Happy Memorial Day - have a safe one. Kay and I are going to try to catch the new star wars movie and visit some family.

I've updated my review of the Kenwood 52X TrueX CDROM drive with results of Beige G3 Minitower tests comparing the stock CDROM to the TrueX in MacBench 5.0's CDROM series of tests. I've also updated the installation (text) guide to note the differences in the Beige G3/86/9600 and B&W G3 procedures.

Although the TrueX drive was bootable in the Beige and B&W G3, in the 9600 with the TurboMax IDE card I was not able to boot from a OS 8.1 CDROM in the TrueX drive. I've updated the review for this information as well.

As noted earlier in the weekend news, the XLR8 CarrierZIF card (with XLR8 400Mhz ZIF) has been running 60MHz bus speeds in my 9600/350. Yesterday it ran 100% reliably (over 3 hours of Infini-D rendering) at 450/225/60. As noted earlier, to run 60MHz bus speed I had to deinterleave RAM. I'll be testing more to see what bus speeds are possible with interleaved RAM later.

The 3D Game News has an update with lots of great info, including the latest info on Glide v1.1 drivers for Villagetronic's MP850, a preview of Unreal Tournament by Thresh (world's greatest Quake player) with screenshots (1600x1200?), info on a complete list of Quake3test console commands, MacMame and Descent I/II updates, tips/trouble report on Logitech USB mouse and more.

If you missed the notice in yesterday's 3D Game News page, Sierra has a poll that asks what area you'd like to see them expand their gaming expertise. Mac owners should go make their voices be heard. The poll is in the lower right side of the main page at http://www.sierrastudios.com/. They also have a Ceasar III Mac demo available for download.

The 3D Game News page has an update with comments on Microconversions closing and new company focus, Other World Computing specials, a mineral oil/active cooled PC site, New Falcon 4.0 patches and an unsupported RagePro update, E3 Net critic's game choices (mac games bolded), a preview of Heavy Metal FAKK2 (Mac/PC release), a patch to allow playing Carmageddon 2 without the CD in the drive, review links of Aliens vs Preditors and the new Star Wars episode 1 games.

I'm happy to report my 9600/350 is running the XLR8 CarrierZIF card (w/XLR8 400Mhz ZIF installed on it) at 60MHz bus speed. I had been running the card at 60MHz bus x 6.5 ratio in the PowerCenter Pro and moved the card over to the 9600/350 without changing any settings. I had never been able to run near 60Mhz bus in the 9600/350 before as only the XLR8 400MHz CPU card would run reliably at speeds of 50MHz in that machine. To allow the 60MHz bus speed I did have to deinterleave RAM (moving my dimms to all "A" slots) but I feel it was worth it to have basically a 6 PCI slot PowerCenter Pro so to speak. I like the feature of the XLR8 cache control that does a startup test of the backside cache to see what the maximum reliable speed is; which indicated with this ZIF 260MHz was reliable (I had a CPU speed of 390MHz at the time). I'm testing now at 60MHz bus with a 7.5 ratio (450MHz CPU) to see if that runs reliably.

Jim Tourtouras wrote with a link to an English page on the Formac Proformance3 (Permedia3 chip based) graphics card mentioned earlier in the weekend news.

Jon Ahlstrom wrote to say that contrary to the PB1400 owner with Newer Tech G3 upgrade comments, he is using RAMDoubler without problems:

" Mike,
I have a PB 1400cs with 36 MB of RAM. I also have the Nupowr 250/1mb G3 upgrade. I plan on increasing the memory soon but for now Ramdoubler is a lifesaver. I don't know why your other reader is having a problem. I am using the latest versions of Mac OS and Ramdoubler. "

Since virtual memory is not compatible, RamDoubler would be useful as a replacement since 36MB of RAM is not a lot of memory these days.

I'm also glad to report that my disconnect problems were related to my 2nd phone line. Connecting a phone to it shows that there is now noise there that wasn't present a week or so ago. I'll have to call the phone company (again) to see if they can correct this. A few weeks back there was a mixup and we were getting someone else's calls. I suspect that repair work may have introduced the problem on that line.

Colm O'Reilly, a WD Expert/B&W G3 owner that originally reported several days ago he didn't have the data corruption issue just wrote that retesting with large SMI (disk image) files indicated data corruption. Due to the many variables (cable quality, length, etc.) each B&W G3 owner might want to verify data integrity in their setup before assuming any drive is immune to the problem. Here is Colm's mail noting his new tests:

" hey mike, thanks for your continuing efforts...
i reported earlier that i had none of the symptoms reported in the FWB B&W G3 compatability article with my WD 18GB Expert (running as a slave on the ultradma bus in a B&W G3 350/OS 8.6/latest firmware), but i had only tried to mount small disk images and .smi's, upon further messing, larger images (over 20M) consistently exhibited the invalid checksum errors. needless to say, i was dismayed.

