Updated 4/19/2004 (See end).
A DVD upgrade to non-EIDE PCI PowerMacs (7500, 7600, 8500, 8600, 9500, 9600, etcetera) is feasible. A 7300/200 was G3'd with an XLR8 ZIF carrier and a 333 MHz G3 pulled from a Beige G3 Server. The G3 was overclocked to 350 MHz. A faster CPU, say 500 MHz, would obviously be better, but there were no hangs in the operations of the various Apple DVD Player controls at 350 MHz. (Hangs were occasionally observed when using the 7300's original 604e 200 MHz CPU). A FLASHed Radeon 7000 was installed. Apple DVD Player 2.7, patched as required, was installed, as was the required ATI software. An EIDE DVD drive, Matsushita SR-8583 was installed. This drive had been previously FLASHed to be RPC-1, using Firmware X54A. The DVD drive was connected through an UltraTek 66 controller with its original, pre-OS X firmware. Intech CD/DVD SpeedTools 6.0 was installed, allowing the EIDE DVD drive to be simulated as a SCSI DVD drive. CD/DVD SpeedTools acquired the audio through the simulated SCSI channel, so it was not necessary to connect the mobo's audio cable to the DVD drive. MacOS 9.1 was the OS. The above-described composite machine would successfully play Region 1 (North America) and Region 2 (Europe) DVDs. In the case of Region 2 DVDs, the PAL DVDs played as well as the NTSC (Region 1) DVDs. (I tried a Pioneer DVR-105 CD/DVD ROM-R-R/W drive, but I didn't have much luck with this device). Update ... I have confirmed that the Pioneer DVR-105 will not work in any other than CD-ROM and DVD-ROM modes, when connected to an UATA card, and supported by Intec CD/DVD SpeedTools 6.0, in the configuration described above. I have also confirmed that a generic CD-ROM-R-R/W will work in both CD-ROM and CD-R modes, under the same test conditions. (I did not confirm booting from the CD-ROM, however). Therefore, it appears quite feasible to make an all-EIDE/all-UATA machine, based on a 9600, say, which supports both DVD playing an CD writing over EIDE devices and boot and general purpose internal storage over UATA devices. Such a machine would have, say, two PCI cards for drives, an UATA/66 card for the DVD-ROM and the CD-ROM-R-R/W, and an UATA/66/100/133 card for one or more hard drives, a Radeon 7000 for general purpose video (the 9500 and 9600 require a PCI video card as neither of these have on-mobo video, so a video card is required, anyway, and it might as well be one which can support DVD playing), and other cards as necessary, say, a USB card for one's digicam, and a FireWire card for one's advanced digicam or external storage. I have already confirmed that generic USB and FireWire cards work in a PTP 225 (both 604e and G3'd), and a 9500 and 9600 should be fine, too, as the PTP is really just a 9500 (same ROM and chipset, only a different RAM capacity ... 1 GB vs. 1.5 GB). -- 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
