Re: [WinMac] MACWEEK: G3 upgrade cards unstable?

jeff thorstad(thorstadj[at]macconnect.com)
Mon, 9 Nov 1998 14:36:16 -0600

>Opinions vary among the accelerator card companies that acknowledge the
>incompatibility. Newer Technology said it has known about the problem since
>it started working with the PowerPC 750 processors and has developed a
>hardware fix -- one that requires about $30 in silicon per upgrade card.
>"If you're not using a Newer Technology upgrade card, you're running a
>serious risk of losing data," said Darryl Hinshaw, Newer's vice president
>of engineering.
>
>Sonnet Technologies agreed there is a problem but said it has a fix in the
>form of an extension that loads at startup and tweaks a bit in the memory
>management unit to prevent the processor from incorrectly accessing the I/O
>memory. Newer disputed Sonnet's claim, saying that fixing the problem when
>extensions load leaves the user open to damage during the early parts of
>the boot process.

>PowerLogix said it also recognizes the problem, but it insisted that,
>outside of a few "notorious" cases, the average end user is extremely
>unlikely to run into difficulty. Mark Reviel, PowerLogix's vice president
>of engineering, said the benefits of fixing the problem would be minor
>compared to the cost and delay involved in engineering a solution. "These
>problems are nonexistent in G3 Macs," he said. "We may go back and address
>it if the market gets stronger, but right now we're more interested in the
>future."

>Dantz then tested accelerator cards from PowerLogix, XLR8 and Newer
>Technology. According to Dantz Vice President of Marketing Craig Isaacs,
>"Newer's cards worked. The others didn't." Isaacs said that while running
>the XLR8 and PowerLogix cards, "At between 50 Mbytes and 500 Mbytes of
>copying files, the computer freezes. It doesn't happen every time, but it
>is extremely reproducible" -- four out of five times.

This is not overly surprising. Newer has had more expensive cards at
every level of processor upgrading. XLR8 has been infamous for a higher
(highER, not necessarily high overall) failure rate due to such things as
clock chipping and other shortcuts that can affect stability. PowerLogix
has spent less money, put out less expensive products. Some feel Newer is
better, as in "you get what you pay for". Sonnet has been fairly stable
and makes one of the better products.

So Newer using a hardware fix, Sonnet using a software fix, and
PowerLogix claiming no fix is necessary fits in with their past practices
IMHO.

Personally, I've only used one upgrade-from Newer-and it worked great,
though it was well before the G3 came out.

> I used to recommend Sonnet's cards; and I do NOT recommend ANYTHING from
>Newer Tech since they don't honor their warranty. For those of you
>considering upgrading your 604 Mac, I advise standing by for the moment.

This sounds like a common computer company problem. I'm glad it never
came up for me. As for the problems Dan mentioned about Adaptec SCSI
cards, it also is not surprising. Every time any new software or hardware
this major comes out, these SCSI cards need a fix to work right.

Jeff T
thorstadj@macconnect.com

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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Mon Nov 09 1998 - 13:16:31 PST