i have a copy of FWB 3.02, so i installed the driver and configured it per FWB's instructions to ultra DMA mode 1. after restarting, the corruption issue seemed to disappear. based on your comments about decreased performance upon making the mode change, i benchmarked the first partition of the drive (using HDT) before and after making the change from ultraDMA mode 2 to ultraDMA mode 1, and was surpised to see a slight *increase* in performance after the change... [a very small improvement was shown in his comparison screenshots of FWB Benchtest results-Mike] it doesn't make much sense, but, if it works, right? attached are screenshots of the benchmarks...[1.5GB Partition size tested] any thoughts?
thanks
Colm O'Reilly "

I asked him to retest with ATTO Tools benchmark to see what rates that reported (it does not use the OS Memory Control Panel disk cache by default - testing only the disk/interface performance). I would still prefer the use Apple's drivers as they are generally less headache when there are OS updates, and of course they are free (HDT isn't). The following table shows the specifications of the DMA mode transfer rates.

Per the table above, his FWB Benchtest rates exceeded the max for DMA mode 1, I can only guess that the 2MB cache of the Expert or system disk cache (Memory Control Panel setting) resulted in higher scores. Bill Chin (programmer) has questioned the accuracy of Mac disk benchmarks due to questions on timing accuracy in the MacOS.

Although I knew that MP CPU cards (dual CPU, etc.) were not compatible with Virtual Memory, I was not aware that G3 CPU upgrades for the PowerBook 1400 (Newer Tech) were also not compatible with VM. I just saw this in a new entry to the Rate Your G3 Upgrade database:

" Works as advertised and makes the PB1400 a usable computer again. Be aware however, that Newer Tech support confirms that this upgrade is NOT COMPATIBLE with either Apple VM or the currently shipping version of RamDoubler [Update - as noted above another PB1400/Newer G3 onwner says is running RD fine-Mike]. If you have all the real RAM you need this is a great upgrade, if you are RAM limited, buy a real G3.
david maynard "

Also included in the latest updates was the first report of the OWC $299 366/183 ZIF upgrade in a B&W G3. Apparently he tweaked the voltage on the module to obtain up to 450Mhz speeds (see reader article on this posted here several months ago -linked in the sidebar). His report listed the following Speeds at different core voltages:

Aluminium chip
(core 2.05V)=max:400Mhz/266Mhz/39C
(core 2.30V)=max:450Mhz/225Mhz/43C

Sorry the news is late - I had to take Kay out to comb the local yard sales (my weekend payback to make up for the time spent on the site every day). I actually got lucky myself as I bought two PowerBook SCSI Cables (one HD50, one Centronics) for $2.50 each.

Due to the many retests and hardware swapping required to verify the WD Expert/B&W G3 corruption issue (see last night's update to yesterday's news) I've not been able to finish writing other reviews like the Vimage G3/400ZIF and the installation articles on the TrueX drive. Bear with me - between all the ripping out and testing/retesting of drives, mail and the massive cleanup effort here it's been a very trying week. Hope you all have a great (and safe) Memorial Day weekend.

Bruno Blondeau sent info what appears to be Formac's Permedia3 based graphics card (the latest 2d/3d consumer cost chip from 3Dlabs) and other new products:

"ProFormance III - www.formac.fr/cartes_graphiques/index.html

Even if it is not written, it seems to be their new Permedia 3 card, 128 bit card with a digital output, 1600 x 1200 en 24 bits.
Claimed to be twice as fast as the Rage128 in the B&W G3.
Top notch 3D acceleration and perfect fluidity for QT and Mpeg movies

The price is still not shown (the expected release date is June 1999) on their site, but according to some mail order advertisement, it should be something like $390...

They also have
- a new UltraWide SCSI card called ProRaid Lite, which is about 10% cheaper than an Adaptec 2930.
- a new cheaper 17" screen with a B&W design
- a range of external devices (hard disks, cd burners...) with blue&white boxes
Bruno Blondeau "

This reader reports great results in a B&W G3 with three 18GB Cheetah U2 SCSI drives and ATTO dual-channel Ultra2 SCSI controller card:

" Mike,
To those readers considering using a B&W G3 for high end desktop video apps such as Media 100 XR setup I have some good news. Sick and tired of having my destop cluttered with 2 different cases, two breakout boxes, two monitors, etc., I was looking for a way to save some space. I took three of the new low profile 18 gig FAST CAT Seagate Cheatah drives and placed them into my B&W G3. I could not get the Adaptec card to work properly with these drives (I was going to dump this card anyway) as on every restart, the mode pages would change making the drives behave like dogs. I placed an ATTO-UL2D card (Ultra 2 dual channel) striping two drives across two channels and using the third as a startup drive.

