G4 upgrade, the Six Slot Problem, where to slot the Digi001 interface card

[H E A D W E R K ' N]

Hi there,

I have a 9600/G4 which is slowly being turned into a ProTools/Graphics machine as funds allow. When complete, the system will use a Miles2 LVD SCSI card/system for the ProTools stuff, 2 Rage128 video cards, a combo Firewire/USB card for mouse/keyboard and my iPod, a 100BaseT Network card for tranferring stuff from my PC faster and of course the Digi001 interface card. (phew!)

The problem is that earlier G4 upgrade cards like my Sonnet G4/350 suffer (or cause) something known as the "Six Slot Problem" which affects Mac 9500 and 9600 machines. The issue is apparantly that these processor upgrades run into problems when "bus master" cards, like Firewire, USB, SCSI and IDE cards, fail to work when placed in the last 3 slots (known as Slots D, E and F) on the logic board.

Now that presents a real problem, cuz I planned on using all 6 slots!

In terms of efficiency in data transfer (especially because the Miles2 LVD card plus a few LVD SCSI drives can transfer data so quickly it can saturate the PCI bus), I was told to go with this order of cards (by a guy at MacGurus, incidently, these guys know their stuff).

Slot A - Miles2 SCSI LVD controller
Slot B - Rage 128 Video Card #1
Slot C - Firewire/USB Card
Slot D - Digi001 Interface Card
Slot E - Rage 128 Video Card #2
Slot F - 100BaseT Ethernet Card

The logic behind this is that the 9600 has twin PCI buses (Slots A-C and D-F) so putting the two high transfer interfaces (Miles2 SCSI controller and the Digi001 interface) on separate buses so when they're working at peak data flow (ie. recording 18 tracks at once, which I plan on doing via an analog to ADAT converter) each card won't be affecting the other's performance.

Now knowing about this Six Slot Problem, I probably should swap the Ethernet card for the other Video card (they are bus-slave cards, thus won't affect the computer's ability to operate).

The question is - what about the Digi001 interface card?

Can anyone with a 9600-based system or someone from Digi help me out??? I'm really worried that my attempt at an affordable ProTools system may end up being more problematic (and more expensive) than just buying a newer G4 system!

Kindest Regards...

[naireko]

I have a 9600 and a 9500. both computers run sonnet crescendo G3 pgrade cards.

9600/350 has 450mhz/1mb sonnet crescendo
slot 1-6.....
digi001
video card
usb
firewire card
video
ethernet

9500/200 has 400mhz/1mb sonnet crescendo
slot 1-6...
2940 scsi card
usb
video card
lexicon
video
ethernet

The 9600 works great with the digi001 just like that. Your right about not wanting the scsi card to rob all the bandwidth so you put it on a different bus like you said.

Keep in mind the SSE issues and get a SSE (six slot edition) G4 upgrade.

My 2940 requires the 1st slot because of bus mastering, not sure about your scsi card. If someone can clear up with 'which slot' on a 9500/9600 it would be cool.