Quicktime 4.12 or Quicktime 5, os9.04 or 9.1?

[ccstudios]

I have just recieved this beautiful 9600/350 that I bought on the DUC and I am rebuilding the system.

256 Megs of RAM, internal 4 gig disk

I put my ATI Rage 128 (OEM) an OEM Adaptec 2940UW, a USB card, my digi001, and it has an ASANTE 10/100 card and a ATI XCLAIM 3D PRO (From Apple System profiler, kinda wierd as I dont think this was the original card) already installed.

I installed OS9 (custom install with ATI and 9600 video drivers as well as the IXMIcro drivers (I have a ultimate Rez card from IX Micro I may use in place of the Xclaim 3D Pro), installed OS 9.04 update. installed the ProControl CDEV from adaptec for the 2940 card. installed the USB card drivers from Apple. I also installed the latest drivers from asante

Should I upgrade to 9.1 as well? What about Quicktime 5? Is there anything else I should update or do? What about PCI slot order? I heard that this 2940 is too fast for digi systems, is this true? or does it make a difference as long as they are not on the same bus (3 pci slots per bus). I also read that the adb and seriel ports as well as the built in scsi bus runs off one of the pci buses. which bus and should I keep the digi001 off this bus?

I havent installed PT yet as I am waiting till after I install everything. Also I still have to register and recieve my updated PT's LE disks.

[billbo]

IMO I'd say go ahead and upgrade to 9.1

For Quicktime, unless you have a G3/4 upgrade in there, you should stick to QT 4.12, 5 seems sluggish on a un-accelerated 9xxx series to me.

Before I give you my opinion on the slot order, just a FYI, slots 1 and 4 are Bus Mastering Slots. This basicly means that their priority (as far as the CPU sees it) is Slot A0 (the TOP Slot, or slot 1 as I call it below) B0 (slot 4)->A1->A2->B1->B2.

Now, the Adaptec is a Bus mastering card and usually likes a Bus Mastering Slot, and even though the Digi Cards like having the same amount of intention, I have my AMIII in slot 3 on my 9500 and I haven't had any PCI related PT's errors, so, taking the above into account, here's just the slot order I'd try out 1st:

<UL TYPE=SQUARE>1-the Adaptec (lowering your burst rate to the 10/20MB should clear up the problems you suggested)
2-your Digi ____ card
3-Asante
4-the RAGE
5-USB
6-IXMicro[/list]
Or you can substitute your digi card in slot 4 and mix up the rest to your taste.

That's just an opinion.

As for the 4GB disk, do you have any other SCSI drives for audio??? I'm assuming that you have some sort of 68pin drive if you have the Adaptec card.

I have my SCSI-2 (50pin) drives (the drive my system folder resides on at ID-0, my audio drive at ID-1, another drive I use for storage at ID-2 then CD-ROM ID-3) all on the Mac's internal SCSI bus. Even though I'd like to have LVD 15,000RPM HDD's and a external RAID, the setup I have now, things are running rock solid for me.

You can email me if you'd like if wind up with any weird/bizarre behavior.

[ccstudios]

Thanks Bill, this was exactly the informaion I was looking for. I knew there was a Bus Mastering issue with the 2940 and the 9xxx series Macs, this should help me. I will keep the 2940 in slot 1 and possibly the digi001 in slot 4, it may be smart for me to definately keep em on different buses.

I should have elaborated on my drive system more. I have:
1. my internal 4 gig drive
(HD Speedtools reported 8 megs transfer rate, is it possible it is ultra narrow?)
2. a 9 gig ultra narrow drive that will be my audio drive (maybe on the internal fast scsi bus or to the internal 50 pin on the 2940, what do you think?)
3. a 2 gig ultra wide drive (my only wide drive) that I was thinking of hooking up to the internal wide connector on the 2940.

I'm sure I will get some other ultra wide drives eventually that I will put in an external case. I have a 4 drive case with some 4 and 2 gig drives (all narrow slow scsi) and the noise it ommits is sickening so I may go internal for it all. Maybe another matching 9 gig narrow ultra (internal) and that's all I think I'll ever need. Should I put these internal ultra narrow drives (non system) on the 2940 or use em on the built in fast scsi bus like you do? Then again if I purchase another drive maybe it should be a ultra wides. But, I dont think I need to move data at 20 megs a second, 10 should be more than enough and thats why i think I dont need wide drives if anything I heard using too fast drives will take bandwidth from your other pci cards.

Thanks again for all the info.

[Kevan Staples]

Having used a 9600 with a Newertech G3 card I would suggest sticking with OS 9.0.4. We had three Protools systems here running on 9500 and 9600s and all of them had problems with 9.1 for some reason. Now of course your milage may vary as apparently Bilbo's did. I'd also stick with the ATI 3D card as I had that as well and it was good. I have no experience with the ixmicro and they don't make them anymore therefore drivers may/will be outdated. As to slot order, it's almost a crap shoot. I was never able to reliably run my systems with the Video card in the last (bottom) slot and yet others have no problems.

