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Mac Forum / General / Hardware / March 2006Problems reconditioning a B&W G3 tower
Hello, I purchased a 300 MHz Blue & White G3 tower recently. I determined it was in working condition, however it came with a dead harddisk and revision 1 firmware, which means that it will write errors to any newer harddisk connected to its primary Ultra ATA controller (yes, I tested this for myself and it's perfectly true..). This, however, has not deterred me from attempting to recondition the machine. I purchased a SATA controller for it; a "Serial ATA PCI-Mac" SATA controller, which I believe is otherwise known as a "Seritek/1S2 SATA host card", though I'm not entirely sure of this. The card was promised to boot OS X on SATA harddisks up to 400 GB in size. I put the info the System Profiler found about it at the end; it is not identified as Serial-ATA; the harddisk is identified as being ATA. Upon putting a 120 GB SATA harddisk in my machine, things appeared to be promising. The Mac OS X installer appeared to recognise both controller and harddisk and I effortlessly partitioned the harddisk. I went ahead and attempted to install OS X Tiger on the harddisk. All went well; after the compulsory reboot it continued from HD (it booted OK that is) and completed the installation process, right up to the "Optimizing System Performance... - Finishing Installation" bit. Then the installer stalled. The log only showed that the process had begun, and no amount of waiting seemed to matter (I tried up to 20 hours, no go). I tried this several times, no go. I tried installing Panther instead, it just crashes when you try to boot from the (sucessfully installed) partition. I did a bit of research and discovered it was most likely stalling during the prebinding process (at least under Tiger, who knows what under Panther). I booted a botched installed Tiger partition in single user mode to try and force prebindings to be compiled and I got an error - something about too many dyld errors. The update prebindings program quits straight away; my guess is the installer doesn't recognise the prebinding app failing like this and waits forever. I did even more research (fearing money wasted) and discovered under Mac OS 9's Apple Profiler app that the system is assuming my SATA card is a SCSI card. This appears to not be a good thing. I have spoken to others who say they have this issue with SATA cards in B&W Macs and they say they never found a solution to running OS X successfully using one due to it. Can anyone suggest a way to force the silly Apple hardware (or software?) to stop treating my SATA card as a SCSI card (if this indeed is true!), or am I stuck with not running OS X on this machine? Could OS X be patched somehow, or a firmware option be set? Could XPostFacto help, and if so how do I get it going? - I have tried XPostFacto 4.x under OS 9 but it seems to not work correctly (it likes running under OS X only, strange for an app that's meant to help you install OS X!). I really want to avoid buying more equipment for this machine - I just want it to work properly. Any suggestions? :) Help... -- mattabat As it appears in the Hardware - PCI Cards section of the Apple Profiler: 2-ch SATA Name: Generic-3512-NR4 Type: ata Bus: PCI Slot: J10 Vendor ID: 0x1095 Device ID: 0x3512 Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x3414 Subsystem ID: 0x3512 ROM Revision: 1.0 Revision ID: 0x0002 > Hello, > I purchased a 300 MHz Blue & White G3 tower recently. I determined it > was in working condition, however it came with a dead harddisk and > revision 1 firmware, What version of the BootROM is shown in the System Profiler? There was a firmware upgrade for this machine. My B&W Rev 1 shows a BootROM of 1.1.1f4. > I purchased a SATA controller for it; a "Serial ATA PCI-Mac" SATA > controller, which I believe is otherwise known as a "Seritek/1S2 SATA > host card", though I'm not entirely sure of this. The card was promised > to boot OS X on SATA harddisks up to 400 GB in size. > Can anyone suggest a way to force the silly Apple hardware (or > software?) to stop treating my SATA card as a SCSI card (if this indeed > is true!), or am I stuck with not running OS X on this machine? Could > OS X be patched somehow, or a firmware option be set? I wouldn't necessarily worry about the disks showing up as SCSI. I have a Sonnet Tech ATA 66 controller in my B&W. Both ATA disks show up as SCSI. Everything works fine from System 8.5.1 through OS 10.4.x. What may be indicating trouble is