> Now, I'm planning to get a Sonnet Crescendo G4/700MHz for $215 (on eBay - > new and boxed) and try it with the PM9600. Did anyone have good or bad > experiences with this card? Problems? Stability issues? Hangs? Or is it > Paradise? :-)
I bought the same card about a year ago for my 9500. A very good card. There were, however, a few nasty surprises. After installing the card I found that my video card (IXmicro) was not supported; had to buy a new video card. This is mentioned, I believe, on Sonnet's web page (but I didn't notice it until it was too late). Had to update some software (including the OS) to take advantage of the G4/velocity engine. The OS upgrade from 8.6 to 9.2 caused several other non-G4 related issues that had to be fixed and took time. Much of my memory, older memory, would not work reliably (massive memory errors during testing, odd freezes and crashes during normal use) with the G4/700, even though all this memory had worked very well with a G3/225. Had to remove most of my memory which I gave away. I went from 900+ megs of memory to 640, and that made a big difference to me, with all of the memory-hungery apps that I tend to run together and no longer can, at least until I buy more 128M sticks... There were a few others that I can't remember now; it probably took me a month-or-two to get all of the upgrade-to-a-G4 issues taken care of, and a lot more work than I expected. Overall, it was worth it I guess. Since it's done now and working. Since all of the above issues were fixed, it has run well and petty much without problem. However, with the G4 I would also very strongly recommend switching to ATA drives (via an ATA controller card) if you haven't already. The speed difference when using ATA133 drives is nearly as great in normal use, it seems to me, as the G4 upgrade itself. Together they are an incredible combination! Everyone, do yourself a favor. Switch to the huge, cheap ATA drives. They are amazingly cheap for their size (compaired to SCSI), and fast. ---Alex -- 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