Kevan

[billbo]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by ccstudios:
I should have elaborated on my drive system more. I have:
1. my internal 4 gig drive
(HD Speedtools reported 8 megs transfer rate, is it possible it is ultra narrow?)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, the SCSI-2 spec is supposedly suppose to max out at 10MB's.


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>2. a 9 gig ultra narrow drive that will be my audio drive (maybe on the internal fast scsi bus or to the internal 50 pin on the 2940, what do you think?)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think it'd be fine putting this on your 9600's internal SCSI bus. That Ultra Narrow 9GB drive sounds to me like it's a Seagate Barracuda, and if my assumption is correct, you'll have good results recording your audio onto it.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>3. a 2 gig ultra wide drive (my only wide drive) that I was thinking of hooking up to the internal wide connector on the 2940. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's exactly what I'd do!.
Even though all manufacturer's of SCSI HBA's claim that your card will work fine with your old SCSI-2 drives, you'd be shooting yourself in the foot adding one to any Wide bus. The difference between the SCSI-II, FastSCSI-II, SCSI-3, LVD etc...etc..., is that any SCSI device that was made to the SCSI-3 + spec, is using 16bit data streams, as opposed to the earlier SCSI-2's 8bit. As the old addage "-is only as good as its' weakest link" goes, you can apply that to any Wide SCSI devices.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Should I put these internal ultra narrow drives (non system) on the 2940 or use em on the built in fast scsi bus like you do?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I wish I had pics/jpeg's posted somewhere on the web to give you a sort of idea of how I finaly filled up my remaining SCSI-2 ID's on the 9500's Internal bus.
But, YES, that'd be my advice, keep your ultra narrow, narrow, SCSI-2 drives on your 9600'S internal bus.
My (the) 9500('s) has a very poor case design compared to your 9600/350.

As a tangent, I'll admit to being proud that I don't use the external DB25, 5MB's per second SLOW SCSI-2 connector on the back of the 9500 anymore.

For an idea of how did this even though I couldn't fit any more drives into my case, I found a SCSI Port Adapter Bracket (just type this in a search, and a easier thing to look for is A2Z Cables).

It allowed me to add my External CD/RW, Scanner, and some old Full-height (backup) 5.25" Seagate Elite drives I'd had just lying around without having to purchase a HBA.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Then again if I purchase another drive maybe it should be a ultra wides. But, I dont think I need to move data at 20 megs a second, 10 should be more than enough and thats why i think I dont need wide drives if anything I heard using too fast drives will take bandwidth from your other pci cards.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, keep WIDE drives on a WIDE bus, and Narrow drives on a Narrow bus and your SCSI chain(s) will be a lot happier.
Now, I wouldn't completely agree that HBA's take up that much of the PCI bus's bandwidth.
I will get a HBA eventually, but that'll be to run U160 15,000RPM RAID array's that PT's LE won't ever like too much, but any Video capturing I ever do will sing!!!

Now, as for <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originaly posted by Kevan Staples:Having used a 9600 with a Newertech G3 card I would suggest sticking with OS 9.0.4.We had three Protools systems here running on 9500 and 9600s and all of them had problems with 9.1 for some reason. Now of course your milage may vary as apparently Bilbo's did. I'd also stick with the ATI 3D card as I had that as well and it was good. I have no experience with the ixmicro and they don't make them anymore therefore drivers may/will be outdated. As to slot order, it's almost a crap shoot. I was never able to reliably run my systems with the Video card in the last (bottom) slot and yet others have no problems.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

One thing I had to interject regarding Kevan's reply, is two things.

1-He's completely right about the ixMicro, but I've heard that the last drivers they released worked under 9.0-9.1

2-IF you're going to upgrade your CPU in the 9600, be warned, A-Newer Tech is no longer in business (they made the first compatible G4 upgrade, but.....) AND, their cards require you to have a specific sort of RAM. Now, most people will tell you that any ol' G3/4 Upgrade will work, BUT, if you want a no hassle solution when (notice I don't use any if's about this) you decide to up the CPU in your 9600, don't even bother with anyone else than http://www.xlr8.com/ upgrades.
They're the most compatible with PT's (Newer Tech's are/were too, but of course they no longer produce CPU upgrades).
When they first released their G4/450 upgrades there were problems when using the lower 3 slots in 6 slot Macs.
However, they have found a fix for this issue and are Beta testing right now.

Just thought to throw that in there, because sooner or later you will run into a RTAS "You're running out of CPU Power. Remove some plug-in's ....." error message, and you'll finaly decide that it's time to upgrade your CPU. I'm personaly waiting for the fixed G4 to come out and when it does, this 9500/200 will be screaming along.

[ccstudios]

Thanks for all the help, I really do appreciate it. I'll keep that in mind when I get a g4 upgrade. It probably wouldnt be much benefit to getting a g3 over the 350 so I am going to wait as well but as soon as the prices come down I will. Thanks again.