that your card shows the disks as SCSI in System 9 and ATA in OS X. That does not seem right to me. Suggestions would be to 1.) check to see if the firmware update for this machine was installed or try reinstalling it; 2) check with the manufacturer as to how it is supposed to be seen by the computer SCSI or ATA; 3). try a different PCI slot. This card did get a positive review at <http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/firmtek/>  SignatureMatt Broughton Only relatives are absolute. > > Hello, > > I purchased a 300 MHz Blue & White G3 tower recently. I determined it [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > a firmware upgrade for this machine. My B&W Rev 1 shows a BootROM of > 1.1.1f4. Yes that's correct, my Rev 1 B&W G3 tower has a BootROM with version 1.1.1f4. > > I purchased a SATA controller for it; a "Serial ATA PCI-Mac" SATA > > controller, which I believe is otherwise known as a "Seritek/1S2 SATA [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > manufacturer as to how it is supposed to be seen by the computer SCSI or > ATA; 3). try a different PCI slot. I tried reinstalling the firmware, it says the firmware is upgraded already. (The card manufacturer appears to offer no software upgrades for their card, whether they be drivers or firmware.) I'll contact the manufacturer when I get half a chance.. assuming of course I have the right manufacturer :) I've tried recently to put the card in the 66 MHz slot. It seemed unstable when I tried to install the operating system after the first reboot - it tends to crash. But I'll give it a better looking over at the weekend (the crashes *may* not be directly related to the card going in the 66 MHz slot - I'm thinking heat for some reason, might try moving the graphics card about) - however the behaviour *is* different to how it behaved in the 33 MHz slots I tried it in before. Anything different is good, as someone once said. > This card did get a positive review at > <http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/firmtek/> Yes it did, interesting, as was the advice offered. That's why I'm trying it in the 66 MHz slot :) > -- > Matt Broughton > Only relatives are absolute. I disagree - relatives are relatively absolute (depending on money supply). -- mattabat Just trying to install now - "Optimizing system performance - Finishing Installation" again... and yes I think it's jammed again. Moving the SATA card to the 66 MHz slot, or between the 33 MHz slots, doesn't seem to make a difference. Sometimes I could throw things at it :/ Any other suggestions? -- mattabat > > Suggestions would be to 1.) check to see if the firmware update for this > > machine was installed or try reinstalling it; 2) check with the [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > to how it behaved in the 33 MHz slots I tried it in before. Anything > different is good, as someone once said. A couple of other things you could try. Reset the CUDA chip. The button to reset CUDA is on the logic board just to the right of the battery. On the B&W, there are two similar looking buttons next to the battery. The CUDA button is the one closer to the battery. It has been recommended by more than a few that anytime you change hardware inside the case (exception possibly for RAM) you should press the CUDA reset button. One other thought. If you can get a copy of memtest <http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14004> on the computer and boot into single user mode, you could test the RAM. This is also one of the leading causes of problems with OS X. Each version of OS X seems to more picky about the RAM. SignatureMatt Broughton Only relatives are absolute. I just thought I'd let you know - I finally got it going :) It turned out the main problem was the operating system on the CD not quite supporting my SATA setup correctly. It turned out 10.4 does not support SATA as well as 10.4.3 or higher. My solution: I took a handy G3 iMac, made a installation of OS X on a small harddisk, updated it to 10.4.5, disconnected the small harddisk and placed it on the secondary ATA channel in the B&W, cloned the entire contents of the small harddisk to the SATA harddisk using the Restore option in Disk Utility (having partitioned the SATA harddisk earlier), and Bob's your uncle... - I tested updating prebindings under 10.4.5 on the B&W and it works like a charm. This begs the question: how would I have solved this problem with my 10.4 bootdisks and no iMac at my disposal? It's all well and good that Apple is now providing 10.4.3 