Hi, Last fall, I tried to set up my J700 in a similar manner with a Sonnet 800Mhz G4 card. I got as close as you did, too. OS X would sometimes run, sometimes for about an hour, but eventually the system would completely lock up and nothing short of powering the system down and back up would help. And since the crash was unexpected, it seemed to leave some of the apps in a bad state, often resulting in apps that would never start up again unless I reinstalled OS X. After over a month of tweaking XPostFacto, swapping memory modules in and out, I finally called Sonnet and asked the tech support person point-blank if there was a known problem with their Crescendo 800 Mhz G4 card and the J700. The tech person told me that they were having lots of reported problems with this, and he said that one of the problems may be due to the fact that the Crescendo 800 Mhz card requires that memory NOT be interleaved. Unfortunately, in the J700, there is some memory soldered to the motherboard that cannot be removed or disabled, and this memory IS interleaved. I then asked him why Sonnet continues to imply that this card could be used on a J700 and also with OS X, and he said that the marketing department is responsible for the claims on their website. He also told me that their tech support for their OS X helper software only extends to the actual installation of OS X, and they aren't responsible for any problems after installation (i.e. if it actually works or not). I asked about the possibility of returning the card for a refund, but I had had the card for too long, so that wasn't allowed. So I gave up and bought the new G4 Powerbook, and my J700 is now a high-performance 9.1 machine. Had I only been aware of this problem, I'd have bought one of their slower cards. I still find it odd that this accelerator card, which works fine under 9.1 would not work under OS X. This is the first piece of hardware I've encountered which became incompatable wtih installed memory due to an OS upgrade. By the way, I recall seeing info about a jumper that can be used to disable the cache, which may also be causing the problem. On my J700, these jumper pins don't exist on the motherboard, but the holes where they'd be are there. The S900 may in fact have these jumper pins, so disabling the onboard cache may help. Should you ever find a way to get this card to work, please let me know.
Ken > I know this is a recurring theme here but I am hoping for a flash of > inspiration from someone. Like many on this list I have OS X (10.2.6) > running great, if a little sluggishly, on a S900 with a 350MHz G3 card - > so I know the system is fine with OS X. I have (foolishly?) tried to > upgrade to a Sonnet Crescendo 800MHz G4 in order to get OS X running at > a more usable speed. (Needless to say, Sonnet's tech help was worse than > useless, bordering on insolent!) After months of trying the various > set-ups and voodoo charms suggested on different lists I have got within > a whisker of success. Running the hard drive from the external (slower) > SCSI, performing the Sonnet tune-up v1.2.7 (while in G3 OS X > configuration), using only recently purchased and matched 4X128MB RAM, > and XPost Facto (throttle set at 16) to select the OS X start-up disk, I > can get my S900 to run OS X. I get the standard blue screen, the dock > (even some start-up apps launch) and even the disk images, then it > sometimes fails and requires a restart. Othertimes I can attempt to > launch items and they fail during launch. I can open windows for every > hard drive except the boot volume (which crashes when I try. Getting > this close is agonizing given all the effort that has gone into making > this work. If there are suggestions for a tweak or optimization that > might help, please, please, please....... > > John -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.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/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
