less positive before the solution to this problem was found.

Next up are reviews of the Wired4DVD card, the PF G4/400, Newer Tech G4/400 and ACard ATA/66 card. (A one man run site makes it tough to get reviews done as quickly as I'd like, as the support mails, news, databases, site work, etc. is a daily job that consumes more than 10 hours a day of my time.) The new server I hope to have online in February will have an automated news system to eliminate all the HTML work, which will be a major time saver. If there are any experienced Mac users in the Charlottesville, VA area that would like to help with product reviews, (either testing or HTML/graphing of data from my tests) please contact me.

Audio Tip for VR128 Owners Running OS 8.1: A Beige G3 owner notes the (old) Audio Tuneup 2.0 software for specific Macs like the Beige, 4400, 5400 solved his VR128 loss of audio problems. (Note this update is not needed for OS 8.5 and later according to the Apple TIL linked below.)

"I'm cured!!! Just got the ATI 128 VR w/TV today. When moving from the Xclaim Video Player to any other app, or vice versa, I was losing sound settings (reverting to none). Found a tip to Apple's AudioTuneUp 2.0. If you have OS 8.1 you probably will need it. Get it at

http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n10176

Installed it, and no more loss of audio input settings! Everything is working fine. I was able to capture video at 320x240 at ~30fps. Have not tried larger windows. I drive a PowerMac G3/233, 288MB, OS 8.1, QT 4 Pro, QD3D 1.6.
Justin Bonaparte"

I'll be adding this to my VR128 Feedback page.

QT 4.1 Streaming Audio Problem: An iMac 333 owner reports that streaming audio didn't work with the QT 4.1 update:

"Hi Mike, Well I had to give up on the new QT. The last straw was discovering that streaming audio would not work at all. Streaming video worked , but had no sound. So I am back to QT 4.03 and all is well.

OS 9 running on an iMac 333 Rev D and on a Powerbase 180 (with PowerLogix 300 card). Changing out the sound manager [to the previous version-Mike] did fix my Myth problem, but it did not allow streaming audio to work. I also tried putting audio update 1.2 on the iMac but it made no difference. Since 4.03 was stable and everything worked with it, I don't see the immediate need to switch.
Elliot "

Sawtooth G4 Rev 1 vs Rev 2 Differences: In reply to a question in the G4 forum I thought I'd repeat it here. The question was what is the difference in the original (rev 1 I guess) G4/AGP systems and the ones shipping now.

1. Rage128 Pro card - faster clock speed, fan, Digital LCD output port
2. Later stepping G4 (2.7 or later, mine is v2.6. 2.7 has less errata)
3. No Intel network chip on the motherboard

The cpu module and basic design is of course the same. See the systems page for details on the Sawtooth CPU module.

G4Strip CSM: Bob Friede wrote to say the helpful csm out now called G4Strip v1.1.1 (http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA014067/g4strip-e.html) you might take a look at. G4Strip v1.1.1 is a helpful utility with cache ratio choices and other performance info options. Be careful in boosting cache speeds, they can hurt reliability and cache speed doesn't seem to add much benefit in real world apps over the default 2:1 (half CPU speed) setting.

Reader Request: Networkable Printer/Copier A reader asked if anyone knows if there is a networkable (shared) Printer/Copier (Laser w/postscript) for the Mac? I'm not sure if these types of printer/copier combos have an Ethernet port or option for one. If anyone knows please contact me.

GeForce Drivers - Just Rumor? There's a thread in my 3dfx/gaming forum on the subject of the rumored drivers possibility noted in yesterday's news. [Note - eventually Nvidia cards were offered in new Macs, but not at retail yet as of early 2002.] Like the TNT2 driver hoax last fall, some wonder if this is just more grist for the rumor mill. As noted here before, publicly nVidia has said no Mac retail cards are planned several times, but left the door open for an OEM deal with Apple (which would mean potentially millions of units, vs. the tiny fraction of the market from AGP card sales - remember only a fraction of 1% of Macs in use now have an AGP slot, and the GeForce is not available as a PCI card).

Ratings Databases Updated: The Rate Your CPU Upgrade, Mac Game Reviews, and Mac Game/Video Card Performance searchable databases were updated again with new reader submissions.

Looks like Apple made a good investment in Samsung - News.com is reporting their profits are up more than 900 percent.

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

Friday's News Summary

• Bottom Line's latest weekly specials
• CDW's sale on B&W G3/450 systems/Apple LCD bundle
• Last Word on VPC USB Printing
• Rage128 Pro Cooling Fan Comments
• Rumors of nVidia Mac GeForce Drivers
• Orange Micro Firewire/USB Card Tip
• More Sound Manager Update Game Problems
• iMac DV/OS 9 Audio Update 1.2 Feedback
• VPC 3.0/OS 8.6 USB Printing
• Newer Tech GaugePro Released
• Orb Tools 1.3
• Rate Your CPU Upgrade, Mac Game Reviews, and Mac Game/Video Card Performance searchable databases updated

Thursday's News Summary

• ATA/66 IDE Raid Performance
• Western-Digital exiting high-end Hard Drive business
• Reader Request: VPC 3.0 USB Printer Support with OS 8.6?
• QT 4.1/OS 9 Audio Update 1.2 DVD Audio Sync Feedback
• Quicktime 4.1 Sound Manager Causing Game Problems:
• Audio Update 1.2 Download Link
• Notes on my 9600/350 G4 Upgrade Issues and Fix
• Aqua Kaleidoscope Theme
• GameSprockets 1.7.3 Available
• Analog Video to Firewire Tip
• More Analog Video/Firewire Converter Feedback
• WiredInc Firewire Products
• Odd DVD Audio Sync Fix Tip
• More on G4 vs 1GHz Althon RC5 Benchmarks
• Another Competitor for Intel? (Fast, 1 watt CPU design)
• Today's Forum Topics in G4 Forum and 3Dfx Forums.

Wednesday's News Summary

• Quicktime 4.1 Released/OS 9 Audio Update 1.2
• Canvas 7 G4/Altivec Update
• Free BeOS Not Apple G3/G4 System Compatible [updated]:
• G4/450 RC5 Results Verified - Faster than 1GHz Athlon
• RamDoubler File Mapping Performance Impacts
• Firewire PCI Cards w/G3 Upgrade/QT4/OS 9 Report
• Sony Analog Video to Firewire Adapter Feedback
• Advantages of RD9 vs OS 9 VM
• Firewire PCI Cards/QT 4/G4 Upgrades Issue?:
• Analog Video to Firewire Converters
• RC5 Performance of G4 450 vs 1GHz Athlon
• Turbomax IDE Card A/V OK in 9600/350
• BeoS for Mac and PC to be released for free
• Rate Your CPU Upgrade, Mac Game Reviews, and Mac Game/Video Card Performance searchable databases updated
• Today's Forum Topics in G4 Forum and 3Dfx Forums.

Tuesday's News Summary

• Speed Doubler 9 Requests (write Connectix request)
• Jam-Packed J700
• Recommended Reading: Apple Confidential
• Caution Note on 8500 RAM/Cache Upgrades
• Ram Doubler 9 Feedback
• Softraid Cache Tweak Tip
• Wired4DVD Card in Apple G4 Macs
• More Pioneer DVD SCSI Drive Feedback
• More on E100 Firmware Bug/G3 Upgrade Cards
• Incorrect Shared Volumes Size
• Rate Your CPU Upgrade, Mac Game Reviews, and Mac Game/Video Card Performance searchable databases updated
• 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