in its Tiger boxes, but this wouldn't have helped me here anyway as the B&W had a CD-ROM drive, not a DVD drive, and I am of the understanding that Apple no longer offer Tiger on CD (correct me if I'm wrong). - Could I make OS X install CDs myself corresponding to 10.4.5? (I know something like this existed for Panther users..) My only issue now is figuring out the following issue: why does the B&W freeze when I initiate rapid file transfers from my iMac to it via builtin Ethernet over my LAN? It operates for a small amount of time (at most a couple of minutes) then freezes. I have witnessed it unfreeze after a minute or so, but usually I am obliged to force a reboot. Internet connectivity seems unaffected, it seems to be primarily a problem when the builtin Ethernet is pushed to its limits. I tried changing Ethernet in the preferences from 100 to 10 but it seems to autonegotiate anyway to 100. (I am using a modern Nway switch.) Back in the OS 9 days, an unofficial tool was made for OS 9 that forced such changes to the built-in Ethernet (as well as half-duplex - full duplex options - I found it at http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/MultiCo untry/Macintosh/Misc/Duplexer_Tool.smi.bin ) but I am unsure of this utility working under OS X. Does anyone have any idea or suggestions? :) -- mattabat > I just thought I'd let you know - I finally got it going :) Thanks for the follow up and the additional information. > It turned out the main problem was the operating system on the CD not > quite supporting my SATA setup correctly. It turned out 10.4 does not > support SATA as well as 10.4.3 or higher. I'm curious how you determined this. The manufacturer lists the system requirements as 10.2 or greater for OS X. I'm also surprised that there was no mention of this on the Apple MUG article I linked to earlier. <http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/firmtek/> Even more curious as that Apple MUG group mentions that the card supports deep sleep in 10.3.5 and the article shows a copyright date of 2004 -- well before OS 10.4 let alone 10.4.5. I suppose that incomplete support was the reason that the card showed up as an ATA card in one system and a SCSI card in another OS version. How is the card listed now in 10.4.5? Does it show up as SATA? I'm not doubting your experiences, I'm just wondering why there is such a discrepancy between what is supposed to work and what worked for you. Matt SignatureMatt Broughton Only relatives are absolute. However similar it is to a Firmtek card, I tend to believe the compatibility issues are different for this particular card *even though* it uses the same chipset. The manufacturer included a brochure (not listing who made it or anything) saying that I don't have 10.2 to test. I tried installing 10.3 on it, the installation refused to boot correctly. (The "spinning ball" turned into bars, every time.) I tried installing 10.4 on it, and it refused to complete the installation due to update prebindings failing. (It failed no matter what you did - i even tried updating prebindings in single user mode and it failed!) I cloned a known good 10.4.5 install to it, and it works, update prebindings and all. My information on 10.4.3 was with another SATA user who noted a significant improvement in SATA support with 10.4.3 - but I have only tested with 10.4 and 10.4.5. It appears currently as a ATA card, providing a third ATA bus; the Serial-ATA Hardware section says "No information found" - just like before. (This doesn't necessarily mean the kernel isn't recognising it as SATA though!) -- mattabat > However similar it is to a Firmtek card, I tend to believe the > compatibility issues are different for this particular card *even > though* it uses the same chipset. The manufacturer included a brochure > (not listing who made it or anything) saying that Thanks for taking the time to clear this up. I went back to your original post. I guess I miss understood that it was a card _like_ the Firmtek. I had read that as it was a Firmtek card and was therefore struggling trying to understand why your experiences were different. Matt SignatureMatt Broughton Only relatives are absolute. > Hello, > I purchased a 300 MHz Blue & White G3 tower recently. I determined it [quoted text clipped - 66 lines] > ROM Revision: 1.0 > Revision ID: 0x0002 if i'm not mistaken your firmware should be updated from 1.0 to 1.1 i have a rev 2 B&W and have had no problems running a sonnet ata/66 card and 10.4.5 JB |
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