I am happy to say that I am getting over 50 meg/sec transfer times with a much cleaner desktop. I know that people have been saying that these 10K Cheetahs run too hot to place internally--I think that with these new LP drives, the problem of heat has been conquered. The machine runs as cool as when I had a single 7200 rpm drive in there.

Placing these drives in the machine is a snap. So for those who don't want large external boxes save some money and space and try it.
Howard Butler "

I've never had any reports of the Adaptec card changing mode pages before - not sure it can do that really (it's set by the driver usually). My 3950U2B (Adaptec 64bit PCI U2 SCSI dual channel card) really flies. The U2 cheetahs run much cooler and the large fan in the BW G3 really helps cool the inside - note even the CPU runs hotter with the case open. I've not seen a heat issue with my U2 4.5GB Cheetah - much cooler than the 9GB first generation Cheetah and faster too.

Although I've defended Microconversions in more mails that I can count and I think their iMac Voodoo2 is a great product and a godsend for that machine, I have to say I found the comments in the Macweek article claiming that hackers were to blame for their failure a severe simplification of the problem. Several readers wrote of their frustration over never receiving SLI enabled drivers or a Control panel and difficulty getting a card last year. Let's just hope that things get better with the new company. It really does no good to argue about the past so I pulled the original post as it only stirs up old wounds. And the $49 PC Voodoo2 card pricing noted in the article is also suspect - just try to find that price in any retail outlet - most *voodoo1* cards are selling in that range, but PC voodoo2 cards are generally $99 at the dozen or so places I checked. Note that freely available Voodoo1 drivers were usable with PC Voodoo1 cards long before MC even announced a Mac Voodoo2 card.

More on the Yamaha 4416S problem waking from sleep noted in yesterday's news:

" Mike,
I use a PowerCenterPro with a MaxPowr G3 400 with OS 8.1. I connected the 4416S to the SCSI on the motherboard not the Adaptec card.

I did try to disable HD sleep but it did not help. [I asked if a disc was inside did the problem still occur-Mike] If a disk is inside, the drive remains mounted even after sleep mode. This worked but is not convenient because I would have to insert a CD in the drive every time I have to leave my computer for a prolonged period. And leaving a disk inside also interferes with my normal work because the drive has to spin up every time I try to save or open files.

I'm gonna contact Yamaha tonight to see if they can help(I doubt it). Thanks for the concern.
Erwin Sengco "

Another reader wrote he saw the same issue in his 9650 server:

" I encounter the same problem once while I was backing-up my system with Retrospect. During the back-up process, I fell asleep and I woke up about 6 hours later noticing that the drive have ejected the disk so I put a new one in and I notice that Retrospect didn't recognize the new disk. The On/Disk light was orange, it should be green since there is a disk on the drive.

I had to shutdown my system to get the drive working again.
Rotciv Biscocho, "

I still received no reports of generic PC100 DIMMs causing problems with ZIF Upgrades from the post in yesterday's news on Powerlogix's generic DIMM warning. I still suggest you buy PC100 DIMMs from a vendor that will certify they are good quality and work well in the Apple G3s, but I have not heard one report of problems with any PC100 SDRAM DIMM in any system. Note that ECC (Error Checking and Correcting) DIMMs or buffered DIMMS are not compatible.

Patrick Boen wrote that he's running a WSD Expert 18GB fine in his B&W G3 without the data corruption errors:

" Hi Mike,
You may remember my previous e-mail in April on using the WD IDE Expert 18.2 GB drive in a B&W G3. I have 2 of these installed right now on the fast IDE bus for over a month and I do not have any problems as noted by you and your readers and by FWB. I do recall, though that I had data corruption problems at first but then I found out that these went away when using short IDE cables. Please note that the WD documentation suggests using 18 inch or shorter cables. I tried several cables and ended up with a 40 cm (appr 16 inch) cable which now works fine. If you're not convinced, just hook up the drive with the original Apple single connector IDE cable. Boot from CD and run your tests.
Regards, Patrick "

I thought of the cable length but my test cable is only 14 inches long - as noted on page 2 of my BW G3 Slave article. It's a 80 conductor one as well (UltraATA shielded). The TurboMax card works with a 18 inch cable in the BW G3 with the Expert drive with no errors. The short OEM cable is not an option for me - I need two IDE drives and after swapping out the drives on that tray a dozen times in the last 3 days I'm not going to do it again. Perhaps I'll get another Expert drive at the next PC show and try it later as the master drive only with the short OEM cable. Right now 8 to 1 reports say the WD expert has the problem in B&W G3s. However shorter cables might help someone.

An ORB IDE drive owner wrote in response to a comment on it in yesterday's news:

" On xlr8yourmac, you wrote:
'I've had one report of an IDE Orb being used in a B&W G3, but the owner reported disk changes were not recognized until a reboot.'

