CC Upgraded with a 6500 board - a few questions

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CC Upgraded with a 6500 board - a few questions

Greetings boys and girls,

again, I've got a few questions. When I got my CC in the early spring of this year, the first upgrade I did was to a Mystic. I kept this setup for a while until I actually attempted (and succeeded) the Takky mod with the Show and Tell board (Performa 630 w/DOS Card - video on this board was actually quite slow compared to the Mystic, unfortunately). A while back I had the urge to mod it even further to be actually able to "do" some really productive stuff with it (heh). I've purchased a 6500 board which came combined with maxed out memory, Cache Card, CSII NIC, and Apple Video Input card, figuring it would be the best deal for my buck (and especially performance since it's got the highest bus speed and ATI Video Chipset rather the apple home-brewn framebuffer). Let me just say beforehand - it's pretty *bitchin'* in my oppinion ... heh.

Anyways, there were a few issues I've encountered. The first and most significant in my oppinion was that when I have the cache card installed, it will not continue to load, I can hear the startup sound (so much nicer than the regular 68k one), the screen powers up / charges, but no output of picture - it won't continue loading. But when it's removed, I get the sound, screen powers up, video cards kicks om and off I go. Now, what in your oppinion could be the cause of that? I've read that it usually *should* work without the 3.3v from the PSU; The Colour Classic FAQ mentions that I *do* need to add a 3.3v converter if I'd use either PCI or Cache Slot. Could this be the cause?

The second was that whenever I had the SCSI disk hooked up to the bus (internal or external), the system would freeze, but if I'd unplug the connector while system was still running (not recommended I suppose), it would immediately unfreeze and continue booting. After a long time messing with the disk, I had the set the jumpers to disable 'Sync Negotiations' - don't know why this setting worked on the 630 but not the 6500 - anyhow, it is working now.

I can't seem to get the the CS-II card to work - when using i.e. the AppleTalk control panel, the card is recognized (I can see the MAC-Address) but it does not seem to be operational. I suppose this is because I do not have sufficient 3.3v coming into the system as PCI requires this, and the CS-II is bound to the PCI-Bus - unless OS 8.1 does not provide the proper driver (unlikely though, as it's an Apple-branded card anyway). I suspect that 5v are required for the ICs (as usually any digital components require) and 3.3v for the bus itself? Just a wild guess though.

The last thing I've noticed is that there's static interference that is not audible when using the regular system speaker, but when i.e. using the headphone jack, it is noticable. When I have the i.e. Video In card and / or the NIC card installed, it's even more significant - is there a special part that needs to be grounded or is that normal for a 6500?

Anyways, if you're still reading this, I'd appreciate any of your commends and / or suggestions and I thank you in advance! Oh, and by the way, I'm still using OS 8.1 for the time being, but how does OS 9 or 9.1 run on it?

BeniD82

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before I ripped my takky apar

before I ripped my takky apart a few days ago to try the lc575 a/b upgrade (thus, when I had a FUNCTIONAL takky), I was running 9.1 without any problems at all... bear in mind I also have a 350mhz g3 upgrade card, so it might not be quite as snappy for you.

I was lucky, though, when I originally started my project... a friend of mine had given me a mini-atx power supply, so I didn't have to worry about where to get the 3.3v... I had it from the get-go. I have a feeling a lot of the quirks you may be encountering might be due to the lack of a 3.3v source.

As far as the sound problems, I wouldn't know what to say... I didn't have any room inside my machine for the internal speaker, so I had to rely on external ones. I don't have any hissing though.. just make sure all connections are good?

And same goes for the SCSI problem... maybe there's a termination problem somewhere... when I first modified the motherboard connector (out of a donor 5200), I accidentally managed to DESTROY all the pins for a scsi cable on the connector (the "A1" through "A50" pins)... so... I just use IDE with a laptop hard drive ¬.¬ All the same, I don't have any room inside for a SCSI device anyway.

I also have a CSII ethernet card, and occasionally have problems with it even inside the 6500 tower chassis... I think, in my case, it's due to the fact that the card is relatively loose in it's slot... like, the design wasn't very secure, so sometimes I just have to wiggle it a bit and restart.

I'm just rambling, sorry I don't have any powerful insight or wisdom to offer... just my own experiences ._.

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I have 9.2.2 on my Takky/225M

I have 9.2.2 on my Takky/225Mhz with maxed RAM. I used to use a CSII ethernet card just fine, but I switched to a PCI 10/100bT card, which is also fine. I don't have any sound hissing problems, but I also don't have an internal speaker. Sounds like you've got some kind of inductance problem. Connecting the ground planes of everything together sounds like a resonable starting point for removing the hiss.

MacOS 9.2.2 works just fine. It's a little slow, but I think that's more becaue of the laptop-style hard drive I have in it on the internal IDE bus.

My Takky has the whole 2-slot PCI frame from the 6500 inside. I've got a 256k L2 Cache, max RAM, video-input card, and a PCI network card. I used to have a CS-II network card and a USB PCI card, but those have been removed. I have an internal SCSI Zip drive and a 2.5" IDE drive to boot from. I'm using the LC575 Analogue board. It seems like our Takkys are pretty similar except that you've got a SCSI hard drive.

