Hi Jeff,
thank you very much for your exhaustive and enlightening reply. I'm especially interested in the implications of this statement:
Bandit 1 actually supports four PCI devices. There are the three PCI slots, but there is also the Grand Central (343S1125) chip, which is a PCI device. Grand Central collects the I/O signals for the PM motherboard and sends them to the PCI bus. So all of the ethernet, sound in/out, floppy, SCSI, etc. signals go through Grand Central and end up on the PCI bus 1 supported by Bandit 1.
Bandit 2 just supports the bottom three PCI slots.
Actually I'm having a lot of troubles with the 3 Yamaha audio cards in the 9600. The 3 cards presently are in those topmost PCI slots (A1, B1, C1). The Mac frequently freezes when I hit the play or record button in Cubase (VST 5.1r2), especially if it's reading or writing some audio tracks, and *ALWAYS* freezes when a lot of MIDI data are streamed through its MIDI interface (Opcode Translator Pro, connected to both serial ports).
I notice that Bandit 1 when I use Cubase is managing:
- data streams coming from (and going to) the 3 audio cards;
- data streams coming from (and going to) the two hard disks (internal SCSI devices);
- and probably data streams coming from (and going to) the MIDI interface (serial device).
Taking all this in consideration, I'm not that surprised that freezes are that frequent, now that a G4 processor moves around a lot of data a lot faster and thus is pushing the system to the limits and maybe beyond!
Actually, the system was pretty stable with its relatively slow stock 604ev/300 processor. It's a wreck now that it sports a G4/700.
By the way, it's not completely true that the system is a wreck: it is only when I'm doing audio. When I use the 9600 for other tasks (graphic design with Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, FreeHand, or web design with GoLive, Flash and FireWorks, authoring with Director, and even 3D with Cinema 4D and LightWave), the system is beautifully stable and fast. The only problems I have, are with Cubase VST - definitely.
Tonight (it's 21:43CMT now while I'm writing this) I'm going to try new positions for the PCI slots. Looks like my Mac will experience another night of PCI Kamasutra... ;-)
I'll keep you informed anyway.
Thanks again,
Roberto Giannotta Trieste, Italy
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