Advantages of Power Tower Pro 225 over 9500

[tld]

Any advice out there as to what the advantages / disadvantages might be of the Power Tower Pro 225 over the Mac 9500 (for a PT24 Mix+ system)? I've seen posts recommending them over the 9500s.

Tom Dexter

[AdamFrick]

My understanding is that PowerComputing is no more - which means little tech support.

Also, our IT guy here used to sell powercomputings and has nothing but bad feelings for them. The one we have left is picky - and trying to get inside it to add cards or memory is less than a picnic.

However, I can't speak for a 9500...

-adam

[Disco_Doctor]

The advantages are:

The PowerTower makes it a breeze to add drives, RAM, PCI cards. The 9500 is the the absolute WORST Mac ever made when it comes to this. Installing PCI cards is a nightmare. The PowerTower has four 5.25" removaable drive bays, and three 3.5" internal drive bays. The 9500 doesn't.

My PowerTowers all run great, and have since the day I got them. Parts are available for PowerTowers at www.dttservice.com .

In reply to Adam's post: it's not like you're going to get any more useful tech support for a 9500 than you would for a PowerTower. You're not going to find a 9500 that still has warranty service. The company at the URL above can overnight you parts for a PowerTower. Apple probably doesn't even have parts for the 9500's.

If you're gonna buy an older Mac for your PT rig, the PowerTower 225/250 or a 9600/300 or 350 is the way to go.



[This message has been edited by Disco_Doctor (edited 12-08-99).]

[ppine]

The PTP is built like a tank... mine has taken beating, after beating..and still works like a champ..it actually fell 4 feet once off a shelf, and got a huge dent in the top, but continued to function flawlessly...so it kinda has battle scars, you might say.

I even carved out a hole with a dremal tool on the back to mount an external SCSI connector for access to my 2940U2W fast internal port, that otherwise would have been available only to my internal drives..

It looks like frankenstien, but runs like a champ...

[Philee]

Hi
I have PTP 225 upgrade with G3 processor. This thing really flies without any crash. Also I have Protool 3 all configured internally, including two hard disks. I also installed internal CD-RW so you can literally produce CD on spot.. anywhere. It's heavy but design to last long.

[tld]

HAHA...(note to self: chop hole in computer...drop on floor). Actually ppine, thats a pretty resourceful way to use that scsi bus.

Thanks all for the replies. I ordered a used Power Tower Pro 225 yesterday...it's on the way. Sounds like a pretty good alternative to those rare pricey 9600s.

I posted a similar question to daw-mac. About the only negative inputI got (and I've seen this mentioned elsewhere), is that it is apparently a real bitch to put memory in them. This is something I'm going to need to do actually. I'm also going to get the NewerTech G3 300 upgrade as well.

If anyone has any guidance on installing memory in those, or knows of an online resouce on the topic, I'd appreciate a post. If it looks too difficult once I see it, I know a local shop that'd probably do it pretty cheap.

Thanks again for all the info!

Tom Dexter

[Kris]

It is a pain , but you can do it yourself,,, just open it up and take a look..

[ppine]

Don't even sweat the memory thing..

[Ray Lyon]

I have a PTP 225... how much of a performance boost is there in a 300 mhz G3 upgrade card? Is it really worth it?

Also, if your PTP 225 has a twin turbo 128 video card make sure you download the latest drivers from the ixmicro website... the older drivers cause the PTP to crash whenever the dynamics II plugs are instantiated.

RAM isn't that hard to install on this machine either...

[tld]

Ray,

I can't yet speak first hand on the G3 upgrade (don't even have the computer yet ), though I get I've heard great things about it. I can tell you that the price of the 300/200/1M NewerTech has recently gone down. computers4sure.com has them for $269.