What kind of hard drive are you using? I'd guess you might be taxing the power output ability of even the LC575 board with some kind of power-sucking hard drive. Try switching to a laptop-style tiny drive and see if that helps. The x500-series boards make their own 3.3v from 5v(IIRC), so if you're taxing the 5v supply from the analogue card, you'll cause yourself 3.3v-problems, too.

Simply adding an external 3.3v regulator would probably help, too. I think I'll have to add one myself, when the time comes to put a G3 into this machine.

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Power issues are probably the main issue.

Ideally get a 3.3v line installed, or at least an additional 5v supply, before trying other strategies. Good luck!

Stuart

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Power Supply Installation

I've considered installing a new / additional power supply, actually. But in order to do that, I'd love to know what kind of PSU you've used and how you installed it. I would probably mount my laptop drive (if I'd ever get the IDE interface to work) somewhere inside the case, as it is quite a bit smaller than the SCSI drive that I'm currently using, freeing up the 3.5" HD bay for i.e. a PSU. Did you connect the input leads to the CC AC inputs or do you have a separate cable running out of the system. Again, how did you do it? I've also seen i.e. Micro-ITX PSU's which are significanly smaller than the standard ATX form factor and use DC voltage input and regulate it to the 3.3v, 5v, and 12v required for the system... This is probably the most difficult step in finishing up my Takky project.

Regarding the hard drive. I'm not quite sure off the top of my head what the 'precise' serial number is, but it's an IBM DGHS (not sure about the latter) 4.3 GB SCSI drive. The interesting thing is that I've installed the device into an external enclosure and hooked it up to the SCSI bus, still, when using the cache card, the system won't initialize the display. So I don't think it's the drive that actually sucks the PSU dry - heh.

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Re: Power Supply Installation

Micro-ITX PSU's which are significanly smaller than the standard ATX form factor and use DC voltage input and regulate it to the 3.3v, 5v, and 12v

Mini-ITX is what you're thinking of there. I've seen ones that are nothing more than a small circuit board that plugs straight onto the ATX power connector on the mobo, and as you say rely on an external DC supply to do the grunt work. It's never occured to me before, but these would be ideal for a CC if you could live with the external PS - gets you more space and less heat inside.

Hmm, maybe with a beefy enough internal PS (5500?) to run the analog side, there would be enough 12V juice left over to run one of these boards off it as well, and do without the external PS... could be easier than building a separate 3.3V reg.

Admittedly, I'm just thinking out loud here.

when I have the cache card installed, it will not continue to load ... The Colour Classic FAQ mentions that I *do* need to add a 3.3v converter if I'd use either PCI or Cache Slot. Could this be the cause?

I'd trust the FAQ on that one

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[quote]#2 on your A/B is the

#2 on your A/B is the 5V/10V mod for Takky operation. It wasn't obvious at first, but the directions are identical to the CC A/B directions in this regard. Cut J19 and solder in this wire. The purpose is to allow the 6500 board to work--unlike the CC board that expects to see +5v on this pin, the PCI boards expect +12v. This mod supplies it, and is required for the 575 board (see my black wire)

Now this is something that I haven't read about before - what precisely does that do? Could this be the cause of some of the issues, that the logic board is actually just getting 5v rather than 12v?

I figured that the interference that I'm getting is caused from an exposed wire, as I had cut, soldered, and wrapped the wires with electrical tape rather than crimping that thing - will redo it at some point anyway.

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You should have read about it

You should have read about it on the takky site--it's a required mod for Takky operation. If you didn't do this mod, then it could be causing a lot of your problems.

This mod doesn't actually supply the precise voltage the x500 boards require here, but it's close enough. The +5v stock is NOT close enough, thus this mod.

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J19 Mod

Alrighty then. I'm somewhat weary of messing with the analogue board (it took me forever to convince myself to do the VGA mod), therefore I would like to make sure I understand the instructions correctly. I've seen pictures on Stuart's and your site regarding the jumper wire that needs to be soldered on, that won't be a problem. Tak mentions on his website though, that one needs to "cut" J19 - you've said that this is located on the top side of the a/b? I'd like to make sure that I know what I'm doing because frying the CCs a/b is not really a smart thing to do Wink

Update:

I actually went ahead and did the mod. Wasn't that hard after all, heh! While I had the machine open I also went ahead and checked the connections to the A/B and the SCSI cable for insulation that might have gotten lose over the time. Come to find out, some actually did fall off and now that I've redone the connections that weren't properly insulated (and also removing the CD audio connector cable from the harness itself) the interferrence seems to be virtually gone - yay! The mod itself didn't do anything noticable to the machine, therefore I guess I won't be able to use networking and the cache until I install the voltage converter. At least I now know that it's not straining the 5v supply as much. Thanks for all your help!

Ben

P.S.: Found this site with a nice picture of J19, just for future reference http://homepage.mac.com/katsumi_m/colorcla/Takky040.html - only bad part is that it's in Japanese.

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