Hi Michael,
I happen to own a 9600 which I thoroughly put to many tests, because I use it for relatively demanding tasks: audio and MIDI (with Cubase VST 5 and several audio plug-ins), and graphic design (with Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, QuarkXpress, GoLive, Flash, LightWave, Cinema 4D, Director,...).
All of its 6 PCI slots are populated (full specs of my system available in a previous post of mine, in the "Which PCI Mac is BEST ?" thread), and the CPU upgraded to G4/700 (Sonnet).
They also have the two different motherboard types and speeds: 50 MHz on most and 46 MHz on the 233 MHz 9600.
Actually all 9600's have the same motherboard speed, but the speed varies in function of the processor's speed (it must be a submultiple of the processor's speed).
Are there unique problems associated with upgrading the earlier Tsunami or later Kansas boards , with the two different types of processor cards that are incompatible.
I will probably be putting a processor upgrade card into whatever 9600 I get. Are there any problems I should know about with one type being more finicky or unstable than the other ? Is the extra-large power supply on the 300 MHz model a notable plus or not ?
All current Sonnet Crescendo upgrade cards are compatible with all 9600, I learnt.
I found that extra-large power supply handy since I put inside my 9600 pratically all I could... although I think a lesser power supply could have been sufficient, so in my opinion the power supply is not a vital issue.
An issue particularly affecting 9600's, instead, is that PCI cards interact between themselves and can lead to serious performance and stability problems. I passed several nights to sort these problems out indeed - but I did sort them out at the end :-)
I found some interesting material on line about the subject. Here's a useful link which leads to even more useful links (scroll the page until you find "I have a 6 slot Mac (or Mac Clone) and am having difficulty getting my new FireWire PCI card to work properly. I also have a USB PCI card installed."):
http://eshop.macsales.com/Tech/index.cfm?load=FAQ/index.cfm
This link talks more about PCI expansion chassis issues rather than about two Bandit chip systems (like the 9600), but it's enlightening nevertheless.
Generally speaking, when populating PCI slots you have to (amongst the other things):
- choose carefully the PCI cards (I had to replace a VillageTronic MP540+3DO video card with an ATI Radeon because I discovered that it was causing serious troubles to the audio cards, and I had to replace a 4 port USB card with a 2 port USB card for stability issues);
- in case, swap positions of cards in PCI slots until the system works best (keeping in mind that those six PCI slots are basically two dinstinct triplets of PCI slots, where the A1-B1-C1 triplet is managed by one Bandit chip, and the D2-E2-F2 triplet is managed by the other Bandid chip).
Besides, since the 9600 can be upgraded to a very complex system, it's advisable to generally to pay particular attention (more than with other PCI Macs) when choosing components and periferals - and their software drivers! (I have a 7500 upgraded to G3/400 that never gave me problems, even with bits �refused� by the 9600 - like the MP540+3DO, which ended in the 7500's PCI slots and works smooothly there, besides a Korg OASYS PCI:-)
Finally, if you plan to throw in a G4 processor, good quality RAM modules are a must.
Roberto Giannotta Trieste, Italy
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