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Power Macintosh 9600 issues

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raoulduke

Experienced Member
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Jan 14, 2015
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356
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I got a PM 9600 in a Marathon PowerRack from a pro audio guy today. It works more or less but I'm having really weird boot issues (and consistency issues) that I'm starting to suspect are the beginning of cap issues.

Until I can replace them I also strongly suspect for various reasons that the stock IXIMicro TwinTurbo 128 8mb card is dying. I don't have any replacements of that particular PCI type (I assume that's what's happening here; my both later and earlier VGA cards look nothing like this; likewise on my G4 which I assume is AGP, though).

So what's my cheapest replacement option? I don't use eBay but I will use Amazon; I just honestly don't really know how to search other than for the original Micro card, which I assume is not my cheapest option.
 
Yeah definitely the primary issue needs to be replacing the graphics card; at first I thought it was going "Out of Range" (message on screen) immediately after the Welcome to Mac screen ended and OS 9.1 loaded, but now I suspect the timing was just coincidental (because the uptime is pretty long) and it was just failing around that time. When I restart the same screen message is there. I suspect it's producing frequencies outside the normal scan range... which is bad.

So cheapest replacement card? (Unfortunately none of the PCI VGA cards I have seem to be the right PCI interface.)
 
What kind of monitor was being used by the previous owner? If the original setup was a CRT and you are using a LCD, its likely the card is outputting a mode it doesn't support. You are getting video, which indicates the card is working, at least at the default Open Firmware resolution of 640x480. Classic MacOS will switch to a user configured resolution during boot if a video extension is present, its likely switching to a high refresh rate mode or one of the funky Mac resolutions (832x624, or 640x480 with the oddball 67hz refresh). Try shift booting and see if you can get to a desktop. Another option to try is a boot CD and/or a PRAM reset.
 
I used a PCI Radieon 7000 (not be or anything the old one which of version is really cheap) which I removed the ROM placed on a larger one and used the software update

Hardest part is swapping out the ROM as its. Soic 8 surface mount package

here is a copy of the rom update for that card

http://cheesefactory.us/filecenter/R7000-ROM-208.hqx

so the pc version of this card (and some others) is 64k bit rom, the mac is 128kbit, that software above flashes a rom update on to the video card, so you can put a larger blank rom on the card (cheap at mouser or digikey), plug in your card (with the original card so you can see what your doing) run the updater then your good to go. I have tried this on a few cards, all were generic reference cards with either 32 or 64 megs of ram.

Side bonus you get some decent 3d and 2d performance is though the roof compared to the stock 9600 boatanchor of a card
 
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Thanks to both of you. NJRoadFan, I got the LCD from the original owner but we didn't actually talk about whether he'd used that. The files suggest he used this into 2003/2004, but I don't know about with this screen. It looks like the RAM order may have been screwing up boot (I have no explanation for that). It also appears all the display issues were the screen itself and not the card, though I might upgrade. But it does appear there was a mismatch between the display mode and what's supportable on my screen (which appears to be 800x600 @60hz max).

*Actually... I think it does the same thing on my new monitor. The display drops out and this (somewhat more diagnostically verbose) screen tells me to change display mode to 800x600 @60hz (which wasn't showing up as a recommended display, oddly). In this case I was doing something so I wound up waiting and the screen came back on [the long uptime was throwing this off]; then I changed it to 800x600 @60hz. On that prong of the problems, your suspicion was right, I think, NJRoadFan.
 
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RAM on these machines can be hit or miss. I have a 8600 that doesn't like certain combinations of DIMMs. Also, it may just be taking forever to boot due to running a memory test if you have a ton of RAM installed. It goes without saying, these machines support up to 128MB 5V EDO or FPM DIMMs, not SDRAM! With 12 slots, it can support 1.5GB of RAM, which would take a while to test on boot. Useful if you decide to run OS X via XPostFacto.
 
I definitely won't use this as my XPostFacto test machine, but I did look into maxing out the RAM (though OS 9 can recognize 4gb I have no use for 2.5gbs of RAM Disks; it can't actually use more than 1.5) - but it's very expensive still; shockingly so. I have 320mb in there; 10 32mb DIMMs. The RAM is part of the uptime, but it may be a caps issue also.

Weird, too, even set to 800x600 @60hz, it loses the screen and gives that same message as it's booting up regardless; then it comes back after a (non-hyperbolic) minute or two.

And I just checked; it's the 300mhz model. I should run some comparative speed tests.
 
I wouldn't think caps on this machine unless you're actually seeing leakage. The Power Macs generally don't have that problem (yes, I'm sure people have, but there are a lot of beige Power Macs around here and none of them have needed a recap to date). RAM does seem more likely.
 
I wouldn't have suspected cap issues either based on age; and though I'm not seeing leaking I am seeing minor bulging in some of the caps. These guys were using this in a studio so who knows how consistently it was being used before not at all for over a decade. In any event, for the moment the only remaining real issue is sluggish boot time, which I don't care that much about. It also has a mostly populated 4gb HD and I have no idea how the system is set up. Those are potentially more probable culprits.

My first move, btw, is to download Classilla.

*I removed the tape drive to fit an old early-90s full-height 1.5gb server HD in there (I have three that I have no use for; my original idea was to do this and take the 4gb Baracuda for a dead Rodime enclosure). Removing either the tape drive or possibly an incorrectly terminated or unterminated connection from the PCI SCSI card got rid of the weird video issues on boot (that I'm guessing were signal interference). [I'm downgrading to 8.6 for the occasion.] (And I noticed, because these are obscure drives and I haven't found the jumper schematics yet, the same interference recurred when I was installing 8.5 on the new drive, but not when I plugged in both the new and old drives (presumably termination was through the old HD).)
 
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The 8600 and 9600 are not known for their reliability due to a number of factors (including the PCI-PCI bridge not playing nice with various hardware and some SCSI devices fouling up the bus) however cap issues are typically not a problematic area unless the PSU has croaked.
 
I think you are referring to the 9500 and 9600 which are 6 slot machines and have card placement problems. The other issue with all of that generation of PCI Powermacs would be timing issues with IDE cards that can cause stuttering with video files. I have yet to recap a 7500/8500/8600/9500/9600 machine and I have quite a few.
 
I saw that and arranged the cards properly although I hadn't heard about that issue before; I don't think that's what it was. But one of the DIMMs was dead, so I removed that. I'm going to just keep the original HD for license reasons (even though I don't think transferring the data to another HD negates the license transfers under first sale I just don't think it's worth putting the full height in, and it'll probably overheat).

Though it's off-topic, any thoughts on what to do with these full height drives? [They came in a 486 case (but were used in the early-2000s) that didn't make sense to me except now I'm starting to assume it was actually just being used as a dedicated 3-HD enclosure.]
 
Okay good, thank you. I just wanted to check bc I never got the generic pcmcia USB card I bought to work.
 
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