>Subject: Re: 8500 boards >Date: Thu, 30 Jan 03 10:01:01 +0000 >From: pdimage.fsnet.co.uk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>> What's the difference between these 8500 boards? One is an >>>>820-0564-09 TNT Motherboard VAL-4 the other is an 820-0752-A. Is one >>>>"better" than the other? I am going to assemble my 8500 project and have >>>>these two (and more) boards to choose from? > > The board I have in my 8200/120(PPC 601) case is the 8500 A/V >'820-0752-A' and has a 'Nitro' sticker on it - it had a 120 PPC 604 >processor in it and I believe it's 40mhz bus speed - did the 8500 boards >ever come in 50mhz bus speed? > I saw a 8600/200 on the auctions described as 'non Kansas' - what is >it if it is 'non Kansas' - an early 8600 with a Stormsurge? or a >Frankenstein? I thought all the 8600/9600 models were Kansas motherboard. This has been causing confusion for ages. Apple should not have re-used the 8600/9600 names for the Kansas machines. They should have been 8700 and 9700 or something. 8500: really horrible case 8600: essentially 8500 motherboard (slightly different power connector and updated ROMs) in a much nicer case. 8600 Enhanced: Nice case of the 8600 with a Kansas motherboard, newer ROMs, etc. Still the motherboard is basically the 8500 motherboard with the Kansas ROMs, the cache slot removed, and a few minor changes to the CPU connector wiring. Shipped with Mach V PPC604e CPU card (250 MHz or faster) with 1 MB in-line cache on board. 9500: Really horrible case 9600: 9500 motherboard with slightly different power connector and slightly updated ROMs in a much nicer case. 9600 Enhanced: Nice case of the original 9600, with Kansas motherboard. Kansas Motherboard has soldered down L2 cache removed, Kansas ROMs installed ($77D.34F5) and slightly modified wiring to CPU slot. Shipped with Mach V PPC604e CPU card (250 MHz or faster) with 1 MB in-line cache on board. The Kansas machines get so much attention that folks forget about the pre-enhanced 8600 and 9600 but they were sold for a while. You can tell the difference with a visual inspection by teh missing cache slot (8600) or missing soldered down L2 cache (9600), but my favorite way is to read the ROM part numbers off of the chips. The original 8600 and 9600 have four ROM chips numbered 341S0280 through 341S0283. The 8600 Enhanced and 9600 Enhanced have four ROM chips numbered 341S0380 through 341S0383. On the 8500/8600 the ROM chips are on the underside of the board. On the 9500/9600 they are on top of the board. The ROM chips are four chips 1.1" X .5" with 22 pins on each long edge, 44 pins total per chip. At the time, the Mach V CPU card was really a nice feature. Today, with G3 and G4 upgrades very affordable, the thing that makes a Kansas machine special is the ROMs. They properly support Speculative Processing, so it isn't necessary to disable it when you have a G3 or G4 in a Kansas machine. The lack of the motherboard cache on the 9600 Enhanced is also nice, but you could get that by using a PowerTower Pro (cache slot instead of soldered down). Also, the Kansas ROM can be installed in the earlier machines to get pretty much all teh benefit it provides on the later machines. I've built a few Kansas ROM DIMMs which plug into the ROM slot of a 7200, 7500, 8500, 9500, etc, disable the motherboard ROMs and take over. But enabling Speculative Processing turns out to not be a tremendous benefit, so really, you're about as well off with an 8600 as an 8600 Enhanced, because they both have the nice case. Jeff Walther -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
