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Problem with Power Mac 9600
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Sep 2004
Status:
Offline
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I recently started having a weird and annoying problem with my Power Mac 9600. Any time I try to access the cd-rom (either by reading a disc or starting up from a disc) the computer stalls and crashes. The REALLY weird thing is that it is able to start with a Mac OS 8 CD, but not with a Mac OS 9.1 CD.
Its specs are as follows:
Powerlogix 400mhz G3 upgrade (set to default settings, 400mhz. - 50mhz. bus)
224 MB Ram (I'm not in front of it this moment, so the RAM may be off a few megabytes, but not by much
ATI Rage 128 PCI Video Card
ATTO 68-pin SCSI card (40mb per second)
All of the internal hard drives (2x 50 GB 80 pin, both converted to 68pin and 1x 68pin 18 GB SCSI drive) are running off the ATTO SCSI card. The only thing running off the Internal SCSI bus is the CD-ROM drive. There are also no external SCSI drives.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. TIA.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Houston, TX
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I'm thinking
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Senior User
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Sin City™, USA
Status:
Offline
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A little harsh, Mark. Funny, yes... but harsh. 
 
nuc,
luckily, I (unlike Mr. Sarcastic above me -  ) still have and love my trusty 9600. That Mac lasted me a long time and when it came to time to get rid of it, I simply couldn't do it. It still runs like an SOB, too.
Your setup is a little convoluted, but no more so than what I ran in my 9600 when it was my main work machine. (In fact, I don't think anyone's 9600 was setup more over-loaded than mine. Dual channel Ultra2 SCSI RAID and a parade of CPU upgrade cards as I was, for a time, working for XLR8, now under the safe umbrella of the extremely cool folks at DayStar.) The fact that you can startup from an 8 CD but not a 9.X seems like a problem with that particular disc. Do you have another 9 disc you can try to startup from?
Then again, if the drive is giving you grief when booted from HDD, it sounds like the drive may be crapping out on you. It is, after all, old. OLD!
So that brings us to the ultimate question (and the ultimate solution that most people will suggest). Can you buy a new Mac? Please don't sink any money into a 9600 at all. None. It just ain't logical.
Naturally, that line of thought assumes you have the resources to go buy a new or used (but newer) Mac. If you don't, and must replace the CD-ROM drive in the 9600, then get something cheap! There are plenty of places on the web that will sell Apple parts but may try and charge a lot more than the $20-25 you should pay. Look around. If you have no luck, send me a PM and I'll see if I can help. One 9600 guy to another. 
Oh... if you *can* buy a new Mac, get a new G5 Quad and send Mark e-mails every day with benchmark results.
(Sorry, Mark... couldn't resist.)
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To dislike Sinatra is a sign of highly questionable taste. To dislike the Beatles is a serious character flaw.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jul 2003
Status:
Offline
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The 9600!
A Mac's Mac.
Sought after for all those ProTools-friendly slots,
No fashion model that, but a real, blue colllar, workaday machine,
Ya gotta love it.
Like all good things, perhaps it's time to let it go and join us in the 21st century.
I feel your pain.
-MattiMattMatt
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Sep 2004
Status:
Offline
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Well, the 9600 isn't my main machine. I bought it out of nostalgia last year off eBay for $100 bucks. I remembered looking at them new in MacMall for over $5000+ and thought it would be neat to have one (now that I'm an adult  ).
In my gut, this feels like a SCSI termination issue. I have the CD-ROM drive jumpered with termination (just like it came from the factory, btw) and that is what bothered me.
When I got this machine it was stock. ATI Mach 64 video card, 4 GB 50-pin SCSI drive installed above the power supply, floppy, CD-ROM top of the tower. Now the 4 GB SCSI drive was jumpered for termination (which was to be expected sense it was at the end of the chain) BUT the SCSI CD-ROM was also jumpered for termination, even though it would have been the first device on the chain (If I'm reading it right, the cable runs from the SCSI2 bus on the motherboard, up behind and over the power supply and down to the SCSI CD-ROM, then down to the lower 2 drive bays then back up to the hard drive over the power supply.
Why would the CD-ROM have termination on if it wasn't the last device on the chain?
Or am I completely not understanding the whole SCSI termination thing?
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Senior User
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Sin City™, USA
Status:
Offline
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It does seem a bit odd that both the optical and HDD were terminated. My 9600 is under a huge pile of old parts right now so I can't get to it to look.
Do you still, by any chance, have the 4GB 50- pin (or any 50 pin drive) that you could put back on the top chain to se how the optical drive acts?
Funny how you got one for $100. I remember when they were first discontinued and Avid decided to get rid of about 1100 they had purchased. MacMall was selling them (factory sealed) for $1850. After seeing them for over $5K, I was so excited I got two.
Over a year later I was still able to sell one for $1350. Amazing what a shelf life these Macs had. Definitely one of the greatest Macs ever produced.
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To dislike Sinatra is a sign of highly questionable taste. To dislike the Beatles is a serious character flaw.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
Status:
Online
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About a month ago there was a thread about another machine with the same problem. I'll look it up a bit later.
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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
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