Actually, when I want to change a cartridge, I just drag the drive's icon to the trash, eject the cart, insert new cart, and run Drive Set Up to mount the new cart. The Mac recognizes the new cart without problems... "

As noted in yesterday's news - a PC Magazine's tests showed the ORB IDE drive was the fastest removable storage they tested (beating even the 2GB Jaz drive). However having to run Apple drive setup each disk change is a negative and I'm leery of getting another format drive that may not survive the Iomega marketing giant in the long term. I hope the ORB survives - it seems to be a great drive with low cost 2.2GB carts.

Frank Sottile sent a note about an article on IBM's new S/390 servers with 600+MHz CPUs called Serving Up Copper.

Bodo Knudsen wrote that replacing his Grappler 930u SCSI card with an Adaptec 2930u fixed the problems he was having with a Seagate Medalist Pro 9.1GB Narrow UltraSCSI hard drive in his G3 upgraded PowerCurve.

If you missed the late update to yesterday's news there were additional details on the B&W G3/Expert hard drive data errors problem and a clarification to the 'x' series Motorola ZIF/CarrierZIF interleaved RAM issue.

If you don't check every day's daily news (updated several times a day normally) you might miss something valuable. Check the summary list below for highlights of the last two days news and the archives page for older new page links. For a blast from the past, read what was on the news page here exactly a year ago.

Other Net News:

• Senate, FBI Sites Down by Hack Attacks (News.com)
• Hackers Shut FBI Site In-your-face attacks will get more sophisticated, experts warn. (PCworld)
• Trojans Arriving by Spam (PCworld)
• MDK2: the Developer Speaks (Gamecenter.com)
• HushMail Offers E-Mail Encryption Free Web-based e-mail uses 1024-bit encryption between users. (PCworld)
• The Y2K Certificate Problem Come the new year, old browsers won't work properly with online merchants. (PCworld)

Friday's News Summary

• Clarification on 'X' partnumber (non-std) Motorola ZIFs and CarrierZIF
• WD Expert 18GB IDE drive verified data errors in B&W G3
• TurboMax fixes WD Expert/B&W G3 problem
• DiamondMax Plus drive has no data errors in B&W G3
• X series Moto PCI/Mem controller still used in B&W G3
• Norton Utils 4.04 update released
• reader review of the WD Expert, my B&W Info, B&W G3 Compatibility and B&W G3 Slave drive article, and TurboMax IDE Controller review updated with warnings on WD Expert drive/B&W G3 corruption
• CPU rumors - 10X G3 due summer, G4 Delayed??
• QT4 Beta 24 update
• Yamaha 4416S CDR waking from sleep issue
• VT MP850 driver update promised soon
• OWC Site special on 366MHz ZIFs
• Reader comments on latest MW CPU review article
• Speed Doubler/OS 8.6 comments (uninstall/reinstall/QT version issues)
• 3D Game News updated
• G3 CPU Upgrade Ratings database updated
• Other Net News

Thursday's News Summary

• Rage128's arrive at company (reader report)
• FWB B&W G3 Comment on data corruption w/some IDE drives
• Yamaha 4416S and Blue CDRs (Verbatum work/Memorex don't?) reader report
• Microconversions closes/iWonder opens
• Reader tip on using MotoDV card with Final Cut Pro
• HP announces first DVD+RW Drive
• Explanation of CDR disk colors
• Reader notes Toast update required for 4416S
• 3D Game News updated
• Still waiting on Powerlogix Z-Force
• Better Hardware & New Software... (Audio Column update)
• News.com article on iMac notebook (consumer 'book)
• TurboMax review updated for U2 Cheetah comparisons
• Starmax/Newer Tech speed bump reported
• Reader report on Phase5 G3/Umax C500 data corruption fix
• Beige G3/Newer Tech ZIF switch settings
• Readers raves about Falcon 4, bug report/patch
• Reader comment on PL G3 Cache Profiler 1.0
• Request for B&W G3/firewire compat. Videomail app
• Bottom Line weekly specials
• Reader comments on Omni Voodoo2 drivers
• Promax IDE/Softraid reader report
• Macsonly review of PF 466/233 ZIF
• Frequently Asked Questions Updated
• Rate Your G3 Upgrade database updated
• Other Net News

For other recent site news/features links, see the Sidebar to the right and the Recent Site Features page.

If you own a G3/300 or faster Mac, you might want to get our PPC Checker utility that will report if your CPU is copper or aluminum based.

Considering a G3 Upgrade? Check the CPU Upgrade Owner's Survey results and search for owner reports by Mac model and/or card brand. The database is being updated daily for new reports. Also make sure you ask your dealer about any issues with current builds of some models (ie PF G3) as I have gotten several reports of issues with certain mac models in the last few months (Mach 5, PowerBase, 7300). I urge any owners that have had problems to report this via the Survey Form. Always give the most weight to recent owner reports (dated in the listing).